Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [8]
I finished up the semester at BSC and passed all my classes. Then I left school two weeks early so I could get to Minneapolis before Christmas break, because I wanted to get ready for the next semester at the U of M. I also wanted to meet the guys, because I was going to be placed on the team immediately.
When I got to Minneapolis, I moved in with Tim Hartung and Chad Kraft, and those guys really sacrificed for me. The U of M needed a big new heavyweight, so a lot of people went out of their way to help me out. Times were good, and I was headed in the right direction. I was finally living my dream. I was in my first tournament as a Gopher, and lost to Trent Hynek in the semi-finals at the Omaha Open. Welcome to NCAA Division I.
I lost. And it burned my ass. Here I was, the guy who was telling everyone that I was going to be the NCAA Division I Heavyweight Champion. I was the focus of the team. The poster boy. I was supposed to be the star heavyweight. And here I was, in my first tournament, and I lose. It was embarrassing as hell.
I only lost twice that year, that first tournament and my last. In the NCAA finals, I lost to Stephen Neal 3–2. Today, Neal plays right guard for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, and he wears two Super Bowl rings. Back then, he was the returning NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion.
I lost the match to Neal because he was better than me that day. It was a lesson for me. Never give an opponent too much respect. I believe to this day that if I had just come at Neal full throttle, I would have won the 1999 NCAA finals. But I did learn from my mistake.
I had so much respect for Neal. He was the NCAA National Champion. It changed the way I approached the match. It took me off my game. I thought he was better than he really was. I thought about that 3–2 loss a lot, and I finally realized that I was never going to win the biggest prizes by showing that kind of respect to any opponent again. Not ever. If someone wants my respect, they better beat it out of me. That’s the only way they’ll get it.
The loss to Neal made me think back to those tournaments when I was five years old, and how disappointed my mom was if I lost a match. I hated to let her down, and I hated the feeling that comes with losing. I was embarrassed when I lost in my first big-time college tournament to Trent Hynek, but this was worse. I went through all this shit, California—back to BSC, borrowed books, borrowed wrestling partners at the University of Mary—just to get on the team at the University of Minnesota . . . and then I lost my biggest match.
I hear all these people say, “It’s such an honor to make it to the finals, you should feel privileged just to be able to compete at such a level.” That’s a lot of bullshit. I’m a competitor, and I learned from John Schiley when I was five years old that you compete to win. I am either number one, or I am a loser. And losing sucks.
I hated losing to Neal. If you think I was consumed with getting that loss back from Frank Mir during my professional career, you should have seen me after I lost in the finals of the 1999 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. I had one more year to make my dreams come true, and at that moment I made up my mind that I was going all the way. There wasn’t a college wrestler on the planet who was going to stop me.
SENIOR YEAR: ONE LAST CHANCE TO GO OUT ON TOP
From the day I walked off the mat at the 1999 NCAA finals, all I could think about was becoming the 2000 NCAA Heavyweight Champion. I went to class, because I had to stay eligible to wrestle. But aside from that, every waking thought was on the big prize. If I ate something, it was to build me up so I could win the title. If I lifted a weight, it was with that ultimate goal in mind. If I stepped on the mat in practice, it was to win, and to win convincingly, regardless of the drill. Winning the Heavyweight title wasn’t the biggest thing on my mind—it was all I ever thought about.