Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [23]
What I really excelled at were the self-defense classes, which included wrestling and other types of one-on-one combat. When a student was what we called HUA (because he had his head up his ass) and the instructors wanted to give him a hard time, I was the one they paired him up with.
I could also handle a squad car and was good at physical training, or PT, except for the running. Unfortunately, running was a big part of the program.
PT was broken down into two different regimens. Two or three days a week, we’d complete our fieldwork, which consisted of sit-ups, push-ups, burpees, and other basic calisthenics, along with running around the track. On alternate days, we’d jog the hills, which is where I ran into trouble.
A cadet with asthma couldn’t graduate from the academy, so I hid my inhaler in my jockstrap. Every time my lungs would clinch up, I’d take out the inhaler and sneak a deep breath. I was pretty good at that but got caught during one excruciatingly hot August day when temperatures soared to 118 degrees.
I made the run for the most part, but when we came back and stood at attention, my instructor noticed me leaning like the Tower of Pisa. After they pulled me out of the lineup and dumped me in the pool to cool me off, the inhaler bobbed to the surface and gave me away.
“What’s this?” the instructor asked, snatching it from the water.
“It’s an asthma reliever.” I gasped, trying not to show my discomfort.
The officer in charge of PT reported me that day and asked to have me dismissed.
However, my drill instructor, Jerry Stokes, happened to be a fair man. A few days later, as I awaited my fate, he pulled me out of class. “Mr. McCarthy,” he said in his slow drawl, stressing each consonant, “are we straight with everything?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Then don’t worry about what’s going on,” he said. “Some people are saying you’re not the best runner around here, and I think that’s true. But I watched you wrestle yesterday and, son, you don’t need to be a good runner.”
Luckily, Sgt. Stokes took the time to evaluate my overall progress at the academy and reported it back to the higher-ups. I was cleared to continue.
I’d say my fondest memories of the academy were meeting and training with the other cadets, forging long-lasting relationships with some. On the second day at the academy, we were told to run from one fence of Dodger Stadium to the other, up the hill and back. A classmate named Joe Johnson threw up on a parked car at the finish line. We both laughed, and I knew right then I was going to like the guy. I ended up working with Joe for the bulk of my career.
One benefit of the endless running was that I got in better shape and lost more weight. I’d had to diet to start at the academy because I wasn’t at the designated height and weight ratio. The doctor said I wasn’t fat, but I still had to drop 20 pounds to make the requirements. Once I hit the academy hills, I went from 250 to 225.
As part of our training, we accompanied officers on calls. I saw my first real crime scene during my second ride-along, when two officers were called to the scene of a shooting at Tam’s restaurant in a seedy downtown neighborhood in Southwest Division.
An employee’s head was canoed down the middle with a shotgun blast, and blood splatter and brain pieces covered every possible surrounding surface. I looked at the scene and thought, Whoa, the real world’s not that pretty. Hollywood gets it pretty right. The motive? A customer had ordered fries at the counter and hadn’t gotten them the way he’d wanted.
Rather than scaring me away, the scene made me want to continue my training. At the end of six months, fifty-five of the original seventy-two cadets graduated. Of those, Southwest chose five, and I was one of them.
My police graduation ceremony (January 1986)
Just as I graduated, Elaine was rushed to the hospital