Ellis Coleman’s back aches constantly these days.
The American wrestler tries to manage the pain with a combination of ibuprofen, lidocaine patches and physical therapy. But mostly, he copes by telling himself to hang in there for a few more days and then he can take time to heal.
This is what you do for an Olympic dream — even when that dream belongs to someone else.
Coleman, who grew up in Oak Park, came to Tokyo as an alternate on the U.S. wrestling team. Unlike the standbys in other sports, he does not sit in a hotel room waiting for someone to twist an ankle or test positive for COVID-19. He trains — as many as three times a day — with Alejandro Sancho, the man who beat him at the U.S. Olympic trials in April.
The loss was so immediately devastating, Coleman took off his shoes and left them in the center of the mat — a symbolic act of retirement in the Greco-Roman ranks. Within a few days, however, he was packing his bags for Atlanta to help Sancho at a pre-Tokyo training camp.
To be clear, Coleman volunteered for the job. He could have stayed back in the United States, nursing both his back and his broken heart.
He chose to push his disappointment aside and help the wrestler who dashed his own Olympic hopes.
Because Sancho is a good friend and fellow soldier in the U.S. Army.
Because someone once did it for him.
And because, at 29, he believes it’s the right thing to do.
“Of course, it’s difficult,” he said watching the Greco-Roman wrestling competition Sunday. “It would have been easier for me to stay home. But this is bigger than just me.”
Since arriving in Tokyo two weeks ago, Coleman has trained two — sometimes three — times a day with Sancho and Ildar Hafizov, another U.S. soldier competing here. He also makes himself available for any additional workouts or pep talks the two Olympians may need.
He stays within the wrestling team’s bubble, following a strict COVID-19 protocol that prohibits him from being anywhere but the competition venue or the hotel. In past Olympics, training partners could (and would) enjoy the host city’s nightlife in their free time. At these pandemic Games, Coleman spends a lot of time in his hotel room pondering the future.
U.S. Greco-Roman wrestling coach Matt Lindland understands Coleman’s sacrifice, having been a training partner after failing to make the 1996 Olympic team. The sadness, he said, is immeasurable. So is the character required to overcome it.
“I don’t know if you ever really do get over the disappointment, to tell you the truth,’ he said. “I think you just deal with it. You walk through that disappointment and you come here to serve others.”
Coleman busted onto wrestling’s international scene about a decade ago with the debut of “the flying squirrel,” a daring, acrobatic and highly entertaining move in which he leaps over his opponent and then takes him down from behind. A clip of him successfully making the move became a staple on ESPN’s Top 10 plays and, as of this week, has more than 4.6 million views on YouTube.
In 2012, he made the Olympic team and headed to London filled with a confidence and energy that only a world-class prodigy can possess. He made headlines during his first news conference when he showed reporters a picture of Rocky, a flying squirrel he was keeping as a pet at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.
It was sheer coincidence, he told amused reporters, that his roommate moved out shortly after the nocturnal animal moved in.
Coleman and his coaches selected former world champion Joe Warren — whose own Olympics dreams had been shattered twice — as his training partner. Warren, then 35, offered a steadiness that helped Coleman navigate the sporting world’s biggest stage.
“Mentally, it helped me to have someone experienced to support me and tell me the right things,” Coleman said.
Coleman lost his qualification-round match in London, bringing his Olympic debut to a quick end. In the weeks that followed, he decided to walk away from the sport rather than experience that level of disappointment again.
“I was the youngest member of the team,” he said. “I thought my life was over. I was so depressed. That loss hurt me so bad, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get over it.”
Wrestling, however, had been too big a part of Coleman’s life, too much of a saving grace to leave it forever. He had been introduced to the sport by his mother’s boyfriend, who demanded excellence from Coleman and his brother, and belittled them if they didn’t perform well. He hated it at first.
Coleman came to love the sport once the boyfriend disappeared and the family moved to an apartment in Oak Park. At Oak Park-River Forest High School, the Colemans found a second family in the wrestling program and Ellis led the team to a state championship in 2009.
He returned to wrestling in 2013, joining the U.S. Army’s world-class athlete program, which allows wrestlers to compete and train at an international level while also serving in the military. Since enlisting, Coleman has made two world teams and earned three national titles.
“Being in the Army put things in perspective for me,” he said. “It has shaped me and made me a selfless person.”
And this is why he agreed to come to Tokyo.
Sancho is more than just his friend and training partner in Colorado. He’s also a member of the Army’s world-class athlete program and Coleman can’t imagine turning his back on a fellow soldier.
“I think about it less as being the Olympic alternate or a training partner,” he said. “This is my family and I’m here to support my family.”
It still stings not to be competing. Coleman can’t — and won’t — deny it.
“I talk about it to my coaches all the time,” he said. “It’s tough being here and not thinking about what could have been. I think about it every time I step on a mat. And then I tell myself ‘you’re doing something bigger and better than yourself.’ Everybody really appreciates it. But it’s really, really hard.”
Coleman acknowledges he could not have handled the role in 2012, when he was a self-assured kid who expected the world would rightly reward his talent. But he’s a husband now, a father of three young children and a sergeant in the U.S. Army.
His world is different and so is his outlook.
“He’s definitely matured,” Lindland said. “He’s still a very joyful guy, but he also understands the importance of loving and serving. He’s a servant leader in our program and that’s what we need.”
Though Coleman announced his retirement at the Olympic trials, few people in U.S. wrestling believe he’s actually done. Coleman, for his part, concedes he may stick around for a bit, especially with the next Olympics just three years away.
He is, after all, in Tokyo with the national team, isn’t he?
“I’m still training,” he said. “I’m still working hard. So I say it’s a good bet.”
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