The Romig Middle School Trojans are mighty -- in both force and spirit. From peewee first-time wrestlers to more hulking kids cross-conditioning in hopes it will help their aspirations for a spot on a football team, a whopping 83 seventh- and eighth-grade Anchorage students eagerly signed up this year to spend their afternoons getting creamed. They did it willingly and with smiles, and came to compete. But the most powerful lessons they learned this season extend far beyond the wrestling mat.
"Sometimes it's hard when you're tired, but I just keep pushing through," explained J.R. Briones, a seventh-grader at the school who has spent his afternoons hurling his 75-pound body at bigger opponents. New to the sport this year, and the lone competitor in his weight class at Roming, he was placed on the varsity team. His wins, he said, have all been from forfeits.
He's the youngest of three wrestlers to hail from the Briones family. Older brother Jejamar, 17, wrestled under coach Mark Elfstrom. J.R. and Jeremy, 14, an eighth-grader, followed suit.
'Middle school was an awful place'
As Elfstrom watches over his gangly and growing group of athletes each year, he re-lives his own story of an at-risk kid who managed to turn things around.
His military family bounced around. He'd been to seven different elementary schools growing up. Getting through classes was tough, especially math, where he struggled to get Cs. His parents and teachers suspected he had a learning disability. In eighth grade, he weighed too much to play football at the local Boys and Girls Club.
"Middle school was an awful place for me. I was a quiet, shy kid. I was bullied," he said the weekend before he would lead his team into battle at the city-wide tournament that concludes the season.
Wrestling and football gave Elsftrom structure and self-confidence, an outlet for his boyhood energy. Coaches steered him to college, where he landed a football scholarship. College instructors steered him toward teaching. Maybe they sensed the "pay it forward" investments of time and guidance they poured into Elsftrom would pay off exponentially. If they didn't, all they need to do is drop in on a practice or a meet to know it was an effort well spent.
Winner of prestigious Milken Award
At afternoon practices, athletes spill into two gym rooms, running drills and learning moves. Former students of Elfstrom's now in high school drop in to lend a hand.
Elfstrom came to the team 10 years ago, after he joined Romig as a teacher. He wanted a gig teaching younger students -- elementary school age -- and did not want to get stuck teaching math or science. But when his number came up for a teaching position in the Anchorage School District, the option was Romig or nothing. So he took the job.
Somewhat to his own surprise, Elfstrom is a good math teacher with a knack for reaching struggling students. So much so that in 2011, the Bartlett High School graduate and student athlete from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota received national attention, winning the prestigious Milken Award and the $25,000 that goes with it.
He starts his campaign to get kids on the wrestling team early each year. When he and his students talk about his recruiting efforts, an image emerges of Elfstrom as the pied piper of wrestling -- a teacher and coach who relentlessly nags students in his classrooms and those who pass by in the hallways to give wrestling a try.
Once they're reeled in, the magic begins. "It will teach you so many things that nothing else can teach you. If you just stick with it, I will be here to support you the whole time," Elfstrom told his team one day before the big end-of-season tournament.
At the city meet, held at Goldenview Middle School in South Anchorage, J.R. Briones talked about how he finds the internal will to keep his head in the game, even when it seems like there's no defeating his opponent. "I just think about all my past wrestling matches so I can remember what to do," he said.
His older brother, Jejamar, sat next to him on in the bleachers, an encouraging face who became acquainted with the Romig wrestling team years ago, before it grew into the powerhouse it is today. The 2014 team is the largest in the school's history.
Jejamar sees a lot of himself in Elfstrom. "That's definitely me," he said. "Without wrestling, without a sport I love, I wouldn't be in school."
Jejamar is looking ahead to college, and hopes a wrestling scholarship will get him there. He's matured from an elementary school student with bad grades and an unmotivated middle schooler into a guy who placed second in the state championship as a high school sophomore. Now he's a 4.0 student.
Working hard at wrestling, school
"It's not all about the sport. Elfstrom teaches other things that evolve through life," Jejamar said, explaining that it was in eighth grade that he learned hard work relates to everything. If you work hard at wrestling, you can work hard at school, too.
The best lesson he learned, he said, was learning to overcome obstacles by asking for help, and not giving up. "After I started wrestling, everything just started coming together."
Teammate Kawika Pacarro, 13, more class clown than troublemaker, joined the team to try it out. Through it, he's learned patience. "If people try to bully me, I just walk away," he said. His father, Shaun Pacarro, who has noticed Kawika now also chips in more with the chores at home, thinks the kids respond so well to the program because Elfstrom and the other coaches pay such close attention to the students.
Lui Faamasino knows this well. The 17-year-old all-state running back from West High School, this year's Alaska football champion, has eyes on a college scholarship. If he gets there, he'll be the first member of his family to go to college. But back in middle school, he was headed to a very different, very "dark" place.
Fleeing his house and an abusive stepdad, seventh grade was a wreck for him. Eighth grade wasn't much better. He'd at least gotten out of his house, but spent every few months couch surfing at the homes of relatives while changing schools. He had a bad attitude, wouldn't listen to teachers and got into trouble. A now-retired teacher introduced him to Elfstrom, who introduced him to wrestling.
Turning bad attitudes around
Elfstrom was different. He was cool. And he knew how to talk to Faamasino.
"I see a lot of myself in them. Once I get to know them, I figure what is going on with their family, whether they like school or don't like school.
"It gives me another chance to talk to them, and see how to make school better for them," Elfstrom said.
When Elfstrom runs drills, he breaks new moves into several different parts, and watches the kids go through every step, small lessons that accumulate into an arsenal of successful skills.
This is where the wrestling program takes young athletes and teaches them that they are their own best champions. No matter what else is happening in life, no matter how hard it gets or who may be trying to keep you down, you always have yourself to rely on and the ability to pick yourself up and keep at it.
When your match isn't going well, when your face is pressed into the mat and you feel tired and stuck, no one else can fight the fight but you. It's all on you.
"And, you can do everything right and still lose," Elfstrom said. "It teaches you about persevering through really hard times, no matter what else is going on."
With the help of Elfstrom and other people in his life, Faamasino pulled it together. He got into a stable home. He ended his eighth-grade year at Romig as the team's only Polynesian athlete and a city wrestling champion. In high school, he would go on to earn a fourth place finish at state.
Elfstrom offered extra workouts, rides, whatever it took to get and keep Faamasino on track. And the relationship continues today. Elfstrom took Faamasino on hikes earlier this year to help condition his legs for football, and still puts time in for extra workouts. He's helping Faamasino scout colleges. And welcomes the teenager to the middle school practices, where Faamasino mentors the younger kids.
"I'm still a kid, but I have other kids who look up to me," Faamasino said, explaining his way of giving back. He wanted an older teen to look up to when he was in middle school, but no one took the time. He wants to be that guy. The guy that makes a difference.
Prevailing through 'sheer toughness'
Wrestling, he said, is "really hard," but worth it, helping shape him into the young man he's become. Learning how to overcome adversity has helped in and out of the classroom.
Elfstrom is proud of how hard his team works. A lot of the students are first-time wrestlers, unlike other schools that have experienced kids from neighborhood "club" teams who've been wrestling since they were as young as six years old.
"When my kids beat those kids it's awesome," he said. "Because it is just out of sheer toughness."
Eighty pound wrestler Jaeus Carpenter, a seventh-grader trying the sport for the first time this year, made varsity not because he had killer moves, but because he was the only athlete in the team's weight class. He spent most of the season getting beat by competitors with more strength. But he didn't give up.
"Even though I am being creamed, I am having fun and I get compliments from the coaches. I still feel good about myself, even though I lose," Carpenter said.
On Wednesday, he got a taste of victory. He had switched to junior varsity to experience more even matches. And then it happened.
"At the end, getting my face buried into the mat I almost felt like I was going to lose. He almost had me in a cross-face cradle and got me on my back twice, but I got out," he explained. When the referee came to raise the arm if the winner, Carpenter was a little surprised his arm was the one the ref pulled up. He left the mat sweaty and beaming, excitedly finding teammates with whom to share his victory.
"It felt good. I felt a burst of pride," he said afterward. Elfstrom's goal for the team? No matter how hard he works them, how tired they are, how intense things get, the atmosphere stays positive.
"The hardest days I have ever had in my life were wrestling matches and tournaments and practices. The important thing in life is to stick with yourself and move forward. Change things that didn't work out," Elfstrom said. "I want kids walking out of there just loving it. Even if I kick their butt."
Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com.