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Rocky
Currie recorded the first win by fall in
Centralia Orphans wrestling history on a
1967 winter's day in a crowded Trout
Gymnasium. On Dec. 28 he will be
inducted as part of the Class of 2014 into
the Centralia Sports Hall of Fame.
The entire Centralia High School student
body was in attendance for Currie's win that
day as the meet was held during a
school-wide assembly.
"We
wrestled Vandalia and the whole school was
there," said former Centralia wrestling
coach Dick Carpenter. "The funny
part was at the end of the day when 3:05
came and the bell rang we had a team but
nobody in the stands," Carpenter added
with a laugh. Along
with the beginning of five decades of CHS
wrestling, the crowd that day caught
Currie's first pin, in a minute and 48
seconds, and the start of his Hall of Fame
career. He went on to include 65 wins
on 15 losses during his CHS days which
spanned his sophomore through senior years. Currie
wrestled to a 9-3 record in that first year
of Orphan wrestling that ended with a fourth
place individual finish in the
district. In the 1968-69 season Currie
posted a 23-5 individual record in his
junior year that included some impressive
showings at tournaments. Curr'ie
finished in first place at a Mascoutah
tournament that year and added second place
finishes in tourneys at Mattoon and Murdale.
He would go on to a c=second place district
finish to end his junior season. His
senior year included first place finishes at
Mascoutah, Mattoon and Murdale and he
finished second in both the district and
sectional tournaments. Currie, along
with teammate Ken Smudrick, qualified for
stat that year. They were joined by
Loren Garrish, another CHS wrestling
standout at the 103-pound weight class, who
came along to support his fellow
grapplers. The teammates were known as
the "big three". "Ken
and I were both big guys that had success
through brute strength," Currie
said. "I had four or five moves I
used and Ken really used his size, but Loren
was a very skilled and scientific
wrestler." "People
sometimes say someone is "arguably the
best at something", but I am here to
tell you Loren was the best of the big
three," Currie added. The
big three had a friendly competition to see
who could record the most wins by pinfall.
When one of them would record a pin on the
mat they would record it among themselves on
a clothespin. "All
of us wanted to win but we really wanted to
pin the other guy," Currie said.
"Letterman jackets were really big back
then and when any of the three of us would
pin a guy we would put a big clothespin on
our wrestling letter." Currie
wrestled at the 133-pound weight class each
year and would do so after a year of
football where he would be well above that
weight. The ways he would shed the
football weight are one of the things that
sticks out when thinking back on those days. "I
could lose 15 pounds of water weight within
a four hour period," Currie said.
"What we would do was put on a rubber
suit and then a sweat suit on top of that,
and then another rubber suit and sweat suit
on top of those. After we put on all
these layers we would wrestle in a room that
was 100 plus degrees," Currie
added. After
the wrestling portion of his weight-shedding
routine, Currie would run the stairs of
Trout Gym, often with Garrish on his
back. "Loren would climb on my
back when I ran the stairs only on the
condition that I would do the same for
him," Currie said. "He
wrestled with his legs so he wanted to build
them up as much as possible." While
Currie did not have to deal with the feeling
of losing much during his CHS athletic
career, he has memories of a couple of
specific wrestlers that he will never
forget.
"
When you are winning you never pay attention
to the names of the guys you are competing
against," Currie said. "But
when you lose to someone you remember the
feeling and you remember the names of those
guys that become a nemesis."
Currie
listed Steve Jones of Lawrenceville and Tony
Ward from Murphysboro as the guys he will
always remember for beating him twice
each. "And you know in 20/20
hindsight I can look back and I think I
could have beaten those guys," Currie
said. "I would have remembered
not to panic when they put a hold on me I
hadn't been in and I would have known to
move more and not get caught."
In
addition to the training and the
competition, Currie said he will always
remember the camaraderie between himself and
his teammates. "When you train,
practice and ride the busses with the same
guys you really build friendships,"
Currie said. "I played baseball,
football and wrestled and I had great
friendships in all three."
Currie
was part of the 1969 "wild bunch"
Orphans football squad tha went undefeated,
and he had a key touchdown in a close game
against Belleville East that season.
"He
and a lot of the other guys from those years
were great athletes," Carpenter
said. "Rocky was a great
competitor and he was a leader from the
beginning as a sophomore."
Currie
wrestled at Forest Park Community College
after high school and had a 35-6
record. He currently resides in New
York and works as a technician for CBS on
programs such as "Inside the NFL"
and "The Talk"
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