TWKC: The White Knuckle Club was in full force last weekend

Opinion by William Wilczewski

Her fingernails—or lack thereof—made Rio Rico High Hawks wrestling fan and mother Kristi Ceballos’ hands look more like McDonald’s french fries than winter glove inserts.

And she wasn’t alone!

In fact, there seemed to be more nail-clippings on the ground of Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott Valley last weekend than stars in our almighty galaxy.

The reason was simple: If your son, daughter or close friends were competing in the state wrestling tournament, you’d probably be gnawing on your nails, too—more than Mike Tyson gnaws on earlobes.

“I chew my fingers to the bone,” Donna Villaescusa—fan and mother of grappler Areana Villaescusa said, “but you want to give them the opportunity to do what they want to do. You’ve got to make sure that you’re in full support of that as parents.”

Ceballos—whose son Santino, a freshman, also wrestles but didn’t qualify for state—whole-heartedly agreed.

“It’s a team sport, but when he’s out there it’s all him and the others guy, and you’re just sweating,” she said. “You’re anxious and you see things, and you say, ‘How come he’s not doing it’ and then you realize he’s doing everything he can. I mean, it takes you to the highest highs and the lowest lows, because you know how hard they work.”

“You clap so hard,” she added. “I’ve had busted vessels in my hand. I mean, you’re just sweating because the emotions you go through.”

(Sounds like a psychedelic acid trip to me, no?)

Anyway, Kristi continued: “You can’t describe it with wrestling. It’s like no other sport. You see the sacrifices they make, especially the days that they don’t eat (in order to make weight).”

Typical mom, though, she went on … “We bought him the protein shakes and I was like, ‘Hey, cool, I don’t have to cook dinner,’ but he’s still eating lunch so I still have to fix something. But, okay, your skipping dinner, but at least your having a protein shake for lunch.”

With Ceballos’ father Chester Beach having coached wrestling and her brothers Brad and Scott Beach always involved in the sport (Brad is the Hawks’ head coach), Kristi has been around the mat a long time, “so the not-eating thing, I feel bad for them when other people are eating, you know. I see my nephew (Dakota Beach) when everybody else is eating pizza and he’s eating lettuce with a lemon, and I say, ‘How could you bring a pizza in front of this poor kid?’”

But people do, so it’s like waving a Twinkie in front of Roseanne Barr’s cart and telling her she can’t eat it.

The Queen Of The White Knuckle Club, though, is not alone. She has other friends that have children on the team and one that doesn’t in friend Julietta Quiroz, who’s always saying, ‘Go Hawks!’

Barbie Lopez—mother of former area grappler Steve Lopez and current state champion Marky Lopez—is also a member of TWKC, and has been at it for 17 years now, but it never quite seems that way, kinda like Baltimore Raven Ray Lewis’ career—although he says it’s FINALLY over now, but we’ll see.

Barbie’s watching career won’t be over anytime soon, though, because Marky will surely wrestle in college, but here’s her take on watching the sons she gave birth to square off against others.

“I don’t bite my fingernails,” she said, “but it’s always nerve-racking. Even though I’ve been doing it for 17 years, it’s always like it’s the first day.

“You’re hoping for the best,” she added, “so I usually say, ‘Just let it be in God’s hands. If he wins or not, it’s His will,’ you know. But, as long as they don’t get hurt.”

Still, Barbie says her “stomach hurts, and I’m always nervous.”

So nervous that she lost her job as a match video recorder once because she would drop the camera in times of panic—which was most of the time.

So now, she reads a book in between matches to take her mind of the stress—and this past weekend she would have needed “War and Peace!”

The sport also comes with a price tag for parents, but “We do it for them because they like it. We never forced them to do it,” Barbie said.

In fact, at age 5, Marky wasn’t real keen on wrestling, so they let it go, BUT he found his own way back after watching his older brother Steve!

But, “When (Marky) would lose (at first), he would take it really bad,” she explained. “He would be moping for like an hour; literally an hour.”

Lopez hasn’t had a reason to mope lately, though, after winning his third straight individual state title last weekend—which I’m sure Mom was super-duper glad about.

She’s also glad for other reasons.

“What I like about the sports is that it shows them disciple,” Barbie said. “It shows them self-defense if they ever need it, so it’s a really good sport.”

Jamie Penniston—mother of senior Patrick Penniston, who won his first state title last weekend—couldn’t agree more.

“As a mom … you watch these kids from being a tiny baby to being—well, in Pat’s case, 6-foot-2 and 200-something pounds—but you still see that little kid that you’re trying to protect out there” she said, “and moments like this with him being a senior; we did all we could to get here and be here for him (including getting the last hotel in the Prescott area after husband Tim got the day off work on the last minute)—and we knew, also, that whenever he knows we’re here, he tries that much more hard. But we’re still cringing, too, saying, ‘Don’t hurt my baby.’”

It was quite the opposite this past weekend because it was Pat’s opponents that needed to worry. He was mowing through them like they just stole his puppy and milk money, plus insulted his mom, Jamie.

After the title match, though, even the wall had a difficult time holding her up because Jamie’s knees looked like overused Slinkys.

“I really can’t stop shaking,” she said, “but he’s always been a tenacious little kid, and for him to go all the way his senior year at about the eleventh hour, I’m just so thrilled for him. I’m just so stoked!”

“I kept saying ‘Come on, boy,’ so I’m barely able to stand right now,” she added. “I don’t know what else to say. I have three kids, but he’s my only son, so he’s my champion right now, so I’m just thrilled.”

To make matters tougher on Jamie, Patrick hurt his back in wrestling practice a couple weeks before state, so “as his mom I’m chewing nails,” she said. “I’m pretty decent at a backrub … but you just want him to not get any serious injuries or have anything serious happen to him, so yeah, I was pretty concerned about ‘don’t hurt your back or knee’ (because Patrick also tore his LCL during this past football season).

“The role of a mom is to keep your kids safe,” though, she added, “and in the back of your mind, you’re seeing your baby on a stretcher or something. But injuries are always a part of sports, so you just got to bite the nail.”

And sometimes you have to bite the nail when your child losses, too—BUT, “It’s good for them to lose sometimes,” Barbie Lopez said, “so you can learn from your mistakes—just like in life.”

Good point! I couldn’t have said it any better.

At the end of the day, though, Kristi Ceballos’ husband Sal had the ultimate perspective on being a member of The White Knuckle Club, palely known as now as just TWKC.

You see, Sal and Kristi’s older son, former area wrestler Sal Jay Ceballos, 22, is in Afghanistan, stationed in Kandahar with the U.S. Air Force.

“When you think of it in those terms, (wrestling) absolutely is just a game,” Sal said. “It’s something fun.

“I never like to use the term ‘it’s a war out there,’ because it’s not,” he added. “(The wrestlers are) safe, so you try to put things in perspective, because this is just a game; it’s fun, but where (Jay’s) at, it’s the real deal, so yeah, we think about that and we thank God (Jay’s) alright.”

Amen! Because two good parents like Sal and Kristi—along with the rest of Hawk Wrestling Nation—have enough to worry about, right?