Jill's Journal: 'There's no crying in wrestling ..."

In the iconic 1992 sports movie, “A League of Their Own,” Tom Hanks plays Jimmy Dugan, the manager of a women’s baseball team, and delivers the memorable line, “There’s no crying in baseball,” when a female player starts to cry after being criticized for her play.

The famous line came to mind during Lilly Hamner’s match against Aberdeen Central’s Lilly Nelson. While Hamner had a few more points on the board, her opponent was gaining steam when our hometown gal countered the attack, put Nelson on her back to advance to the semifinals of her weight class.

As for the Aberdeen Central wrestler, she was visibly devastated as she laid on the mat with her head in her hands.

Yep, I guess there is crying in wrestling.

But the girls weren’t the only competitors over the weekend that shed some tears. There were some boys, too. And rightly so. The state tournament, after all, is the culmination of a season of blood, sweat and, for lack of a better word, tears. For some wrestlers, it may be their only chance to shine on the state tournament mats in their prep careers. For other wrestlers, perhaps it was the last match they’ll ever win or lose.

And for one Brandon Valley Lynx who’s undoubtedly left his size 14 “paw print” all over the hometown wrestling record books – and now South Dakota, too – that was the case. 

I kept my eye on our premier heavyweight, Navarro Schunke, throughout the day on Saturday. I snapped photos of him and his younger brother, Elijah, who stood on the sidelines decked out in what would consider as “their Sunday best.” Elijah’s crisp, white dress shirt was complimented by a light pink suit coat. Navarro, like the late Johnny Cash, looked sharp in an all-black suitcoat, dress shirt and pants, and of course, his size 14 dress shoes. And in true Navarro style, socks were MIA.

Navarro had a long wait for the very last match of his historic wrestling career that features five state individual titles highlighted by an unbelievable string of four undefeated seasons. In fact, his eighth-grade year – the year he won his first of five titles – he lost in the Region 2A finals, but a week later overcame the loss by winning state. Over the past five seasons, he found himself on the downside in just two matches. 

It was mid-afternoon when I spied Navarro in the background of the action. He was now sporting his Lynx warm-ups and clearly readying himself for the job at hand. Not long after, I watched him stretch out his 6-foot-5 frame right smack in the middle of a vacant mat. With his headphones blocking out the noise, he laid on his back, closed his eyes and I imagine, got his head in the right mindset to wrestle Watertown junior Micah Hach, who, for the most part, has essentially been the only other wrestler to challenge him in recent seasons. 

Just as he did in the 2023 finals, Navarro defeated Hach. It was evident there’s a mutual respect between the two as they embraced when the match was over.

Unlike many of the wrestlers I’d watched over the weekend, Navarro didn’t sprint off the mat. Instead, he sat down right in the middle of the mat where every match begins. He wasn’t eager to run off to climb atop the podium and stand alongside his 285-pound competitors as photographers clicked off their series of shots.

Instead, he tried his darndest to unknot the shoestrings on his wrestling shoes. Having no luck, someone handed him a scissors to cut them to release his size 14 feet from his shoes tagged with “The Greatest.”

Then he stood tall and left shoes on the mat.

Navarro still wasn’t ready to step off the mat. I watched him stand just inside the outer circle for minutes before ceremoniously taking his last step from a sport that’s given him – and all of us – so much joy.

A few moments later, through the lens of my camera, I spied Navarro and his teary-eyed mom, Jen, embracing. 

I saw her hold onto her “little boy” longer than I’ve ever seen her hug him through all the years.

I imagine, she, too was soaking it all in. 

As Jen walked away drying her eyes, I reached out to her and let her know how proud I am of her son, the boy with the size 14 shoes and a whole lot of Brandon Valley and South Dakota High School wrestling records.

And it was then I told myself, “There is crying in wrestling.”