Herz glad he didn’t quit wrestling
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a series of articles about Metro wrestling teams: Wednesday: Kennedy.
By Jim Ecker
Metro Sports Report
Kaiser Herz cut eight pounds in one day last December, trying to make weight for the Washington wrestling team.
“Stupid,” he says now.
It was a school day. He began the day at 146 pounds and dropped to 138, but still had three pounds to go.
“I skipped two classes and I was falling behind in my work,” he said. “And then all of a sudden I’m downstairs crying, on my knees. ‘Why am I doing this? It’s so tough on my body, I could be at home right now, relaxing.’”
He called his mother, Svetlana, and asked her to pick him up and take him home, but she had other plans when she arrived at school.
“She grabs my neck and drags me right to Coach Hatcher,” he said.
Washington Coach Matt Hatcher wondered why Herz wasn’t at practice that day. He quickly found out.
“We started practice, and about five minutes later his mom stuck her head in the doorway,” he said. “She said, ‘Coach, he’s not going to quit. I’m not going to let him quit.’”
And he didn’t.
“I said, ‘Get your (wrestling) shoes,’” Hatcher recalled. “And from that point on, he’s been probably one of the hardest – if not the hardest — worker we’ve had.”
Herz can laugh about the story now.
“I went right back in the room, wrestling and working hard,” he said. “It motivated me, because this is the only thing I have left going on. This is what I want to succeed in. This is my favorite sport.
“It’s the best sport, in my opinion,” he said. “It’s you against another guy across the mat. And you can show whoever’s watching what you can do.”
Herz was born in the Ukraine and moved to Russia when he was 2 months old. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 6. His father, a doctor, is currently working in Lebanon but plans to rejoin the family in January.
Herz took an unusual path to Washington. He almost quit once, but doesn’t plan to quit again. That’s good news for the Warriors, who are trying to rebound after not qualifying any wrestlers for the state meet last year.
The Warriors held a team meeting at the Class 3A district meet last February, after it was clear nobody was going to state.
“The kids just said, ‘Coach, what do we have to do? What do we have to do to go to state? What do we have to do to get better?’” Hatcher remarked.
The answer was simple: Dedicate yourself to the sport. Work harder. Motivate your teammates to work harder, too.
Hatcher has seen a difference since the end of last season. He said his wrestlers worked hard during the offseason, determined to improve. Herz was one of those leaders, pointing the way.
“It’s exciting,” said Hatcher, now in his ninth year as Wash’s head coach.
Hatcher is accustomed to success in wrestling, not failure. He was a two-time state champion at Prairie, and his teams at Washington scored points at the state meet every year — until last year.
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