No Retreat, No Surrender — Not Even to Asthma

Mike Denver says he fell in love with wrestling the first time he won a match.

“You can kind of feel when a kid breaks, when you made him stop wrestling,” Denver said recently. “It’s an amazing feeling.”

Wrestling – not the WWE professional acting kind, but freestyle wrestling, the kind that high school and college wrestlers compete at – is a battle of wills. It is one human being dueling another, each trying to outthink the other, outmaneuver the other, and outlast the other, mentally and physically.

Mike Denver knows the mental and physical toughness that wrestling requires. The Bayville resident and Central Regional High School graduate knows physical toughness can be the product of sound training. He also knows mental toughness can carry you through when your body seems to be at its limit.

It is Denver's mental toughness -- his determination -- that led him to do whatever was necessary achieve a dream few ever reach: NCAA Division III national wrestling championship. Even when it meant cleaning out dormitory closets. Even when it meant eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Even -- and especially -- when it meant overcoming asthma.

“You don’t want to show your opponent that you’re tired,” said Denver, who was first diagnosed with asthma when he was in fifth grade.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, asthma is a lung disease that causes repeated episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness and nighttime or early morning coughing. It is one of the most common long-term diseases of children, but adults have asthma, too.

The cause of asthma is unknown, but a variety of things from dust mites to mold to strong scents can trigger asthma attacks, depending on the sensitivity of the person. In recent years there have been medications introduced that help control the sensitivity, reducing the occurrence of asthma attacks.

For Denver, asthma attacks were triggered by strenuous physical activity -- referred to as sports-induced asthma. He used an inhaler – a pump that releases a specific amount of a medication designed to relax the airways when an asthma attack occurs – for several years, turning to it when his chest got tight.

But in his sophomore year of high school, Denver felt relying on the inhaler was holding him back, said Mike Bischoff, who coached Denver when he wrestled at Central Regional.

“He started training hard,” Bischoff said. Denver in essence tried to train his body out of the episodes. “He used to run with a 30-pound weight vest.”

“You never want to show your opponent that you’re tired,” Denver said, and an asthma attack can be difficult to conceal.

“I started running long distances,” he said. “When I would feel the tightness, I would push myself past it and breathe slower to relieve it. Then I would push myself more.

“It was like breaking through a wall,” he said. “I started being able to control my body.”

By his junior year at Central, he was no longer using the inhaler, and in his senior year he found greater success, taking third in the 171-pound weight class in the Region VI tournament in 2007 to advance to the championships in Atlantic City. While he lost in the preliminary round, he still had the distinction of being one of the 24 wrestlers in his weigh class who reached the state championships that year.

That was just the start, however. Denver moved on to the College of New Jersey, and steadily improved, finishing seventh at the national championships in his sophomore year and then sixth as a junior, after suffering an injury in the semifinals.

That improvement was the result of hours and hours of hard work.

“I sacrificed a lot,” Denver said. A summer lifeguarding job at the beach and time spent at home with his parents got traded in for odd jobs that allowed him to train year-round in Ewing.

“One of the things I did was move the offices in the athletic department,” he said, moving furniture from one place to the next, then spackling walls and painting them before moving the furniture back in. He cleaned out closets and cleaned out locker rooms – “whatever I could find so I could buy food and pay my rent,” he said.

“A few times I lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” he said. He admits there were times when friends and his parents found out he didn’t have much food, and they would buy him groceries and fill his refrigerator with food. “But I didn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t want help.”

Staying in Ewing allowed him access to his coaches at TCNJ, including current head coach Joe Galante and former head coach David “Coach Ice” Icenhower, as well as assistant coach Sean Flynn, whom Denver said he is closest to.

“He has been with me since my freshman year,” Denver said, noting Flynn has been his workout partner but also is a coach he could turn to for advice when there were issues outside of wrestling.

All of that training paid off in March, when he found himself in Wisconsin, wrestling in the NCAA Division III national championships for the third straight year. Motivated by both the desire to finish his college career on a high note and by the fact that he was seen by most as an unlikely candidate to win the title at 184 pounds, his focus became more intense.

“While I was mentioned on the NCAA preview as a contender, people commenting on the Division III site (D3wrestle.com) were picking (Alex) Martocello to win it all,” Denver said. “Nobody was picking me.”

Martocello was his opponent in the semifinals, and Denver went in knowing he’d beaten the wrestler from York (Pa.) College in 12 of their 13 previous meetings.

“To be able to beat him in the semifinals was really satisfying,” Denver said. “He knows my style and my moves. To pin him made me feel great. It really gave me confidence for the final.”

The national championship bout against Mike Reilly of King’s College in Pennsylvania was over quickly, as Reilly suffered an ankle injury near the end of the first period and was unable to fight off Denver, who pinned him at 3:55 of the match.

“I had wrestled him three times and beaten him twice,” Denver said, and admitted it was a little bit of a letdown to have Reilly get injured. “I kinda wanted to work a little bit more. I wanted to see how far I would go.”

Winning a national championship and being named Most Dominant Wrestler – a title that is based on a points system where points are awarded for bout a wrestler wins by major decision, technical fall or by pin – “was amazing,” said Denver, who also has become the winningest wrester in TCNJ history with 143 wins.

 “I didn’t think I had a chance (at the Most Dominant title),” he said. He was in a back room being tested for steroids – the NCAA tested all the winners for them – when his name was called.

“I said, ‘I gotta go,’ and started running out onto the floor. There was a guy who came running after me because he thought I was running away from the test, but then he realized what was happening,” Denver said, laughing at the memory. The official escorted him back to the testing area after Denver received his award and the test was completed, he said.

In addition to working continuously on his wrestling skills, Denver has worked hard in the classroom: he is carrying a 3.315 grade-point average as a health and exercise sciences major, and is minoring in criminology. His GPA has earned him NCAA Division III Academic All-America status three straight years.

“It all goes back to sacrifice,” he said. While some students spend lots of time cultivating the social aspects of college, Denver said he has chosen to spend his off-hours from wrestling studying.

“It’s hard to balance,” he said, “but at the end of the day it’s well worth it.”

The determination and drive that helped him overcome asthma – Denver said he hadn’t had an attack in years until very recently, when he woke up in the middle of the night with that telltale tightness (“I couldn’t find and inhaler that worked because it had been so long,” he said) – and that has carried Denver to great heights in wrestling has him confident that he will find success beyond college.

“I’ve learned a lot about myself through wrestling,” said Denver said. “Most importantly, I’ve learned that I don’t give up that easily.”

“And I’ve learned that if you go in with confidence, go in prepared, and give it everything you’ve got, good things can happen. If you’re not giving it your all, you give bad things a better chance to happen.”

You can see a video replay of Denver's championship victory over Mike Reilly by visiting the NCAA website here. Click on 2012 DIII Wrestling Finals Part Two.