Military Olympians

Dream makers

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—His ears are the only credentials he needs. Gnarled and bulbous from repeated beatings, they confirm for every hotshot wrestler at the Olympic training facility here that Marine Maj. Jay Antonelli earned his ticket to Beijing as a member of Team USA's Greco-Roman coaching staff. In this line of work, cauliflower ears equal instant street cred.

Marine Maj. Jay Antonelli is one of three coaches headed to Beijing with the U.S. men's wrestling team, photographed July 8, 2008, at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
(M. Scott Mahaskey/ Staff)

At 37, Antonelli has left his share of sweat on the mat. His experience as a grappler and, later, as coach for the Corps' wrestling team made him an attractive choice to help nurture and guide the country's elite athletes. Beyond those pragmatic qualifications, though, he exudes the brand of disciplined leadership that is born from military service. Only a few Olympic coaches can claim that background. Like Antonelli, they all have an individual skill set and style, and each has vowed to go the distance in preparing these folks for the competition of their lives.

The air inside the Olympic facility's Greco-Roman room is a steamy blend of liniment and armpit. A mid-July practice had barely begun, and already Antonelli was bare-chested and entangled with a fellow Marine. He's a hands-on coach—literally. There's no clearer way to explain technique, he observes, and the guys seem to appreciate a boss who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

Be it weightlifting or wind sprints, "I try to do the drills with them," says Antonelli, whose assignment with the U.S. wrestling team is only a temporary detour from his full-time post in the public affairs office at the Joint Warfighting Center in Suffolk, Va. "I think you get a little more respect from the athletes when you're willing to get out there and mix it up."

As practice wears on, the room becomes a blurred symphony of grunts, groans and that indisputable timbre of flesh meeting mat.

Retired Air Force Master Sgt. Rich Estrella talks shop with one of his wrestlers, Senior Airman Andrew Perez, at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 8, 2008.
(M. Scott Mahaskey/ Staff)

Motivators, mentors

Away from the frenzy, against one of the walls, 22-year-old Senior Airman Andrew Perez sits with another coach, Rich Estrella, a 52-year-old retired Air Force master sergeant. The two could be father and son. After a flurry of gestures, Estrella leans in and rests his hand on the kid's shoulder. Perez looks away.

Earning an opportunity to compete at his level is no easy feat, to say nothing of the physical and mental aptitude required to perform well once here. For these athletes, regardless of their stature, there is simply no room for distraction. But life happens, and often the coach is called upon to help make sense of it.

Perez is concerned about his future—as a wrestler and an airman—so he approached Estrella for advice on how to balance his military and athletic commitments along with his desire to get an education. We'll find a way to make it work, Estrella told him.

In 20 years as a coach, Estrella has counseled hundreds of athletes facing a variety of personal issues, some weightier than others. Once, early in his tenure managing the Air Force wrestling squad, he confronted a captain about his spotty attendance at practice. Though reluctant at first, the officer eventually confided that he'd been receiving unwanted advances from a superior.

"His commander was in love with him," Estrella recalls, "and his commander was also a man. Yeah. That was something. ... I've had people come up to me and say 'Coach, I can't pay my bills. Coach, my wife is sleeping with somebody else.' I run into all of that and, you know, I have to deal with it."

Indeed, successful coaches don't merely scout talent; they are motivators, mentors and psychologists. A good coach knows how to help a struggling athlete. Sometimes, as with Perez, it's done with a pep talk and a pat on the back. Other times, as Antonelli notes, "helping them is just a kick in the ass."

At that point, an athlete's ego has likely entered the equation. And that's where philosophies vary. Estrella, for example, said he looks for behavioral signs that prove detrimental in competition, and only then will he intervene. "If your opponent sees that you're breaking your psyche," he reasons, "they know they can use that against you."

Army Maj. David Johnson, a rifle coach for the U.S. shooting team, works with Olympian Sandra Fong, July 8, 2008, at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
(M. Scott Mahaskey/ Staff)

But Army Maj. David Johnson, who coaches the Olympic rifle team, says "a healthy ego" is essential to fruitful competition. In 2004, during the run-up to the Athens Olympics, his top two men's shooters had a small dustup over firing-line etiquette. One, a soldier then in his early 40s, didn't approve of his teammate, a 23-year-old civilian, candidly grousing about his performance during competition.

They had a heated exchange, and the soldier complained about it to Johnson.

"He said, 'You need to tell him that he should have some respect for me. I'm older and he doesn't need to talk to me that way,'" recalls Johnson, who's been assigned since 2005 to the Army's World Class Athlete Program at nearby Fort Carson. "I said, 'He doesn't look at you as someone on a pedestal; he's trying to beat you.' I wasn't going to go to the younger guy and say, 'Tone it down. Don't compete so hard.' ... I'm a believer in mentoring ego, not beating it down."

A member of the 1992 Olympic team, Johnson, 44, brings an academic mind-set to the Olympic team. He's benefited from coaching courses paid for by the Army, and employs theories and lessons learned in the classroom when working with shooters on the firing line. He is one step removed from being a full-blown sports scientist.

That distinction belongs to Alan Arata, a 47-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who was a professor of biology and physical education at the Air Force Academy. For the past 15 years, he's been training Eli Bremer, an Air Force captain who competes in modern pentathlon and is a first-time Olympian. The event—which involves pistol shooting, fencing, swimming, horseback riding and running—unfolds over eight hours, requiring a sound mix of strength, skill and stamina.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Alan Arata does some lab work, July 10, 2008, with Air Force Capt. Eli Bremer at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bremer will compete in the modern pentathlon at the Beijing Olympics.
(M. Scott Mahaskey/ Staff)

Inside the Olympic training center's human-performance lab, a ghostly white room containing expensive cardiovascular equipment, Arata puts Bremer through a nightmarish treadmill session. He helps him into an oxygen mask meant to simulate the air at sea level, 6,100 feet below Colorado Springs. Throughout the workout, he is constantly analyzing one thing or another: from Bremer's heart rate and "perceived exertion" to the sock fabric that's supposed to help his feet stay cool.

Arata is a swell guy, super-smart, polite and funny. But compared with the paternal Rich Estrella, there's nothing all that warm and fuzzy about him. His mission, and it's clear from the clipboard glued to his hand, is to engineer an Olympic champion.

"In order to do this sport," Arata says, "you have to like pain to begin with."

Bremer descends from the treadmill—and he's hurting.

"There are only two or three guys in the world who will go toe-to-toe with me," he says.

Instantly, Arata responds, "We're trying to make it zero."

The pain is worth it, Bremer says: A good run time in Beijing will only enhance his chances of winning a medal. That's every Olympian's goal. It's their coaches' responsibility to help them get there, and they take that seriously.

"Every wrestler I have ever known has said, 'I want to be an Olympic champion,'" Estrella says. "When they say that to me, they know they're not talking to Joe Schmoe; they're talking to someone who can help them live that dream."

From the coaches