John Rizqallah: 'Wrestling has given me so much'
3/19/2015 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
Before embarking on his third and final trip to the NCAA Wrestling Championships this week in St. Louis, senior captain John Rizqallah sat alone in the Spartan wrestling room, tucked away in a corner at I.M. West, reminiscing about the end of his collegiate career without trying to get too caught up in the moment.
But with the sun peeking through the windows and onto the mats he's poured his soul on the past five years, that's not to say he wasn't a little introspective.
The duality of his feelings is much like his life on and off the mat. There's what you can control - and what you can't. Just like anyone. But it's how he's gone about adjusting to the things you can't control that make him unique for a 23-year college student.
From learning a new language at a young age, to suffering the ultimate heartbreak on the wrestling mat, to taking care of his sick mother, Rizqallah has adapted, thrived, persevered, to where he is today.
Along the way, there's always been wrestling - the ultimate teacher, in Rizqallah's eyes. And now, the 184-pounder is ready for his last exam at the Scottrade Center, looking to capture All-America honors for the first time, the end of the road that began in the third grade in Allegan, Michigan, after moving from California.
"I feel like the preparation is done," he said with a sense of calm. "It's like you wrote a 20-page paper, and you're turning it in. The work is done. Now it's fun and it's time to turn in the paper."
FROM "SHY KID" TO STATE CHAMP
Before dreams of becoming an All-American in college, Rizqallah honed his unique style of wrestling in the cozy town of Allegan, Michigan, on the west side of the state, a small community which also happens to be a hotbed for youth wrestling.
A self-described "shy" kid, Rizqallah wasn't into sports upon his arrival from California. His parents, Jerry Rizqallah and Taghreed Jordan, who were both born in Jerusalem, had divorced, and John was still transitioning to English as a first language after growing up learning to speak Arabic.
After he and his older brother, Joe, moved in with their father in Michigan, John said his father told him to pick a sport. Following a trip to a cousin's high school wrestling meet, John thought he would give it a shot. It's where he met Coach Joe Simaz, whose sons were also into wrestling (Simaz's son Cam won a national title at Cornell in 2012), and forged a meaningful relationship that helped guide Rizqallah all the way through high school.
Rizqallah quickly found success in his new sport - he won his first-ever tournament, at 72 pounds, and got a medal. It was a feeling he wanted to get used to.
"Medals, for some reason, were really cool to me," he recalled. "When I was wrestling in tournaments, I would ask my dad, `did I place yet, did I get a medal yet?' And he would always lie to me, because he knew if he said yes, I was going to be satisfied. He would always be like, `no, you have one more.' I would win one more, and he would say, `I made a mistake. Now, you have one more.' He would keep saying that basically until the tournament was over."
Rizqallah's comfort in wrestling helped developed a style all his own - that is, one of unpredictably on the mat. At least that's what it appears on the surface. But that's only part of it, explained Rizqallah. According to him, there is a method.
"The way I think about wrestling is that I don't even know exactly what's going to happen," he said. "So there's no way the person I'm wrestling is going to have any idea what's going to happen, because I haven't figured it out yet. It's how I've always wrestled. I know I'll figure it out when I'm out there. If we're scrambling, that's where I'm comfortable, and I'm going to figure out each position.
"It's kind of like a math test. You know the equations, but you don't know the problem yet. But you're confident in the equation. I'm confident in every position, so I have to see the position first."
Rizqallah seemed to have mastered his style his junior year at Allegan High School, where he racked up a 66-1 record heading into the state championship match. With three seconds remaining and holding onto a 2-1 lead over Hillsdale's Mike Curby, the outcome seemed all but inevitable.
 | "The way I think about wrestling is that I don't even know exactly what's going to happen. It's how I've always wrestled. I know I'll figure it out when I'm out there." |
"I was always worried about winning state," Rizqallah said. "It was just something that needed to come off my chest. With three seconds to go, we went out of bounds, and as I was walking back to the center, I looked up in the crowd. My dad was celebrating with my brother. I thought I had won state. So that feeling left my chest - and it came right back down when I got taken down. We went back to the center, he shoots and takes me down, and wins the match by one point.
"Where else are you going to get a lesson like that? Where all your hard work, all your sweat, and all your emotions, are just taken away from you? Given to you, then taken away from you - in a matter of three seconds. You're not going to get that lesson anywhere else, I don't think."
Rizqallah turned his heartache into motivation, going a perfect 62-0 as a senior and finally winning that elusive state title with a 12-2 major decision over Jackson Lewis.
"I felt like it was something that needed to happen," Rizqallah said bluntly. "It's like finishing a chore. OK, you finished it - that needed to happen a long time ago anyway. It wasn't like, `oh my God, I'm a state champion.' That's not what it felt like. I think a lot of that was because of coach Simaz's (assistant coach at Allegan) mindset for me, and it kind of influenced me.
"I was capable of doing it, it wasn't like I couldn't do it. I remember coach Simaz always telling me..."this is not your goal. You're going to win state. You're more than that. Your goal is college, your goal is national champ, All-American. Don't worry about winning state so much.' But I felt like I needed to do that in order to go to the next step.
"I think it would have felt a lot better my junior year," he admitted, laughing. "My senior year, I needed more than that. My goal was not to be a state champion. I was actually reflecting about this earlier today in my head. My goal as a senior was not to get taken down, or give up an offensive point. It was never to be a state champion. That would just come if I could accomplish my first goal. And I wanted that."
FAMILY DYNAMIC BRINGS RIZQALLAH TO MSU
John wasn't the only one in the family that was thriving in wrestling. His older brother Joe won a state championship at Allegan his senior year in 2007 at heavyweight and went on to wrestle at the University of Illinois for one season. But it was a short-lived wrestling career for Joe in Champaign.
Their mother, Taghreed Jordan, who has been on dialysis for kidney failure for over 20 years, was constantly battling sickness, and Joe decided to take a year off of school to help her as much as he could.
"My mother has been sick for as long as I can remember," said John.
John continued to wrestle at Allegan, and that season he was approached by Coach Simaz with an idea. How would John, a junior in high school, feel about wrestling at Michigan State in an open tournament against collegiate wrestlers, to see where he stood against some top competition after winning nearly every high school match? John's dad loved the idea. So he went with it.
With his brother Joe in attendance, John won two matches in that Michigan State Open in the fall of 2008 and took third place in the freshman/sophomore division. Maybe more importantly, a Spartan connection with the Rizqallah family began. A former Spartan assistant coach, Chris Williams, noticed Joe and started talking with him.
"Next thing you know, Joe is coming to State," said John. "And I said, OK, I'm going to follow you. My brother has everything to do with me coming to State. My mom, and my brother, in a sense."
John signed his National Letter of Intent with Michigan State in the fall of 2009 - right after taking runner-up in the MSU Open as a senior in high school - and wrestled with Joe for two seasons as teammates in East Lansing, just like in Allegan.
But along the way, their mother needed constant support. She moved to Michigan John's freshman year of college and lived with her sons in East Lansing. John, who got a waiver to live off campus his first year, said she started to feel better that year, and eventually moved next door, where she felt more independent. Not that it made it any easier.
| "John's story is absolutely incredible. What's he done and sacrificed to take care of his mother is completely selfless." -MSU head coach Tom Minkel |
"It's been a roller coaster with her," he said. "Right now, she lives in Dimondale in a nursing home. But she's back to doing really good. There's been about 15 different times where we thought it was over. Anyone who talks about my mom knows she's a strong fighter. There's a million stories...she's crazy strong when it comes to will power and fighting."
"John's story is absolutely incredible," said MSU head coach Tom Minkel. "What's he done and sacrificed to take care of his mother is completely selfless."
Joe, who himself qualified for the NCAA Championships as a junior in 2011 and finished up his Spartan career in 2012, moved back to East Lansing for John's senior year in college, and the two are now living together once again. Although Joe's wrestling career is over, he wanted to do everything he could to help John in his last season.
"Joe is putting everything on hold for me," said John. "He was in California, he moved back here, he's got everything in boxes in my house right now and living in my sunroom. He's got me on a strict diet. We train together, and he pushes me. He said, `I'm going to make you an All-American before I leave. And once you're done, I'm going back to California.' That's the kind of relationship we have."
John was thrilled when his mother was strong enough to make it to watch him in a dual meet this season at Jenison Field House. But he says she's looking more forward to his career after wrestling.
"I remember a high school tournament out in Las Vegas that I went out to wrestle," he said. "It was the first time she had ever watched me wrestle. She asked me, who are you wrestling? I pointed to the kid and said that's the kid I'm wrestling over there. And she says, `no, no, no, you have to pick someone different, he's too big.' I said, mom, you can't pick who you wrestle. We're the same weight. She says, `no, he's going to beat you up.' I said with that attitude, yeah, he's going to beat me up! She still thinks I'm going to get hurt."
"I tell her that chapter hasn't ended yet for me, but it's pretty close."
A PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH
Rizqallah is one of the most difficult wrestlers to prepare for because even he admits he doesn't know what he's going to do next on the mat. He's hoping that's the wild card that will help him succeed this week in St. Louis as he goes against the top wrestlers in the nation.
"I had a problem in middle school because I would never let anybody finish a move on me in practice," he said, recalling the roots of his style. "Even if it was just practice, I wouldn't let them finish their move for some reason. I don't know why I did that, but I felt like it was more fun just to wrestle than to drill the moves. "I was the horrible partner to be with. I still am; I've carried that reputation throughout high school and college. You don't want to be my partner because I'm a really bad driller. I like to figure it out as it happens."
"John has been a real joy to coach," said Minkel, a former U.S. Olympic coach who's seen just about every way to wrestle in his long, illustrious career. "He's got a unique style of wrestling, and it's been good for me to coach him because he's very unorthodox and has a skill set that's unusual. But with that said, I think we've made some really good improvements in his wrestling and he's learned to understand what he needs to do. He's been a lot of fun to coach."
"One of my favorite quotes is, `Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can't, you're right,'" Rizqallah said, referring to a quote by Henry Ford. "That's what a lot of wrestling is. You have to really believe in yourself, even if people don't believe in you or your style. There is no one way to wrestle. That's impossible. Do what feels right. You really have to find what works for you, and stick with it, believe in it, and hopefully things work out."
| "It's hard to explain if you're not a part of it, but in a sense...I could spend the rest of my life giving back to the sport, and I still wouldn't reach what it gave me." |
For all of the uncertainty Rizqallah brings to each and every match, he approaches life outside of wrestling in a different manner. He graduated with a degree in political science last year and will attend law school at Chico State in California next fall.
"I think law school is just a track for me to be on," he said. "I like to be on a track. Law school is order, procedure. I'm into that kind of stuff. I like knowing what's going to happen a lot of the times, or at least what I'm getting into.
"I've thought about that (the differences in approach). It is conflicting. But wrestling has always been a place for me where I feel like I'm in control. Like I said, I know the equations, I just don't know what problem is going to come up. It is still order and procedure, because I do feel confident when I'm on the mat."
Another one of Rizqallah's priorities in life is to travel. He said he's planning on a trip to visit the Middle East, including Jordan and Egypt.
"I think it's really important," remarked Rizqallah, who can speak fluently in Arabic. "I don't ever really want to be in one spot. I say that because when I went from middle school to high school, high school was so big to me. I never thought I would be ready to leave high school, but when I was a senior, I was ready to leave. I came to college in East Lansing, and there's no way I'm going to get this, and now that I'm a senior, East Lansing is so small to me, and I'm ready to leave. The way I look at it is, when I'm ready to leave the world, I want it to be small to me. I don't want to leave with the world being so big. I figure the only way to do that is to travel."
But no matter where the conversation leads, Rizqallah always goes back to wrestling. What it means, how it has affected him, and how he can give back to the sport.
"Wrestling is so fun," he said. "It's like a person in the sense that...it's more than a father, it's more than a mother, it's more than a brother, it's more than all of that. The sport will teach you so much about yourself. Wrestling itself, engaging in the match, winning, losing, that's nothing compared to what the actual big picture is in the sport.
"It's hard to explain if you're not a part of it, but in a sense...I could spend the rest of my life giving back to the sport, and I still wouldn't reach what it gave me."
"Maybe I want to be a coach, I'm not sure. This sport is so addicting. Every former teammate that I can think of off the top of my head is coaching. It's hard to take so much from something and not give back. I think that's the main thing people don't realize. Wrestling has given me so much. Without realizing it, they're giving back by coaching. That's something I feel like I might have to do."
But then, Rizqallah paused.
"But what am I going to teach anybody in wrestling?" he laughed, shaking his head. "I can't show moves - I don't know any moves."
END OF THE ROAD
All the years of hard work, dedication and sacrifice as a wrestler will come to a close for Rizqallah in St. Louis.
His father - who he described as the complete opposite of his mother when it comes to wrestling - and his brother will be in the stands, along with other family and friends.
There have been signs along the way this season that possibly point to a great finish. He won the Northern Iowa Open in December and defeated eventual Big Ten Champion Domenic Abounader in his last dual against the Wolverines on Jan. 11.
And that wrestler he lost to back as a junior in the state championship match? He finally got a rematch this season. Rizqallah shut Curby out, 3-0, during Michigan State's win over Eastern Michigan on Jan. 23.
Two weeks ago, Rizqallah battled through sickness at the Big Ten Championships to reach for the NCAA Championships a third straight year, pinning Northwestern's Mitch Sliga when he absolutely had to in order to automatically qualify, even though he said his lungs had nearly failed him.
Rizqallah's career has been highlighted by three straight trips to the NCAA Tournament, but he's looking for more on his last weekend.
"You learn a lot about yourself more than about wrestling," he said regarding the grind of the NCAA Tournament. "My first time going, I felt pretty satisfied about being a national qualifier. I sold myself short. Last year, I really wanted to be an All-American (top-eight finish out of 33) and I fell short a little bit. This year, I'm shooting a lot higher than just being an All-American. That way, worst case scenario, I'm an All-American.
"As far as this weekend, last night I had a dream that I was in the finals. I don't know what's going to happen, but hopefully it works out."
Watch John Rizqallah wrestle in the NCAA Championships this week (Thursday-Saturday) in St. Louis on WatchESPN.com. Selected matches will also be broadcast on ESPNU and ESPN throughout the tournament.
Written by Ben Phlegar, Michigan State Athletic Communications
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