No "You can do its" from the bench, no "Don't quits," no "Grab his legs," essential wrestler fuel.

Don't be too quick to condemn Martinez's teammates for their apparent lack of enthusiasm. They love him. It's just that he wouldn't listen anyhow — not that he isn't teachable. He's as ready to learn as the next guy, but Martinez is deaf, has been since birth.

So although he has plenty of team backup, when Martinez is out on the mat, he's left to sort through problems on his own, more so than the average wrestler.

"In the matches you can't do anything unless he happens to look over," says Wildcatz coach Steve Okamura. "It's different watching him wrestle."

Eventually, Martinez succumbs to his opponent, losing the match by fall with 11 seconds remaining.

Martinez, an 18-year-old, 130-pound senior, is still learning the novice's tricks of the trade, having returned to wrestling this year for the first time since eighth grade. He had to give it up for a while because of another physical ailment, an enlarged heart.

More important than doing well in competition though, wrestling has given Martinez a place to deal with problems off the mat. Some of those problems he created himself.

Martinez hasn't always channeled the frustrations of living with disabilities in the right direction. That got him into fights, trouble at school, briefly into gangs. It made his tough situation tougher. But he has found an outlet for his aggression now.

"For one," signs Edgar through his interpreter Daniel Raney, "I'm too tired to get in trouble."

Rough start

Struggle greeted Edgar from Day 1.

He spent the first month of his life at Stanford Children's Hospital with jaundice and heart murmurs, which later led to his enlarged heart.

Edgar's parents, Maria Salas and Alfredo Martinez still together, although never legally married, made the drive from Watsonville to Stanford every day after work during that time, often leaving their other kids in the care of relatives.

There were times doctors didn't know if Edgar would make it.

On one occasion, Maria walked into Edgar's room and saw an infant she thought appeared to be dying. He was so sick that she didn't recognize him. She walked back out and told Alfredo their son had been moved.

Alfredo took a look for himself.

"He said, 'I can't believe you don't recognize your own blood,'" recalls Maria, her voice shaky.

It wasn't until five months later, with Edgar home, that Maria started thinking he might have hearing problems. First, Edgar slept soundly while she vacuumed by his crib. Another time, she called for him when his back was turned. He didn't respond so she tried to scare him.

"I went, 'Boo.' He didn't look back," she recalls. "So I screamed boo louder. Nothing. Then I hit the bars of the crib and he turned around and I said, 'Oh my God.'"

Alfredo didn't believe his son was deaf when Maria first told him, so she gave a demonstration. Alfredo broke into tears.

"I think it was just the emotion that here you're dealing with your child's heart problem and then something else pops up," says Maria.

At 18 months, Edgar was diagnosed with profound deafness, about as deaf as it gets. He started learning sign language at 4 years old and, says Maria, "He was off to school."

Wanting to be heard

Misunderstandings with teachers and fellow students, caused by Edgar's deafness, started at Bradley Elementary School in Corralitos. When Edgar got upset, he ran into the hills behind campus where faculty had to search for him.

"That was his way out," says Maria.

In fourth grade, after prior suspensions for disrespecting teachers, Edgar was expelled for brandishing a pocketknife to a classmate.

He skipped fifth grade and went straight to sixth at Lakeview Middle School. There, he learned to get out of doing things he didn't want to by acting up, earning him more suspensions. Edgar also started getting into fights.

"He used to tell me at the junior high level, 'Why do kids look at me? Why do they stare when you and I are talking?'" says Maria. "And I used to tell him, 'This is a new world to them. Of course they're going to stare because they're wondering what you're saying.' I had to work with him to get over that barrier of, 'Let them stare, let them learn what you have.'"

Those elementary and junior high times were tough for Maria and Alfredo. In teacher-parent conferences, which were often, they were torn between siding with Edgar or his teachers. Maria says she took responsibility for Edgar's actions but thought he misbehaved partially because he wasn't dealt with properly.

"A lot of the time I broke down in those meetings," she says.

In seventh grade, Edgar found wrestling. School psychologist Armando Quintana, who has since passed away, convinced Edgar to join the team. Maria said Quintana was monumental in showing her and Alfredo to believe in their son and in showing their son to believe in himself. Quintana bribed Edgar with a new pair of ear protectors and wrestling shoes.

"At first, even Edgar would question me," says Maria. "'How am I going to hear the whistle? How am I going to be able to communicate?'"

Yet Edgar quickly fell in love with the sport. He'd found a place to let out his energy and frustrations, a place where he felt a sense of belonging and camaraderie. His behavior began improving.

Partway through eighth grade, however, Edgar's cardiologist made him quit wrestling because it put too much strain on his heart. Edgar started acting up again.

He transferred to North Salinas High his freshman year. It was either there or the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, but Fremont wanted nothing to do with Edgar's behavior. The Pajaro Valley Unified School District has a high school program for the hard of hearing but nothing for the profoundly deaf.

Edgar's troubles continued at North Salinas. He was suspended for disrespecting faculty and his interest in school further declined. The long commute wore on him as well. It kept him away from his American boxer, Slimer, and family.

"They didn't have a great wrestling program there either," signs Edgar.

Maria transferred Edgar to Watsonville High partway through his sophomore year. She said the district was reluctant to take him in given his track record.

Once back home, Edgar didn't improve. He began hanging out with local Norteños, or North Siders, a Mexican gang, and was eventually initiated in.

Maria says Edgar was looking for a place to fit in.

"He's not afraid of anybody and that can get him into a lot of trouble," she says.

Watsonville High athletic director Rob Cornett, who has Edgar as a teacher's assistant, says he never saw Edgar have trouble fitting in.

"He had lots of friends," says Cornett. "The problem was he had the wrong friends."

Wrestling, a lifesaver

Alfredo and Maria pleaded with their son to reconsider his course, told him he was rolling toward a dead end. They caught a break about that time.

Edgar's heart medications, which he still takes in the form of a pill twice a day, had shrunk the organ to a safe size. Edgar's cardiologist told him he could wrestle again, although there was still a risk of serious illness or death.

It didn't take a life-altering experience or a fall to rock bottom for Edgar to shape up. It took wrestling and the discipline coaches required. Edgar learned that if he wanted to wrestle, he had to be eligible. That meant passing classes and keeping his nose clean.

"I just started thinking I would love to graduate," signs Edgar. "Assistant coach Gary Garcia told me I had to leave that alone and focus on wrestling. I thank him for that."

With a place to let loose again, Edgar has done a complete turnaround.

He's keeping his grade point average above the minimum 2.0, a big step, and Maria says she has never seen her son so concerned about graduating.

"Until this year, Edgar didn't know what a GPA was," she says.

It has also helped Edgar that the district, at Maria's request, brought in a behavioral specialist last year, aiding Edgar's teachers to better communicate with the school's only profoundly deaf student there are other hard of hearing kids.

"I think it's wrestling," says Watsonville High deaf and hard of hearing specialist Kathryn Sandoval of why Edgar has improved, "but I also think it's something within him, a maturity that has come out."

On the mat, Edgar is learning quickly, considering he joined the team late while waiting for medical clearance. He has found a group of friends who support and respect him, who give him a positive influence. Edgar isn't spending much time with his friends from the gang.

"They call him and now he tells them, 'Go away,'" says Maria.

While Edgar's teammates teach him moves, he teaches them sign language, which is useful when Raney isn't around to interpret.

"When he isn't there, it's funny, the guys have learned a lot from Edgar," says Okamura. "I'll ask a guy to tell him something and they will, they'll use a sign and do it."

Edgar also has taught his teammates that he can do anything anybody else can, just different at times.

"I love it when people say, 'deaf wrestler,'" signs Edgar. "It's empowering, I'm proud of being deaf."

In practice, coaches and teammates visually demonstrate moves or techniques. In matches, Edgar looks to the referee for a signal to stop or gets a touch on the shoulder. He can also tell a round has ended when his opponent relaxes.

"It doesn't seem like he has a disability," says teammate Art Ledesma.

Ledesma happens to be the teammate who got the "What are you doing?" glances.

"If you scream loud he says he can hear," explains Ledesma. "So I scream loud for him."

Edgar has made other friends outside of wrestling — girlfriends, too. He can spit game, although, again, a bit different than a hearing person. Edgar uses a T-Mobile Sidekick, a hand-held device about the size of a 3-by-5 card with a mini keyboard, to write messages. He won't say what exactly.

"He's got these beautiful girls saying hello to him," says Cornett. "They're interested in how to talk to him, how to communicate with him."

It's understandable why the girls are taken with Edgar. Although he can't speak, Edgar relays more emotion through his facial expressions and body language than through an infinite range of voice tones and volumes.

"Edgar has managed to basically be in the hearing world," says Maria. "He has developed his own language with his friends."

He also has learned signs in Spanish, a help when speaking to his father.

"We've always been proud of him, but more now," says Alfredo in Spanish, hardly able to speak of his son's accomplishments without getting choked up. "He's shown us that not being able to hear or talk isn't an excuse to not do things. He's an example for many people. He's showing people they can do what they want."

Alfredo pauses to collect himself then adds of his son: "He's a warrior."

By Isaiah Guzman
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/January/29/sport/stories/04sport.htm