WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Sieracki gives back to sport By Gary Abbott
The sport of wrestling opened for Keith Sieracki as a 10-year-old, when his family moved from the big city of Milwaukee, Wis. to a small town in the country, Richland Center. When he and his younger brother, Aaron, gave it a try in their new town, they never looked back. “We decided to move to a small town, and my dad worked at a factory there. A guy he knew mentioned a wrestling club in town, and he decided to let us give it a try. We fell in love with it right away. I’d go out and sell raffle tickets so we could get a new singlet or some wrestling shoes. What I liked was the competitive side of the sport,” said Sieracki.
Soon, the Sieracki brothers had nick- names on the club, based upon their per- sonalities. Keith was Keith the Animal. Aaron was Gentleman Aaron. “I didn’t make it to state until my senior
year. I ended up winning state in Wisconsin. But I didn’t take take care of my grades, so not many people were recruiting me for college,” said Sieracki. Rather than take a job on the farm or in a factory, Keith talked with his family and decided to join the Army. Wrestling was not part of that decision at all. “My dad thought a couple of years in
the Army would do me some good. It was also during the first Gulf War. When I got done with Basic Training, I thought I would go with my buddies to Germany to prepare for battle. I got stationed in Utah instead,” said Sieracki.
While playing in a volleyball tourna- ment, Sieracki saw a poster for the Armed Forces Sports program. He found out that there was an All-Army wrestling team, and asked if he could try out for it. When the leaders on his base inquired, Army coach Tony Thomas told them that he had missed the deadline for the All- Army Wrestling Camp and could not attend. Sieracki was persistent, and when his base agreed to pay his expenses to the camp, Thomas let him in. “After the first practice there, Coach Thomas told the wrestlers that half of us would be gone in a week. When he talked to me, he said I’d probably be done by the next day. Here I am, 21 years later, retired from the Army, and still involved in wrestling,” said Sieracki. Sieracki showed enough ability and potential to get a spot on the All-Army
32 USA Wrestler
Keith Sieracki lifts Matt Lindland dur- ing the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials.
Team in 1991. He still had a lot to learn, especially in the Olympic style of Greco- Roman, which is the wrestling style which the Armed Forces have a strong tradition. “I had a lot of freestyle and folkstyle growing up. I’d wrestle freestyle when the school season was out. I think I wrestled in just one Greco-Roman tournament, and didn’t do well. Greco was a big change for me,” he said. Sieracki took his lumps early in his Army career, but kept a positive attitude. “What worked out for me that first year was not that I was good, but that I was willing to do whatever I had to do to get better. The Army wrestling program was different back then. Now, we bring in guys from the OTC or from college for the pro- gram. Back then, nobody came in to
wrestle.They came in to be a soldier, but the wrestling opportunity was there for you. We had a great group of misfits. They were a unique bunch. They were among the toughest guys you would ever come across. They taught me a lot about wrestling and life,” said Sieracki. Sieracki credits his teammates from that era for helping make him into a suc- cessful international wrestler. Athletes like Shon Lewis, Martin Strmiska, Derrick Waldroup, Ryan Gibbons, Rodney Smith, Tony Demos and others helped him. Within a few years, Sieracki went from being a project to becoming a contender. “It was 1995, when I realized that I could win in Greco-Roman. I was ecstatic
when I got third place at the Open. I remember that I called my parents about it after taking third. From then on, things started coming together,” said Sieracki. At the 1996 U.S. Open, Sieracki defeated Matt Lindland in the finals to win his first national title at 163 pounds. In the 1996 Olympic Trials in Concord, Calif., he lost in the championship series to Gordy Morgan. It would be the first of a series of disappointments for Sieracki in his quest to make an Olympic team.
Sieracki settled on competing at 163 pounds during his career, even though he was very big for that division. His brother, Aaron, had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and made its wrestling team and the Sieracki brothers didn’t want to wrestle each other on the Greco-Roman circuit. Aaron competed up at 180 pounds. “We knew we had the entire USA and
World to compete against. Why would we compete within the family? Since I was established in my weight class, he went up. As I learned to control my weight, I decided to stay there. Up a weight, I felt that I could beat anybody on any day, but could I beat four or five on the same day?” he said. To tell the Keith Sieracki story, you have to understand the quality of the competition he faced in American Greco- Roman. His regular challengers during his long career included Olympians Gordy Morgan, Matt Lindland and T.C. Dantzler. “After Gordy retired, I thought I was set. Then I blew out my knee and missed more than a year. I played second fiddle to Matt until 2000. Before my knee injury, I beat Matt a number of times. When Matt moved up a weight class, then T.C. and Darryl Christian came along,” he said. There was big controversy during the 2000 season. Sieracki defeated Lindland in the finals of the lympic Team Trials in Dallas, and seemingly made the Olympic Team. However, Lindland brought the issue to court, which led to a full summer of legal action. A court ordered Sieracki to re-wrestle Lindland, and Sieracki lost. Lindland went on to win an Olympic silver medal.
The United States failed to qualify an athlete for the 2004 Olympic Games at 163 pounds. Although the USA could not send anybody to the Olympics at his weight, Sieracki won the Olympic Trials at
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