Wrestling With Success
World Champion Gives Sage Advice to Students
Looking vastly different than the days when he sported a 54-inch chest, and wearing a cast boot for a foot injury, former wrestling heavyweight champion Nikita Koloff addressed the students of Alexander Hamilton Middle/High School with his four life lessons on success on January 15.
As an introduction, sponsoring agent Pastor Rocco Dapice, of the People's Church in Tarrytown, showed a film clip of the hated "Russian Nightmare" - as Mr. Koloff was referred to during his wrestling career - growling at the audience, and declaring his sovereignty over all "Amedicans." Mr. Koloff, born Nelson Scott Simpson from Minnesota, later became a more benevolent figure in the wrestling world, with fans flocking to him for his "new-found love" of the U.S. and allegiance with wrestler Dusty Rhodes. World tag team-wrestling partners, Don Kernodle and Ivan Koloff, created the Nikita Koloff character, taking the American-born football player, and transforming him into Ivan Koloff's wrestling "nephew" from the former Soviet Union.
As the video ended, a slimmer middle aged man with a ponytail emerged from backstage. The rips were gone from his muscles, and so was the Russian accent, when he greeted the "good looking crew" whose lives he felt he was about to impact in a big way.
"This is what I believe," he said to his attentive audience. "That if only one of you takes something away today, perhaps five, ten or even thirty years from now, our paths will cross again, and you will say, 'Mr. Koloff, I sat in a school assembly in 2010, and something you said changed my life.'"
Using occasional attention-grabbing methods such as increasing the volume on his mega-decibel voice, or calling audience members up to help him make a point, Mr. Koloff kept the packed house of 6th through 12th graders engaged during his 40 minute presentation. The wrestling information had to be dispensed first, he said, so he gave a little history to preface and underscore the real purpose for his visit.
"If I wrestled Ric (Flair) once, I wrestled him a hundred times," he said. "I was fortunate to have won five different world titles as well as many other accolades in professional wrestling." He held up the massive world television title championship belt he won for emphasis.
Mr. Koloff told of his youth in the projects of Minneapolis, where his single parent mother struggled to support him and three siblings after his father abandoned the family. "Just a quick mental picture," he somberly said to the students. "My beginnings, my roots, started in the ghettos with no money and no dad. I began to realize, as many of you have even at this point in your lives, that life is filled with choices. Some choices we make are better than others; sometimes we make poor choices."
Thus began Nikita Koloff's "Success Lessons I've Learned While Smashing Heads."
Success lesson number one: "No matter what you do in life, give it your best effort." Mr. Koloff grasped that concept at the age of 12, while reading an Iron Man magazine. The wiry youth realized that, to achieve the muscle volume of professional weightlifters, he would have to work very hard. By junior high school, he had pumped himself up sufficiently to squat 500 pounds.
His initial dream of becoming an NFL player led him to study playbooks and join a team, playing tight end for Moorhead State University- another example of how he "gave his best effort" to achieve success. When the wrestling opportunity came along, he wasn't satisfied to "just be a wrestler." He aspired to become a world champion.
"I challenge and encourage you." he said. "In order to truly be successful in life, to have real success, you've got to be engaged and become a player and not just a spectator, in the weight room, or on a football field, or even in the classroom."
Success lesson number 2: "Laws of Association." Explaining that there are certain immutable laws that one can't change in life, Mr. Koloff drove home the importance of disassociating oneself from people who are doing things to harm themselves or others. Bad company corrupts good character, was the adage he repeated several times. "Whoever you're hanging around, is who you'll become," he said.
The room became silent when he told the story of his buddy and colleague, Curt Hennig, better known in the wrestling world as "Mr. Perfect." Mr. Hennig was to make an appearance at a wrestling match in Tampa, Florida in 2003, when he was found dead in a hotel room from a cocaine overdose. "You see, the law of association caught up with Mr. Perfect," said Mr. Koloff. "So, I want to encourage you to hang around with people who have a dream and a vision for their lives, who are going somewhere."
Success lesson number three - "Role model." The former world wrestling champion charged his listeners to be good examples to others, starting with their own siblings, and told them it is a responsibility they may or may not have signed up for. "Your words out of your mouth can be either TFC's, Tools for Construction, or WMD's, Weapons of Mass Destruction. He challenged them to set a higher standard than those who might not be treating them well, rising above to become positive role models for their peers and family members.
Success lesson number four - "To be able to forgive others as well as yourself." Although his father left him when he was three, Mr. Koloff said, "I had to forgive him. I had to forgive myself, because I thought it was my fault, and that I must have been a 'mistake.'" He then shared that his mother never told him she loved him until she was 76 years old. In a poignant portrayal of the inner turmoil and ultimate epiphany over the lack of love he experienced as a child, he gave the students food for thought about their own self worth. "I look around this place, and you know what I see? I see world champions sitting in this audience," he said.
He closed the program instructing the students to believe in themselves even when no one else believes in them. "Never, never, never let somebody else's opinion of you become your reality," he said.
As a small crowd of middle and high school students gathered around him, Mr. Koloff posed for photos, draping his world championship belt around smaller shoulders.
When asked what he thought of the program, senior Tejan Edwards said, "We live in this world, we think everything is nonchalant. We're just supposed to live life and die. But there's plenty more to life than that, you know. Everyone has a purpose in this life, everyone has a divine purpose. I think it's important that he reminded us that we're not just here to live. We're here to have a purpose; to accomplish something greater."
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