Chapter 10: Let's Get This Show on the Road

The last week before the first wrestling night was a busy one at the Delta Alpha Delta house. We ranked our wrestlers, and with the assistance of my brother, Mark, a high school wrestling coach, we selected the six girls we could pre-select.

Gabby Hunter, that's me, was our number one wrestler. I'm a 21-year-old junior, an art history major, and a starter on the volleyball team.

Rox Green was our number two, a 22-year-old senior, a business major. She was a three-sport high school athlete, but she didn't go out for sports in college. She spent her summers doing physical work in her family's sawmill in Idaho. She was very strong, and very fast.

Maria Cuban was our number three, a 19-year-old freshman, pre-med major.

Ashley Law was our number four, a 23-year-old senior literature major. She was tall, a six-footer, who played rugby for a club team.

Ann Kelty was our number five, a 25-year-old sophomore police science major, who had spent four years in the United States Marine Corps as a medical corpsman before going to college. She was the house "grown up." A lot of us called her Mom, but generally not to her face.

Ronnie Vogel was our number six, a 20-year-old sophomore political science major. She was a tough water polo player and biker chic, who rode a Harley.

Since we couldn't all wear the same suit under the rules, all the girls met at the house the Saturday before the matches to check out the suits, and make sure they conformed to the rules. Some of the suits covered more of the breasts than allowable. Halters were not bikini tops, and they did not leave uncovered at least 25% of the edge of the breast where it came off of the body. Other tops had cups, which were too large, encasing virtually the entire breast, straps which were too substantial, or had too many hooks. Some of the bottoms were wider at the hips or crotch, where the front and back met. A few of the bottoms did not show enough skin between the waistline and the navel. It was a good thing we had an inspection, because illegal suits were forfeited, and the girls who wore them would be naked all night for two consecutive Saturday nights.

Some of the girls wore string bikinis or thongs. Natalie Allen, our house president, and Karen Winters, who entered and often won bikini contests, was one in a string bikini. I asked Karen, "Why would you wear that suit? If they draw your name to wrestle, you've no chance of defending a suit that skimpy long enough to keep from having your pubes shaved and your body labeled by the girl who beats you."

Karen had a good answer. "I'm used to wearing suits even skimpier than this one. Since I'm such a bad wrestler, I'll get stripped right away anyway, if my name is drawn. This suit comes off so easily it should be undamaged. But the biggest reason is no wrestler who had her suit damaged would dare to take my suit as a replacement, so I figure I may have a better chance of not getting naked as fast in a flimsy suit."

I had to admit, "It makes good sense to me."

Most of the girls, wrestlers or not, wore suits as substantial as the rules would permit.

I'd purchased the best suit I could find. The cups were only fairly small triangles, so I might have a boob pop out, but it left more than 25% of edges of my breasts visible at the top and both sides. It also had a three-quarter inch wide Velcro strap in the front, which went from the far outside of my right breast to the far inside of my left breast, Velcro all the way. I figured it would take a lot of pulling to rip that baby off of me. The bottoms were so tight I had a difficult time pulling them on; hopefully they would be hard for the other girl to pull them off.

Mark worked with us for three hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. We spent most of the time discussing strategy, primarily for keeping our suits out of reach of a wrestler who appeared too good for us, so we could at least last for the five minutes, and hope she made a mistake so we could get a garment off of her. We worked on escapes, and he ran us a lot. He made us practice on Tuesday and Thursday nights wearing our wrestling bikini, so we'd know if there was a problem with it.

We were all in the sorority house, dressed in our tiny bikinis, by 4:30. At 4:50, a delegation of six Kaps arrived, to escort us the one block to their house. As we walked past Parking Lot F, I saw there were many more cars there than one would see there on a Saturday night. We arrived at 5:00, and walked in with the Sigs, who arrived from the other direction at the same time we did. We went into the back yard along the east side of the fraternity house, past a line of boys waiting for the doors to open to them at 5:30. There were a lot of catcalls and whistles. I cringed at some of the comments directed at us.

The Kaps had converted their back yard into a stadium, with rented bleachers, which looked as if they could seat more than a thousand horny boys. There was approximately a 18 x 18 foot mud pit, with bales of hay around it on all sides. I had expected the mud to be a deep brown color, which might obscure our bodies for a little while. Instead, it was a watery, light yellow-brown shade, which wasn't going to hide much. Inside the pit, right next to the bales, there were round burlap bales the kind used to prevent erosion on unplanted slopes. Sheets of Visqueen apparently lined the bottom of the pit, and the round burlap held the Visqueen in place. It looked like the mud filled the burlap pit almost one-third of the way up, probably six inches or so. Five microphones hung suspended over the mud pit, on a framework holding some pretty big lights. Eight-foot wide wooden risers surrounded the pit. Big numbers from 1 to 8 were painted on the risers around the ring. odd number painted at the corners and even numbers midway between the corners. The stands were set up a few feet from the risers, so it appeared there was a stage surrounding the pit. What appeared to be garden hoses were coiled on each corner of the stage. The arena was on the point the land farthest out into the canyon. It appeared to cover about a third of their yard; it was a very impressive facility.

We all sat in the bleachers nearest the house. Brandy and I stood on the stage, facing the girls from our combined sororities. We explained some but not all of the details for the next two Saturday nights. We had agreed to skip any trash talk.

Brandy did most of the talking. "We are about to engage in a great adventure. The sisters of Delta Alpha Delta and Sigma Mu Alpha are partners in that adventure, although one of us will end up as junior partners in the end. Nevertheless, each house is going to make a lot more money than the budget says they will. Maybe twice as much!"

"Next week, the wrestlers will have opportunity to make between $100 and 1,000 extra, which you don't know about. You won't learn any more about it until next week. Both winners and losers will have about the same chance at extra money, but the further you go in the tournament, the more extra money you'll have a chance to win. In addition, one of the winning wrestlers will win an additional $750. Whatever extra money the wrestlers win, their house will get the same additional money. There is a very small possibility that a non-wrestler will be able to participate in this opportunity. Half of the wrestlers won't win anything extra."