Wrestler on a mission to compete in 2012 Olympics

By Jarret Johnson

jmjohnson@star-telegram.com

Joaquin Bautista is laying it all on the line one more time in an effort to qualify for the 2012 U.S. Olympic wrestling team.

The 35-year-old Colleyville Heritage wrestling coach has been close to qualifying in Greco-Roman wrestling in the past, and simply can't shake the feeling of what might have been.

"In 2000, a month before the tryouts, I got poked in the eye and suffered a detached retina," Bautista said. "The guy who went for us (Matt Lindland), I had beaten him three times that year and he ended up winning a silver medal."

After failing to qualify for Athens in 2004, Bautista retired from Olympic competition with a battered body and psyche. After four years away from competition, Bautista decided to come back for one final shot at his Olympic dream."It's just one of those things that if I don't do it now I'll just be one of those guys that always says, 'I could have done it,'" he said.

Born in Alamogordo, N.M., in 1975 to two legally blind parents and raised in rough neighborhoods in Santa Fe and El Paso, Bautista grew up fast.

He started wrestling at 7 under the tutelage of his father, Jesus.

"It was hard in that my dad couldn't watch me wrestle; somebody would have to explain to him what was going on," Bautista said. "Even to this day, my dad has never seen me wrestle."

Bautista won state championships in three styles and compiled a 42-1 record as a senior at Santa Fe High School on his way to a scholarship at the University of Minnesota.

But Bautista inherited his mother's degenerative myopia, an extreme form of near-sidedness that leads to detached retinas and, in extreme cases such as Bautista and his mother, eventual blindness.

"It will (happen to me) and in the sport that I'm in, it only enhances it really," Bautista said. "You get pounded on quite a bit. It's one of those things that, when I was old enough to understand and it became my choice, I was already in college on scholarship."

Following the 2009 school year, Bautista left his post as coach at The Woodlands High School for Colleyville Heritage. The road to the 2012 Olympics in London looks anything but easy for Bautista.

Only 12 to 16 wrestlers will make the U.S. team, and he will have to win his weight class (163 pounds) in the qualifying events. First up is an international tournament in New York in November. If he qualifies, Bautista will next compete in the U.S. Open Wrestling Championship on Dec. 15-17 at the Arlington Convention Center.

"It's really taken a lot out of me, added a lot more stress," Bautista said. "When you're young you think you can take on the world and now I know my time is limited. I have one more shot and if it doesn't happen there's no tomorrow but at the same time win or lose I can live with that I gave it one more shot."

Jarret Johnson, 817-390-7760

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