Penn State's Abe wrestles, coaches and aspires for gold

Shortly after Sanshiro Abe came to the United States from Japan in 1989, he learned the so-called basics of the English language: "Hi," "How are you," "Thank you" and . . . "Sweet Child O' Mine."

That's right. "Sweet Child o' Mine."

Abe, a coaching assistanat and former standout for the Penn State wrestling team, used both a dedication to learning and a love of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses to make the transition from his native Tokyo as smooth as possible.

While taking classes in a mandatory two-year English communication program -- a program he needed to enroll at the University in the fall of 1991 -- the then-19-year-old Abe memorized each and every word to "Sweet Child o' Mine," a popular tune of the now-defunct Guns N' Roses heyday.

"Oh yeah, he listened to a lot of Guns N' Roses," former teammate and fellow Nittany Lion standout Russ Hughes acknowledged. "He won a contest in New Jersey because he could sing all the words to that damn song. I think he got a T-shirt or something."

Abe's appetite for English earned him more than just a T-shirt.

Abe, now 27, survived the brutal communication program to conquer the language, excel at the University and star on the highly competitive wrestling team.

It was merely the first of many hurdles he had to clear.

Before the possibility of coming to the United States arose, Abe was promised a wrestling scholarship to a college in Japan. Having committed only verbally, however, the school backed out at the last second and told Abe to look elsewhere.

As Japanese colleges had already begun their terms, Abe was left to discuss his future with family members.

The uncertain situation led him to consult his brother, Taro.

"I talked to my brother, who was going to the Rochester Institute of Technology at the time," Abe recalled while sitting in the Rec Hall wrestling office last week. "He said he would look for a school in the states, and he found Penn State. He said they had a wrestling program with a Japanese assistant coach, so I decided to come."

That assistant coach, Hachiro Oishi, is still with the team. He was one of many people to witness Abe's amazing growth upon the his arrival here nine years ago.

Oishi stressed how difficult it was for his protégé to move to a foreign country and simply "pick up" the language in two years.

In a demonstration of sorts, the veteran assistant coach opened an old, battered book and pointed to the words. The book, of course, was written entirely in Japanese.

"Now you read that," Oishi ordered, without hint of a smile. "Give me a report on it by tomorrow. That's what it was like for Sanshiro when he came here."

Like most wrestlers, Abe picked up the sport when he was very young.

"I began wrestling when I was seven or eight," Abe said. "My friend wrestled and I went to see him at a tournament. His coach saw me and asked me to compete in the next tournament, so I did. I won."

Abe stuck with wrestling after his impressive debut and -- as he knew would happen -- continued on the college level. There was just one minor problem.

"He had to learn our style," Penn State head coach John Fritz said.

Abe, trained in the freestyle discipline all his life, had to pick up the college game just like he had to pick up English. Instead of playing by international rules, Abe had to enter a strange world of riding time and taking bottom.

Abe -- who was given the nickname "Sonny" after former Lion 118-pounder Shawn Nelson grew tired of saying "Sanshiro" every time he talked to his teammate -- had to learn in three years what the other wrestlers had done all their lives.

"Sonny started wrestling on the mat basically when he was a freshman in college," Fritz said.

Abe practiced the new technique while battling through his English classes, and kept learning during his redshirt freshman season.

But it wasn't until he was a sophomore that Abe got to show the college wrestling world that his practice had paid off.

Some freshman wrestlers come to college with a goal in mind -- to reach a certain number of wins, make a name for themselves, perhaps even become an All-American.

When Abe took the mat at 126 pounds in the 1992-93 season, he wanted to win a national championship.

"When I first got here my freshman year, I wanted to win it all," Abe said. "I didn't just want to be an All-American. I wanted to set my goals very high right away. I think if I would have set my goal to be just an All-American, I would have never won a national championship."

Understandably, the road to the national title had many turns for the redshirt freshman. But he impressed a lot of people along the way.

Wrestling in his first season of non-freestyle competition, Abe went 29-8, qualified for the NCAA Championships and placed fourth.

The next season, he drew a step closer. Abe racked up 35 wins, the highest total of his career at Penn State, and finished third.

In 1994-95, his third season, Abe went 32-4 and wound up in his first national championship bout. But he lost to Iowa's Jeff McGinness, whom he had beaten three times before, to finish a disheartening second.

The pressure was beginning to mount.

"There was a lot of pressure on me then," Abe said, "both from myself and from other people. But I think how you handle pressure is the most important thing, and I tried not to think about it. I tried to avoid it."

As the records show, Abe handled the pressure extremely well. After finishing fourth, third and second in his three seasons of competition, there was only one direction for the star wrestler to go in his last year of eligibility.

Though unrewarded as far as goals went, Abe's three years of improvement made lasting impressions on his fellow wrestlers.

Abe inherited a distinct wrestling style combining quickness and aggression, something that made him a dreaded opponent at 126 pounds.

"Off the mat, he was a really funny and likable guy," said Hughes, his former teammate. "You didn't want to go up against him, though, because he'd make you look like a fool. He made everything look easy."

Cary Kolat, who wrestled at Penn State for two years before transferring to Lock Haven University for the 1995-96 season, said Abe was incredibly smooth on the mat despite working incredibly hard off it.

"The first thing most people notice about Sonny is how quick and slick he is," Kolat said. "The first thing I noticed was how hard he worked. He trained really hard all the time. He never slowed down."

Abe's senior year was the perfect example.

Abe, bound with a "win-at-all-costs" mentality, went a perfect 29-0 and beat Iowa State's Dwight Hinson in the title bout, finally achieving what he was seeking for four years.

And as if going undefeated and winning a national championship wasn't enough, Abe did so while maintaining good grades and wrestling internationally -- a side project that saw him rack up more air time than a pilot in training.

"It was very rewarding to win my senior year," said Abe, a four-time All-American. "I was basically just relieved to win after coming so close before. It was very difficult, though, because I was always traveling between Japan and Penn State and I had to adapt to the different styles all the time. I was just relieved to finally win."

Fritz said he was thrilled to see his 126-pounder win and gave him credit for reaching his goal under such adverse conditions.

"I especially have to hand it to him his senior year, finally winning a national championship after getting fourth, third and second," Fritz said. "That's persistence. He was always very concentrated. He improved every year because he didn't let things bother him. Sonny kept working and eventually he won a national championship."

Abe wrestled internationally with a lofty goal in mind (nothing peculiar for him). He wanted to qualify for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

While still on the hunt for a national championship at the University, Abe was wrestling well on his free style tour. He was considered a strong possibility for the Japanese National Team until two weeks after his college season was over.

Exhausted from a four-year battle to the top and a season of making 12-hour trips to and from Japan, Abe wrestled poorly at a key qualifying tournament -- the Asian Games.

Abe thought his dream had become a memory.

"I didn't do well at the qualifying and I thought I was done," Abe said.

But, perhaps finally to acknowledge the hard work he had put in since arriving at the University, the coach of the Japanese team called and told Abe he had a good chance of receiving a wild-card berth.

Abe didn't believe him until it turned out to be true.

"A couple of weeks after qualifying, the national coach for Japan called me and told me I could get a wild-card berth on the team. I didn't believe him because I didn't want to get my hopes up and then get disappointed. But when I got the wild-card, I was very excited."

Abe, who lost to eventual gold-medal winner Kendall Cross of the United States in the Atlanta Games, will look to improve on his Olympic debut at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia.

He is currently training with Kolat, a two-time NCAA champion at 134 and 142 pounds, about four times a week.

Kolat, considered to be among the best college wrestlers in history, said he didn't choose to work out with Abe. Instead, the workout tandem developed through the process of elimination.

"You don't choose a workout partner," Kolat said. "It's doesn't work that way. You train as hard as you can and you see who's able to keep up with you. Every time I turned around, Sonny was right there with me. That's how it happened."

Having earned a degree in business management, Abe didn't know what he wanted to do after the Olympics. One thing was certain, however -- he wanted to keep wrestling.

Abe decided to keep studying, too. So he stayed at the University to pursue a master's degree in recreation and parks management.

By remaining at the University while he continued to train, it was inevitable that Abe would end up in the Rec Hall wrestling room. So Fritz decided to give his recent graduate a coaching job.

"He was trying to decide what to do and eventually he wants to get into business," Fritz said. "We had an opening and thought he was just a natural. Because of all his expertise and technique and his rapport with the kids, we thought he could be a coach."

There was just one catch for Abe. His job would have to be on a volunteer basis because he was still a student at the University.

As with all obstacles, however, it was one Abe could overcome.

"It's been a big time commitment so far," said Abe, who is currently working on his thesis. "It's more of a time commitment than being a wrestler, and it's a lot of work. But I like it."

So do the wrestlers.

Sophomore Jeremy Hunter, the Lions' 118-pounder, said Abe is working as hard as a coach as he did as a wrestler -- despite taking graduate classes and training for the Olympics at the same time.

"If you're willing to put in the time, coach Abe is always there with you," Hunter said. "If you wanted to wrestle at 12 at night and you gave him a call, he'd be there right away. He'll do anything."

Abe's main duties for the University involve getting the Lion lowerweights -- the wrestlers between 118 and 150 pounds -- into game-day shape.

Jamarr Billman, a 142-pounder who has dominated as a freshman, said working out with Abe is the best kind of preparation he can get.

"He always keeps his motion," Billman said. "He always has you off-balance. It seems like he knows everything you're doing before you even know. He's quick, but his movement in general makes him a lot quicker. It's a lucky guess if you stop him."

'I don't love wrestling'

Though he doesn't have plans for the long run yet, Abe thinks he will be through with wrestling by the time the 2000 Olympics are over.

In the meantime, he will be working with Kolat in pursuit of the one goal he has not yet reached -- to win a gold medal.

"I think whenever someone wrestles freestyle, they want to go on to become a world champion or Olympic champion," Abe said. "It's something I've always wanted."

When asked if love of the sport is what helped him clear the obstacles of language, technique and pressure on his long road to success, Abe said "no." Reaping the reward is what did the trick.

"I wrestle because I want to win," Abe said. "That's most important, I think. I don't love the sport. It's not that. Wrestling is mostly hard work and pain. But if I win a tournament after working so hard for so long, it's worth it -- at least to me it is."

And, he added, having to communicate in a foreign language never really had an effect on his wrestling.

"You don't have to speak to wrestle," Abe said with a grin.

No, you don't. But it never hurts to know all the words to "Sweet Child o' Mine."