Clay Tucker is one of the few veterans on a young Ohio wrestling team. The 157-pound redshirt junior leads the team with a 15-10 record. He sat down with The Post's Joe Ragazzo to riff on everything from professional wrestling to the practice room sound track.
The Post: What's it like to be one of the more experienced guys on a team with no seniors?
Clay Tucker: We came in here with 10 people in my class, but everybody quit. It's just me and (Jacob) Ison now. All the upperclassmen that were a year older than me, all of them quit last year. I feel like I'm kind of in high school again. I have kids looking up to me, which is pretty cool. It's exciting.
Post: Do you still make fun of Ison for being a lumberjack?
Tucker: You'll have to ask him why in the world he got the Lumber Jake tattoo on his leg. It says Lumber Jake with two chain saws, so we pick on him for that - a lot.
Post: Who was your favorite WWF wrestler?
Tucker: Well, I don't watch it anymore. But when I was little, I'd definitely have to say Stone Cold (Steve Austin).
Post: Who do you think would win in a wrestling match, Stone Cold or coach Joel Greenlee?
Tucker: It depends how much beer Stone Cold has before he goes out there.
Post: You played football in high school. What's harder - a football practice or a wrestling practice?
Tucker: Definitely a wrestling practice, by far. In a wrestling practice, you're just trying to keep a sweat going the whole two hours, and you have to be so much more conditioned for wrestling than for football because you get breaks in football. In wrestling, for seven minutes, it's just all out.
Post: What is your favorite NFL team?
Tucker: Well, I'm from Martins Ferry, Ohio. It's right on the Ohio River. I'm a half-hour from Pittsburgh, so I've always been a Steelers fan.
Post: You rarely have home meets, so you're on the road a lot. What's your best road trip story?
Tucker: This year, we were all sitting in the airport and about 15 of us were driving around in wheelchairs while our flight was delayed for three hours. When we started walking on the plane, everyone was just looking at us like we were supposed to be in wheelchairs. We had people asking us questions like What kind of team are you on? and we just made up stories.
Post: Who picks the music you guys listen to during practice?
Tucker: We have a lot of CDs that we've all brought in, but we don't let Ison pick music because it's just straight country - not cool
country - country from like the '50s and '60s. We don't let Quentin Keyes pick either because he'll just put on a CD of himself or some crazy rap. That's who we don't let pick. Other than that, it's fair game.
Post: What bar are you at the most on Court Street?
Tucker: Definitely, Broney's.
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