For Wrestlers, a Swelled Sense of Pride

Hayfield's Steven Ours, a 2007 Virginia AAA champion, shows off his "cauliflower ear," a condition developed by repeatedly being hit in the same spot. (By John Mcdonnell -- The Washington Post)
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"They always want to touch it," he said. "Always."

Hill, in Iowa several years ago to attend the NCAA wrestling championships, dined at a restaurant near a table of older men who were former college wrestlers. The waitress, spying a cauliflower ear in every seat, asked the men whether they were related. They just laughed.

To a large degree, cauliflower ear is avoidable, if wrestlers wear properly fitted headgear. They are required to wear the protection during school-sanctioned competitions but not during practice or during the freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling in which they compete during the offseason.

Ours believes he is less likely to get headlocked if he wrestles without his headgear. Other wrestlers complain that the headgear is bulky, generates too much heat and prevents them from hearing instructions.

But mom and dad often will make the headgear mandatory. When Junior waltzes in with cauliflower ear, they get cantaloupe eyes.

"Their parents will freak out: 'Oh my God! My baby!' " an amused Ours said. "There was one kid I used to wrestle with over the summer. He wanted it so bad that every night after practice he'd go home and beat his ear with a shoe. I laughed at him because he could never get it."

Hill said some guys punch each other in the ear to try to cauliflowerize themselves. At a national tournament in Las Vegas last year, he saw a female wrestler who had put star tattoos on her cauliflower ear to accentuate it.

Hayfield junior Raymond Borja, state runner-up at 119 pounds, is among those who would love to have one. He's not willing to beat himself in the ear with a shoe, but he does eschew his headgear every chance he gets. He got cauliflower ear once at wrestling camp and had it drained, hoping it would return in fuller blossom, as is the norm. He's still waiting.

"If I could get it, it'd be awesome," he said. "I'm going to keep trying. My mom and dad know that I want it. They said it's your choice if you want it, but you're going to have to suffer through the pain and stuff. I'm fine with that."

Damascus senior Dan Obendorfer was not fine with it. It required three surgeries in the span of a month or so this winter to get rid of his cauliflower ear -- he never got numb during an excruciating second procedure -- and it still hurts when he bumps it.

Obendorfer, who enjoyed wrestling but did it more for fun, left the team toward the end of the season because of all the recurring cauliflower ear problems he was experiencing. His condition developed inside his ear to the point that he could not put an earphone in it while listening to his beloved Pink Floyd or Smashing Pumpkins. And his hearing suffered.

"He didn't want to be deformed for the rest of his life," said Obendorfer's mother, Catherine. "His whole ear, from top to bottom, would be black from the blood and pus. It looked like this big swollen bruise."

So now, if there ever is a band called Cauliflower Ear, Obendorfer should be able to listen to it in comfort.

Varsity Letter is a weekly column about high school sports in the Washington area. E-mail Preston Williams atwilliamsp@washpost.com.