Steve Feitl

@SteveFeitl

Diamond Dallas Page will enter the WWE Hall of Fame at 8 p.m. Friday on WWE Network

Originally known as Page Falkinburg, he was a star basketball player at Point Boro High School

He also was an All-Conference first team selection at Ocean County College in 1977

His high school coach says Page's renowned work ethic was evident in the early 1970s

As Diamond Dallas Page prepares for his induction into the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame this Friday, he's been in a reflective mood.

Recently he was recounting how he got himself booked on WrestleMania VI in 1990 by driving the Honky Tonk Man, Greg Valentine and Jimmy Hart to ring in his pink Cadillac.

"The car got the gig, not me," Page laughed.

His chauffeur duties at the SkyDome in Toronto were just a cameo in the then-World Wrestling Federation, but the 60-year-old Point Pleasant product went on to make his name first as wrestling manager, then as a championship in-ring performer and more recently as a yoga instructor and motivational speaker.

A year ago at this time, he returned to the WrestleMania spotlight on the 32nd edition of the pro wrestling extravaganza as a surprise entrant in a battle royal that included former NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal.

But this weekend, he will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the WrestleMania 33 festivities in Orlando, Fla. The Class of 2017 – which includes fellow New Jersey native Eric LeGrand (receiving the Warrior Award), Kurt Angle, Beth Phoenix, Rick Rude, Teddy Long and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express – will be celebrated in front of a sold-out crowd at the Amway Center and stream live on the WWE Network at 8 p.m. Friday.

"To have had the run I had from there and then to come back at WrestleMania 32 two days from 60 days young to help throw Shaq over the top rope … and hit a Diamond Cutter before I take a powder over the top rope…" Page reflected to the Asbury Park Press and the Fan Theory Podcast earlier this month.

"To come back at WrestleMania 33 and get inducted into the Hall of Fame, that's a dream come true."

And it's a dream that had its inception at the Jersey Shore.

"I'm the kid from Point Pleasant," he said, "who grew up loving the World Wide Wrestling Federation."

‘Never be Joe Namath’

His mid-30s ascension to the top of the professional wrestling landscape was surprising to many of his peers, but Page Falkinburg likely was just as shocked that his initial athletic triumphs came on the basketball court.

Long before he adopted the first two D’s in his now-ubiquitous DDP nickname, Page grew up loving the sports of football and hockey. But he never got the opportunity to excel at them on the high school level.

"It was a great run," Page said of his hoops career. "But you have to know it all came out of adversity and the adversity was I got hit by a car when I was 12. Right on Route 88, before they really had anything on that road."

He searched for a doctor that would clear him to return to the gridiron or the ice, but instead got some bad news. He was able to play only two non-contact sports: baseball or basketball.

And Page still remembers the sobering diagnosis from one doctor.

"He had the gall to say to me, 'You're never going to be Joe Namath. You're never going to be Willis Reed.'" Page said. "I guess he didn't know I was going to be Diamond Dallas Page."

But first he had to improve his basketball skills. He was cut by his seventh grade team and rode the bench in eighth grade.

"I swore that would never happen again," Page said. "You could find me down at St. Peter's Park, five-to-eight hours a day, over that next summer. … I would go anywhere to play, whether it was Lakewood, Neptune… Wherever the real talent was, I was going to hitchhike or drive to get there.

"In the beginning I wasn't getting picked. Eventually, I was picking the teams."

Hardwood highlights

Ron Krayl remembers the wrestling icon who shared main events with Hulk Hogan and Randy “Macho Man” Savage by his given name of Falkinburg, not the better known DDP.

And what he remembers is a strong, athletic player who was always ready to compete for Krayl's Point Boro basketball teams in the early 1970s.

"He was very competitive," Krayl recalled when reached by the Press at his home this week. "He had a lot of self-drive in him. He always wanted to compete. He wanted to be better and he had that intensity about him."

Krayl said Page was as coachable as any high school kid could be and got along well with his teammates, even if the bombastic personality that emerged in professional wrestling promos years later would sometimes peek out in Point Pleasant.

"He knew how to push their buttons sometimes," Krayl joked.

But what really stood out was his reputation as a tireless worker – something that traveled with Page from the basketball courts to the wrestling industry and now to his DDP Yoga endeavor.

"He came to us at the Boro that way," Krayl said.

But Page credits his high school coach – himself a former two-time NAIA All-American with the University of Sioux Falls -- with helping shape that all-important trait.

"(Krayl) really molded the work ethic that I'd already been developing on my own," Page said. "But he really helped me mold it into what it would become."

And along the way, there was a lot of good basketball at the Boro. The 1973-74 team went 24-4 and Page Falkinburg was a First-Team selection for Shore Conference D.

More success followed him to Ocean County College, where the 1976-77 team finished second in the Garden State Athletic Conference and Page was an All-Conference selection and second team for All-Region 19.

Page – a 6-4 center for the squad -- led the team in field goal percentage, averaged 20 points per game was voted by teammates as OCC’s Most Valuable Player.

"We just played really well together and there were a lot of good guys on that team that I played with in the (summer) leagues," Page said. "We all sort of got together there at Ocean County and it got me a pretty good ride to Coastal Carolina."

'Help anybody'

Page’s basketball days largely met their end at Coastal Carolina where his lifelong struggles with dyslexia caught up to him. Reading is something Page said he did not dedicate himself to until the age of 31.

But his athletic career would unexpectedly reignite when he made the transition from wrestling manager to in-ring wrestler in his mid-30s.

And it was the same attitude that had made him a standout basketball player that carried him to the top of the wrestling profession.

"It was the hardest thing I'd ever done up until then because you have to remember I'm 35-and-a-half and I felt every square inch of that ring. ... Everyone was saying there was no way I could do it. And I'm one of those guys who has the mindset of, 'Tell me what I can't do, and I'll show you.'

"Just like basketball… Oh my god, I was so bad at the beginning."

He gave wrestling fans a working class hero to cheer for during his heyday in World Championship Wrestling, but it's his motivational work that draws the acclaim today.

His DDP Yoga program – which will be featured in New Jersey at an April 30 workshop in Union (For more information, visit DDPYogaWorkouts.com) -- has helped change lives, including several of his wrestling contemporaries. His role in turning around the life of friend and mentor Jake "The Snake" Roberts is chronicled in the 2015 documentary "The Resurrection of Jake the Snake."

"A lot of the world is depressed right now, especially in our country," Page said. "People who are really depressed out there, I challenge you to help somebody. Help anybody. Because you're going to feel better about you."

The help that Page has given to others has not been lost on his former coach. No stranger to Halls of Fame -- the University of Sioux Falls Athletics and Jersey Shore Sports versions, among others -- Krayl admits he didn’t always keep up with his former player’s pro wrestling accolades.

But he knows what Page has done since.

"He's done wonderful things in his life," said Krayl, a former assistant at Monmouth University for 34 years. "As a former coach, I'm really proud of what he's done and now how he gives back to people.

"It's rather impressive when you think about it. He's made quite a life for himself."

Staff writer Steve Feitl: sfeitl@gannettnj.com

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