The saddest place in New Jersey sports is a loading dock at Atlantic City’s famous Boardwalk Hall.

The fans who come to the NJSIAA/Rothman Orthopaedics Wrestling Championships never see it, and trust me, for that they should be eternally grateful. They get to see the intense bouts. They get to see the parade of champions. They get to see the backflips and the hugs and the unbridled joy of the 24 boys and girls who were crowned state champions.

Oh, sure, they'll see glimpses of the devastation that engulfs the defeated wrestlers. That's what separates wrestling from most other sports. The loser can't hide his emotion behind a face mask or a teammate. He or she is out there, all alone, when the tears start to fall.

That's when the wrestlers usually sprint off the mat and straight to the loading dock, which is out of sight from the thousands of fans.

And then? Their emotions take over.

They throw their headgear against a steel gate. They crumple into a corner against the cinderblock walls and scream loudly enough for everyone in the building to hear. They even storm out of the building entirely, sitting on a single folding chair in the Atlantic City cold to be alone with their pain.

Coaches try to console them. They fail. Friends try to remind them that they made it further in the tournament than all but one wrestler. They fail.

It is, to borrow the words of one coach, "(bleeping) awful."

I stood in that loading dock for about an hour on Saturday, and that hour was all I could take. I have written about sports for almost three decades, so I'm no stranger to the agony of defeat. I'm not sure I have ever seen a place with more misery than that loading dock from hell.

"When the whole team loses, it makes it a little easier because you have people to share your loss," said Dave Bell, the longtime coach at powerhouse Bergen Catholic. "When you get eliminated here -- especially seniors -- it's tough. It's tough. You carry that with you for a very long time."

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As he spoke, that "long time" was just beginning for a kid named Nick O'Connell. He was sobbing a few feet away from us, first in a doorway and then against the edge of the Boardwalk Hall stage. He lost his 152-pound championship bout to Robert Garcia of Pope John after amassing more than 100 wins in his brilliant career.

This is his senior year. This is as close as he'll come.

"He told me he was embarrassed," his coach John Stout said. "I said, 'Embarrassed? Of what? There are 318 kids who didn't get here.'"

Stout tried. He knelt quietly at his wrestler's side for more than 10 minutes as the other coaches paced nearby. He offered reminders of all his great accomplishments as a high school star. But Stout couldn't lie to O'Connell, either. The coach couldn't tell him that he'll forget all about one lousy wrestling match because, 29 years later, he knows he hasn't, either.

"It never goes away," Stout said. "I lost in the semifinals my senior year in 1990 and I still dream about it. It's a very absolute sport, man. You either feel great or you're feeling bad. That's what you love and you hate about it."

As Stout talks, the next second-place finisher sprints onto that loading dock with tears in his eyes, and a few minutes later, another does. They pull their singlets off their shoulders. They pace in circles as they replay the previous few minutes in their heads as the kids that just beat them soak up the glory.

Bryan Nunziato was one of them -- twice -- in his high school career. Bell calls him "one of the best wrestlers to ever wear a Bergen Catholic singlet," but he was a runner-up after his sophomore and senior seasons. The losses were so devastating that it took him years before he was willing to come back to Boardwalk Hall and watch the sport he loves again.

"It's so much different than any other sport," he said. "Put yourself in that situation: I'm 15 years old and there's 15,000 people watching me get my heart broken. It's hard."

He started his career and his family, and eventually, he came back as an assistant coach. He sat in the corner when several Bergen Catholic wrestlers won titles, and that helped him move on. The toddler he was holding in his arms, the one that kept taking off his hat and tossing it on the floor, helped too.

"That's the important thing to keep in perspective," Nunziato said. "It's not the most important thing in the world. If you lose a state final -- a wrestling match -- and that's the worst thing that happens to you? You're doing okay."

Someday, the second-place finishers likely will reach that conclusion, too. They'll grow up and grow old, buy houses and have families and chase new goals. They'll see that Nunziato is right. Bigger things, much bigger, are on the horizon for them.

But now?

They don't listen. It is only misery and tears in this corner of Boardwalk Hall, only the pain and disappointment of falling just short in the loading dock from hell.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.