Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

IHSAA wrestling state finals, 6 p.m., Friday – first round; 9:30 a.m., Saturday – quarterfinals

Decade-old doubt is his fuel. It drives him outside, into the cold, to run sprints after practice. It drives him inside, to the doorway in his bedroom, where he attacks the pull-up bar held together by duct tape. And it drives him onto the wrestling mat, where he is three days away from finishing off one of the greatest careers in state history.

But before that happens, doubt will drive New Pal senior Chad Red Jr. into the privacy of a bathroom at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, site of this weekend’s state wrestling tournament. He will find a spot away from his father, away from his coach, away from everybody and everything but the doubt that fuels his fury.

Minutes before his first match at the state tournament on Friday, Red will find an empty bathroom, find a sink, turn the faucet on cold and fill his hands with water. He will lean over and splash his face, and then he will look into the mirror and he will find his eyes. He will stare angrily at them, at the doubt behind those eyes, and he will remember what his grandma told him all those years ago.

And then Chad Red will scream four words.

You can do this!

And he will believe.

* * *

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The kid who cried grew to be a monster.

Chad Red has never lost. Not for the New Palestine High wresting team. He enters the final weekend of his high school career with a 179-0 record (132 pins) and three state titles, bearing down on the only two wrestlers in state history with four state titles and no losses. Perfection. Lance Ellis did it at Cathedral from 1986-89. Alex Tsirtsis of Griffith matched Ellis from 2001-04.

Lance Ellis expects Red to join him and Tsirtsis this weekend, and then he expects more.

“(Red) could get to the Olympics,” says Ellis, now the coach at Roncalli. “He travels the country, seeks out the best competition, goes to camps and clinics, has a good coach. He’s a great athlete, and he’s been on that stage before. So a tournament like state? It almost doesn’t matter to him.”

Chad Red Jr. has won three national titles, he is the No. 1-ranked wrestler in the country at 132 pounds, and he doesn’t just beat people. He destroys them. After recording 97 pins during his 139-0 rampage as a freshman, sophomore and junior – pinning 69.8 percent of his foes – Red has hit another level this season. Forget losing. He almost hasn’t been scored on. No takedowns allowed all season. He is 40-0 with 35 pins, (87.5 percent).

Average time on his 35 pins: 35 seconds.

“I don’t want to say it’s done, but we’ve put in the work to prepare for this,” says Red’s father, Chad Red Sr., the coach at New Pal. “Obviously on any given day any kid can be beat. Chad has to keep a level head and stay consistent – and things should take care of itself.”

This kid wasn’t a destroyer when he was younger. He was, hmmm. How to put this? He was a baby. His words, him and his father's. They describe a kid who started wrestling at 4, spent a few years losing more than he won, and cried on the mat. During the action, sometimes.

“He’d be winning and cry in the middle of the match and roll over and be pinned,” says Chad Sr.

Adds Chad Jr.: “If I got a point scored on me, I started crying right there. My mom pulled Dad to the side one day and said, ‘He needs to get better or I’m pulling him out. He can try a different sport.’”

Chad Sr. took his son all over the state, attacking Chad Jr.’s struggles by exposing him to as much competition and knowledge as possible, and by age 8 he was winning more than he was losing. But there was this one kid in the southern part of the state – Chad doesn’t remember his name; it’s been 10 years – who kept beating him. Four times in a row. And when they were 8, that kid was waiting at a junior state tournament.

Chad went to his grandmother in tears.

“Grandma,” he said, “what if I don’t win? What’s going to happen?”

“Go throw some water on your face,” she said. “You’re doubting yourself. Go throw water on your face. Wake up – you can do this.”

Chad Red pinned the kid.

That was the year he stopped crying. Stopped losing, too. The doubt remains, but now it does his bidding.

Maybe it was going to happen anyway. This kid was born to do this, destined to become the crown prince of a wrestling family, driven on match day by doubt – and on all other days by a desire to be great.

Just like his dad.

* * *

The pull-up bar was his dad’s idea. Chad Jr. was 9, a water-splashing state champion, and now it was time to get stronger. Chad Sr. went to Walmart, spent about $15 on a pull-up bar – the kind you wedge above a doorway – and showed it to his son.

Chad Jr. hasn’t missed a day in almost 10 years.

“Best investment I ever made,” says Chad Sr.

Chad Jr. does 60 pull-ups a day now, ripping through four sets of 15, maintaining his strength but careful not to build too much muscle. No sense making that weight cut – he walks around at about 143 pounds, 11 above his weight class – more difficult than it is. Red figures he’ll wrestle at 141 or even 149 at Nebraska, the No. 11-ranked powerhouse that signed him to a scholarship. His goal is to win an NCAA title, then win Olympic gold. The plan is for Red to redshirt his first year of college, but after that? Ellis says he expects Red “to make a run at an NCAA title as a freshman at Nebraska.”

The pull-up bar will go with him. Well, maybe one just like it. Red has worn out four of them over the years, wrapping them in duct tape at the first sign of trouble, replacing them when they snap. He and his dad go to Walmart together now, sometimes in Chad Jr.’s white 1997 Mustang with the brand new paint job, a car his grandmother – Chad Sr.’s mom – bought him two years ago. Chad Jr. had spotted it for sale, two doors down from her house in Danville, Ill.

Chad Sr. used to have a Mustang, see. A red 1999 Mustang, then a brand new black one in 2001. You should have seen the 22-inch wheels on that ‘01 Mustang. Chad Jr. fell in love with those wheels, that car. Plus, it was his dad’s.

“I’ve always wanted to be like my dad,” Chad Jr. says.

Well, his father wrestled. Dominated. Was a junior college All-American in Illinois, then a two-time national qualifier at UIndy. Chad Sr.’s dad – the New Pal wrestler’s grandfather – was one of 14 kids in Danville. Seven girls, seven boys. Chad Jr.’s granddad and all six of his great-uncles wrestled.

So when Chad Jr. was four and his dad was the wrestling coach at Lawrence Central, the kid tagged along. Next door to the wrestling area was the school’s gymnastics room, and when the wrestlers were doing something boring like running, Chad Jr. went next door and watched the girls compete. Off to the side, Chad Jr. started trying handsprings.

“Every once and a while I landed it,” he says.

He landed his first flip in sixth grade. As a freshman he celebrated his 2013 state title with a backflip, and today practice at New Pal doesn’t start until everyone on roster has tried to complete at least two flips. Chad can go forward and backward, or backward and forward. Or two in row. More than two, really.

He’s explosive, Chad Red Jr. Explosive and exceptionally strong for 132 pounds and more experienced than anyone in the state. When Chad Red Sr. talks about his son’s dominance, when he makes a fourth straight state title sound almost like a foregone conclusion – I don’t want to say it’s done, but we’ve put in the work to prepare for this – he says it almost sympathetically.

“He’s had opportunities other kids didn’t have,” Chad Sr. says. “We’ve gone all over the country every summer. Tournaments in Reno, Tulsa, Pittsburgh. We’ve been to Cael Sanderson’s (Penn State) camp four or five times, and (former Purdue assistant) Jeff Jordan’s camp in Ohio six or seven times. Most kids don’t do that, and Chad’s a sponge. He took to this like no kid I’ve ever seen.”

When Chad Jr. won his final match at home on senior day at New Pal, pinning Zionsville sophomore Kody Wagner in 54 seconds on Jan. 20, his dad barely smiled and his mom didn’t clap. I ask Chad Sr. about that.

“It’s just because he’s been working at this for so long,” Chad Sr. says. “I’m not going to say we expect him to do this, but that’s the plan. It’s been the plan for a long time.”

After that victory on senior day last month, Chad Red Jr. congratulated the Zionsville coach before disappearing out a side door of the gym. He walked down the hall at New Pal, to the same bathroom where he had splashed water on his face before the match. He did what he has done after all 179 matches of his perfect high school career, and what he hopes to do again Saturday after the 132-pound state final. He splashed water on his face one more time, looked into the mirror and softly said four words:

You got it done.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.

HS wrestling state finals preview: 5 things to watch

IF YOU GO:

What: IHSAA wrestling state finals

Where: Bankers Life Fieldhouse

When: 6 p.m., Friday – first round; 9:30 a.m., Saturday – quarterfinals, semifinals to follow; 5 p.m., Saturday, consolations; 7:30 p.m., Saturday – finals.