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Tuesday Golf — Division I Championship at Tierra Oaks, 11 a.m. Golf — Division III Championship at Plumas Pines, Noon Softball — Corning at Anderson, 4 p.m. Softball — Red Bluff at Chico, 4 p.m. MLB — A’s at Rangers, 5 p.m., CSNCA MLB — Padres at Giants, 7 p.m., CSNBA Sports 1B Tuesday May 11, 2010 Behind the print Hall of Fame passion You know those VH-1 Behind the Music shows? They’re mini documentaries looking at how an album was created. In film and television there’s director cuts and commentary audio tracks. have much of that. In the print media, we don’t But today and Monday’s edi- tions I feel deserve a little bit of that treatment. As a journalist you’re privy to a bunch of stuff that doesn’t make it into the newspaper for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s not important, other times whoever told it to you would never share any other information if it went to print and occasionally it just didn’t fit into the story. With the Dave Rottenberg feature story — right over there to the right of this green box — there comes some of the latter. Rich Greene I heard some great stories about Rottenberg in the last couple of weeks. They shaped the feature piece I finally wrote and helped me pick out the right adjectives, but the stories themselves would have got lost. Red Bluff’s assistant wrestling coach and new foot- ball coach John Miller had a great Rottenberg story. Miller was talking about the incredible memory Rot- tenberg has and how he remembers even the most trivial stuff from his 30-plus years in wrestling. As Miller’s story went, one time he asked Rottenberg to name the 145-pound state champion in 1982. Rottenberg paused to think about it. The answer did- n’t come to him right away, but he told Miller he should know it. He thought some more and a couple of moments later he came up with the right answer to the shock of Miller. “He remembers matches from the 70s and guys that normal people would never know,” Miller told me. When I interviewed Corning’s Cort Mitchell, he was trying to express to me just how much wrestling is a part of Rottenberg’s life. Mitchell said he remembered one time he made a remark about how many consecutive weekends he’d been at a wrestling tournament, figuring his recent run of a couple of months sounded rather impressive. Rottenberg paused for a moment, with what I’m sure had to have been the same pose Miller saw and finally responded by one-upping Mitchell’s number with his own. 48. Forty-eight straight weekends at a wrestling tourna- ment. When I interviewed Rottenberg for the story, he gave me the average number of weekends he spends at a tour- nament without any prompting. I didn’t need Mitchell’s story anymore, but it was great to have in the back of my mind that it was some- thing that needed to be included in the piece. Something else I wish I could have included in the story, would have been a quote from a local sports jour- nalist who got to know Rottenberg in the past year. Fortunately, I have a column to get my words in. When I first met Rottenberg, I told him quite honest- ly, I didn’t know much about wrestling. I had covered it a little at my last job in Idaho and I enjoyed it, but I was kind of lost with major decisions and what not. Every tournament I attended from then on, Rotten- berg always found the time to not just give me some generic quote about how the Spartans were doing, but to make sure I understood how the Spartans were doing. My stories got better every week. At the Masters, Rottenberg was trying to explain to me how everyone involved in wrestling is like a big, extended family. He wondered aloud, how many phone numbers of the wrestlers in the room he had and opened up his cell phone to scroll through and count. He wasn’t bragging about what a big shot he was, but he was without knowing it, showing me what a father figure he is for Northern California wrestling. Dave knows everyone and everyone knows Dave. About a month ago, Iwas e-mailing with a friend, who’s also a sports writer. My friend made a remark about how hard it is for him to cover wrestling. After having the privilege of covering Rottenberg and the Spartans for a season, I’ll never share that problem with him again. ********** One thing I love about journalism, is you never know what the next day is going to bring. In sports, you generally have a better idea, because there are schedules after all, but Sunday showed why even then it doesn’t matter. Despite being Mother’s Day, I had no idea the holi- day would make sure it was well represented come Monday’s sports pages. Dallas Braden pitched a perfect game, pointed to his grandmother in the stands and gave her a great big hug in what was truly a fitting performance for everyone’s favorite kind of mom — the grandest kind. An e-mail Iwasn’t expecting arrived and announced Jaklyn Wheeler had won the Eastern Athletic League’s Scholar Athlete of the Year Award. Wheeler played for four years with her mom as her volleyball coach — again a nice Mother’s Day fit. Last, but not least was a submitted article about the Pearce family — mother, daughter and son champion archers. The last thing needed to bullseye Mother’s Day cov- erage. Daily News Sports Editor Rich Greene knows it’s a couple days later, but still wants to send a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there who raise such great student athletes to cover day-in and day-out.You can reach him at 527-2151, ext.109 or by e-mail at sports@redbluffdailynews.com. By RICHGREENE DN Sports Editor Dave Rottenberg’s a little bummed. The Red Bluff Union High School wrestling coach is going to miss one of his favorite tournaments this weekend. He has a prior engage- ment. On Saturday, Rotten- berg will be inducted into the California Wrestling Hall of Fame Those who know Rotten- berg would probably say that sounds about right for a man who on average spends 42 weekends a year at some type of wrestling tourna- ment. Even if he wasn’t coach- ing chances are he would be there anyway. “I’ve worked hard at this, but it’s defiantly a work of love. It’s not as straining as it might appear,” Rottenberg said. Since 1986, Rottenberg has been the Spartans head wrestling coach. During that time he has coached 122 individual section place- winners, including 21 sec- tion champions. Seven of them have went on to place at the state-level. He’s produced a 222-54- 2 record in dual meets, 10 league championships and four section titles — includ- ing a section record 231 points in 2007. That’s just with the Red Bluff Spartans. Rottenberg also chairs the Northern Section’s wrestling advisory commit- tee and has spent time with several state-wide wrestling boards as well. He coaches wrestlers at all levels and age groups and they respect him as much as he does them. “He’s the best coach you could have,” graduating senior Taylor Hickson said. Rottenberg’s career dates back to his own high school wrestling days at Crawford High School. He went on to San Diego Mesa Communi- ty College and then to Cali- fornia Sate University, Chico where he was an NCAAqualifier. He then became an assis- tant as Chico State before moving on to assistant posi- tions at Paradise and Chico High Schools. Along the way anyone who has been involved in Northern California wrestling for the past 30 years has gotten to know Rottenberg. John Miller has crossed paths with Rottenberg over and over again. Miller was coached by Rottenberg at Chico State, coached against him at the high school level, had his son coached by him and recently coached alongside him as a Spartans assistant. “He really connects with kids and morally he is a great person,” Miller said. He’s also a person with a job he’s passionate for. “More than any of the coaches I know he lives, eats, breathes, sleeps wrestling. Almost every- thing he does is focused on that,” Cort Mitchell a Corn- ing assistant who has known Rottenberg for 20 years said. Rottenberg said his love for wrestling goes beyond the sport itself. “I’ve always enjoyed the sport — the competition. I like what it does for kids. I like what it does for fami- lies. It defiantly kind of becomes a fraternity. We get together every weekend and I’m with a bunch of people who enjoy it. It’s not just the competition it’s the com- radery I enjoy,” he said. Daily News file photo Dave Rottenberg watches his wrestler during the 2010 Masters Tournament. As for Rottenberg’s coaching style, those who have been to a wrestling meet, might wonder – what style. Just like in his everyday life, in the corner Rottenberg remains calm, but focused. Hickson said Rottenberg never did much coaching during his matches, because he didn’t have to. Rotten- berg had already prepared his wrestlers with all the information they needed to win a match. Rottenberg said he’s not naive to the fact his own work has helped put him into a position where he would be honored, but he knows he couldn’t have done it without the work of others. “I may have been driving the bus, but there were a lot of other people pushing it,” he said. It still takes a great leader to tell everyone where they’re going and a special man to love every trip. Shoop, Spartans win in Grass Valley; while local athletes shine in Corning Devin Shoop cap- tured the 1600-meter title and then teamed with Jonah McInnis, Grant Blaser and Zach Iverson to give Red Bluff a victory in the 4x400 relay at Friday’s competitive Nevada Union Invitational in Grass Valley. Athletes from 33 schools took part in the event as Shoop took home first place in his event with a time 4:34.94. He was also eighth in the 800 meters. The Spartans won the 4x400 relay with a time of 3:29.68 and took fifth in the 4x100 relay behind Blaser, Taylor Hickson, Colin Dahlberg and Jeffrey Foster. Hickson placed third in the 300-meter hurdles and sixth in the 110- meter hurdles. McInnis gave Red Bluff another top finish in the high jump placing third. In the long jump, Hickson placed sixth and McInnis was sev- enth in the triple jump. In the 400 meters Blaser finished seventh with Iverson right behind him in eighth place. Foster was 10th in both the 100 meters and 200 meters. On the girls side, Riley Kittle had a great day. She was fourth in the high jump and 10th in the long jump. She also teamed with See TRACK, page 2B Daily News photo by Rich Greene Corning’s Blaine Glover takes off in Friday’s long jump competition.