Tom Sileo Read Free Page A

jocks would have started a fight over the incident, Mathews later thanked his teammate for the wake-up call.
    Like Brendan, Travis believed being the hardest worker was the key to success. On the wrestling mat, Travis was always the guy with the black-and-blue face. His ears usually looked like they’d been crumpled inside somebody’s fist. But the La Salle College High School standout was strong, determined, and always one of Navy’s toughest outs.
    â€œYou may never be big enough to play football or fast enough to run track,” Travis once told kids at a local wrestling clinic in Doylestown, at an eventcovered by a local newspaper. “You work through the hardships and (you can) be successful, whether it’s on the wrestling mat or in battle. (Wrestling) lays the foundation for what it takes to be a good officer.”
    Although some on the Navy wrestling team struggled to balance long practices and trips to away meets with academics, passingexams was never an issue for Travis, who absorbed lectures like a sponge. He attended classes, studied, and wrote his papers, but always thought wrestling would best prepare him for being a warrior and leader on the battlefield. This belief was reinforced by the qualities he saw in Captain Doug Zembiec, a two-time All-American wrestler at Navy who attended as many practices and meets as he could and frequently sparred with Travis.
    â€œBe a battle-ax,” Zembiec told him. “Hurl yourself into your opponent.”
    Zembiec, a 1995 Naval Academy graduate, had a big impact on Travis. In the young wrestler’s eyes, the gritty, tough, seemingly invincible warrior embodied everything he wanted to become: a skilled Marine officer who used the wrestling mat to develop himself into a leader who commanded respect.
    Travis was a high school and college wrestling star. After a strong junior year at Navy, which featured several epic matches against nationally ranked opponents, he was presented the Naval Academy’s Weems Award for dedication and leadership.
    As a preseason Top 20 wrestler going into his senior season, Travis didn’t want to simply win matches and meets. He wanted to dominate and help lead the Midshipmen to a championship.
    In December 2003, Travis won the Penn State Open in his 184-pound weight class. He won four straight matches that day, including a 6–4 victory in the title contest against a formidable Rider University opponent. Travis’s parents, Tom and Janet Manion, never missed one of his matches and drove up to State College, Pennsylvania, for the meet. Nothing gave Travis more satisfaction than making his parents proud.
    The Penn State Open was hard for Travis’s mom and dad to watch. During the day’s first match, Travis let out a terrible scream while grappling with his opponent. Their son’s right shoulder, which he had injured during his junior year, was now a greater source of pain, especially after an unsuccessful operation left his arm practically unusable.
    After he cried out in agony, Travis’s right arm felt like Jell-O for the rest of the tournament. He won it anyway.
    Travis knew that if he was also going to prevail in an upcoming wrestling tournament in Arlington, Texas, it would have to be with one arm, just like at Penn State.
    At the January 2004 tournament, when Travis knelt on the mat before squaring off against a tough adversary from Purdue, he channeled Captain Zembiec’s words and hurled himself into his opponent. On this day in Texas, however, the battle-ax had no blade.
    â€œCome on, Trav,” Tom yelled from the stands.
    â€œBear down!” shouted Tom’s brother, Chris Manion, a former wrestling star who was almost always in Travis’s corner.
    The Purdue wrestler slammed his struggling opponent to the ground for a takedown, with Travis’s injured shoulder thumping squarely onto the red-and-yellow mat. His right arm was already numb, and this first blow left