Rodriguez Isn't Just Another Guy Named Joe

Community Sports

Rodriguez Isn’t Just Another Guy Named Joe

BY BILL ANDERSON

Assistant Sports Editor

A town is composed of concrete and steel — so many streets, so many civic buildings, so many churches and so many homes.

These are the bare bones of society. The life-blood of any community is its residents with their spirit, ideals and hopes that put the flesh on the skeleton and give it a soul.

A community doesn't run on power generated by the so-called "movers and shakers," the petition-signers and the demonstrators. The heart throb comes from the ordinary people going about their everyday tasks.

Such a person is Joe Rodriquez.

You could meet him almost any morning, though it would have to be early, driving a well-used pick-up truck with lunch bucket on the seat.

He looks like a foreman for a construction company — which is exactly what he is.

Yet. there are few persons outside of Don Canham, Bo Schembechler or Johnny Orr that are more widely known in athletic circles than Joe Rodriguez.

Ever since Rodriquez came home from serving with the Marine Corps in the Second World War, he has been active in some community athletic enterprise.

He’s coached everything from wrestling to kid baseball to junior football back to wrestling. He is knowledgeable in all and able to reach young people despite the gulf of years.

Right now, Rodriguez, at 50, is taking on another sports project.

He again will have the responsibility of starting up a wrestling program at St. Thomas High.

The program is going to get off the ground." he said after putting in a full day’s work with Walterhouse Construction. "The uniforms have been bought and I'm pretty certain we will have a mat by the time the season starts."

St. Thomas had a wrestling program for nearly 10 years before the sport was dropped in 1904. Rodriguez has a hunch things will be different this time around.

"We always had 28 boys out for wrestling," he said. "We never had enough lightweights or heavyweights. We were always forfeiting 10 points before the matches began."

A lot of people will tell you young people have gone soft. Better not say that to Rodriguez. He's liable to take strong issue with any such statement. He figures kids are ready for the challenge of wrestling.

"The kids can't believe the contact in wrestling," he says. "Even the kids that have played football. They won’t believe it until they get into a match. You don't wear much protective gear in wrestling.

“I’ll compare six minutes of wrestling with any other sport. In swimming, your muscles will get sore but you don’t take the punishment that you get in wrestling.”

Unlike the football and basketball teams, wrestling is a sport that doesn't attract crowds by the droves. There is plenty of hard work and very little glory. But it would be nice to have some big crowds.

He started an intramural program at St. Thomas and was its coach when wrestling became a varsity sport in 1954. When the sport was dropped 10 years later, he moved over to Whitmore Lake High.

The Trojans weren't exactly dual-meet terrors but they had three State Class D Champions in Don Lupi, Bob Wilson and Rick Millen. He also had state champs at . St. Thomas.

This also goes to prove one doesn't need a PhD in educational psychology to reach young people. Apparently he reached Millen because his former wrestler at Whitmore Lake will be his assistant at St. Thomas.

Although Rodriguez might look like any other tax-paying citizen of Ann Arbor, he is hardly just another guy named Joe. He came about as close to immortality as any rifle-carrying Marine.

Rodriguez and his rifle squad were working up the side of an extinct volcano on Iwo Jima in February, 1945. When they reached the top of Mt. Suribachi, a sergeant pulled out a small American Flag and it was hoisted up on a pole.

Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press was there. He began snapping pictures and had the Marines strike several different poses, like saluting the flags.

Then along came another squad of Marines from the same company. They had a much larger flag and Rosenthal asked for what would now be called “an instant replay.”

As Rodriquez stood aside, he witnessed . !he unfolding of a scene that will live as long as there is an American Flag. The poses of the Marines as they struggled to plant the flag are accurately captured now in a monument in Arlington, Va.

Only hours after that incident, a hand grenade exploded near Rodriguez, tearing up his side and hospitalizing him tor many weeks.

In the hospital with some of his buddies who had participated ip the flag raising, Rodriguez was asked if he wanted to join on a War Bond tour.

"Heck, no!" he replied. "I'm going home anyway."

Ann Arbor's image has taken its lumps lately but this doesn't bother Rodriguez. When he came home from the war, the town looked great then and still does now.

"Boy,” he said recalling those post-war days,” Ann Arbor looked so good. We have got our problems now but it's still a great place.”