Marshall shows mettle in winning wrestling title
Burgettstown graduate Mark Marshall recently won the Veteran’s Freestyle Division at this year’s World Wrestling Championship in Serbia. Marshall is shown beating Iran’s Bannosorat Davoudi in the finals of the 213-pound weight class.
Mark Marshall
While many people spent the summer setting up tee times at the golf course or reserving that special place along the beach for a vacation, Mark Marshall was working out every day, tossing oversized tires, lifting weights and working out with some of the more talented wrestlers in the area.
That was his preparation routine for the year’s World Wrestling Championships in Serbia.
Marshall won the Veteran’s Freestyle Division (30-over) with a 2-0 decision over Bannosorat Davoudi of Iran in the finals of the 97 kg (213 pounds) weight class.
“I had no idea I would win,” said Marshall, 51, a Burgettstown High School graduate who lives in Latrobe. “I’ve been back from the tournament for a while, and it still hasn’t sunk in. I had no summer at all. I had a 5 a.m. workout every day, then went to work and then did live drilling.”
His accomplishment is all the more remarkable considering that Marshall underwent a procedure last year for an irregular heartbeat, atrial fibrillation, or A-Fib.
It was during a run that Marshall began to feel as though something wasn’t right.
“I was on a half-mile run and I felt this ball come up through my stomach,” he said. “I thought I was having a heart attack. But the odd thing was that I recovered quickly and finished the 3-mile loop.”
Marshall went to his doctor and they found the problem to be left atrial fibrillation, a condition that causes irregular or rapid heart beats. It causes the chambers in the heart to beat out of coordination.
Marshall had three options: an administration of tiny shocks that would put the heart back in rhythm; an extensive drug treatment; or an ablation, which is a procedure where the tissue of the heart is treated with a catheter process. The latter option is what Marshall chose.
“I felt like a new man,” he said. “Everything was back in rhythm. I had so much more energy.”
While being diagnosed, doctors found that he had an artery 90 percent blocked and had a stent implanted.
“I was ready to go back to training right away,” he said. “My doctors told me I could eventually go back to full-time training, that if if something pops up, then come back quickly. The big thing is that there was no damage to the heart.”
To get to Serbia, Marshall had to win the national tournament in Las Vegas in April. He opened with a forfeit win over Michael Gordon of California, and won by injury default over Larry Robertson of Arizona. In the finals, he stopped Robertson again with a 10-0 technical fall.
In Serbia, Marshall pinned Dimitar Drangov of Serbia and Siamak Ezati of Iran. The two points Marshall scored against Davoudi were for passivity, or the internationl word for stalling.
“Mark was the big story for us,” USA Team leader Mark Goldman told USA Wrestling writer Gary Abbott. “His victory was sweetened by the fact that he didn’t allow a single point to be scored against him.”
Marshall’s win was the only gold medal for the United States in the two division for his wrestling.
“I know the effort and sacrifices (Mark) has made and to have it pay off for him with a World Championship is just great,” said Seton Hill coach Brian Tucker, who helped Marshall train and prepared a diet regimine for him over the summer that helped him lose 33 pounds.
Marshall had been out of wrestling for “about 10 years” before deciding to return. Injury problems derailed his college career at Indiana State at Terra Haute. He graduated from Burgettstown High School in 1981, where he won a section and WPIAL title and qualified for the state tournament in his senior season.
Now, he is thinking about retirement. Well, sort of.
“I know I said that before,” he said. “That’s what I told my wife Cindy, but tomorrow is a new day. We’ll see.”