Published: April 16, 2008 11:59 pm      

Haselrig tackling new challenge

Carlton Haselrig has always been the athlete Western Pennsylvania wants to root for.

The Greater Johnstown High School graduate is the ultimate “Local boy does good” story, winning six NCAA wrestling titles at Pitt-Johnstown in the late 1980s, then improbably becoming an All-Pro football right guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers despite not playing the sport in college.

Unfortunately, since then Haselrig has become the athlete that it is hard to root for.

Following his Pro Bowl selection in 1992, there have been drug suspensions, numerous arrests, convictions, and prison sentences.

The latest occurred in 2005, when he spent roughly a year at SCI Laurel Highlands following a domestic dispute with his then-estranged wife.

Now, six months since his release, Haselrig is back together with his wife, Michelle, and is attempting to once again be the athlete the area wants to root for.

As a mixed martial arts fighter.

Haselrig, 42, will make his professional debut Saturday in the main event of Battle Cage Xtreme IV in Atlantic City against Shane Ott, a Reading-area native who will be 36 when the bout takes place.

“MMA is something I desire to do,” said Haselrig. “I don’t have to do this. I want to.

“I can get up and dust myself off and do it the right way and show my children as well,” he continued. “I’m putting a plan together and it’s coming through.”

That plan includes not just learning a new sport once again for a purse believed to be worth several thousands of dollars, but trying to make the right choices in life as a father.

“Being in prison was a life-changing experience,” Haselrig said. “I started to really recognize the problems I had day-to-day.”

Rob Farmer, a high school football teammate and college roommate of Haselrig, says he sees his close friend as more mature.

“What Carlton always possessed was that intense fire in the gut,” Farmer said. “The issue I’ve seen a change in is being able to turn it off. That’s one of the main differences I see. He’s more subtle in his day-to-day activity.”

To fully understand Haselrig’s story one must try to comprehend his entire life.

As a 5-year-old boy he was left alone with an older brother for a week without parental supervision.

Seven years later, his youth football coaches were horrified to see he had shown up for football practice after being nicked in his leg by a stray bullet.

“Coming up, I never knew what support meant. I’m using my support now,” said Haselrig.

That means talking to Farmer, his cousin Sean Andrews and former Johnstown high school and Riverhawks lineman Sammy Barber on a daily basis.

“They’ve always been there for me through thick and thin, even when I was wild in the street,” Haselrig said. “I’m really learning and opening up more.”

That includes embracing his positive legacy with the Steelers.

Eleven days after his release from Laurel Highlands, Haselrig went to Heinz Field and, as a fan, attended his first Steelers game since playing for the team and received positive feedback from fans while watching Pittsburgh defeat Miami.

He still receives football cards in the mail requesting his autograph.

After all, Haselrig is the player Myron Cope drafted.

In 1989, covering the NFL draft on radio from Three Rivers Stadium, Cope pleaded on the air and in team offices for the Steelers to gamble and draft Haselrig.

The team complied in the 12th round and the two were forever linked.

“When I heard (Cope had died) I was disheartened,” Haselrig said. “He treated me very well all the time. I am certainly sorry to see him go.”

Cope kept an autographed photo of Haselrig in his wrestling uniform in his home and included it in his book, “Double Yoi.”

“We’d sit and talk. His voice – it was so funny! His accent was pure Pittsburgh and he never tried to put on airs,” Haselrig said.

Haselrig wanted to attend the public “Terrible Towel” waving ceremony in downtown Pittsburgh on Feb. 29, but it conflicted with his workout schedule and duties as a volunteer wrestling coach at UPJ and in the Greater Johnstown school system, where among his pupils are sons William Lee, 14, and Carlton Jr., 7.

Haselrig’s current time demands are extraordinary.

After a 4 a.m. shift taking inventory for local merchants, he will run at 6 a.m., take his children to school at 9, then work out or spar for the rest of the morning at one of three area gyms.

After lunch he coaches, then lifts weights until the early evenings.

But longtime UPJ wrestling coach Pat Pecora likes having his former championship grappler around the Richland Township campus.

“It’s been great,” Pecora said. “He told me he wanted to come to practice during the season and I said ‘Sure!’

“You just forget what a stud he is,” Pecora continued. “He’s been working with our heavyweight, Chris Dempsey, for a free-style competition. Dempsey told me Haselrig’s the strongest man he’s ever faced and he’s 42!”

“I’m always in good condition,” Haselrig boasts. “My conditioning and mental toughness, if nothing else, I have that.”

Haselrig says he’s had offers to coach football and wrestling in the south, but he looks at MMA as the fulfillment of a dream.

“The attraction has always been there,” he said. “This is America’s fastest growing sport. I want to eventually give back and show wrestlers they can go down another avenue.”

He points to Mark Coleman, a former national champion wrestler at Ohio State turned UFC heavyweight champion, as an inspiration.

Haselrig has had two club fights to prepare him for his bout against Ott, whose record is 4-2 according to Team Sports and Entertainment.

The New Jersey State Athletic Control Board will administer a test for illegal substances to both participants the day of the fight.

“I guess I still have something in the basement and want to express myself,” Haselrig said. “It’s going to be a victory for me one way or the other.”