By  RACHEL LENZI
Fort Collins Coloradoan

Poudre High School wrestler Cole Gorton won the 189-pound championship at a recent wrestling tournament, but what he got that weekend was more than a trophy; the Poudre senior picked up a staphylococcal infection.

The source of the infection, which most likely entered his blood stream through an open wound, may have been from wrestling on mats that were not properly cleaned and sanitized or from competing against wrestlers who may have been carrying infections.

In late January, Gorton came down with symptoms he initially dismissed as the flu. But after more than a week, when he realized that the symptoms weren’t subsiding, he took another measure. He checked into Poudre Valley Hospital, where doctors diagnosed the staph infection.

Gorton spent three days at PVH taking antibiotics and anti-viral medications intravenously and orally. Gorton’s hospital stay was preventative as much as it was necessary – the purpose of his stay, as he put it, was to kill the staph infection so it would not reach his heart.

“The mats,” Gorton said, when asked what was the possible source of his illness. “That’s where I guess I picked it up.”

In the past month, several city high school wrestlers have contracted diseases ranging from staph infections to ringworm and dermatological afflictions such as impetigo.

According to the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, wrestlers are particularly vulnerable to herpes simplex type 1 (which includes shingles, chicken pox, cold sores, conjunctivitis and skin lesions clinically known as herpes gladiatorum) because of direct contact with skin and active lesions on other wrestlers, as well as contact with unsanitized wrestling mats.

“It’s possible, but there are a lot of other places you can get it,” said Dr. Jack Harvey of Orthopedic Center of the Rockies in Loveland. Harvey has worked with USA Wrestling for 22 years.

“Other sources are if you’re wrestling someone with herpes gladiatorum, because it’s skin-to-skin contact,” Harvey added.

Likewise, that problem is compounded when wrestlers shrug off a trip to the shower after a match. After wrestling five matches in a day, Gorton waited until the day was over to take a shower.

“At tournaments, you wrestle four or five matches a day, and you don’t think about showering between them,” said Gorton, the top-ranked wrestler
in Class 5A at 189. “I’d shower once a day.”

Wrestlers will come in contact with each other every day during practice, once with another wrestler during a dual meet and up to five times with other wrestlers at a tournament.

Despite the continuous contact, some wrestlers forgo a trip to the shower, however.

“When you’re exposed to other wrestlers, you’re exposed to more diseases,” Poudre coach Barrett Golyer said.

Combined with high-stress times of the year, like final exams, college entrance deadlines and standardized testing, susceptibility to illness increases. And being thrown on an unclean mat with another wrestler only compounds the chances of contracting a disease.

Fort Collins wrestler Nate Bernatow hasn’t fallen prey to any significant illnesses during the season, but he’s seen it happen to other wrestlers and figures it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“I see it all the time,” Bernatow said. “We take showers right after our matches, because there are so many diseases that you could get. You wash it all off after the match – viruses, contamination. Eight minutes after your cool down, it takes that quickly for everything to set in. You have to get it off you.”

Harvey didn’t know of a clinical parallel to Bernatow’s claim, but said,
“It won’t do you any harm to shower that quickly.”

Coaches and athletes, however, look down upon what they believe is the root of the problem – messy mats. Beyond personal hygiene, mats must be maintained, which means thorough cleaning and disinfecting.

“Clean mats are essential,” said Don Mundell, head athletic trainer at Western State College in Gunnison. “Once it gets into a particular wrestling room, with the older mats, stuff clings to it. It’s difficult to rid a room totally because there’s a fluctuation of temperatures, different levels of humidity and many wrestling rooms are poorly aerated.”

At Poudre, Golyer takes proper measures to make sure his team’s mats are clean. They are bleached, sanitized and wiped down before practice with laundered towels.

In addition, the padded walls in the wrestling room also are cleaned. According to Mundell, Western State’s wrestling room is mopped twice a day with a bleach solution and the room is aired out.

But even with clean mats, the best way to avoid an unwanted disease such as a staph infection, ringworm or a form of herpes simplex type 1 comes down to personal hygiene.

“Wrestlers are more particular about personal hygiene more than any other group of athletes I work with,” Mundell said. “They’re more educated, more aware and more knowledgeable about it, because they’ve seen and dealt with more of it.”

Said Harvey: “Basically it’s good hygiene and mat care. That’s what we do to keep the spread of diseases down.”<

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