Prep Wrestler, 17, Excels On One Leg

STRATFORD, Wis. - Bill Flink stripped off his clothes, hopped over to a scale and jumped on.

The scale registered at 104 pounds, one over his wrestling weight. ``That's nothing,'' the teen-ager said, obviously pleased.

Flink had just shed 11 pounds in seconds, pulling off his artificial left leg and stuffing it into a locker. ``I hop from here on, until after practice,'' he said, leaping across the floor and out the locker room door to start practice.

When Flink was 12, his left leg got caught in a silo auger while he was feeding cows. The rotating steel ripped off his foot and shredded the leg. Doctors removed it at the knee.

Now 17 and a senior in high school, Flink has excelled as a wrestler this season. With a 28-0 record, he hopes to become Stratford High School's second state wrestling champion - the first since 1972.

``I want to win bad. I like the feeling,'' he said in a recent interview. ``I don't even like the word handicapped. It is labeling a person. Everyone is the same. A person is a person.''

A deaf heavyweight from the Wisconsin School for the Deaf won a state championship in 1981, but officials close to the sport could recall no others with serious handicaps who have won titles.

Flink's accomplishments this season have surprised his coach, the boy's mother and even Flink himself.

``Sometimes you catch yourself marveling at how good he is and how far he has come,'' said Cal Tackes, wrestling coach in this central Wisconsin town of 1,400 for 12 years. ``It is amazing the agility he has with only one leg. He is going through life accepting these challenges instead of running away from them. That says a lot about his personality.''

The boy's mother, Louanne, remembers the day of the accident - March 11, 1985 - when he climbed down a 50-foot silo with a leg chewed apart.

``He almost died on us,'' she said. ``He was so glad to be alive. I think that is why he has overcome so much. He has gone through a lot of pain, but he has worked hard.''

Flink's blue eyes, sandy-blond hair and spiked haircut make him look younger than a high-school senior. He wears his artificial leg most of the time in public and walks with a slight limp.

After wrestling practice, Flink comes back to the farm owned by his parents, Jerome and Louanne Flink, to help with the chores, including feeding and milking the family's 40 cows.

When he wrestles, the artificial limb comes off right before the match and Flink keeps on his knees, never standing up to give opponents a chance to take advantage of his instability. He said he's quicker and stronger than many 103-pounders who generally are younger and less physically mature.

He forces opponents to adjust to a different style of wrestling because they reach around to grab his leg and it ``just isn't there,'' Tackes said.

Mrs. Flink said it was difficult for her son the first time he competed before a crowd because he hopped on one leg and was noticeably different than his peers. ``He said he just pretended no one was really there.''

Flink said he probably wouldn't have wrestled had he not lost part of his leg. About a year after the accident, his parents and twin brother, Scott, encouraged him to try the sport.

Any doubts he may have had about being a one-legged wrestler have long since disappeared, he said. It now motivates him and he hopes to continue competing in college.

``I kind of want to show I can do it. It impresses people,'' Flink said. ``They turn their heads.''

Asked if considers himself an inspiration to others, the teen-ager shyly nodded his head. ``I think so. Maybe. I want to win the state championship for my mom and dad. I love my mom and dad. They have been real supportive.''