Hersey senior Mike Levanti is a throwback.
Not the crew cut and horned-rimmed glasses kind of throwback. Rather, his style harks back to the days when high school athletics were for fun, not a race to the best available college scholarship.
And sure, if Levanti concentrated on just one sport, he might be the kind of specialized athlete who is inundated by Division I schools begging him to come play football, wrestle or throw the discus and shot put.
But as he sees it, why be great in just one sport when you can excel in three?
“Maybe I’d do better if I just concentrated on one sport,” he said, “but if I sacrificed one, it wouldn’t be fun. Besides, I like the different challenges.”
The immediate challenge awaiting him comes in wrestling in the next two weeks. Levanti, a 189-pounder, is perhaps the Mid-Suburban League’s best chance to bring home a championship at the state wrestling meet. According to Illinois Best Weekly, a wrestling newsletter, he ranks second in his weight class behind Woodstock’s Matt Huebner, last year’s runner-up at 171 pounds.
And, coaches say, the MSL couldn’t have picked a better representative.
“To excel in any one sport nowadays, you have to specialize,” said Hersey coach Rick Mann. “He excels in all three. His work ethic is unbelievable. Maybe he would be better if he concentrated on just one sport. But this hasn’t hurt him.”
In addition to posting a 25-1 record this season (68-9 the last two years), Levanti was an all-conference linebacker for Hersey’s football team. And in the spring, he aspires to make his third straight trip Downstate in the field events. Add to that a 4.47 grade-point average and a 27 on his ACT, and Levanti is a true student-athlete.
“He’s tough,” said Conant wrestling coach Jim Cartwright. “He’s just a good athlete who’s strong and quick. And he carries himself well and with a lot of confidence.”
Levanti hopes to improve on his early exit from the state meet last winter, when he battled tough against the state’s top two wrestlers in his weight class, only to lose by a combined seven points.
“I certainly didn’t go Downstate to get beat, but the experience was great,” he said. “My problem was I started to become cautious and was more interested in protecting my record and then lost some matches I shouldn’t have. This year I’m a little more relaxed and a lot more confident.”
It’s equally important to Levanti that he win at the conference, regional and sectional levels as it is to educate and enlighten the younger athletes just coming into the Hersey wrestling program.
“Much of the credit I have to give is to the older kids that were there when I first came in,” Levanti said. “They understood what the program and its history was all about..”
In a matter of days, he hopes to make some history of his own as the state series begins Feb. 7 at Rolling Meadows. Decision time will come later.
He would also like to add to his success at the state track meet and bring home a medal in the spring. But that’s still a few months away.
Until then, it’s wrestling.
“In the back of my mind, wrestling takes up everything I think about,” he said. “Come March, then I’ll start thinking about other stuff.”
