UCLA’s Redmond uses wrestling talent in true love, football

Alex Redmond enjoys inflicting pain on the football field.

Coach Jim Mora said the right guard has a “mean streak” in him, a perfect trait for a guard. Offensive line coach Adrian Klemm added he has a toughness that “can’t be taught.”

Just days after returning from a concussion sustained on a kickoff drill in San Bernardino in August, the freshman took over UCLA’s starting right guard job. He hasn’t stepped off the field since.

On an offensive line that started three true freshmen against Oregon, he is looked upon as a pillar of toughness to brawl with some of the Pac-12’s meanest defensive linemen.

There have been occasional missed blocking assignments and a couple false starts, but those errors have been overshadowed by a physicality Klemm called “contagious.”

For every pillar, though, first there is the unstable design that deems it necessary.

As a freshman at Los Alamitos High School, Redmond was hardly that same enforcer, neither on the football field nor in the wrestling room. His wrestling coach, Ken Torres, said that one of his initial goals was to toughen the young Redmond up, per the requests of his football coaches.

“Alex came in as a pudgy, roly-poly freshman,” Torres said. “He was a big kid. I think he was about six feet as a freshman but he was probably about 240 pounds, so he wasn’t muscular by any means. And I would not describe him as tough as a freshman at all.”

Having wrestled against older, bigger kids for much of his childhood, Redmond was great on his feet, though he frequently got pushed around. In high school, he finally got the chance to face wrestlers his own age, but his biggest weakness early on was in scrapping, clawing and fighting like crazy once he hit the mat and things started to go south.

“It wouldn’t take much,” Torres said. “That was kind of the joke with Alex – ‘Don’t get him down on his back. He’s a turtle. He won’t get up.’”

Against Los Alamitos’ starter in the heavyweight division, Redmond was cast aside in more ways than one. He took a physical beating every day in practice, but showed that, with both feet underneath him, he had good leverage against his opponents.

In his second year, it was the same matchup and the same bruises, but a different mentality. The “turtle” was peeking his head out and rolling over, wanting more action.

“The heavyweight would take him down and work him around a little bit, but Alex would just get up and go back in,” Torres said. “We could see him starting to get it.”

Soon, Redmond was “the guy,” Los Alamitos’ starting heavyweight, showing major signs of improvement and finishing seventh in the California Interscholastic Federation tournament in his junior season. On the football field, his combination of light feet and heavy blocks at just under 300 pounds earned him offers from all over the Pac-12. Over the summer, he dominated the camp scene and “turned a corner” in the eyes of Torres.

Five games into what had the makings of a phenomenal senior football season, however, that corner led to a major roadblock. Lined up along the defensive line during a fall practice, Redmond reached in for a tackle when his fully-flexed arm made direct contact with a linebacker’s helmet. The damage: A dislocated right elbow, a football season cut short and what, looking back, proved to be a very tough emotional stretch for Redmond.

“I shouldn’t have let it get to me like I did, but I just got really depressed because I couldn’t play football and I couldn’t run because it would move too much,” Redmond said. “I pretty much couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d stay in the backyard and just punch the bag as hard as I could with my left hand. It got me real down, but that’s why I wanted to do wrestling.”

Even while sporting a brace, the Oregon-turned-UCLA commit worked his way back to full strength. The winner of Los Alamitos Football’s 2012 Meat Grinder of the Year Award – the team’s annual toughness distinction –was soon ready to brawl on the mat. The rest of Orange County was in trouble.

“He was amazing,” Torres said. “He tortured people.”

Redmond wrapped up his regular season schedule with an eye-popping 41-2 record, but it was the businesslike approach he took to his beat-downs – and the attitude with which he reached the state finals – that most impressed his coach.

In a mid-season tournament, a big, strapping football player-wrestler from Mission Viejo High School head-butted Redmond within the first 30 seconds of a match. Redmond, without retaliation, calmly walked over to Torres during a break.

“They stopped the match because it was a penalty and so I say, ‘You alright?’ and he goes ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m going to go kick this guy’s ass.’ And he did.”

Dozens more violently fell to the mat at the hands of Redmond, but his most worthy adversary turned out to be a future UCLA teammate and friend, Kenny Clark of Carter High School in Rialto. Clark, now a freshman defensive tackle for the Bruins, got the best of Redmond in the CIF-Southern Section finals. Redmond returned the favor with a victory at the masters just a week later, with Torres describing both matches as “amazing.”

Less than a year later, the two both see regular playing time for the Bruins. Saturday’s Oregon game was Clark’s first start at defensive tackle and Redmond’s seventh at right guard. But even with the mutual success, a little back-and-forth smack talk still leaks through from time to time.

“I still lost to him (in the CIF-SS finals) but, yeah, it was nice beating him (at Master’s), and then I got to hug his mom after, so that was kind of cool,” said Redmond with a laugh. “We talk about it all the time, like he posted a picture of his (CIF) ring on Instagram.”

The count between the two is still tied, and the O-line versus D-line battle still wages on in practice, but any lingering talks of a rematch, Clark said, are finished.

“We walk past each other and do a little wrestling move on each other now and then, but we’ve forgotten about it,” he said. “We’re always going to know who won and who lost. We’re 1-1 and there was never a tiebreaker.”

With the two friendly opponents now praising each other’s abilities on the football field, it appears all real wrestling rivalries, beyond words, have passed. And that’s the way Redmond prefers it. After all, football is a lot more fun to dominate.

“You can’t smush people in wrestling like you can in football,” Redmond said. “It’s more controlled and you can’t smush those guys to the ground like you can D-linemen. It’s just the way wrestling is. Football is my true love.”

Redmond admits there are still plenty of improvements to be made in his hand placement and footwork, though it’s clear his history on the mat will continue to drive his success on the turf.

As for his “true love,” his coaches think that it’s already starting to return the favor.

“He doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed at all,” Mora said. “I don’t want to put a limit on the kid. I think he can become a great player.”