Harrison Talman with Fair Lawn head coach Vin Di Mitri. Talman beat cancer and his opponent when he made it back to the mat on Valentine's Day.

FAIR LAWN – It was late in the second period, late in the dual match season and Fair Lawn’s Harrison Talman was just holding on. He was one point from losing by technical fall against his opponent from Teaneck, but there was no where he would rather have been.

It was just one more obstacle to overcome since Talman’s world was flipped on its head back in September.

“I couldn’t breathe at all out of one my nostrils. We thought it was just a sinus infection. We went to the doctor and they said ‘try this.’ We went on vacation and I just wasn’t feeling great and we went to an [Ear, Nose & Throat doctor] when we got home,” said Talman, a 17-year-old junior who also plays on the Fair Lawn lacrosse team. “They told us to just be safe, go get a CAT scan and see what is happening.”

Well, we all know what comes next…esthesioneuroblastoma.

“It is a pretty rare tumor to begin with and then it was even more rare for it to be in someone my age,” said Talman. “It cutoff any air going into my right nostril. After the CAT scan they said that there is a mass in his nose and we want you to go check it out. We went to a doctor in Livingston, they did a biopsy and two days later we found out that it was cancerous.”

And then, the community sprang into action.

“We started right away. Once his mother [Diane] called me we immediately started supporting and building around him. We had to be the rock for him. We would do that for any of our wrestlers. We are a family,” said Fair Lawn wrestling coach Vin Di Mitri. “We had to stay strong for him and build him up and we dedicated the season to him.”

Talman set his goal to get back at some point. It was guiding light to walk towards everyday through the hell that is cancer treatment and the dreaded disease spared him little.

“At first we didn’t think I would need chemo. At first we thought it was going to be radiation and that was it,” said Talman, who did not turn out to be so lucky and has the hair style to prove it. “The next thing I know I am going through chemo, I am going through radiation. I had surgery 10 days after the diagnosis to get it fully removed and 33 rounds of radiation, four rounds of chemo.”

All the while, his thoughts were on the mat. There were appointments to reschedule, alarm clocks to be set so that Talman could be where he wanted to be instead letting cancer dictate all of the terms.

“I moved around days of radiation just so I could be at practice. The first day of practice I wanted to be there so bad so I woke up at 5:45 in the morning because I had to drive to Somerset every weekday,” said Talman. “I had a 7 o’clock appointment so I could be there for the first day of practice.”

The others in the wrestling room in the bowels of Fair Lawn High School stepped up, too.

“We’ve had other student athletes that we’ve had to support through things, injuries and stuff, but not to this extent. This scared the [heck] out of all of us,” said Di Mitri, who is in his fourth year as the Cutters’ head wrestling coach. “To get that phone call, to hear about what was going on for the first time, we were all taken aback. You don’t know how to handle it, but you just do everything you can to support Harrison and support his family.”

Through the miracle of modern medical science, through a kid with a one-track mind to get back in the head gear and through the love and support of a close-knit wrestling community and home town, Talman was cleared for full contact on Monday, February 10 and he was one the mat on Valentine’s Day against Teaneck.

He was on his back a few times, too, as he was pushed to the brink in his triumphant return to the mat for a match whose outcome was so far besides the point. Had he tripped on his way out and fell into a cradle, it still would not have put a damper on the festivities.

Instead, Talman’s return took on the absurdity of a kids movie. Yeah, right…a wrestler in his first match back after kicking cancer would trail by 14 points and then catch a move and win by pin. No chance; not even in Disney’s wildest dreams.

“The kid went for a duck-under or sit-out kind of thing,” said Talman, “and I just chin-whipped him, put him on his back and stuck him.”

A win. Trailing by 14 points. A win by pin? Get outta here.

“I was full of emotions. I was smiling ear to ear, but I could only imagine the feeling for his parents, for his family in that moment,” said Di Mitri. “I know his dad [Jonathan] was in the stands crying, the whole team was cheering and going crazy. There were a couple of kids crying with him. It was really awesome to see.”

There was plenty of good news to go around. Fair Lawn finished the dual meet season at 18-11, qualified for the North 1, Group 4 state sectional playoffs as the No. 6 seed and pulled a shocker, a first round upset of third-seeded Ridge.

“Harrison was here when we didn’t even have 10 wins, so for the team to dedicate the season to him it gave us something more to fight for,” said Di Mitri. “We ended up 18-11 and [Harrison] gave the team that little extra to turn things around. The kids knew that wrestling in those matches was not just for them, it was also for him. They rallied around him.”

With resilience that is a benefit of youth, Talman is getting back to the mindset he was in before all of this happened, back to when breathing through his right nostril was an involuntary function, not a life and death situation.

“I was at club [lacrosse] practice last night. I am going to do some club wrestling and club lacrosse practices to get in condition for the upcoming lacrosse season and hopefully next year I can get a spot back in the [wrestling] lineup and make an impact,” said Talman, whose brother Parker plays lacrosse at Lasell University. “I want to play lacrosse in college. The recruiting process starts in September of your junior year and that is right when I was diagnosed. I didn’t get to do much, but I am looking to do a lot more now that all of this is behind us. I just want to be myself and not let it affect me.”

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