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Suffern Alumni Give Back

Posted: Mar 7th 2007 By: CMBurnham

You can see the teacher in Scott Wright as he walks among several dozen men and women who use the residential, vocational or other services of Camp Venture.

"I think you and I have a lot more in common than you think," Wright tells the crowd. The Suffern Middle School history teacher had taken a personal day to be there.

"How many of you have hopes and dreams?" he asks.

Around the room at Venture Select Day Habilitation in Stony Point, arms shoot into the air as the consumers wait a turn.

J. Pat Brosnan says he wants to be a pro golfer.

Johnny Adams of Venture Academy in Rockland Lake proudly announces, "I want to box like Mike Tyson."

Across the room, Michael Lewis gets his turn. "I want to become a pro wrestler," he says. He does a killer impression of Hulk Hogan, one of his favorites.

He gets enthusiastic applause from the others, who have come to Venture Select from Rockland Lake, Venture Quest at the George Strayton Center in Sparkill and from Venture Industries, right next door.

They've assembled to hear from Wright, and two other Suffern High School alumni, Paul Fuchs of Sloatsburg and Kevin Clark of Suffern.

When Wright's not teaching and when the other two aren't at work as personal trainers, they are professional wrestlers. Once again this year - on Friday night - they will be part of an East Coast Professional Wrestling show at Suffern High School.

It's the fifth annual fundraiser for the Suffern High School Touchdown Club. The club uses some of the proceeds to support the Suffern High football program.

"The money pays for a lot of the team's necessities like shorts and practice jerseys," says Stan Goldstein of the Touchdown Club. "It also pays for food, bedding and lots of other costs of the team's summer training camp at the high school, when players live at school for a week."

Last year, the wrestling event resulted in a large donation to the family of Aiden Berges, the grandson of Sheriff James Kralik. The boy had just undergone a bone marrow transplant as part of his treatment for hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, or HLH, a rare disease in which his immune system attacks his own organs.

In four years, says Wright, the wrestling shows raised $40,000 for local charitable causes.

This will be Wright's fifth year on the ticket and the third for Kevin "Apollo" Clark and Fuchs, who wrestles as Paul E. Normous.

Clark, who grew up in Hillburn and graduated from Suffern in 1998, has a double major in exercise physiology and business management at Rockland Community College. With school and work as a personal trainer at New York Sports Club in Westwood, N.J., he wrestles in local East Coast Professional Wrestling events.

Fuchs, a 1994 Suffern grad, has been a pro for four years, but lost a season to injury. He was new and inexperienced back in 2003, he says, when an opponent came off the ropes doing a spinning move. "I didn't get out of the way. His knee landed on my face. If people think this is fake, those must have been fake screws in my fake face," he says. "Doctors told me I'd never wrestle again, but obviously, I didn't listen."

He's had a tryout with World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation, and got a shot at his dream of making it to TV one day. He trained in Kentucky in a developmental program, but didn't get a contract. "Now, I spend evenings at home," he says, "watching guys I trained with wrestle on TV."

But he's not giving up on his dream. "I hope the Suffern show draws enough attention to get another look from the WWE people," Fuchs says.

That's exactly how it worked for Wright. Publicity about a Suffern show caught the eye of WWE officials, who now hire him as an independent on a per-night basis for shows in the Northeast. Wrestling as Scotty Charisma, he'll be on a WWE bill March 13 at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton.

"I've wrestled in sold-out arenas, at places like the Continental Airlines Arena, and on television on 'Raw' and 'SmackDown,' " two popular WWE wrestling shows, Wright says. "But I'm the proudest of being able to give back to local charities."

He understands pro wrestling isn't popular with everyone.

"Every year," he says, "you hear horror stories - kids getting hurt trying things we do." That's part of why he talks to community groups, he says, emphasizing that even if the matches are choreographed, the participants are paid professional athletes with considerable training.

"Even if you're a detractor of pro wrestling, there's a fan base here and it says a lot about a community that comes out to help local groups," he said.

When he hears that Aiden Berges had been doing well, he says, "It's nice to think that maybe you contributed to that."

Barbara Reece at the Camp Venture Foundation says the show is really a wonderful expression of support for Venture's work with adults with disabilities. Their major fundraisers, like the annual holiday season Venture Cablethon and the upcoming Venture at Vertigo Annual Awards Party, are hard work, whereas the Suffern event is a generous gift.

She says several Camp Venture community residences are planning to be at the show Friday. "They really love it, and they love meeting the guys," she says.

After Michael Lewis poses for a photo with Paul Fuchs, he puts Fuchs in a mock headlock as both laugh. Alin Farris gives Kevin Clark a big hug, announcing, "I'll see you at the wrestling."

Kevin Wright talks again about pursuing dreams.

"No one can deny you your hopes and dreams," he tells the Venture consumers. "I hope you have that passion in your hearts."