They would see each other only three more times, following Zimmer’s graduation from Exeter. Although Zim had a delayed growth spurt during his freshman year at Yale, the former 110-pounder was an undersize 123-pounder at the weigh-ins for the Freshman Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association championships at West Point in 1962. Zim weighed in wearing his wrestling tights and his singlet; he had his socks on, too. I watched the bar when he stepped on the scale; it didn’t budge. In those days, the lightest weight class in college wrestling was 123 pounds. The other wrestlers were naked for the weigh-ins, or wearing only their jocks. I was the Pitt 130-pounder at West Point. Only two of my freshman teammates had made the trip from Pittsburgh with me; the other Pitt freshmen were injured or academically ineligible. With only three Pittsburgh wrestlers in the tournament, we’d come to West Point without a coach.

“You’re going to kill our guy at one-thirty—I can almost kill him,” Matthew Zimmermann confided to me at the weigh-ins. I saw the Yale 130-pounder when we weighed in; we wouldn’t meet in the tournament. “Look at me,” Zim suddenly insisted, standing on his toes in his socks. “I’ve actually been growing, a little—I’ll bet I’m as tall as your mother now.”

“You’re a little taller—she’s only five-two,” I reminded him.

“I’m almost five-four, and I’m still growing!” Zimmer cried. “Is your mom here? West Point is a long way from New Hampshire or Vermont—I was afraid it was too far for her to come, and I know it’s the ski season,” Zim said worriedly.

“She’s here—she and Elliot Barlow made the trip, a long drive,” I told him. Matthew Zimmermann looked like he might faint—not, I knew, from cutting too much weight.

“She’s here—she came all this way!” Zimmer exclaimed, clutching his singlet at his heart. I was embarrassed for him, and although he’d grown taller, I was afraid he was going to get killed at 123 pounds. Zim said he was convinced he was going to get killed, too.

“How much do you weigh, Zim?” I asked him.

“Between one-fifteen and one-eighteen, as a rule. Once I got up to one-twenty, but I was constipated,” Zimmer admitted.

They were weighing in the upper weight classes; I was getting cold, standing around in just a jock. I could see that one of my teammates, our Pitt 177-pounder, had to take off his jock to make weight. He’d been cutting down from 195. Some of Zim’s fellow 123-pounders had cut down from 135 or 140. I was a 130-pounder, but I normally weighed 145 or 150. I could tell that Matthew Zimmermann had been spending a lot of time in the weight room, in addition to trying to eat his way up to 123 pounds.