'Big Sexy' cautions young wrestlers

Even now, his dreams are about basketball. So what that he's been in movies and on TV shows and been the best in the world at his profession.

"I love basketball so much, when I dream the recurring one is that I can still jump. I'm going to the baseline and going over somebody and dunking. I guess," he laughed, "you dream about the things that are the farthrest away from happening."

Twenty-nine years ago, I covered the Tennessee Vols basketball team, on which the man with the hoop dreams played. It's always interesting in this business to see what happens with players you used to cover.

This one became Kevin "Big Sexy" Nash, a professional wrestling superstar, a 6-foot-10 mass of muscle with a flowing mane of hair and diabolical look.

He's in Huntsville today, signing autographs at the Von Braun Center, part of the monster trucks' Steel Thunder Tour.

Nash, a prep basketball star in Michigan and all-star teammate of Magic Johnson, was a solid contributor for the 1978-79 Tennessee team that won the SEC Tournament and UT's first NCAA tournament game.

Three decades later, of course, his legend has grown.

"From when I played, when nine out of 10 home games when they announced me I got booed, to right now, where they're actually in consideration of retiring my number," Nash joked. "I don't think 43 will be worn again."

After playing pro ball overseas, where he blew out a knee, Nash returned to Michigan and worked as a statistical processing control analysis man at a car plant. That didn't quite cut it.

He moved to Atlanta and was a bouncer at The Cheetah, a strip club. ( "Never dreaded going to work every day," he said.) He worked out in a gym where he met the wrestling Steiner brothers, Rick and Scott, who gave him lessons and helped crack open the door for him in pro wrestling.

He became a mainstay in a "golden era," along with Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Lex Lugar, Sting and Goldberg, men with remarkable athleticism to accompany the choreography and outrageous storylines.

Nash, 48, now wrestles a limited schedule and lives near Daytona with wife Tamara and son Tristen, 11, who has a sweet jump shot but takes only casual interest in his dad's work. Said Nash, "He says, 'Hey, it's cool. My dad still wrestles and he's old.' "

The last several years, wrestling has had its controversies and tragedies.

Nash acknowledged there was widespread use of pain-killers to enable them to wrestle 300 nights a year. "We were doing what we could to feed our families," he said.

The older guys are now trying to become cautionary tales for the new ones. "These things we did in the '80s and '90s are causing us to die in our 40s. Take heed, guys. Don't do it," he said. "You'll cut your life short."

Moments later, Nash pulled himself from a chair and began walking slowly, stiffly to the hotel elevator.

The ankle that causes a limp, the one with seven screws and a plate? Hurt it against Kentucky, his sophomore year. The knees that ache miserably in this weather? First two surgeries were in Knoxville, when he was playing basketball.

It's a good thing Kevin Nash found wrestling. It seems like a safer way of life.