Bestselling author Nicholaos Kehagias chatted about his book “Wrestling with the Truth.”
Background on the book
Coach Shegog, as we still call him today, is one of the oldest living people with HIV. He received his diagnosis in 1986, five years before Magic Johnson.
Treatment and outcomes during this time were so poor that contracting the virus was a death sentence. Coach Shegog lost numerous loved ones to the virus and he suffered multiple bouts with the often fatal opportunistic pneumonia.
Yet he persisted. Driven by his passion for wrestling, he needed to make sure his students were on track with their classes, able to graduate high school, and ready to continue their postgraduate pursuits.
He knew everything about his kids and made sure they knew nothing about him. They never knew when he was sick. They never met the man he loved. They never knew he had to abstain from some critical wrestling moments to be with his dying partner.
He knew coaching wrestling wouldn’t have been an option had people learned the truth about him in the 1980s, 1990s, and possibly in the 2000s. He lived a lie and did so for the sake of his students.
Learn about how Robert Shegog navigated these difficult issues in order to be the teacher, coach, father figure, and exemplary role model that inspired multiple generations of students.
Biography
Nick Kehagias is a college All-American wrestler who now practices anesthesia. He resides in Arizona with his loving wife Marie, and their pup Daphne. He continues to coach wrestling and is in the process of more writing projects.
‘Wrestling with the Truth’ is an amazing read, and together with Coach Robert L. Shegog you bring his story to life. What made you want to help bring this story out into the world?
I’ve been trying to get my coach to write his story for more than ten years now. He is one of the oldest living people with HIV. Coach Shegog endured significant struggles, losses, and self-reflections with his own sense of self and mortality. Yet most of the people within his circle had no idea.
Despite this duality, Shegog had great success as a wrestling coach. But even his successes as a coach were marred with tragedy. When covid hit in March of 2020 I feared that should something happen to him his story could be lost forever. That’s when I offered to write it for him so long as we were able to sit down and do recorded interviews for the information. He agreed and the rest is history.
Robert L. Shegog’s story is very inspirational in so many respects, what effect has he had on your life?
Next to my mother (who was also a single mother of four like Coach Shegog’s family), my coach was the most inspirational person in my life. From him, I learned how to set a goal and pursue it. I learned about honor and integrity. When you say something, you do it. I learned the value of hard work. I learned how to be tough while also being empathetic and supportive.
I learned to question stereotypes. In addition to being an exemplary coach, Coach Shegog was one of the first Black (and gay as I later found out in college) role models that I had. He didn’t fit into a mold, he broke the mold of how to positively impact and inspire people.
I would not be where I am today without all these lessons and examples that I learned from him.
You are a wrestling coach and a doctor, and now an author. What was it like for you to become an author? What was one of the challenges you faced while writing this book, and conversely one of your successes?
Writing my coach’s story was quite the process and a wonderful learning experience. When we started the recorded interviews I knew I was in over my head when I started reading from the list of nearly 150 questions that I prepared. I had a rigid plan of going through each question but as Coach Shegog answered them he often went off on tangents.
I knew my rigid approach wouldn’t be as successful at getting his story with the emotion behind certain events, and so I let him talk, and asked follow up questions as his story unfolded. After three days and nearly twenty hours of recorded interviews I went to work. I listened to the recordings and jotted down notes corelating to the minute a particular event was mentioned.
Once I had the recordings on paper I then created what seemed like appropriate chapters for the material. The chapters were filled in concurrently as opposed to sequentially. We set up a shared google document for both of us to write on.
The plan was for me to write in red type and coach in blue type. Once we each reviewed each other’s material then we changed the colored font to black. There was a learning curve but eventually we got the system down. In the end he wrote about 20 percent of the story and I wrote 80%.
One challenge while writing was verifying certain events and timeframes. My coach has a great memory but some parts of the story just didn’t add up. Thankfully I was able to get nearly 100 contacts of people mentioned in the book to subsequently interview.
It was also probably where I’d say I evolved into a possible author. It was quite the process of interviewing nearly 100 people but in the end, it allowed me to keep the story as truthful and accurate as possible.
I also learned more about my coach during this process, and shed a few tears of sadness, joy, and inspiration, as his story became more rich and well-rounded.
In the end, no corners were cut, and it was a tremendously rewarding experience knowing that I had put my heart and soul into (just like he had taught us) capturing his story as completely as possible.
This book has been a hit with readers, and I’m sure you have a lot of fans. What was the most interesting, memorable, or heartfelt feedback you have received from a reader? What do you hope readers take away with them when they finish reading ‘Wrestling with the Truth’?
The support and feedback has been out of this world. It’s so interesting to hear which parts of my coach’s story resonate with individuals. Some mention his coaching ability and how he related so well not just to the kids but to their parents too. Others point out the abuses that he had in his youth.
The strength of his mother is often expressed as well. When I hear readers self-reflect on their own lives and comment that they want to be better after reading Shegog’s story that really hits home with me. It shows that his story is already changing lives.
In doing so I know that his book will slowly do its part in making the world a more tolerant and accepting place where people can live their lives freely without having to wrestle with their truth the way my coach did.
‘Wrestling with the Truth’ has been so successful, do you have another book or project in the works you can tell us about?
Believe it or not, this process has inspired me to write more, yes. I have two ideas for sci-fi stories. I just need to get back into the writer’s seat, so we see how it goes.
How did you celebrate when you finished writing this book?
We actually held a banquet at our old high school (North High), like we did during our wrestling seasons, and invited nearly 300 people, some of which were mentioned in the book. It was so great seeing old faces and catching up.
At the banquet, we also revealed that to honor him we will be organizing a future scholarship fund in his name. Half the book’s profits will go towards the fund and will help support North wrestlers in their college pursuits.
“Wrestling with the Truth” by Nicholaos Kehagias is available on Amazon by clicking here.
