Muscle Man

Palisadian Aaron Galef will Wrestle for Team USA at Maccabiah Games

As a freshman on the wrestling team at Palisades High, teammates nicknamed him “Peanut.” Now, Aaron Galef is preparing to travel 7,500 miles to represent his country in the Maccabiah Games. Now a redshirt freshman wrestler at San Francisco State, the lifelong Palisadian captured the City 132-pound title as a junior at Pali High before transferring to Birmingham as a senior and winning the 145-pound title. Aaron grew up in the Alphabet Streets, played PPBA, basketball and football at the Pali Rec Center and began wrestling at Paul Revere Middle School. His fraternal twin Jordan also went to Pali High and their older brother Gabe quarterbacked Palisades’ varsity football squad. Aaron shared his thoughts about his college career, his training regimen, being chosen for the Maccabiah Games and more with Sports Editor Steve Galluzzo:

PP: How were selected for the Maccabi Games? Did you have to win a set number of matches?

AG: There was initially supposed to be a competition in October, and the top wrestler would qualify for the Maccabiah Games but due to COVID-19 they canceled the tournament and determine spots by resume. I was coming off great wins against two Stanford wrestlers in August, which I felt gave me the nod. Not just the wins, but based on my technical superiority.

PP: Why did you transfer from Purdue to San Francisco State? Are you living in the dorms?

AG: When the coronavirus hit in 2019 I had time to go home and reflect on my time at Purdue and I started to realize I missed things back on the West Coast—warm weather, surfing and being around my family. I talked with my head coach at Purdue and we agreed it would be best for me to be happy at another school. When he asked where I’d like to go my first choice was San Francisco State. I knew I wanted to be back on the West Coast, with only a handful of wrestling schools. He gave the coach a call and I heard back by the end of the day. His name was Jason Welch and he was a national finalist at Northwestern, so I knew that his wrestling knowledge was hard to come by. Once I got on the phone with him and started talking, he seemed like such a cool individual and within one month I visited the school. We went surfing, then he showed me around the city and I instantly knew this was the right fit for me. A coach who surfed and was a good wrestler! That’s almost impossible to find. Once I got to meet the team, which was just icing on the cake, Hamzah Alsaudi, my high school teammate at Palisades, was transferring from Cerritos College. I’ve experienced a lot of adversity this year. One challenge was my weight class. I wrestled at 149 at Purdue and I’ve been wrestling up at 165 this year, which is very comfortable for me. The biggest thing to revamp and lengthen your career is to go up in weight. I was initially opposed to moving up since in wrestling everyone is known for cutting a lot of weight to get the best results, but one of my coaches in Southern California, Mark Munoz, sat down with me and believed I could perform well going up in weight. He was my main coach during the COVID-19 year and helped me jump levels immensely and improve my confidence. I was planning on 157, but team captain Mason Boutain had really set himself up for success at that weight, so my coaches wanted me to go up two weight classes to 165. I wasn’t afraid of the challenge and accepted it. Looking back, it was the best decision since I was able to focus on my technique. Another issue I faced was in the beginning of the season I tore my lateral collateral ligament in practice, causing me to miss the first half of the season. This was challenging mentally as well because it made it harder to work on my conditioning, which is my key to success. Thankfully, I had trust in my trainers, and was able to recover and bounce back for the tail end of the season. I live off campus in the Sunset District, about five streets from the beach.

PP: What has been the biggest difference moving up to college?

AG: The biggest difference is that everyone you wrestle is good. In high school, most of the time you’d have easier opponents until the semifinals or finals but everyone in college is good and you have to be ready all the time. My biggest challenge is to not overtrain and stay mentally strong through the season. In my junior and senior years of high school I had very few losses and coming into college I thought I’d have similar results. I lost 11 times as a freshman at Purdue, which opened my eyes to how much better and experienced people are in college, but gave me dedication to work harder and set the bar higher. Now I never let a win get to my head or a loss get to my heart.

PP: Who will be your coach and when do you start training?

AG: It takes place In Israel in the middle of July. My coach will be Nate Engel, the assistant coach at Oregon State and my assistant coach Jackson Redhair will be attending. I’ll start training with the team at the beginning of July.

PP: How often do you get home to the Palisades? What do you do when you are back in town?

AG: I’m back in the Palisades every couple months. I like to surf in Malibu or the wedge in Newport Beach and get a tan. I have a business, A.G. Endeavors, where I offer personal training, surf lessons, basketball, baseball and wrestling training, so I re-connect with my clients. I love working with kids, seeing them develop and teaching valuable life lessons through athletics. A wrestler I worked with last summer was Christian Shaw-Sarrubi, a 130-pound 7th-grader with great work ethic who didn’t have a good mentor to help him reach his goals. I came into his life and since we last worked he’s lost 20 pounds and is one of the best kids his age. I’ll enjoy working with him more in the spring and when I’m back in L.A.