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This article originally was published in the Antelope Valley Press on Saturday, June 28, 2008.
It was accessed from http://www.avpress.com/n/28/0628_s10.hts online.

Beyond the Valley

Wheeler is a model for all wrestlers

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Saturday, June 28, 2008.

By GREG WAGNER
Valley Press Staff Writer

On his path to Beijing, Adam Wheeler sent a jolt of inspiration throughout the Valley's wrestling community.

Wheeler, a 1999 graduate of Lancaster High School, qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games in the 96-kilogram (211.5 pounds) Greco-Roman weight class on June 16. Since then, Wheeler hasn't gone a day without someone new calling to congratulate him or e-mailing to wish him luck overseas.

A day also hasn't gone by in the Valley without his name being mentioned.

"Adam belongs to them," Quartz Hill wrestling coach Trevor Leach said. "He is their hero right now and that is really neat."

Leach, who attended the U.S. Olympic Team Wrestling Trials in Las Vegas with five other Valley coaches or assistants, didn't even get the chance to tell his wrestlers about Wheeler - they already knew.

Lancaster coach Pat Hayhurst immediately sent a text message to many of his wrestlers with the news of Wheeler's victory and received one telling response.

"Coach, I'm going to be your next Olympian," 103-pounder Jourdan Chavez wrote.

"If that doesn't show you motivation right there, I don't know what else does," Hayhurst said.

That's the case across the Valley, where high school wrestlers are glowing with pride that one of their own has made it on the world's largest stage.

"It showed that people can actually come out of the Antelope Valley and actually do something big in their life," said Jason Hendricks, a 171-pound senior-to-be at Littlerock.

With his best-of-three victory over top-seeded and reigning three-time U.S. Nationals champion Justin Ruiz, Wheeler became the first Lancaster grad to qualify for the Olympics. While the Valley has seen several Olympians in track and field, arguably the area's best sport, the wrestling community has never witnessed one of its own reach such prominence.

By all accounts, Wheeler's unprecedented accomplishment will only work to grow a sport in the Valley that already has several clubs and hosts summer tournaments - extra practice sessions Wheeler never had the chance to utilize in high school.

Most only consider wrestling a high school sport with the oft-chance at earning a college scholarship. After that, though, there's not much of a path for wrestling to take an accomplished athlete - in the Valley, especially, where there is no wrestling at the community college level and few ever reach the sport's pinnacle in high school to earn a scholarship to a four-year school.

Thanks to his victory, Wheeler is starting to help change that stigma.

Wheeler wasn't good enough in high school to be recruited for college, but he began wrestling with the Navy team after enlisting in the Coast Guard and molded himself into the Olympian he is today.

"This tells them, it's not over," Highland coach Mike Young said. "Adam's performance will allow them to really see the big picture, that wrestling doesn't end at high school if you're really dedicated and really want it - you might reach your dream."

That's what's taking place at Littlerock, where Hendricks said several of his friends will likely join the wrestling team for the first time, now that they know it's not just a sport for high schoolers.

"It's going to help all the teams throughout the Antelope Valley," he said. "They thought wrestling was just in high school and then it's done, they didn't know it went on and on."

Hendricks' unbridled excitement comes from knowing that, just 10 years ago, Wheeler was in the same place he is now.

When Wheeler's hands were raised in victory, across the Valley each wrestler had those few minutes of that thought, that possibility of "That could be me."

"(Wheeler) is no different than any other kid who is wrestling at Lancaster High or Highland or any other school," said Palmdale assistant principal Steve Radford, one of Wheeler's coaches in high school. "He grew up here, he lived here exactly like they are and the only thing he's done is worked his tail off the last 10 years to get where he's at."

For someone who didn't even qualify for the state tournament in high school, Wheeler's trip to Beijing is made even more remarkable, though not all that surprising.

Not when considering that since his fourth-place finish at the 2004 Trials, Wheeler has been training 10 times a week while continuing to remain at essentially the same weight class he wrestled at in high school.

"Wrestling in my opinion is the hardest sport there is," Wheeler said. "It takes a lot of dedication."

That dedication is what most Valley wrestlers have to pull from to reach meets like Masters and the state tournament, because - like Wheeler in high school - few are blessed with innate talent. Wheeler won the Golden League in the 215-pound weight class twice, but didn't finish higher than third place at the Southern Section Divisional Championships and never made it out of Masters.

"He didn't have to be the best of the best," Hendricks said. "To me that shows you don't have to be the top dog in high school - just try your best, because he tried his best and made it to the Olympics."

Spurring Wheeler on toward his dream at the Thomas & Mack Center were about 40 friends and family - most of whom were from the Valley. All of Wheeler's family was present for his monumental victory, but so too were former Lancaster coaches Radford, Mike Henry and John Eisel, not to mention the handful of current Valley coaches who made the drive.

That's the kind of support Wheeler has received ever since he became one of the country's top Greco-Roman wrestlers.

"It kind of shows you people really do care," he said. "The people in Lancaster are a huge part of my support group that were there at the trials."

It's also the kind of support that Valley coaches and wrestlers have long had for one another. Though competitors during league, when the season turns to its elimination format, those from the Valley tend to not only pull for one another, but also train together.

"That's one of those things that shows how tight the Valley's wrestling group is," Radford said. "It doesn't matter whose (what high school's) kid he is."

In another showing of that close-nit community, Hayhurst is organizing a fund-raiser to help pool enough money so that Wheeler's mother Julie, a Rosamond resident, and potentially Wheeler's wife and her mother can travel to Beijing to watch him compete - an estimated cost of about $15,000.

"Everything he is as a wrestler is what I want our kids to aspire to be," Hayhurst said. "So I will do everything in my power to support our local athletes in whatever endeavors they want to be a part of."

Trying to model himself after his first coach in Eisel, who Wheeler said didn't even accept his stipend at Lancaster, the former Eagle has always tried to give back to the Valley whenever he returns. Wheeler, who works as a trainer at 24 Hour Fitness in Colorado Springs, Colo., and just got hired by the city's police department, has routinely attended clinics and held workshops with the Freebirds Wrestling Club.

That's just one of the reasons Hayhurst, in fundraising efforts that began only on Monday, has already received pledges for $2,000 to contribute to Wheeler as the Valley is searching to ways to honor their hero.

"I wish there was a billboard off the 14 (Freeway)," Leach said. "I think they're should be."

gwagner@avpress.com