I remember watching Anthony Robles wrestling one of our wrestlers at a UC Davis dual meet a few years ago and just smiling. He had found a way to adapt wrestling to the body he had. He didn't complain about getting around (he would use crutches to go from place to place), and he would wrestler his heart out.
The lesson is not just that wrestling is for everyone, but also that the challenge of wrestling pushed him to find a way to make this work. His wrestling was simple and by the end of the year every coach had figured out a way to challenge his style to their wrestlers to beat him. Needless to say he won Nationals that year. Keep up the great work Anthony!
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Wrestler talks of challenge ... and portrays it
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If all goes according to plan, Hollywood will be putting Anthony Robles' story on the big screen.
The script, Robles says, should be complete in about a month, with filming scheduled to start in December.
Whenever the movie is finished, its narrative will be something that even Hollywood's creative minds and purveyors of fantasy never would have imagined.
A film about a child born without a leg, missing up to his right hip, who goes on to become a college wrestling champion? Who would believe that?
Unless it were true.
"The movie," Robles said Tuesday during a break from a clinic at Kellam High for middle and high school wrestlers, "is going to be basically my whole life story."
A story with an unmistakable message.
"We all wrestle with our own challenges," he said, "and I believe you can't let the challenge become an excuse."
Moments before saying that, the 2011 NCAA champion in the 125-pound division was on the mat, demonstrating some of the moves that helped him finish 36-0 as a senior at Arizona State, explaining each one in a clear, relaxed voice.
"It's great seeing the light coming on," he said of the young wrestlers. "I remember being in the same spot, learning something for the first time."
As the wrestlers broke up into pairs to practice what they had just seen, Robles checked in with each of them, going around the room on crutches. He gave up his prosthesis for crutches when he was 5, a decision that "ended up paying off for me, wrestling-wise," he said. "It made my upper body strong."
A resident of Chandler, Ariz., Robles was here by invitation of Curtis Wiley, Kellam's assistant wrestling coach, an Army Lt. Colonel at Dam Neck who took leave to host Robles and help run the clinic.
"He's sort of a god in the wrestling community," said Wiley, who wrestled in college. "A wrestler understands how tough it would be to do what he did. He figured out the sport and trained to win his way, with his upper body strength."
It took time, of course. As a ninth-grader in Mesa, Ariz., Robles was tossed around by stronger, two-legged wrestlers.
"I was pretty bad at 14," he said - "last place in my city. But I loved the sport and just wanted to be the best at it."
His championship and the unique story of his life provides a platform that allows him to make about 65 speaking engagements a year, in addition to appearing at a dozen or so wrestling clinics each summer. He's also been a commentator for ESPN during the NCAA tournament.
"I love doing motivational speaking," said Robles, whose message is grounded in "the whole idea of being unstoppable."
"It was basically how I was raised," he said. "Aim high and never stop until you get the job done. I was blessed with a great mom. She always believed I could do whatever I set my mind to."
Robles put in a full day at Kellam, working with the middle school kids in the morning and high schoolers in the afternoon. In between, he gave a motivational talk in the gym.
"It's a pleasure to give back to the sport," he said. "It's given me a lot."
A good-looking guy who is at ease before an audience, Robles mentioned that the movie production team was searching for somebody - "an up-and-coming actor" - to play his part and talked about how green-screen technology could be used to simulate his missing leg.
When somebody proposed to him that he could play himself, Robles politely shrugged off the suggestion.
"I'll probably be in and out, doing the wrestling scenes," he said. "I'll be my own stunt double. But no acting for me. I'm not into it."
It's the closest he came to saying that there was something he couldn't do.
He has, after all, constructed his life - on and off the mat - upon the foundation of being unstoppable.
Unstoppable.
That might make a good title for the film.
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