Persistence paid for New Kent wrestler

New Kent's Dont'a Taylor, a senior wrestler in the 189-pound class, likes to use himself as an example for freshmen.

Taylor won six matches his freshman year. With a knowing smile, he admits that might include a few forfeits. He had plenty of good reasons for being a lousy wrestler, not that excuses made losing feel better.

Practices were hard, and he promptly dropped more than 15 pounds. That would have been great, except he started out 15 pounds underweight for the 215 class, where he found himself starting.

"He should have been 189," New Kent coach Mike Faus said. " . . . He should have been a backup. He was a first-year freshman who hadn't grown into his body yet. He needed a year on JV, and we just didn't have anybody there, and he was kind of forced into it.

"We told him then, anybody who didn't quit after he got pounded like that, there's got to be something to him."

Taylor was being pounded in a sport he didn't even like, trying to fill out a lineup for a team to which he didn't even feel connected. His teammates loved their country music, their classic rock. It was practically in a different language than the R&B and hip hop music Taylor prefers.

But, he said, he doesn't quit. He'd rather be miserable and have his face mashed in the mat every week than give anybody an excuse to call him a quitter.

In his wrestling career, tenacity has been everything. But that same stubbornness still gets Taylor into fights. Even if he knows it might make his mother cry, he can't back down. One of those fights contributed to his continuing shoulder problems. And with involvement in wrestling, football and soccer, he has managed to beat up his knees, his hips, his ankles, even his thumbs.

His freshman season ended, mercifully early when he moved to Newport News. Given the way his matches had been going, making it out of the Bay Rivers District tournament seemed unlikely.

But while he was away, he kept reading about his teammates' success in the newspapers.

"It kept my head high," he said. "I read the papers, I read everything as fast as I could."

It dawned on him that he missed his teammates, no matter how foreign they seemed. And he even missed wrestling, the steady punishment and steadier improvement.

Even when he came back to New Kent, going to wrestling camp with the Trojans, Taylor couldn't imagine a match like the one two weeks ago against Poquoson.

In the Bay Rivers Duals at Jamestown, the Trojans had the chance to unseat the two-time defending district champions, then riding a 20-plus district match winning streak. As Taylor warmed up, listening to Nelly on his headphones, New Kent fell further behind in the team points. The Trojans trailed 31-9 with five matches to go. After a forfeit, a New Kent win by fall, Taylor went onto the mat.

"I step onto the mat with all the injuries I have," he said. "All the problems that I have. I think all the time about the things that I want to do, the things I can't do."

That freshman season taught him about the things he can do, like fighting off his back. Learning how to win took longer, but this season, he already has won more than 30 matches.

But on that Saturday, with just seconds remaining in the second period, Taylor won by fall and put the Trojans in control of the district duals.

From being the freshman who was just shy of a guaranteed loss, Taylor had become the wrestler who could put his team in contention for a win. When he sees younger teammates come off the mat frustrated, he stops them and points to himself.

"Don't worry," he says, "you're just a freshman. I've done worse."

And it can always get better.