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Tyler Davis Article from Seminole Chronicle 12-29-06 |
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RING OF TRUTH: Tyler Davis, above, has three state championship rings to show for seven years of dedication on the mat, and this season hopes to lead his team to a fourth. Hes doing it all with a badly injured left hand and an unflappable will to win. After starting as a 75-pound middle schooler goaded into wrestling by friend David Green, he found his niche and gave up football and baseball to concentrate on wrestling. Using a strong ability to focus anger, hes leading the team to glory. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Going for four In his final season, Tyler Davis needs one last ring By Isaac Babcock | December 28, 2006 As a dozen boys spun circles around each other looking for a way to bring each other down, the clock was ticking away. T-minus seven days until they have to defend the crown at their home tournament. In the shadows of the Oviedo High School commons, throwing each other around like well-built rag dolls, the Lions look a team of controlled chaos, spinning, twisting, shoving, throwing to the beat of the coach's drum. Under one of the few spotlights, a spin and a slap blurs the vision of two boys searching for an advantage. Tyler Davis looks his opponent in the eye, lurches forward faster than eyes can see, and knocks him down backward. "He just keeps fighting," Coach J.D. Robbins said of the Oviedo senior wrestler. "He doesn't lose matches. He just runs out of time." Seven years and hundreds of matches after beginning his wrestling career as a 75-pound 11-year-old, Davis has become what he knew he always could be - a killer on the mats. Raised by a pride of Lions, he's been instrumental in three state championships for the team. "How many kids in high school can say they've won three straight state championships?" Robbins asked. "Almost none." Through blood and sweat and broken noses, Davis has molded a viciously competitive personality and funneled it through focused rage. He doesn't seem to know uncertainty. His movements are deliberate and all too certain. When you talk to him, two cold green eyes stare right back at you, almost challenging you to keep looking. There's no malevolence there. He's just unconsciously proving a point, while giving you a glimpse inside the mind of a man who fears almost nothing. Three years into his high school career, he's got three title rings for his right hand to show for it, hoping for a fourth. A survey around the wrestling room tells a quick tale of what it takes to be the best, focused around three simple words that seem to be a Davis mantra: He never quits. Just indoors of North Dakota's foreboding landscape last summer, Davis was in the first round of the Fargo national championship tournament, and he was losing. Part of his left thumb was hanging by a thread - a main tendon had detached, curling up under his skin, rendering it useless and excruciatingly painful. He kept fighting but, hampered by his swelling hand, lost. Amid the best of the best from more than 30 states, that would seem the end of Davis' shot at the championship. Game over. "The stakes are higher there," Davis said. "I beat a returning national champion there, and he didn't even place. For most wrestlers, there is no coming back from losing at Fargo." For Davis, there was. His hand bandaged and swollen, he kept fighting anyway, channeling the pain into five straight wins against five of the best wrestlers in the country. By the time the dust settled on his improbable comeback, had had become an All-American in both wrestling styles - his own piece of a team's triumphant glory. Constantly surrounded by champions wearing the same jersey, Davis struggles to remain in his own world. It's a world he's had only a small hand in building, but one he revels in for its solitude. On the mat, there's only him and his opponent. The wins are his triumphs. The losses are his own misery. "It's one on one," he said. "It's all on me. I like having the pressure all on me. I don't want to rely on a quarterback or on a pitcher. If I lose, I can just blame myself." Once both a football and baseball player, he's become accustomed to the pleasure in controlling his own destiny, placing a bet squarely on himself. He knows he can win, but there are many '"ifs"' in wrestling. What if he's not feeling well? What if he loses his concentration? What if he can't read this guy's moves before it's too late? A born competitor to a father who was a national champion bull rider, he's been honing his skill at one of his favorite things - winning - since he was in middle school. One of his favorite venues for testing his competitiveness is the card table. Absent the chance to rip another player's face off, poker gives Davis similar joy to wrestling. Staring across the table at a room of potential victims, he goes inside their minds, trying to read them from the inside out, taking cues from the outside in. He won't say how often he wins. It's more often than not. On the mat, it's much more often, propelled by the same skill - reading the opponent. Call them the prey. He watches them fight and studies - a quick foot movement, which side he's going to favor when he lunges, what his weaknesses are. Then he uses those weaknesses against them. Every once in a while, that gets to his opponent. Matches threaten to turn into street fights, and Davis has to keep his cool. Not immune to his own rage, he's been in fights before. It's also something that can get him kicked out of wrestling for the rest of the season. That's a fight he can't afford to begin. At the Lyman preseason tournament in November, he'd fought his way to a slim lead in the second round, when his Lyman opponent head butted him in the face. He had to shake it off, but silently he flipped a switch. Ten seconds later, he won by pin. "That's Tyler," Robbins said. "He doesn't know how to lose." |
