Sports can have an impact on athletes’ lives in a variety of ways. For Nooksack Valley’s Wyatt Bacon, wrestling gave him a purpose.
“I was skipping classes and failed every class my first semester of freshman year,” Bacon said. “My whole life I always slacked off and failed stuff. Wrestling was the one thing I was good at.”
Bacon, who is now a junior wrestling at 190 pounds, joined Nooksack Valley’s wrestling program as a freshman when one of his friends invited him to join the team.
“I was losing so much,” Bacon said. “They put me with the team captain that year and I hated losing.”
Bacon began to win toward the end of the season, finishing with an 11-21 record as a freshman and being an alternate at the WIAA Mat Classic tournament.
“I never wanted to be in that position again,” Bacon said. “I felt singled out after weighing in and then just going into the stands and watching everyone else wrestle.”
Although his freshman wrestling season did not end how he wanted, it sparked his passion for a brighter future.
“By the end of the year, my grades flipped,” Bacon said. “ I started thinking about going to college.”
Before his sophomore year began, Bacon was training every day in the summer at the gym, wrestling room and camps. Bacon began training with the new assistant coach Kyle Duque. Duque had Bacon doing red flag practices, which typically was high-intensity drilling and live wrestling the entire practice, compared to practicing moves and running drills.
“After all the pain and suffering, there was a feeling of not going back,” Bacon said. “Something just kept pulling me back. Only the toughest of the tough can stay and be happy doing this.”
Bacon finished his sophomore season with a 35-5 record and placed fifth in the state at the 1A 190-pound division.
“It feels amazing to see how far I have come but there are times I just want to go back when nobody knew my name and there wasn’t a target on my back,” Bacon said. “I already got one loss on my record when I wrestled up and it is tough to think about that.”
Bacon, who is the No. 2-ranked 1A 190-pound wrestler in the state as of Thursday, Dec. 19, has grown outside of the sport, too. He said wrestling has boosted his morale, self-belief and work ethic.
As a junior, Bacon is hoping to flip the Pioneers’ wrestling culture by hyping his teammates up and providing them opportunities to grow. By the time he graduates, he hopes to win a state title and wrestle in college.
Nick Zeller-Singh is CDN's sports reporter; reach him at nickzellersingh@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 104.
