HILLSBORO – Your name is Dustin Carter, and you inspire people in ways you do not even know.
When a reporter and photographer show up at Hillsboro High School, they are surprised to find you a bit in the doldrums from having just lost a wrestle-off.
Your teammate – not you – will represent Hillsboro in the 103-pound weight class in the upcoming meet.
You are down in the dumps.
This is not the Dustin Carter they remember.
Where did that Dustin go?
Do the people who read your story in The Enquirer last year know that you – like every other high school wrestler in Ohio for the first time this year – had to take a hydration test and body-fat test before the season began to make sure that you will be wrestling at a physically safe weight?
Do they know what it’s like to be pinched for body fat when you barely have any places to pinch to locate any such body fat? Do they know that your body is one solid torso of muscle?
No arms, no legs, all amputated when you were 5 years old to save you from a rare blood infection.
You take all the tests, and afterward you go to Frisch’s and you devour four plates of food.
Do they know you have to struggle every week to make weight – just like everybody else? Do they know that wrestling “down “in weight class gives you the best chance of winning – just like everybody else?
Do they know that next year you will probably have to wrestle at 112 or 119? Do they know how much harder it is going to be to win at those higher weight classes?
Do they know you get into trouble on occasion? Do they know you like to try things you shouldn’t?
Do they know you are 17?
A year later
A lot has happened to you in the past year.
The best day, the day that lights you up and makes your face beam and your eyes twinkle, is the day one of your coaches got you tickets for the Ohio State-Michigan game: No. 1 vs. No. 2, game of the century, 110,000 fans, 177 countries getting the feed.
You can choose to take any two people you want, and you choose your father and your mentor, Brian Williamson, who was your junior high school wrestling coach..
The three tickets don’t come with a parking pass, and so the three of you must walk the 2,½ miles to the game – you on your artificial legs. But you wisely listen to your fellow fans and take three or four breaks on the way to the stadium so as not to stress the skin of your legs where they meet the prosthetic legs.
You are part of the group of high-school recruits that Ohio State brings in that day; it allows you to mingle with coaches and players and all the assorted glitterati.
Wrestling Gear
He is my hero! When I saw this all I could think was I wish that I was that driven and amazing as him! I will always look up at him!
You are my hero. I am a wrestler and i know that it is tough even with arms and legs. But you are completely amazing!