By: Savannah Havird, Contributing Writer
On Oct 24 at 7:00 pm in the Marion Bowman Center, Anthony Robles, one-legged NCAA individual wrestling champion and motivational speaker, spoke to the students about himself and the challenges he faced to get where he is today.
Michael Bailey, Accessibility services director and director of this event, started off by welcoming everyone and explained disability awareness week. He also gave a thanks to President Senese and all the sponsors that made this event possible. He then gave a special recognition and welcomed Robles to our campus, briefly explaining how he was able to do what he is doing now even with his disabilities.
A video was shown where Robles’ mother talks about how amazing of a person her son is and how broken she was when people made fun of his disability as a child. She always believed in him. “It’s an honor to be Anthony’s mom” she stated. This video also showed him wrestling in the background as his mother talked about how kids would always say Robles had an advantage due to all his upper body strength.
When Robles walked up to the microphone, the first thing he said was, “I still get butterflies from that video, as if I was competing again.” He went on to talk about some challenges he had to endure. Robles father left when he was very young, he was lucky enough to eventually have a stepdad as a father figure, but it was still hard for his mother who had him at the age of 16. He never looked forward to the first day of school like most students did because he would always get laughed at for his disability and come home crying to his mom. When his mother would tell him, “God made you that way for a reason.”
At 14 years old, Robles started wrestling after having to convince this mother. He was 90.5 pounds and got last place in their competitions. The night of his loss, he wrote on a piece of paper saying that he wants to be a campion one day. He carries that piece of paper around with him wherever he goes. “You learn more from your losses than your wins” Robles stated dramatically while he looked into the full auditorium.
All the colleges that Robles wanted denied him because he was too small, or they did not think he would be able to wrestle good enough with one leg. Arizona State took him with no scholarship, but he was able to wrestle his way into a spot on the team. He had to work 7 days a week at a night job just to make money for tuition and housing. At one point in his career, he was one match away from winning all American, but lost with 10 seconds left with only 2 points down. After that, he was offered a full-time scholarship to quit his night job and focus on school and wrestling.
“When everything is going good, the world throws a left hook” he stated. Out of nowhere, he became sick. He was out of school for 21 days; no wrestling and his grades were failing. Back at home, his stepdad left his mother alone with 4 little kids. She had to sell her blood once a week just to put food on the table for the kids and got kicked out of her house. Robles wanted to go back home to help his family, but his mother wouldn’t let him give up on his career and to finish his degree.
He finally got cleared to wrestle, 2 weeks before national wrestling competition after being out for 2 months. Going back to practices, Robles couldn’t win any matches and almost quit but his coach believed in him and hugged him, not letting go. After Robles told his coach what is happening back at home, he said “you have to remember that life is hard all you can do is respond to it. How are you going to respond?”
Nationals rolled around and he slowly was beating the best in the Nation, going through 3-4 rounds. He was so tired that his coach had to carry him off the mat and he couldn’t even lift up the water he tried to drink. The last person he has to beat is the best in the country. When he walked out onto the mat, all he saw was the camera flashing everywhere. His heart was pounding. He looks up into one of the sections and seeing not only his mother but his friend, his high school coach and his four little siblings. With 10 seconds left, he was up on the score board, the only way his opponent could win is it he gets Robles on his back and pins him. He was getting choked out and let the time roll down, trying to keep his conscience. As he won the match, making himself a champion, he thought to himself, “I finally reached the mountain top.”
Robles wrapped up his speech by telling everyone to remember the word “unstoppable” as he revised a poem. He hopes this inspires all of the audience to never stop getting up on their dreams.
