Dustin Carter, Thu, 01 Jan 2009 3:33p.m.
This is not one of those typical stories about the sweet boy who overcame his disabilities – it is a story about an ornery brat who did it just the same.
"I was a trouble maker," says Dustin Carter. "Me and dad used to fight a lot. I was very disrespectful."
Carter was not born troubled or
disabled, but when a child he contracted a rare blood disease that would eventually claim his limbs - all four of them. After that, Carter grew into a straight F student with a passion for apathy.
Until eighth grade, when he found - of all things - wrestling.
"I got beat pretty bad," says Carter.
"Well, they just get out there and just throw him around on the mat," says his dad.
Carter lost just about every time he set his torso in the ring, but the competition brought out a side of him no one had ever seen before.
"He's got heart," says his coach Nate Horne. "He's got the heart of a lion."
"I'm a pretty determined person," says Carter. "I'll sit at something and sit at it for hours until I get it."
Over the years he trained hard. By all accounts he became a model of self-discipline. His grades went up and he actually started winning - winning more than anyone, other than Carter, could have ever imagined.
"There's not one day in my life, ever since I started wrestling, that I have not dreamed of going to the state tournament."
And last week, it happened. Carter made it to the state tournament.
"It was amazing. I looked up, I looked around, and then I got scared," he says. "I was like, I feel really small right now."
The Ohio tournament is actually one of the most competitive in the nation, and yet even here he was able to pull off a win. The victory placed Carter in the top 16 in his age group.
His final match - the last of his high school career - was a real knock-down drag-out. And although he lost the bout, he won the audience.
"I look up, and everybody is on their feet, and immediately my eyes started watering."
Carter says when you are disabled like he is, it is hard to get used to all the staring. But this kind of staring – that, he could get used to.
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