MOUNT VERNON — From the casual observer to the avid fan, anyone who follows high school wrestling and in particular the Mount Vernon Yellow Jackets, has noticed a familiar name at the top of the 285-pound weight class.
That name will be absent at this week’s state tournament.
Unfortunately, defending state champion, Alex Taylor suffered a Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL) tear at the Iron Man Tournament last December.
“I didn’t move my feet, that kind of angle, and I went to turn away and kick off, and I think that’s probably when it happened,” Taylor said of his season-ending injury.
Zach Taylor, Alex’s dad, said his son knew something wasn’t right pretty quickly.
“He came off between matches and told me he hurt his knee, but that he was definitely going to wrestle in the finals,” Zach said.
Hoping that the injury was not as serious as it turned out to be, some sideline first aid took place.
“He would ice out and that type of thing,” the senior Taylor said of his son. “We were hoping that he just strained it or something”
Listening to his body
Alex, who has listened to the messages his body has been sending, heard the latest warning loud and clear, but athletes do not reach the rare air Taylor breathes by giving into discomfort.
“I noticed pretty much right away, but I was going to wrestle through it kike I usually do,” he said.
The mind-over-matter technique did not work for the star wrestler.
“I was trying to tell myself it wasn’t hurting and just wrestle through it, but it was getting pretty swollen pretty quickly,” he said.
Zach watched his son wrestle in the finals and fully realized that the knee was not cooperating.
“He was going to go out and give it a go. It was a real close match, and he went for a take-down at the end, but he wasn’t able to drive,” Zach said. “He wasn’t able to stand back up on it and drive off of it, and I was a little worried that something more was wrong.”
The extent of the injury was revealed by an MRI.
EMOTIONAL STRAIN
Alex said that the injury has taken a bit of an emotional toll, as well as the physical injury.
“I am struggling from a standpoint of not competing much, and that is what I always do so that throws me off guard a little bit,” the wrestler said.
Zach said that wrestling has always been a family affair and the lack of activity is noticeable.
“Oh we hate it, it’s been boring for us. Between the two boys we’ve had, it’s been 14 or 15 years of doing this, it’s kind of weird that it ended so quickly,” the father said.
Taylor did see a bright spot for family wrestling entertainment.
“Our older son, Jake (Alex’s brother is a freshman at Wheeling University, wrestling at 174 pounds), has been wrestling in college, so we have that to look forward to,” Zach said.
Even though his son is not competing, Taylor has not lost interest in the Yellow Jacket Grapplers.
“The rest of the team, we’ve been able to follow them too,” Zach Taylor said.
Anyone who has spent any time with Alex knows that negativity is not a part of his lexicon. As soon as he voiced his disappointment and the emotional toll the injury had taken, he saw the bright side.
“It’s also been refreshing a little bit. I have the chance to connect with my teammates and take on sort of a coaching role and focus on everyone else’s wrestling rather than just mine, that’s been kind of fun,” Alex Taylor noted.
Mount Vernon wrestling coach Corey Firebaugh said that letting the team know that their star was finished for the season took some special handling.
“It affected some of the kids emotionally, but I tried not to make a big deal out of it,” Firebaugh said. “It’s been kind of like a man up mentality, with Alex there, helping the next man do the best that he can, so we try not to dwell on it.
“We try to make it somewhat normal even though it wasn’t.”
Having the defending state champion and one of the top high school wrestlers in the country moving from teammate to teammate is making the best of a bad situation.
“It’s kind of like having another coach helping us,” Firebaugh said.
Even though Taylor relishes his role as coach ex officio, he is looking forward to getting back on the mat.
“It (coaching). was fun to do, I’m definitely eager to get back (on the mat),” he said..
Taylor is undergoing physical therapy four times a week. He has a scholarship to wrestle for the Oklahoma Sooners, and that future is still intact.
“They are just telling me to get healthy, they don’t want me to push it too early, but there is no surgery required, so they are happy about that, and so am I,” Alex Taylor said.
He will redshirt his freshman year to take a full year to heal and protect his eligibility. The Taylor family, as well as the Mount Vernon program, may know more about Alex’s progress by the end of this week. He is scheduled for a follow-up MRI on Thursday.
Anyone wondering where Alex Taylor is, he is healing up and getting ready to move to Oklahoma.