Greensboro's African American Community Newspaper since 1967
In February, walking up the tunnel and into the arena at the First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, Xavier Wilson tried to keep calm. He could feel his nerves, or what he calls an “energy ball” bouncing around in his stomach. He remembered what Jason Wear, his assistant wrestling coach at Eastern Guilford High, always told him.
“The butterflies in your stomach? That’s just the energy building up inside of you,” he told Xavier. “You choose what it turns into — either fear or aggression.”
Xavier had gone undefeated his junior year and won the state title in the 215-pound class. As a senior, he now was trying to repeat. Once again, he came in undefeated. But this time at the state wrestling championships, Xavier was no underdog. He was the favorite. And all eyes were on him.
“Hey, you got this!” Maurice Atwood, Eastern Guilford’s acclaimed wrestling coach, said in his thundering voice seconds before the match. “You’ve worked the whole season for this!”
Xavier stepped onto the mat and heard his mom, Tamara Woods, shout his nickname from the stands.
“Go, Goo!” she yelled. “You got this, Goo!”
Don’t over think it, he told himself. Watch your opponent’s feet and hips. And always — always — trust your training.
The match began.
Xavier’s Wrestling Discovery
Xavier Wilson graduated last Friday (June 13) at Greensboro’s Special Events Center, and he leaves Eastern Guilford as one of the most acclaimed wrestlers in the school’s history. His talent and his work ethic have earned him a full ride to attend N.C. State University on an athletic scholarship and wrestle with one of the country’s top programs.
Quite the accomplishment. Yet, think about where Xavier was four years ago.
He really didn’t know what wrestling was. He figured it was like WWE, the well-known acronym for World Wrestling Entertainment where John Cena and The Rock began.
He was more into football, and at 6-feet-2 and 260 pounds, he saw the gridiron — not a wrestling mat — as the way for him to earn an athletic scholarship to a D-1 school. When football ended, his mom gave him an edict: Get involved with another sport to stay out of trouble.
Xavier chose wrestling. That’s how he met Coach Atwood.
“He’s a real big guy, and he like towers over you and he has the deepest voice you ever heard,” Xavier says. “You ever watch those dinosaur movies? And you hear someone saying, ‘Sixty-five million years ago …’ That’s his voice.
“And when I walked into the wrestling room, Coach Atwood turns to me and said, ‘If you’re not serious about wrestling, you might as well get out of here,’ and I was a little scared,” Xavier says. “I even shook a little bit. But I didn’t want to show it. I sat and watched practice.”
Xavier liked what he saw, and it was in no way like football. It was more one-on-one, a mental and physical grind he liked. Right then, Xavier knew.
“Wrestling,” he told himself, “is the sport for me.”
‘You Ready?”
As a freshman, Xavier wrestled in the heavyweight class, which had a 285-pound weight limit. He relied on his athleticism, and he did well. Then, in his fourth tournament, he lost. Xavier realized he learned a valuable lesson.
“My opponent had more experience so in that match my athleticism couldn’t beat technique, and at that moment, I experienced my first loss, which was frustrating, but a teaching moment at the same time,” Xavier wrote in his college application essay. “So, for me it was back to the drawing board.”
Back to watching more YouTube videos of wrestlers Jordan Burroughs, Kyle Snyder and Gable Steveson. Back to watching videos of them all the time. Back to stopping, rewinding to study a specific move and reviewing it over and over before watching it one more time.
Xavier also got more what he calls “mat time” at Eastern Guilford. He trained with his teammate, Karin Sein, who was a year older and wrestled in the 195-pound class. Sein always beat Xavier because he was quick, explosive, shifty, and had better technique.
A year later, Xavier took down his friend. No words were spoken. Sein dapped him fist to fist and gave him a hug. Xavier got respect from his teammate who saw him like, as Xavier says, a “little bro.’” Xavier also realized he was getting better, quicker and lighter.
As he trained and as he continued playing football, Xavier lost weight. By his sophomore year, when he played left guard for the Wildcats, Xavier weighed 230 pounds. By his junior year, playing defensive end, he dropped another 10 pounds.
Xavier lost another five more pounds and wrestled in the 215-pound class his junior year. He won state. His record: 61-0. By the last weekend in February of his senior year, Xavier hadn’t lost a match in two years. His record was 57-0 when he stepped onto the mat at the First Horizon Coliseum and faced a wrestler from Pisgah High for the state championship.
Xavier won 5-4. After the match, he hugged Wear and took him down in a wrestling move known as a lateral drop.
“Whoa!”
The exclamation rose like a wave through the crowd. Xavier then gave Atwood a hug and heard his coach whisper in his ear, “You ready?”
Xavier used a lateral drop to take down Atwood too.
He then looked up in the stands and saw his parents. He also noticed that his mom was crying. Xavier looked up and held up two fingers.
“Your oldest son did it,” he told himself. “Two times state champ.”
“My Life Is Going To Change”
In January, Atwood was named National Wrestling Coach of the Year by the National Federation of State High School Associations. Atwood, who has been coaching wrestling for 24 years, was recognized for Eastern Guilford’s unblemished record of 48-0 the previous year.
By February, Xavier had been named an All-American in his sophomore and junior years by the National High School Coaches Association, and he was ranked No. 6 on N.C. United’s College Prospect rankings.
Two weeks before he won his second state wrestling title, Xavier signed with N.C. State. A week later, Atwood said this to the News & Record about Xavier: “We can debate if he is the best or not, but he is definitely the one that is the complete package because he has the brains and the brawn that all work together.”
As he thinks about his life ahead of him, he thinks about what’s behind him — his five brothers, ages six to 14. Like his mom, they call him “Goo,” his nickname since he was a baby. He wants to, in his words, “do right” and set an example so when they look at his life, they all will strive for something better,
“My life is going to change because of this golden opportunity in front of me,” he says. “I’ve just got to keep my head down because I know my time is going to come. And man, I think about it every night because I know what I want to do and what I can do.
“Honestly, I think I can be a national champion or a world champion or an Olympic champion. I’ll go as far as my body will take me.”
Jeri Rowe, a former columnist at the News & Record, is the Editor at Large at Our State Magazine. This content was provided through Guilford County Schools.
