Wrestling
Favorite athlete: Jordan Burroughs
Favorite team: Boston Red Sox
Favorite memory: When I achieved my 100th win in wrestling.
Most embarrassing/funniest moment while competing in sports: My freshman year when our heavyweight at the time was running out onto the mat and tripped and fell.
Music on iPod: Eminem
Words to live by: “Some people have the talent in them while others have the hard work; there are only a few who have both.”
One goal before turning 30: To be working at the profession that I want to do in life.
One thing people don’t know about me: I failed my driver’s test twice.
By GORDON GLANTZ
Dylan Nuttall is not really sure if there remains a height-weight requirement to be a state trooper.
The truth of the matter is that if such a prerequisite remained on the books, it would likely be waived for Nuttall, the Univest Featured Male Athlete of the Week.
The Harry S Truman wrestler may only be 5-4 and weigh 120 pounds, but his combination of smarts and grit and determination – let alone his gargantuan competitive spirit – would likely be enough to wilt any would-be criminal that one day crosses his path.
But he is a long way away from stakeouts and speed traps.
Nuttall, who has been wrestling since the age of four, made an impact for the Tigers out of the chute as a freshman and now finds himself on the precipice of a memorable senior season.
Not only is he about to eclipse the school record of 132 wins held by Sean Edmondson, but he is looking to reach – and make an impact – at the state meet in Hershey come March.
“I’m closing in (on Edmondson’s record),” said Nuttall. “It’s kind of hard to keep out of my mind, even though I know it’s going to come.”
Nuttall, who has reached regionals but not states, is focused on what is beyond breaking the record.
It has been quite a ride, but Nuttall knows that if he exceeds the limit in the fast lane, he may go off-course.
“My main goal is to get to Hershey and to medal,” he said, adding that he has had up-close-and-personal encounters with some of the prime competition and sees himself as being right in the mix.
“I kind of do,” he added. “There are some tough kids. I wrestled against a few that have placed out there.”
Current head coach Jesse Dunn was an assistant who worked closely with Nuttall when he was an underclassman and sees him as the complete package – a grappler whose best attribute is his level of equanimity.
“I have had the pleasure of not only coaching Dylan throughout his high school career, but teaching him as well,” said Dunn. “Dylan is, in every capacity, what a student-athlete should represent. He acts as a role model, not only to the members of our high school team, but to those wrestling in our youth program as well.
“Dylan is recognized throughout the school and community as not only a top student-athlete, but as a young man of character.”
Nuttall had Dunn as a health teacher a year ago, and also as a substitute in other classes, and finds it refreshing to deal with a person he knows under other circumstances.
“There is a carry-over effect,” said Nuttall, who maintains a 3.3 grade-point average. “It’s kind of cool, having a coach as teacher.”
The Jump Start
Nuttall’s older brothers, Ray and Brandon, came through the Truman Rams Youth Wrestling program, and that is where he willingly jumped into the fray before learning his A-B-Cs in Kindergarten.
“I went to their practices,” said Nuttall. “One of their coaches said something about me wrestling. I guess my dad thought I was too young, but he signed me up and that started me wrestling.
“I used to play baseball, but I mostly focused on wrestling because I was always better at it. I wrestled there from when I was four until 13, and I did fairly well.”
He moved from the Rams program to the Truman varsity and promptly posted a 27-6 record as a 106-pounder (he went 33-4 as a 106-pound sophomore and 42-4 as 113-pound junior and has already eclipsed 20 wins this year at 120).
“I jumped right into the mix,” he recalled. “I did well, but it was a still big jump.”
Even when he could no longer wrestle for the Rams, he refused to leave the program behind.
“Dylan volunteers his time during the evenings to help coach the Truman Rams Youth Wrestling program - the program in which he began his wrestling career,” said Dunn. “Dylan understands the scope and sequence involved with 'developing' not only a wrestling program, but a community as well. Wanting to see the program and community that has helped shape him into the young man he has become.
“Dylan volunteers his time to ensure that the Truman wrestling program/community continues to reach new levels of success for years to come.”
Technically, Nuttall works with the program as part of a graduation project and is required to put in a certain amount of hours.
But, for him, working with the youth wrestlers is engrained – with wrestling and studying – as part of his routine.
“For me, it’s just wrestling and studying and the youth program,” he said. “I try to get to their matches and cheer them on.”
Opportunity Knocks
For Nutall, giving back is just a natural instinct learned from his family – parents Pat and Ray and his brothers – and positive experiences with his coaches.
“They kept me into the sport and on the right path with my grades,” said Nuttall, who overcame a broken ankle between his sophomore and junior seasons that was a “fluke” incident.
“Definitely, for me, it has always been grades first. It became part of my routine.”
And that strict routine has opened doors.
He once thought that he would graduate and join the military, but colleges have expressed interest, seeing a student-athlete in the purest sense.
“They’re coming to me,” he said of the schools, “and are asking me to send information out to them.
The interest got him thinking about a career in law enforcement “within the last year,” and he began looking at his uncle, a New Jersey state trooper, and cousin, a police officer in Toms River, N.J., as role models.
“I just assumed for the longest time that I would go into the military, but I rethought it,” he said, adding that the career path “kind of fascinates me.”
He has been accepted to York (Pa.) College and is talking seriously with Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, among others.
“It’s going well,” he said. “I talked to a few coaches and colleges. I want to wrestle in college now. Since high school, it was in the back of my mind. Since last year, it became a definite goal.”
