“During my career, I had to learn to use my disability to my advantage. I had to focus on what I could do. I had to turn a disability into an advantage. I also had to get tough mentally. It all worked out in the end,” says Anthony Robles, a motivational speaker, 2011 Division I national champion wrestler, and member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
In 1988, Robles was born to 16-year-old Judy Robles. When he was born, doctors discovered that Robles did not have a right leg. He had no other medical condition and doctors couldn’t explain the absence of his leg. He was otherwise healthy, happy, and, for lack of a better term, normal. As a toddler, doctors fitted Robles with a prosthetic leg but he found it to be uncomfortable, heavy, and more of a hindrance than getting around on just one leg. “It pinched me. My mom tried to get me to wear it but it didn’t make me happy. My mom left it up to me to wear it or not. Even back then, as a youngster, my mom supported my decisions,” he recalls.
Growing up wasn’t easy for Robles. As you might expect, he had self-confidence issues. He wasn’t thrilled when he had to go to school. “The first day of school is exciting for most kids. Not for me – it was the worst day of my life,” he says. As Robles grew older, he adapted well to his disability. He never used a prosthetic, instead opting to get around on crutches.
Then, when he was 14 years old, Anthony Robles discovered wrestling. Robles had moved from California to Arizona, and an older cousin took him to a few wrestling practices. The coach asked Robles if he would like to give the sport a try. His cousin encouraged him to join the team. So Robles started wrestling and immediately fell in love with the sport.
But that doesn’t mean that success came easy. Early on, Robles lost. A lot. Wrestling is an archaic sport that still remarkably resembles wrestling of centuries ago. The sport discourages innovation and change. To be competitive, Robles would have to change the sport. Not having but one leg gave him a couple of advantages – namely he could carry more upper body weight than wrestlers in his weight class, he didn’t have to cut as much weight, and he only had one leg for opponents to attack. At the same time, though, he couldn’t balance as well as two-legged wrestlers and there are times in wrestling when standing is mandatory. Robles took his lumps as he honed his style. His high school coaches were patient with him and coaxed him along slowly. The first two years at Mesa High School, Robles lost most of his matches. Then something clicked. He finished his junior and senior years with a 96-0 record, two state championships, and two national titles. Just a few years prior, Robles had been the last-ranked wrestler in the city.
After high school, he wanted to wrestle in college but he had few offers. “Iowa was my number-one choice,” he says. “But no one thought I could wrestle at the Division I level, much less at a school like Iowa. They said I was too small, that I was too light. I thought they were wrong. I thought I could beat anybody they put in front of me,” he says.
With no scholarship offers on the table, Robles decided to stay close to home and walk on at Arizona State. He made the team but once again, things didn’t come easy for him. After going undefeated his last two years of high school, he started losing in college. He lost a lot of matches for three years. “I tried to learn something from each loss. It was still discouraging. But I felt like if I quit, I would be proving the doubters, the ones who didn’t expect very much out of me, right,” he says.
Robles refused to give up. His senior year, he started winning again. He steamrolled his competition en route to a perfect 36-0 record and a Division I national title in the 125-pound weight class. To make things even sweeter, his opponent in the finals was defending national champion Matt McDonough, an Iowa Hawkeye who would win a second national title a year later. “I had never wrestled him before. I just wanted to catch him early on, score some points, then force him to make mistakes at the end,” says Robles. The strategy worked; Robles won the match 7-1 and claimed a national championship. “It was an amazing feeling. It took nine years of training. It was my only dream, my only goal. Once I had gotten to the top, I could take a breath again.”
Once Robles had won college wrestling’s highest award, what would he do next? He briefly considered wrestling at the next level but ultimately decided to go in another direction. He had a story to tell, one that could inspire countless others to pursue their dreams and overcome all obstacles. “I wanted to build a career in wrestling commentary and speaking,” he says. And that’s exactly what he did. Now, Anthony Robles is a sought-after motivational speaker, and he shares his story with millions of people each year. “I want audiences to leave the auditoriums knowing that they are unstoppable. No matter what they’re wrestling with or what kind of adversity they’re facing, they can be unstoppable. Just never, ever quit,” he says.
Special Feature/South Georgia/February 2015
Anthony Robles
Robert Preston Jr.
Robles: ‘Regardless of adversity, you can be unstoppable’
