For the first time in West Ashley High School history, an athlete has been nominated and honored with the title Athlete of the Week for a third time. Just four short weeks ago, senior Tyler Walker was selected as the Athlete of the Week for football, and last year Walker was the Athlete of the Week for wrestling as well. This marks the second time this year that Walker has earned this honor. He has certainly been busy pinning his opponents and catching the eyes of his coaches.
“He is always willing to push himself to achieve his goals,” says Varsity Wrestling Coach Austin Miller. During his most recent competition at the Stall Invitational, Walker went 4-0. According to Miller, Walker also went 4-0 in the Cardinal Newman Holiday Classic, helping the team achieve a 2nd place finish. “Without Tyler our team would not be in the position it is,” says Miller.
This is Walker’s third and last year wrestling for West Ashley High, and he’s already going out with a bang! At the end of football season Walker was looking forward to making his last season of wrestling memorable. He explained that he enjoys wrestling more than football because it is a team sport with individual competitions. “You’re responsible for your outcome because it’s one-on-one,” says Walker. One of his biggest achievements in wrestling was making it to lower state to compete last year. He hopes to make it back to state this year.
In order to reach that goal, Walker plans to make the most of each day during practice and competitions. Walker knows that his success relies heavily on his practices and the amount of effort he puts into training and eating healthy. “He is always the first one on the mat and the last one off,” says Miller. “Tyler is one person that I can trust to wrestle hard whether I am watching or not, [and] I look forward to seeing what he achieves this season.”
Walker says his motivating factors are his parents and his drive to overcome any obstacle. Not only is Walker athletically inclined, he’s also an intelligent young lad. “Tyler is a leader on the mat as well as the classroom,” says Miller. Walker is pretty well positioned to take on college. He hasn’t yet decided where he would like to go, but he’s already received an acceptance letter from the College of Charleston. If he’s offered a deal to wrestle in college he will take it, but he would otherwise focus solely on his studies. He also recently decided that he would like to major in engineering and pursue a career in that field. West Ashley High will reluctantly release Walker into the world this spring, and the wrestling team will have to find a new leader on the mat.
