Maynard Stands Tall! In wrestling, and in life, Maynard stands tall
04/01/04
No offense to the other wrestlers in the High School Senior Nationals here this weekend, but they're not Kyle Maynard's toughest challenge. Buttons are. It is a tribute to his extraordinary life that nothing else comes even close.
His arms stop just above the elbows, the result of congenital amputation - he was born with four underdeveloped limbs.
Zippers he has mastered by looping a hanger through the hole. The hanger works well enough on socks, too.
Wrestling has fallen into the same category with typing, dancing, writing, eating, showering, playing video games . . . whatever. Under the umbrella of what he calls his "pursuit of normalcy," his everyday tasks and his lifelong passions have became not just doable but remarkably well done.
Maynard was selected by Georgia wrestling officials to participate in this weekend's national meet.
He finished his season with a 35-16 record for Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Ga. He placed in the top 10 in states, wrestling in the 103-pound weight class.
"We never let a disabled mentality into our home," Anita Maynard said. "He's played street hockey, football, some baseball. He's always wrestled. There's only been a handful of days, maybe, in 18 years that he has felt sorry for himself."
Maynard's upper limbs meet at a midpoint.
He has made them work as a hand would. By age 2, he was coloring with a crayon and keeping as well within the lines as any of his friends.
The last time he attended a special-needs school was the year before kindergarten. When Anita Maynard saw her son through a glass door there one day fumbling with a toy gun he brought for a show-and-tell, that was the last of the prosthetic arms. He dispatched the prosthetic legs, too.
A motorized wheelchair was and still is his transportation outside the house, but at home he moves from basement to eating area to his upstairs bedroom on his own. The house has few adaptations. Not the home computer keyboard, where he types 50 words a minute. Not the pens he uses to write his school papers in amazingly clean lettering. Not the kitchen utensils. He had a special spoon that clipped to his arm as a toddler but stopped using it around age 5.
"It kept getting lost when we'd go to a restaurant or when I would stay over at a friend's house," Maynard said. "I've always done better under pressure. So I was going to a friend's house one night, didn't have it, and just picked up a regular spoon and made it work."
The boy tested his parents' resolve to fit in by trying out for sixth-grade football after the family moved from Fort Wayne, Ind., to suburban Atlanta. His mom didn't like the idea for obvious reasons. But the Maynards had to let him practice what they preached.
When the other kids would run sprints, Maynard would do bear crawls. He needed no help getting to his position, nose guard. He would crawl on all fours. In a region of the country where football is almost holy, he was religious in his practice and play.
"I loved the hard-nosed sports," Maynard said. "But in football, I was getting broken bones. Wrestling gave me what I wanted - hand to hand combat - and against somebody who weighed the same as me."
Cliff Ramos, the Collins High wrestling coach, received a call from Anita Maynard seven years ago telling him her son wanted to wrestle.
"She said, 'He has this physical condition,' " Ramos said. "I said, 'Don't worry. Our youth coaches can handle it.' She said, 'Let me tell you about it.' After she was finished, I paused. Then she told me not to worry."
Ramos wondered if the boy would ever win a match. He lost his first 35. Ramos and Maynard's father, Scott, a former wrestler at Alma College in Michigan, wanted to help him with technique. But how? Ramos would fold his arms up inside his shirt to get a sense of Maynard's challenge.
Wrestling isn't tennis. It isn't golf. Lose 35 consecutive golf or tennis matches as a sixth- and seventh-grader and there might be embarrassment. Lose that many in a grueling sport like wrestling and the fallout is an avalanche of physical anguish and doubt.
"There is nothing more painful than going through an entire wrestling season and not winning a match," Kyle Maynard said. "I had to look back at the end of that year and say, 'You know, this might not be possible.' But halfway through seventh grade I won. And to go from that kind of record to where I am now has been a lot of fun."
Maynard matches his teammates sit-up for sit-up, push-up for push-up. His father has an engineering background. They slipped ropes through weight plates and attached them to Maynard's upper limbs. Later, they used chains. He has lifted 240 pounds 23 times, setting an unofficial record in a strongest teen competition sponsored by GNC. He says he has maxed out at 400 pounds.
When HBO filmed a "Real Sports" segment on Maynard that aired in January, a rival wrestler described him as "one big muscle."
Ramos began sending out tapes and e-mails about the wrestler he calls "the most amazing athlete who ever lived." Tony Marinozzi, a Cleveland-based screenwriter, was so impressed he contacted Ramos. He has written a treatment for a movie, and helped bring Kyle to the wrestling world championships in New York last September. At a private party there, Marinozzi watched Maynard hop out of his wheelchair and gyrate on the dance floor.
"He is so upbeat all the time," Marinozzi said. "When you look at what he's dealt with, I can only think he was sent for a purpose."
Inspiration goes both ways. Maynard has met his wrestling heroes - Bobby Douglas, Dan Gable, Cael Sanderson of Iowa State and others. He calls them "amazing."
Maynard will speak at a banquet in Cleveland tonight along with Ramos. Earlier this week he learned his 3.7 GPA was good enough to get him into the University of Georgia. He wants to someday own a gym and make his living as a businessman/public speaker.
When the competition begins Friday, he'll find himself in even more elite wrestling company.
"There are 18 four-time state champions," said Maynard. "I'm thrilled to be out there with those kind of wrestlers."
Eighteen years after he was born with no arm or leg joints, the talk is of how his condition gives him an advantage on the wrestling mat because opponents can't shoot for his legs or grab his arms and because he has such a low center of gravity.
Imagine.
No one mentioned that when he was losing 35 consecutive matches and his opponents were controlling him by pushing his head to the floor.
Come to think of it, there can be no higher compliment.
Kyle Maynard. Advantaged.
To reach this Plain Dealer columnist:
bshaw@plaind.com, 216-999-5639
