Two wrestlers ‘go to the mat’ to offer a lesson in friendship

When Drew Willis, left, and John Troxell wrestled each other in a Catholic Youth Organization match on March 4, the two Catholic grade-school students didn’t expect that their competition would become a touching lesson about friendship. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

Winning and “bragging rights” are often all that seem to matter in sports—and then you hear the story of Drew Willis and John Troxell.

Both Drew and John are intense competitors, the kind of athletes that aren’t measured by their current small body frames, but by the hugeness of their hearts.

Take them on in wrestling—the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) sport they both love—and when you look into their eyes across the mat, you immediately know you are going to get their toughness, their aggressiveness—everything they have—until the last second ticks away.

Both 13, they also share a passion for their sport that can push a youth at this age—leading them to run more, practice more, do more pull-ups, attend more camps and more workouts, all with the desire of being the best they can be.

So now you have a glimpse of nearly everything that came into play as John, an eighth-grade student at St. Roch School in Indianapolis, and Drew, a seventh-grade student at St. Barnabas School in Indianapolis, locked eyes before the beginning of their intense, 109-pound-weight-class, CYO match on March 4.

Oh, yeah, there’s one more thing you should know about Drew and John. They’re good friends, the kind of friendship that adds an extra element to such matches.

“When you go up against a friend, it makes you want to wrestle even harder,” John says. “You want to get the win, but you also want to get bragging rights.”

“We’ve always been friends, so we have that rivalry,” Drew says. “You’re trying to get bragging rights.”

And so their match was everything that could be expected from two wrestlers, two friends who had both gone undefeated in their previous matches that day. Back and forth, they went at each other, locking eyes, looking for openings, striking and sparing, neither of them backing down or letting up as John held a 7-5 lead in the closing seconds of the final period.

“It was one of the longest and hardest matches I’ve had in the last few years,” John would say later. “We were fighting so hard.”

With about 15 seconds left, Drew dove in for a takedown, lifting John off the mat, striving to finish a move that would earn him two points, a tie and an opportunity to win the match in overtime.

Then it happened.

As Drew began to drive John into the mat, he felt everything in his right shoulder go numb. Looking over at his bench, Drew saw the immediate look of concern on the face of his coach, who rushed from the gym to find a trainer. As the referee raised John’s hand, signaling that he had won the match, other coaches and adults rushed to Drew on the mat.

There, they saw a bone pushing through the skin on his right shoulder.

Minutes later, as emergency responders wheeled Drew from the gym on a stretcher, John, concerned and distraught, walked over to quietly tell Drew, “Good luck, bro.” Drew’s dad, Clayton Willis, tried to soothe John before he left the gym, telling John, “It’s not your fault. It was a freak accident.”

That same Saturday afternoon, from Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Clayton Willis shared the news with John’s dad that Drew would have to have surgery on his broken collarbone the next morning, and that his season was over.

Drew was devastated. John was in shock. They both needed a friend.

That moment came the next day.

The seven o’clock surgery on that Sunday morning of March 5 left Drew with six screws and a plate in his right collarbone. It also left him dazed and downcast into the afternoon—until he looked up and saw John standing there before him.

“He was a little surprised,” says John, the son of Aaron and Erin Troxell. “He saw me, and he smiled from ear to ear. Our dads started talking, and I started talking to Drew about the match and what’s going to happen. They brought a wheelchair in, and Drew sat in the chair, and I just pushed him around the whole floor. We found a game room and started playing air hockey. Drew used his left hand.”

John pauses, the joy rising in his voice as he tells what happened next, “We were laughing and having a good time. It was a relief for me because I was all worried about him. We were back to normal, playing games together again. I knew it was going to be all right.”

So did Drew.

“When John showed up at the hospital, it made me feel good again,” he says. “It was fun. We had a good time. It felt good to know we had that bond, and I hope it continues.”

Their fathers, who have been friends for nearly 30 years, savored that moment, too.

“To see Drew laughing again was great,” his dad says. “It’s probably some of the best medicine you can get.”

Later that afternoon, Drew enjoyed the special dinner that John had brought to the hospital for him.

A few hours later, as Drew was getting ready to be released from the hospital to go home, another unexpected visitor arrived at the door of his room—an extraordinary minister of holy Communion coming by to see if Drew wanted to receive the Eucharist.

Drew did. So did John.

“We had the body of Christ together,” John says.

Drew adds, “That was a special moment.”

The aftermath of Drew’s injury has been marked with many touches of concern. He, his dad and his mom Celeste have received numerous texts, e-mails and phone calls from people at St. Roch and St. Barnabas parishes, and from the community of Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, where Drew has attended wrestling camps.

“I’m blessed because all these people are telling me they’re praying for me,” Drew says. “I’m blessed to be in the Catholic community of the South Deanery where everyone knows each other.”

He especially feels blessed by his friendship with John.

“Friendship means more than wrestling,” Drew says.

Theirs is a friendship that merits bragging rights. †