Adrian Macias wrestled his way out of a web of low expectations, and he wants to see the same thing happen to students who take up wrestling at Santa Barbara High School (SBHS).
“I was the youngest kid in a family of eight,” Macias said. “I didn’t see myself going to UC or the Ivy League.” But in the wrestling room at Monrovia High, where Macias spent years practicing the sport, he entertained a new vision of himself.
“Wrestling really made me feel valued,” he said. Every day, he looked up at a large poster on the wall. It depicted the legendary wrestler Dan Gable, along with his saying: “Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.”