VEEDERSBURG — Every high school athlete wants their senior season to be their greatest. For Fountain Central’s Waylon Frazee, it was certainly shaping up to be just that, until it all came to a screeching halt. Frazee has battled a chronic back condition for most of his wrestling career and near the end of last season it started to rear its ugly head. The FC senior finished out his junior season with a narrow first-round loss at the New Castle semi-state and then a routine doctor’s visit this past off-season forced Frazee to make a decision that no high school athlete wants to make.
The doctors told Frazee that if he continued to wrestle, his condition in his spine would only get worse and that he may end up in a wheelchair. Right then and there Frazee saw the bigger picture and chose to give up his senior season in order to be able to have the future that he wants.
“In the end it came down to in 10 years do I want to be able to walk around with my kids and wrestle with them or do I want to be in a wheelchair?,” Frazee said. “The future is never certain, but I chose to take a little uncertainty out of the picture and be able to live the life that I want to live with my future wife and family.”
On the mat during his three years for the Mustangs, Frazee made semi-state each season. His overall record in those three years is a staggering 90-13. Coming into this season in the pre-season rankings Frazee was ranked fifth at 144 pounds without evening wrestling a match at that weight class. Mustang coach Jaren Oakley has been able to see Frazee wrestle even dating back to when he was in fifth grade and now that his career is over, Oakley noted how Frazee has set the standard for the Mustang program.
“We have a high standard of being a great team and having great sportsmanship and he blew it out of the roof,” Oakley said. “I remembered Waylon of someone that I really looked up to who was an outstanding football player and wrestler. He had an accident that put him in a wheelchair and I told him how he can still have a great impact on this team even if he’s not on the mat. I’d rather see him walking around every day and maybe even coaching this team one day. He’s ran some of our practices this year and they’ve been some of the hardest we’ve had. That’s just who he is. He’s here to make us better and he’s always been the first person to go to one of our guys after a tough loss.”
Frazee has turned into another coach for the Mustangs. While he would like to be out there he is still making an impact. It’s not just the Mustang community that knows what Frazee went through. Oakley talked about the plenty of texts and emails he’s received from other coaches asking why they haven’t seen his name in the rankings and results. Every time he has tell them what happened, it’s difficult. The Frazee name has certainly made its rounds in the wrestling community.
“This injury is the only thing in my opinion that stopped him from wrestling at state this year,” Oakley said. “The whole state knows Waylon and what he’s been able to accomplish. It’s been hard when I’ve had countless coaches ask why they haven’t seen him. It puts a big weight on my chest when I have to tell them what happened. There’s no secret that this is a tough thing for Waylon and tough for us as a program to deal with, but we’re working through it and he’s still that same leader that he was before.”
The decision to still be around the Mustangs and his teammates was an easy one for Frazee. Instead of feeling sorry for himself and using the ‘why me’ mantra, he’s now changed his focus to helping his teammates still have a successful season.
“I feel like that’s what every high school athlete should be doing if they’re put in my situation and have their senior year taken away,” Frazee said. “You might as well show up and give it your all off the mat. The first couple of weeks were really hard watching everyone come up here and wrestle while I had to watch. It took a lot of time and effort to tell myself to not get on the mat. What I had to was sit back and realize that if I was risking further injury and giving my all towards wrestling, I wouldn’t be able to spend time with my family, girlfriend and everyone else in my life who deserves my attention as well.”
Frazee is now at peace with his choice because he knows there are things that are bigger than wrestling. While it was tough to give up the sport that he’s loved so much, in the end he knows it was the right decision.
“There’s life after wrestling and I had to really sit down and look at that,” he said. “That goes for anything that gets taken away from you sooner than it should. You have to be looking at the bigger picture. I want people to look back and say that I made the right decision.”
Frazee will go down as one of the greats to wrestle for the Mustangs. Not just because of what he’s done on the mat, but for his ability to know when to make the call and be able to go on to live the rest of his life.
