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Gulf's Carpenter Buying Into Coach DeWalt's Advice

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By EDDIE DANIELS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 13, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - It typically takes a kid some time to buy into what coaches are saying to him. Normally, it's an ongoing process, but when that time comes, success is around the corner.

Jarod Carpenter wasn't willing to wait. He's chasing that success now.

"I've just been working my butt off all summer," said Carpenter, a sophomore 103-pounder for the Buccaneers. "We only had like seven weeks off the whole summer and I've just been buying into what my coaches say and listening to them and taking their advice."

In late October, the squad began voluntary runs in the morning - six-mile runs.

Anyone facing that daunting task likely would hesitate when asked. It took Carpenter very little time to agree to the daily runs.

"Now does that sound like your typical sophomore?" Gulf coach Travis DeWalt asked. "We got him eating the philosophy we're giving him, so hopefully, come February, it's going to make him a state placer or a state champ."

The moment in which DeWalt felt urged to laud his sophomore nearly didn't happen. After the first week of wrestling as a freshman, Carpenter nearly left the team.

"My first week last year I almost quit and then Coach talked me into staying," Carpenter said.

Moments later as DeWalt attempted to reveal details, Carpenter put a move on his coach not found on the wrestling mat. He sprinted to his coach and quickly put his hand over DeWalt's mouth. The hand and intense laughter abated that set of details, but couldn't stop a new set of niceties.
DeWalt believes Carpenter can be the first sophomore he's coached to place at the state tournament, held at The Lakeland Center on Feb. 14-16.

"He almost left us and now we tease him all them time, 'You're one of our better kids in there and to think, you almost walked after one week,'" DeWalt said. "You give it a chance and you buy into it and boom, now they're hooked. That's the biggest thing. We lose a lot of them before the buy in."

Despite being quelled by a 10th-grader, DeWalt, who admitted Carpenter is a leader among his team and fits right in with the squad's three seniors, has no problem praising a hardworking wrestler, regardless of grade level or age.

"He's our product," DeWalt said.

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