River Falls' senior heavyweight wrestler Lincoln McCarty is 18 years old. Society says he's a man and he is. He's a man among boys on the wrestling mat, even against the big boys. It is, however, extremely ironic, almost a gift from above, McCarty chose to wrestle.

"I'm not doing wrestling because I love it," said McCarty. "I'm doing it because it's hard. I hate and love doing hard things."

McCarty has the conviction of a man twice his age. His elbow was injured his entire senior football season. McCarty also had a partially torn labrum from wrestling during his junior year and a separated AC joint. The Wildcats' B-57 Bomber anchoring the defensive line had a clipped wing and he was grounded. McCarty tried to play in a game halfway through the season when the Wildcats' run defense was being gashed, but it was only creating more nerve damage. He was sent back to the hangar. After the final game of the season in a post-game interview, McCarty said, "Leaders find a way to lead."

His conviction was strong and stern, but listeners could feel his loss. McCarty's interview remarks had fellow classmates in tears, along with the adult interviewer.

"A leader, in any condition, finds a way to lead their family, lead their friends, or lead their group," said McCarty after a recent wrestling practice. "That's what resonated with me through our whole football season."

McCarty hasn't had a white picket-fence childhood, maybe it's a reason why he's mature beyond his years. When most of his high school teammates leave the wrestling room, they go home and watch TV or hang out with friends. McCarty has hours of farm chores and feeding animals staring him in the face. When asked about it, McCarty offers no excuses or stories. He stares into the cement walls in the practice wrestling room and quotes out loud author G. Michael Hopf, "All I'll say is it's like that quote 'hard times create strong men, strong men create good times. Good times create weak men and weak men create hard times.’"

McCarty is constantly wrestling with what sentence he fits into in his self-described prophecy. Wrestling provides the injuries, the suffering, and the challenge. McCarty needs wrestling to keep him on the strong side.  

There are ups and downs in every wrestling room. It can be a roller coaster of going from high to low and low to high. Fortunes on the mat can change in a heartbeat. Wildcat Wrestling Head Coach Cam Loomis says, in his opinion, wrestling is the closest thing to real life a sport can be.

"The willingness to put yourself through that day in and day out and find joy in that takes a special person," said Loomis.

Close to three years ago, McCarty looked to be on a different path in life. Fellow Wildcat wrestler, at the time, Travis Moelter took the younger McCarty and fellow teammate Vinny Costabilo under his wing. At the urging of Moelter, McCarty opened the Bible for the very first time. The first page he randomly turned to was the Book of Job. He instantly saw the connection. 

"Job was this very rich man and lost everything and the devil tested him again and again and again," said McCarty. "In the end, Job stays faithful and strong, not that he's looking for a reward, but he's rewarded double what was taken away. The world doesn't just stop when bad things happen, you have to keep going and have faith."

"Lincoln started reading the Bible and journaling every day," said Costabilo. "He writes down something going wrong and then how he can make it better. He never grew up in a church environment, but I could really see the change in him. He stopped swearing and started to do the right things. Lincoln really inspires me because that's really hard to do, to be able to say 'no' to all the peer pressure in high school."

"When one of them is down, the other one is picking him up," said Loomis of McCarty and Costabilo. "I've had a front row seat to watch it, so it's been pretty cool."

Fast forward to a couple weeks into this year's wrestling season. McCarty was finally cleared to wrestle after being out his entire senior football season. He was out of wrestling shape and was facing Menomonie's fifth ranked heavyweight Bryce Shepard. McCarty had beaten Shepard plenty of times in previous years, but lost in December. In the next match, three days later, he received a concussion and was out again for an extended period. A day before senior night in a dual against rival Hudson, McCarty came down with ringworm and wasn't allowed to wrestle.

"To be honest, I'm human, and I was making excuses," said McCarty. "I brought myself back down and I stopped reading the Bible and stopped journaling. I guess I was just beat down, but Vinny just keeps pulling me back up."

"I was nervous," said Loomis. "I didn't know, mentally, what direction Lincoln was going to go."

"I think Lincoln was just kind of feeling sorry for himself," said Costabilo, "because nothing was going his way."

"A switch flipped in my head after Vinny talked to me," said McCarty. "When I got home that night I buzzed my head as a mental reset."

"Lincoln was the first one at practice that next day," said Loomis. "When I walked in, he was the only one there and I saw his shaved head and he looked straight at me."

"I told Coach I was ready to go," said McCarty.

Leaders find a way to lead and McCarty led his Wildcats to a huge win over fourth ranked Menomonie. Since Vinny’s talk and the shaved head reset, McCarty has avenged his earlier season loss to Shepard, picked up his 100th win, and helped his team take home the Kirby Symes Golden Shoe dual against Ellsworth this past Friday night.

"If I was to throw it all in the trash can and stop being who I was over a little injury," said McCarty, "I wouldn't be able to call myself a leader."

Leaders do find a way to lead, but they also cannot do it alone. Lincoln needs Vinny and Vinny needs Lincoln. They both crave the suffering and the strength wrestling provides them.

As 18th century French writer Voltaire wrote, "History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes going up."

The WIAA State Wrestling Tournament is about to hear the climb.