After tearing his ACL, U of G wrestler, Tyson Frost, shows the value of persistence and hard work
If you see Tyson Frost from beneath a sweater and coat, sipping on a Booster Juice in the University Centre, you probably wouldn’t peg that the man under the layers is a five-foot-eleven, 220-pound esteemed wrestler for the University of Guelph – though his cauliflower ears elude to his participation in some form of hand-to-hand combat.
If you see Frost in the gym, you wouldn’t know that his Tonka Truck physique, honed over years of dedication to the sport of wrestling and lifting weights, is recovering from a torn ACL (major ligament in the knee) that all but ended his wrestling career.
Despite what little you may know or see of Frost, know this: he’s not a quitter.
It was in 2011, in Brazil and wrestling for Team Canada in the gold medal match, where Frost’s career was at its most paramount moment. This was also when the silver medalist unknowingly tore his ACL.
“In the gold medal match I felt my knee buckle a little bit. I didn’t really think anything of it, I finished second in the tournament and when I came back I took about a month off to recover. I started training again after the month and I felt my knee was a little sore, so I went to get a doctor to look at it and he said he thought my ACL was torn,” lamented Frost.
“I was like ‘no way,’ I was still training on it and walking on it,” exclaimed Frost. At just 20 years old, youthful invincibility is still embedded in the psyche of the athlete.
“I got the MRI results back and it was torn, and the CIS rankings had gone out the week before and I was ranked second…and the guy that ended up winning the CIS’s that year was the guy I beat to represent Team Canada for the Pan-Ams,” explained Frost.
Frost went in for surgery and the procedure went well. Almost certain that his career as a wrestler was over, there was still an obligation to the gym, and Frost wasted little time in re-commencing his treacherous weightlifting program as he recovered.
“If you asked me six months ago if I would be back wrestling again, I’d have said there was no chance…I felt like life was pushing me in another direction. So I focused on my grades and I didn’t even think of coming back until May of this year,” said Frost.
Corey Jarvis, former Canadian Interuniversity Champion for the University of Guelph and a close friend of Frost, called up his former roommate to ask him if he could train with him at Guelph’s club gym.
“[Jarvis] gave me a call and asked if I could come out. He said he was short ‘big guys’ to train with,” said Frost.
After some hesitancy and doubt, Frost felt he owed Jarvis for all he had done to help him in Guelph in years past. Queue fate.
Frost started wrestling again, and much to the surprise of himself and his coaches, he was doing quite well. “My coaches said ‘alright, maybe you should give it another go,’” Frost said with a grin and body language that implied that the rest of the story is living history. “Here we are in November and I’ve wrestled three tournaments. I won my first one back, which was the Greater Toronto Open, I won my second one back, which was the Western Open, and then I got second at the senior provincial championships.”
The dedication Frost shows to his training cannot be understated. There was never a time when his torn ACL meant defaulting on his work in the gym or in the classroom. The senior has high, yet realistic, ambitions of getting into a Master’s program here at the U of G. Couple his time focusing on studies with a five-day a week training schedule and a serving job at Fionn MacCool’s, and it’s clear that Frost has no visible uncertainties with priorities in life.
The OUA wrestling season is set to continue in the Winter ’14 semester and at the rate of Frost’s recovery, and what he calls his “competitive spirit,” there is no telling what the future holds for this wrestler who exemplifies the truest definition of what it means to be a student-athlete in university. While the Pan-Am Games may be a long shot, Frost remains humble in his recovery and abilities to wrestle, saying, “We’ll take it day-by-day.”