BOULDER CITY, Nev. (KTNV) — It's time to highlight our Academic Athlete of the Month!
Tyson Irby-Brownson is a two-time wrestling champion at Boulder City High School. He's also a scholar athlete. He continues his success on and off the mat and knows a thing or two about winning.
Being a two-time wrestling champion takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice. Irby-Brownson's days are busy: school, wrestling, rest and repeat. This comes only with a hint of a social life, he tells Channel 13. However, he says he wouldn't have it any other way.
"If I'm not wrestling, I'm slacking off or sleeping," he said. "So it just keeps you involved with the schooling, it's what makes you have fun."
Irby-Brownson says when he got to high school, he didn't come with the most skill, but he came with grit.
"I was the small, little, scrawny freshman wrestling varsity kids that didn't know a lot of technique," he said. "But I just knew how to keep grinding, and that is what definitely helps."
He says wrestling taught him a lot about himself. His mom, Daphne, is an administrator at Boulder City High School and says he taught her even more.
"There is no challenge that is too great," she said. "No times can your face be smushed in the mat too many times for you to not pick it back up and keep on moving."
As for advice to anyone with the goal of being a state champion like Irby-Brownson, he says to keep pushing no matter what the challenge is.
"If you keep driving for the end goal and you just keep going for it, it will come one day," he said. "It may not come when you want it to, but it will come when you need it to."
At this time, Irby-Brownson is getting ready for the high school nationals. He says he also has several college offers, where he hopes to achieve the same top level.
Academic Athlete of the Month is sponsored by Centennial Subaru. Find more stories like this one at ktnv.com/academicathletes.
