Strength often came from within during Middletown man’s journey to international world competition

‘This has been the calling I’ve been looking for my entire life to be a world champion,’ athlete says.
Former Middletown High School wrestler LaTrell Davis has his hand raised after a victory. CONTRIBUTED

Former Middletown High School wrestler LaTrell Davis has his hand raised after a victory. CONTRIBUTED

MIDDLETOWN — LaTrell Davis showed interest in wrestling at around third grade. He was quick and diligent back in 2004, with minimal training.

It came naturally. And he showed it confidently. Almost too confidently sometimes.

Yet it came naturally enough for Davis to want to compete in area tournaments at a young age.

“I realized I could do this. I could hang with the best of them.”

Davis ran through competitors at his first-ever tournament while wrestling in Carlisle. He grappled his way to face the returning state champion, which was “a dogfight.”

Davis said he was manhandling his opponent to the point where he made him cry and ask for multiple timeouts. The halts and pauses threw him off enough for him to lose the match.

But it was at that moment of simply being there — wrestling for a championship — that fed him what he was wanting, and not wanting.

Former Middletown HIgh School wrestling LaTrell Davis will be competing in the United World Wrestling Beach World Series qualifying tournament in Argentina. CONTRIBUTED

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“Having that feeling of defeat was heartbreaking,” Davis recalled. “I never wanted to feel that again. Being in that first tournament, it flipped a switch. The feeling of winning, and the feeling of losing.

“The feeling of knowing that I can wrestle with the best of them was just the start for me.”

Davis took a year off before picking things back up in Middletown during fifth and sixth grade.

He began to build quite the trophy case — winning Dayton and Cincinnati city tournaments. He remembers the spectacle of wrestling on Wright State’s Nutter Center floor.

“I was taken aback by the stairs,” Davis said. “I was scared. I told myself that I had to face this weird fear. I had to get past the fact that I was scared of these long stairs and just set my mind to wrestling.

“But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the process of going through that.”

“Most Valuable Wrestler” and “Most Improved” awards soon joined the trophy case.

“All those things kept driving me,” said Davis, who started lifting when his father brought home a weight set later on during his middle school years.

“He told me, ‘You’re not going to control how tall you are, but you can control how strong you are.’ I’ll never forget that.”

Latrell Davis (left) of Middletown, wrestles with A.J. Kowal of Princeton in the 152 lbs. weight class. Davis would beat Kowal 3-2 in the final round of the GMC Wrestling Tournamentat Lakota East High School in Liberty Twp. in Febrauary 2013.

Credit: Pat Strang

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Credit: Pat Strang

So, he did what he intended to do — get stronger.

Davis wrestled at state his seventh-grade year, but he was mentally focused on playing football. The growing, stubborn youngster in him shunned aside the significance of competing at the state tournament that year, and he admittedly lost focus.

Eighth grade was different, though.

“I wanted to go back to this state thing again,” said Davis, who placed in the top eight against junior high wrestlers he recalled were later “D-I All-Americans and Big Ten champions.”

In his first match freshman year at Middletown, Davis wrestled Lakota East senior Ryan Miller — who pummeled him 14-1 in the 130-pound weight class. Miller finished atop the Greater Miami Conference standings that year with a 31-8 record. Davis was second at 26-5.

“I don’t think I had my butt whooped in a long time like that,” Davis said. “It left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Davis saw Miller again in the GMC tournament and lost by a point.

“I called that a win — coming back from that 14-1 loss to only losing to a senior by a point,” Davis said. “That really motivated me.”

The next level

Sophomore year, Davis practiced twice a day — once at school and the other at Prodigy Wrestling Academy in Middletown.

“I found someone who was devoted to training people like me,” Davis said of Nate Carr, an Olympian wrestler from a long line of family athleticism.

When Carr moved to the area from Pennsylvania, he was involved in teaching and coaching the sport, and Davis was someone he saw often.

“I got the chance to encourage him,” Carr said. “I think that’s what coaches are supposed to do. Coaching means you have to take someone to where they want to go, even when they can’t get there by themselves.”

Davis fell into that category.

“What a great personality and a great disposition,” Carr said.

Davis referred to Carr as an inspiration — spiritually and mentally. But Carr prepared him physically, too.

“He took it to me,” Davis said. “He told me, ‘This is what’s going to make you better.’”

“Every time I got to be around him, I poured it into him,” Carr laughed. “I just look at myself as a professional encourager.”

Davis was, indeed, encouraged to elevate his wrestling to another level. He made it to the state tournament his sophomore season at Middletown, but went 0-2.

He said it was a “learning experience” that prepped him for a return to state as a junior when he powered through some injuries and a drop in weight.

“It was ugly.”

“LaTrell was legit, though,” added former Middies coach Shawn Thomas, who coached Davis his sophomore and junior seasons.

“I knew he was a special wrestler. He was very slick and very fast. He always worked on his skill set and had a very good work ethic.”

But Davis had the same outcome — 0-2.

“I could have had 1,000 excuses my junior year, but it is what it is. I had my eyes on senior year immediately.”

He coined his final season on the mat at Middletown as “a pivotal moment.”

Davis felt untouchable. He went 26-3 in the 152 weight class and defeated Princeton’s AJ Kowal 3-2 to win a GMC title.

Wrestling into trouble

That confidence later became humbleness during the district tournament for Davis, the state’s third-ranked wrestler at the time.

He had just won the sectional tournament, and he was reeling.

“This is what many people in southwest Ohio remember me by,” he said. “I’m cocky. I’m borderline arrogant.”

In the regional semifinal match against Moeller’s Wyatt Wilson, Davis was in a position where he lifted Wilson, who attempted a Granby roll. Wilson ended up landing on his head.

Thomas, who wasn’t Middletown’s coach during Davis’s senior season, was in the stands to watch him wrestle.

“I knew it was coming,” Thomas said. “Right when the Moeller kid hit the mat, I knew they would call him for a slam.”

“They stopped the match, and said it was illegal,” added Davis, who was disqualified and sent to the consolation bracket.

But Davis never got to wrestle another high school match again.

“At that moment, I blew up. I let my emotions get the best of me.”

A smug Davis punched the scoreboard as we walked off the mat.

“That humbled me,” he said. “It had to become aware of my emotions. I had to take that situation and realize that I had to make a self-development change. I had to self-grow.

“I was emotionally troubled, and I knew I was.”

Davis was committed to wrestling at Cleveland State, and he thought his scholarship might have been jeopardized.

“But they wanted me. They were willing to take the chance on me still.”

His freshman year at the collegiate level was a quiet one, as he was trying to find where he fit in on the roster.

Davis registered 19 Division I wins as a sophomore in the 157 weight class and was a force in the Eastern Wrestling League.

“I learned a lot about that level of wrestling,” Davis said. “You really had to gut it out to win every match.”

A lot of eyes were on Davis heading into his junior year — for both positive and negative reasons.

“I was told I could be an All-American. Then I got myself into some trouble.”

Davis attended a party, with alcohol involved, and got into a fight at a fraternity that he described as “an all-out brawl. It got pinned on me.”

Davis was kicked off the Cleveland State wrestling team and suspended from the school.

“My wrestling records were wiped clean. They were separating me from the team as much as they could. They did what they needed to do. I understood it.”

Davis was charged with felonious assault, a felony-two offense. He fled to Pennsylvania, was apprehended and spent 30 days in jail.

“When I was transferred by bus back to Cleveland, I was sitting next to murderers — having legit conversations with them,” he recollected. “Right there, I thought to myself, ‘My life needs to change. It needed to change right now.’”

Davis took the case to trial and won it.

“The charges were dropped, which was a blessing.”

Davis hoped that it was a start of a new path.

A new direction

The renewed Davis returned to Cleveland State, only to discover that he lost some of his credit hours — and his scholarship.

The school load to get all of that back was too much for him to handle, he said, so he wrestled in one open tournament and decided to come back home to Middletown.

“I just couldn’t do it. It was overwhelming.”

Davis did some coaching at Edgewood and held private lessons on the side to get on his feet. But in the back of his mind, he didn’t think he’d ever compete in another wrestling match again.

Then he reverted to his third-grade dream.

“I’ve got to give this all to God, because I believe He gives us all of our desires in our hearts,” Davis said. “I had this urge to always want to be a world champion. That never came from me. It came from God. He put that desire in me before I even knew what the Olympics were.

“I wanted Him to give me a sign. I wanted Him to tell me what I was doing wrong. I didn’t know what was next for me. But I was having a dream where I was digging this hole. I kept digging and digging — throwing dirt over my shoulder.”

In his dream, he said he was tired and exhausted. He just wanted to quit.

“God came over me and told me to ‘keep digging. You’ll find gold.’”

Davis said knew he was going to be sent in a positive direction.

Days later, he was contacted by Lindsey Wilson College (Ky.) to join the wrestling program, where he placed in the top eight in the country as an All-American.

Davis admitted the same distractions were at Lindsey Wilson during his sophomore year, which put him in a position to use them as a means to get by.

“Going through my junior and senior seasons, I was going on a tear,” said Davis, a top-ranked contender at the time.

Moments before the conference tournament in 2020, Davis received the heartbreaking news that his mother had passed away.

“I talked to my mom every day,” he said. “The timing was tough.”

Davis was forced to put his top-ranked status aside, and he missed weight heading into the conference tournament.

The vision of being a world champion was still there, though.

“I tried my hardest to be strong-minded. I had to take steps to make sure I was doing the right things. Without taking those steps and having a clear mind and trusting God the last three years, I don’t think I’d still be chasing my dream.”

A simple scroll on Instagram soon provided Davis with his opportunity.

“I saw beach wrestling. Then I thought, ‘Boom! That’s it. That’s what I want to do.’

“That’s how I want to become a world champion.”

Davis did his research, and it led him to information about the United World Wrestling Beach World Series qualifying tournament in Argentina, which is supported by the International Olympic Committee.

He will be competing May 7-8 in Buenos Aires in one of five qualifying events for a chance to participate in the 2023 World Beach Games in August.

“I’m really excited about this,” said Davis, who hopes to garner some support through sponsors in his wrestling journey. “It’s definitely different.”

Davis, 28, is a current graduate student and coaches at Muskingum, where he’s been able to train. The Cincinnati Regional Training Center recently opened in the west end of the city, and Davis has taken advantage of that as well.

“This is it,” Davis said with enthusiasm. “This has been the calling I’ve been looking for my entire life to be a world champion. Now it’s right in front of me.

“Even if this doesn’t turn out how I want, I can take this experience and add it to my bucket list, and I hope this inspires others to keep reaching for their goals in life — even if you think it gets worse.”

For Davis, it’s gotten better.

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