Ninth Grader Clay Nelson descends the stairs in Rocky Bayou’s new high school building. As he walks under the globe, I catch his picture on a screen to my right by the reception desk. It’s a photo of him and a message of congratulations for earning 7th place at the Florida Single A State Wrestling Tournament. 

Clay is the first of his kind: in Rocky Bayou Christian School’s half-century history, no other Rocky Bayou wrestler has earned a top-four spot at the regional tournament, which allowed them to advance to the state tournament. 

Clay moved to the state tournament – and ended up medaling. 

“It was really cool experience,” Nelson said, “It is gave me a lot of drive to work harder, because I knew that no one else has done it. And I know that my past teammates had been really close.”

He credits his coaches and teammates for his ability to make it to the state tournament this year. “They have lots of experience and we have a good wrestling room,” Nelson added. 

With three years left of high school – Nelson has plenty of time to improve. He says that he hopes to make the top three next year and after that – who knows?

One thing he does know – he is the first Rocky student to make it to the tournament, but he doesn’t want to be the only or the last. That means raising up teammates to excel as well. “We have lots of good kids coming out. We have lots of younger kids coming out,” Nelson said, “It’s a really good program. Each year we just build and build with more kids and skill and all that.”