By Mike Clark
Victor Quiroz has spent the last couple of years proving opponents wrong and proving his grandfather right.
Quiroz, a Curie senior, is one of three Condors who won Public League boys wrestling titles on Jan. 28.
He did it emphatically, pinning all four opponents en route to the 144-pound title.
“I did it for my grandpa because he died during COVID,” Quiroz said. “It was before I did any sports. … I told myself, any sports I wanted to do, I have to win it for him.
“He just supported me a lot.”
That support helped because Quiroz feels he has to go above and beyond to prove he belongs in the conversation of the Public League’s elite wrestlers.
“Some people doubted me half of the time, including in the city,” he said. “The coaches were doing the seedings and they did not want to give me the first seed. But I proved them wrong.”
The reason? Quiroz was born with a left arm that ends at his elbow.
That hasn’t stopped him from playing other sports, including football, basketball and soccer. Curie wrestling coach Yahya Muhammad, who’s also a football assistant, saw in Quiroz the athleticism and fire needed to succeed in wrestling.
That was only a year ago.
“We gave him an opportunity,” Muhammad said. “‘Hey man, I got a spot for you, try it out.’ So he came in the room and enjoyed his time and got better and better every time.”
Quiroz also slimmed down.
“I was a little fat, like 180 (pounds) or something,” he said. “But football got me a little lower, around 170.”
He wound up wrestling last season at 152 and finished 4-9.
He didn’t advance to the second day of the Public League Tournament. But he didn’t get discouraged; he got to work.
“I told myself, ‘I am going to win (city as a senior) no matter what,'” Quiroz said. “So I trained every day and ate healthy.”
“Then we worked over the summer,” Muhammad said. “Did a couple of summer camps and summer tournaments.”
Some of the work involved figuring out how Quiroz, who dropped to 144 pounds this season, could use his impressive body control and his legs — rather than his upper body — to dominate opponents.
“I realized my junior year that I had a decent amount of leg (strength) when I was wrestling,” he said. “And I knew how to bounce back to any position. So I was like, might as well train (legs) — train my upper body as well — but mainly train (legs) because some people don’t even train that at all.”
In Quiroz, Muhammad saw someone who had both the physical and mental makeup to be successful on the mat.
“He really embraced the moment,” Muhammad said. “He’s a fighter. At the end of the day, he (doesn’t) want to not wrestle. He wants that challenge, he likes that challenge.
“He likes people telling him he can’t do something.”
And just to drive the point home, Muhammad notes, Quiroz puts his right arm down after he’s won a match — leaving the referee to raise his left arm.
Quiroz (17-11) went 2-2 at the Class 3A Downers Grove South Regional, falling 13-11 in the third-place match against Hinsdale Central’s Barsum Ravanasa.
That ended his high school career. But Quiroz isn’t ready to walk away from wrestling; he hopes to compete in college.
“I really love this sport,” he said. “I’ve only been doing this for two years, but I love it.”
