Pounders’ Wyatt Garrett makes giant gains on field
After the 2016 high school football season, Wyatt Garrett lumbered up to Central football coach Cortney Braswell.
“Coach, what do I have to do to play?” Garrett asked.
Braswell, a good-sized man himself, craned his neck, peered up at the 6-foot-10 junior and began a lengthy recitation.
“When I got here, he couldn’t jog. He was heavy; not real coordinated,” Braswell recalled. “He probably weighed 380 and literally couldn’t run. He couldn’t do a push-up or a sit-up.”
The list Braswell rattled off to Garrett 11 months ago: “Got to get in great shape; got to get your feet moving; got to be a freak in the weight room.”
This past winter and the ensuing spring and summer have begun to show results, and the gargantuan Garrett is the Pounders’ starting left tackle. After never having played football until he got to Central, Garrett showed Braswell he was seriously dedicated.
“He went to a different level in pushing himself.
He was always trying to do more,” the coach said. “If we were doing 60 percent, he was doing 80. When we got through, he was sopping wet. He’d then go to ROTC, and his uniform there would be drenched.”
Part of the reformation hinged on the Pounders again having year-round weight training. Garrett and his teammates are now lifting and/or conditioning daily.
“It’s one reason he’s playing so much,” Braswell said. “When he started squatting, he was (doing) maybe 250 pounds. Now he’s a 450 squatter, and we’re talking deep squats. He’s an absolute freak of nature. His flexibility has improved and he has great range of motion. He’s playing better in space. He just started moving better. He looks 10 times better.”
Garrett said he started at 330 pounds, but he looked bigger, perhaps flabbier.
“I’m somewhere around 350 now,” he said, acknowledging that the weight was from eating but also muscle mass.
He started with football and this past year took up basketball.
“That helped a lot, too — helped him out a ton,” Braswell said. “He’d lift sixth period, then go to ROTC and then basketball practice.”
The only drawback for Chattanooga-area fans is what piqued Garrett’s interest in sports.
“I started watching Ohio State when I was in middle school. I was actually born in Ohio,” he said. “I’ve gained muscle, lost fat, and I’ve grown another couple of inches.”
He still needs to improve his footwork. “My goal was to start, and now it’s to try and get a college scholarship,” he said before being asked if he ever got pushed around.
“No,” he replied. “Nobody’s really
“Who’s not going to want a kid that’s 6-foot-10, 350 pounds?” —CENTRAL COACH CORTNEY BRASWELL
pushed me around, but I’m still slower than what I should be.”
Braswell said that was something they would address next spring, “but he’s moving a lot better.”
And the coach knows he has a likely college prospect on his hands.
“Who’s not going to want a kid that’s 6-foot-10, 350 pounds?” he asked.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@ timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @wardgossett.