Brawley’s Maldonado signs to wrestle at Life Pacific
BRAWLEY — For Brawley Union High School senior Anthony Maldonado, the sport of wrestling has been an uphill battle.
While he’s found his grounding now, the self-accountability and discipline that the sport requires got to him at a young age, and he completely left the mat for about three years.
However, thanks to the support from his friends, coaches and parents, he was able to get back into the sport and re-establish himself — so much so that he earned himself a scholarship.
The 17-year-old thanked those who have supported him after he signed his letter of intent on Thursday to continue his wrestling career at Life Pacific University in San Dimas.
At LPU, Maldonado will be studying business administration and will be wrestling at 125 pounds.
As per tradition, Maldonado would have done his signing during a school assembly at BUHS.
Since all schools in the county are currently closed because of the pandemic, Maldonado’s signing ceremony instead took place at 5 p.m. Thursday in the living room of his parents’ home.
Aside from his immediate family members, Maldonado’s BUHS wrestling coach, Tony Leon, was present.
Leon noted that Maldonado is the only wrestler so far from the 2019-20 varsity team to sign a letter of intent.
Maldonado spent his first season on the freshmen team and has wrestled varsity every year since.
Although Maldonado is set to graduate, Leon continues to coach his former team member — instructing him to do six-mile bike rides and long-distance running to stay in shape for Life Pacific.
“He always called me ‘the mean coach’ because he didn’t like me coming in,” Leon said during Thursday’s ceremony. “But, he got to know me, and I’m gonna miss this guy.”
Anthony’s parents, Paula and Michael Maldonado, moved to the Valley years ago for work reasons. Anthony was born in Brawley, and has lived here ever since.
Michael Maldonado used to work with Leon’s brother, Ray, a long-time wrestling coach in Brawley who currently coaches the Gladiators youth program and the BUHS’ girls wrestling team.
When Anthony was young, Ray Leon invited Michael and Anthony to a session so they could see what the Gladiators program was all about.
“At four and a half years old, he was sold,” Michael said of his son.
Anthony became a Brawley Gladiator. The demand of the sport, however, eventually became too much for Maldonado, and he decided to quit when he was 9 years old.
“He didn’t like getting up early to go to travel to San Diego to wrestle,” Michael said of his son. “I told him,
‘We don’t quit things,’ and if he wants to quit, he’s going to have to tell his coach.”
One day, Michael and 9-year-old Anthony were in Walmart when they came across Coach Ray.
It was at this time that Anthony went up to his coach, and told him he no longer wanted to wrestle.
At the age of 12, Maldonado had a change of heart and decided he wanted to get back onto the mat.
Coincidentally, Maldonado was with his father one day in Walmart when they once again came across Coach Ray, to whom he explained he wanted to come back to the sport. It was a decision the coach fully supported.
Ray Leon continued to work with Maldonado until he was old enough to attend BUHS.
“When he got into high school, he blamed me that I didn’t make him do it (continue wrestling) because he had fallen behind,” Michael said of his son. “But I told him, if you want it, you gotta work for it.”
Anthony recalled an especially tough workout drill that he and his teammates had to go through his freshmen year.
The drill consisted of frog leaps while holding weight plates. If a wrestler failed to complete a set, then that wrestler would have to start the workout over again.
“So he’s like, ‘I didn’t want to start over,” Paula said of her son. “I remember him telling me he wanted to cry, but he just didn’t — he just toughed it out.”
This work ethic helped Anthony maintain a year-round training routine during his time as a Wildcat, as he only ever stopped wrestling during the school’s mandatory twoweek dead period.
“Once I learned a lot of the hardships and everything that came with it, and how crazy of a sport it is, I just fell in love with it,” he said.
Anthony Maldonado’s work ethic also helped him finish his BUHS career as a fourtime team champ and twotime individual gold medalist.
He said his most memorable moment as a BUHS wrestler came this year during the CIF-SDS Masters meet held in February in El Centro.
His match to go to state, which he won, was “a really good and intense match,” Maldonado said.
While he won’t be a first-generation college graduate if he earns his degree at LPU, he is the first in his family to earn a scholarship for wrestling.
Michael Maldonado believed that Brawley, regardless of its small size, was the best place to raise his son.
“These kids don’t have the same things, or the financial backing, that the bigger schools do, but they have heart here,” the elder Malonado said. “And they have to have that heart to compete against these schools. I mean, you’re talking up against San Diego. Our tax base is a whisper compared to them.”
Success, however, comes from a strong support system — a statement Anthony included in the thank-you letter he read aloud during his signing Thursday.
“Thank you to my teammates who push me every day, friends, coaches and my parents,” Anthony said. “Brawley wrestling truly is something spectacular, and I will be forever grateful for it. To my teammates, I hope to see many of you doing the same thing I am doing today, because nothing is impossible.”