Meet Apple Valley eighth-grader Destin McCauley.
Destin McCauley (Photo/The Guillotine)Destin was born on September 25, 1992 in Destin Beach, Florida, which is where the name Destin originated.
"His name has nothing to do with destiny or anything like that," said Destin's father, Todd McCauley. "That's what we heard after he won the high school state title."
Destin grew up in McCook Lake, South Dakota, a suburb of Sioux City, Iowa. He was a rambunctious and energetic young boy, so Todd and Brandy McCauley wanted to get their son involved in an activity.
"There really wasn't anything a 5-year-old boy could do, other than maybe a little T-ball," recalled Todd. "A friend of ours had his boy wrestling, so we decided to sign him up and see how he liked it, and he was successful right away."
Destin McCauley (Photo/The Guillotine)As a youth wrestler, Destin captured 24 national titles. He dominated the prestigious Jack Roller World of Wrestling events, winning Tulsa Nationals four times and the Reno World Championships three times. In 2002, he was awarded the highly-respected Trinity Award. In order to win the Trinity Award, a wrestler must win the three toughest national youth wrestling events in the same season: Kickoff Classic, Tulsa Nationals, and Reno World Championships. In 2004, Destin was named World of Wrestling Wrestler of the Year, which is an award presented to the most outstanding wrestler on the World of Wrestling All-Star Team.
Jack Roller"Destin McCauley is a true champion," said Roller. "He has come out victorious in all of the nation's biggest events."
Due to the fact that Destin was a South Dakota resident and wrestled in Iowa, he did not compete in the youth state tournaments, only the national events. When Destin was in fifth grade, his friend and club teammate, Eric Devos, moved to Apple Valley.
At the time, Todd and Brandy McCauley were looking to move Destin and their high school-age daughter, Sierra, to another school district where the children could maximize their athletic and academic potential. In addition to his wrestling talents, Destin is also a youth state champion in track in the 200 and 400 meters, and a standout football player. Sierra, who is now a junior at Apple Valley, is one of the state's top runners. In 2003, Sierra captured the Class A state cross-country championship as an eighth-grader. Both Destin and Sierra are honor students.
The school district in McCook Lake was small (consisting of 250 students K-12) and athletics were not much of a priority, especially not wrestling.
"I remember Eric (Devos) telling me how great the wrestling program was at Apple Valley," recalled Destin. "So our family took a trip up there during our winter break and we attended one of the wrestling practices."
In December of 2004, the McCauley family made the 340-mile trip from McCook Lake to Apple Valley. They watched wrestling practice and talked to Apple Valley's current head wrestling coach, Jim Jackson, and Apple Valley's former head wrestling coach, Bill Demaray.
Demaray is the architect of Apple Valley's mat dominance. He started the wrestling program in 1976 and built it into the state's most successful wrestling program of the modern era. He guided the Eagles to six state team titles, coached 18 individual state champions, and compiled a dual meet mark of 407-70-4. In 1996, Demaray passed the torch to Jackson, who picked up right where Demaray left off. Since taking over as head coach, Jackson has guided Apple Valley to eight state team titles.
Destin McCauley"I think our deciding factor was the coaching staff," said Todd McCauley. "Apple Valley has coaches who wrestle with the kids at every weight. They have 15 coaches."
Another key determinants in the McCauleys' decision to move to Apple Valley was the fact that the Minnesota State High School League is one of only three state high school associations that allows seventh and eighth-graders to compete in varsity athletics.
Destin, who was entering seventh grade, knew that he ready for varsity competition. Apple Valley was a place where he could get top-flight coaching and an abundance of top-notch training partners.
Destin earned a spot in Apple Valley's varsity lineup at 103 pounds through preseason wrestle-offs in November. By December, he was ranked among the top 10 wrestlers in his weight class by The Guillotine. On December 16-17, 2005, Destin competed at the annual Minnesota Christmas Tournament, which is considered to be the toughest individual high school wrestling tournament in Minnesota. The two weeks leading up to the tournament, Destin had been battling an illness, but decided to compete anyway. He entered the tournament undefeated and seeded No. 5 in his weight class, but was upset 6-5 in the first round by Mike Minske of Rochester Mayo. It was his first loss since 2001. Destin lost another one-point match in the consolation quarterfinals of the Christmas Tournament to Eagan's Matt Ashton, but came back to place seventh, avenging his first-round loss to Minske with a technical fall.
Jim JacksonAnother thing he wasn't used to was wrestling six-minute matches. In schoolboy competition, Destin's matches were four and a half minutes long, and most of those matches resulted in pins or technical falls.
Conditioning was something Destin knew he had to work on if he wanted to achieve his goal of winning a state championship.
"My conditioning was always pretty bad," admitted Destin. "During the season I would always stay after practice, doing sprints and doing stairs with my coaches. They just kept training me to get better."
Added Jackson, "We made a concerted effort to do extra conditioning and get him to believe that he could wrestle six minutes."
It paid off.
Destin entered the Minnesota State High School Wrestling Championships last March with a 39-3 record and ranked No. 4 in Class AAA by The Guillotine, while weighing just a pinch over 100 pounds on full feed. He cruised to the state semifinals with a pin and a 14-4 major decision. In the semifinals, he faced No. 1-ranked Luke Vaith of Hastings, a wrestler who defeated him in January at the Kiffmeyer Duals in St. Cloud. This time Destin prevailed with a 5-1 victory.
A day later, Destin defeated No. 2-ranked Kurt Ehrhorn of Grand Rapids, 7-5, in the state finals to become first seventh grader in state history to capture an individual state wrestling championship.
Destin McCauley (Photo/The Guillotine)Destin's father is quick to give credit to the Apple Valley coaching staff.
"He just kept getting better and better as the season went on," said Todd McCauley. "He lost three matches, but we felt like it a lot of it had to do with conditioning and not managing his time. He avenged all three of those losses. The coaching staff got him ready and it showed at the end of the season."
Jackson, who was named 2002 and 2003 National Coach of the Year by the National Wrestling Coaches Association, believes there are several things that make Destin successful.
"His athleticism, work ethic, commitment, and his parents' commitment are amazing," said Jackson. "Those are the things that I believe have made him what he is today. Plus, he excels in all three positions. He's tremendous on his feet and very offensive. He has great defense and is extremely hard to score on. He's quick. He turns people. And very few people have ridden him, especially late in the season."
Destin plans to start this season wrestling at 112 pounds, but could eventually move back down to 103 pounds. He's still not sure what his plans are at this point.
Whether it's fair or not, many wrestling fans in Minnesota are now putting the cart before the horse and speculating as to whether Destin McCauley can become the state's first six-time state champion.
The pressure to win six state titles will most certainly increase with each consecutive state title he adds to his collection. So how will he handle that pressure?
"I really believe he'll handle it very well," said Jackson. "I know it's a cliche, but I think he'll take it one match at a time and he'll take it one year at a time. He'll work to get better every day. I see that in him. He works hard. He has some goals set. We don't talk about him being a six-time state champion. We have never talked about it once. I try to avoid that. He knows it's there. We all do."
This story also appears in the Nov. 17 issue of The Guillotine. The Guillotine has been covering amateur wrestling in Minnesota since 1971. Its mission is to report and promote amateur wrestling at all levels -- from youth and high school wrestling to college and international level wrestling. For more information on The Guillotine, click here.
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