One of the Cinderella stories of wrestling season and the 2012 GHSA state finals has been Mountain View freshman Adam Flatt. Qualifying for the state tournament is a major accomplishment on its own, but being a freshman and winning your first state match is almost unheard of. With a regular season record of 44-11, Adam has not only surpassed expectations for his first year as a varsity wrestler, he’s gone above and beyond what he and his family could ever have thought was possible this year.
Starting out as a wrestler when he was only five-years old, Adam received great influence from his father Anthony Flatt, who wrestled in high school, to get into the sport as a way for the two to spend more time together. According to his father, Adam has never been gifted from a physique standpoint and often found himself the much smaller competitor in any match. Despite his appearance, Adam never found himself at any disadvantage, placing in the kids’ state tournament seven of the nine years that he qualified for the tournament. As a seventh-grader, he was the state champion of the tournament, which was the culmination of his hard work prior to entering his freshman year at Mountain View.
Even with his great success on the mat, Adam has always found himself to be more of the academics type. “It’s kind of weird to see those [academic] kids doing well in athletics,” Adam’s father Anthony said, “but for Adam, a wrestling match is a scientific problem to be solved.” By analyzing an opponent’s weakness, Adam makes up for his lack of physical presence by finding other ways and calculating moves to beat his opponent.
His methodical approach to a wrestling match sets him apart from others and allows him to dictate the pace of the match. “On the mat, he’s a mat general,” Anthony said, “and he knows what he needs to do and he rarely finds himself in a bad position.”
After dominating his first match on Thursday at the GHSA state meet, Adam lost a tough second match to Archer’s Sam Bullard, who had an astounding 65-7 season record entering the tournament. Even if he doesn’t place, his family couldn’t be prouder. “Our hopes for him this season have already been surpassed,” his father said, “and with him being an undersized freshman, we knew he would have some challenges with some of the older, seasoned wrestlers.”
His father expects wrestling to teach Adam life lessons in hard work and determination and help plant the seeds for him to succeed later in life. He hopes that his son’s academic mentality will help him gain a college scholarship even if wrestling can’t do that for him.
While Adam’s work ethic in the classroom, his family knows his future is bright, even if wrestling isn’t in his future. For the time being, however, the sky is the limit for Flatt, and we could be talking about a future state champion down the line.
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