Walking around the campus of Pueblo High School, Abraham Islas doesn’t look like an athlete. However, Islas, who weighs all of 115 pounds and stands 5-foot-7 if he is lucky, could in fact be the most important athlete at Pueblo.
Islas often finds himself defending his size and naysayers who don’t believe he is an athlete —people would never consider at first glance that he is the captain of the wrestling team.
“When I tell people I wrestle they don’t believe me because I am small,” Islas said. “Most people think I am too small to wrestle.”
The senior is perhaps the most important athlete at Pueblo because he is a returning state champion from last season, both individually and part of the Warriors squad, who won the state title for the first time since 1992.
What makes Islas important is the successes he brings to a school that has certainly found itself down in other athletics.
This season, Islas returns to Pueblo after they lost six seniors from last year’s squad. He returns not only as a leader but a captain that will play an integral role in the team’s success if they want to repeat as state champions.
“He is a tremendous leader, he’s got great skill, he’s a great teacher, and he shows the kids a lot,” said Head Coach Steve Lopez. “He is well versed in everything and I can count on him to help with anything I ask him to do. He never complains and whatever I ask him to do, he does, and he just sets the example for the other kids.”
Lopez has been the coach at Pueblo for over 15 years, but admitted despite his experience and the success he has enjoyed over the years, that he has become a little insecure about the future. He said he occasionally cant sleep at night wondering what will be when Islas moves on.
“I am already thinking, ‘What about next year?’ ” Lopez said. “It is going to be hard (without Islas). Hopefully somebody will step up next year like he did this year.
“It is funny how you stay up at night thinking about things and I have to say there are a lot of issues on your plate and you kind of ponder them,” Lopez added about losing Islas.
In terms of Islas’ future, both he and Lopez are confident collegiate wrestling will be apart of his plans. The one issue, however, is the lowest weight class in collegiate wrestling starts at 125 pounds, about eight more than Islas weighs now.
While gaining weight can be rather difficult, especially for someone of Islas’ size, the wrestler remains confident that he will be able to achieve his goals of competing at the next level.
“I have speed and good form and that is what works,” Islas said. “To [wrestle] in college I need to start gaining more weight so I can wrestle at 125 and keep my grades up and wrestle hard.”
Lopez believes it is an attainable goal.
“I think mentally, most definitely,” Lopez said of Islas’ capabilities of wrestling in college. “The detriment that he might have is size… But if he could put on some muscle and maybe get a little bigger, he most definitely has the skill capacity, it is just whether or not he will have the physical capacity.”
Interaction between Islas and his teammates could conceivably be strained, given wrestling’s aggressive nature and his lack of size, but despite being one of the shortest wrestlers on the team, the rest of the squad surely looks up to the senior.
At the beginning of the season the team voted on captains by writing a name on a sliver of paper and giving it to Lopez. All but a few wrote down Islas’ name.
“Skill-wise he is the best one we got. He is smooth in what he does, and he is always training hard and he never slacks off,” said teammate Arnoldo Gutierrez, who is considerably bigger than Islas in the 140-weight class. “His mentality he has, he doesn’t care about size. During the summer in tournaments, kids his size wouldn’t want to wrestle him, so he would bump up two or three classes and still win.”
As far as taking down the bigger kids on his team? “Yeah, I can take them,” Islas said with a smile.
