Connect with us

Wrestling

OSU Wrestler Nolan Boyd Reflects: How Faith Transformed a Career and a Life

Published

on

Russell Boyd knew his son would wake up with an answer.

Former Oklahoma State wrestler Nolan Boyd, a three-time state champion who compiled a 120-20 record at Deer Creek High School, had a decision to make: wrestle for the University of Oklahoma or for Oklahoma State University, a school he had always dreamed of wrestling for.

Although he had an offer from OSU, Nolan’s dream seemed to be, well, a dream. An unreachable destination others said would be foolish to pursue.

Before he became a two-time All-American at OSU, Nolan’s doubters constantly told him becoming a Cowboy was a bad idea.

If you go there, you’ll just be a practice partner.

Nolan paid attention to the doubts initially. As his indecisiveness continued, his father offered a proposition: pray, ask God for an answer, and sleep on it. Nolan accepted, relying on God to help him make one of the biggest decisions of his life.

The next morning, Russell woke up and saw Nolan walking toward him in the hallway in their home in Edmond.

“Well, what’re ya doin’?” Russell asked.

Nolan stopped and looked at his dad with a smile. “I’m gonna be a Cowboy.”

A leap of faith

Before receiving an answer from God, Nolan struggled with his choice; the Sooners and Cowboys were the only Division I teams that showed interest in recruiting him.

OU was the soon-to-be destination for his girlfriend at the time, and Nolan thought Oklahoma’s wrestlers were more committed to God than OSU’s.

The Sooners also offered more money, though neither school offered much. What OSU lacked in tangible incentives, it made up for with its greatest recruiting tool: John Smith.

Nolan took a seat in Smith’s office before being handed an envelope with an offer and a dotted line to sign on. When Nolan read the contents of the letter inside, he was confused. OSU had offered only to pay for his books along with a small stipend.

“Books?” Nolan thought to himself. “Are you serious? What do you mean?”

As he listened to Smith talk, the compensation he was offered began to seem irrelevant.

Smith told Nolan the only way he could go was up. Rather than worrying about Jordan Rogers and Kyle Crutchmer, two of nation’s most touted 184-pound recruits at the time, Smith told Nolan to beat the guys in front of him and earn a starting spot.

“It’s so motivating, just him sitting there and saying ‘You can do this. I’ve seen it done many times.’” Nolan said. “It just helped knowing that he knew that it was possible.”

“A stinkin’ battle”

Nolan, 22, is the youngest of four boys. His brothers, Blake, Zach and Heath, were raised with a consistent dose of biblical teachings from their parents, who introduced Christianity to their sons at a young age.

Russell and Cindy Boyd took them to church three times per week and tried to gather them in their bedroom every night for a bible study.

“I used to hate to read,” Nolan said. “(Dad) would tell me to read the bible to everybody, and I would skip huge chunks of it to try to speed through it.”

It required a team effort to get all three boys settled in one area, especially when Blake, the oldest, didn’t get a seat in his usual chair. More often than not, it was Nolan who went into his parents’ room early to sit in that chair before Blake entered.

“Every night was a stinkin’ battle,” Russell said. “Nolan would look at us like, ‘Do I have to get up?’ It was just kind of a pecking order deal. Every night you’d sit there and think ‘Was that worth it? Was what we just went through worth what we just read to them?’”

Along with lessons from the Bible, Russell taught all four of his sons how to wrestle. but Nolan, the youngest, benefitted the most. Nolan roughhoused and wrestled with his older, stronger brothers when he was 4, which helped condition him for future competition.

As Nolan advanced through middle school and high school, his dad continued to teach and coach, though Nolan had coaches on his school teams.

Russell struggled with accepting how his son’s habits changed after he started wrestling at OSU. After teaching his son how to perform a bevy of wrestling techniques, he saw Nolan’s practices and methods change.

Far From God

There were about 10 other wrestlers in Nolan’s weight class when he started his OSU wrestling career. After a couple quit, Nolan continually swapped spots with Crutchmer and Rogers on the depth chart until they went down a weight class. Before Nolan sealed his position as a starter at 184 pounds, he bounced from third to sixth and back up to first.

His newly acquired status on the team led to a raise in his scholarship, but spiritual struggles developed in his mind. Nolan earned a starting spot on the most storied collegiate wrestling program in the nation. His pride swelled while his devotion to God dwindled. He stopped pouring his energy into Christianity and schoolwork, and emptied everything he had into wrestling.

“I got so low, so far from God, you wouldn’t have seen Jesus Christ in me at that time,” Nolan said.

Russell and Cindy missed only four of Nolan’s dual matches — whether on the road or at home — throughout his entire career, but he didn’t want to talk to his parents about any of it.

“We were miserable with wrestling because of the way he was treating us,” Russell said. “I think it was one of those spiritual struggles.”

Nolan began to treat his peers poorly. He recalls a time when someone threw a rock at his truck window as he was driving. Nolan assumed it was Landry Chappel, his best friend and roommate, who was sitting in the bed of his truck with another friend. Nolan made Chappel get out of the truck and walk home.

His status on the wrestling team led him to believe he was nearly invincible if he were to get into a fight, which further bloated his ego.

“As a wrestler, you know you’re gonna get in a fight and you know you’re gonna win,” Nolan said. “That pride kinda gets in you. Satan is like ‘Man, show people how tough you are. That’s awesome, people look up to that.’”

All the effort and dedication didn’t add to the success Nolan was looking for, even after unexpectedly qualifying for the NCAA Tournament as a redshirt freshman. In that first appearance, Boyd lost both of his matches.

His next appearance in his second year wasn’t much better; he won only one match and lost two, failing to capture All-American status yet again. The results on the mat didn’t reach his standards, but the failure helped him realize he needed to make a change.

Boyd was sitting in OSU’s mat room after a practice during his sophomore season when Ian McCutchen, the Stillwater director of Athletes in Action, approached and asked to meet with him.

Nolan, a self-proclaimed yes-man, said OK.

“When I first met him, I think he was doubting how he might compete or if he might compete,” McCutchen said.

Whenever Nolan would become stressed or think about his struggles, he told McCutchen, who became his mentor.

“He really just preached the word of God into me and preached truth to me with so many lies we hear everywhere,” Nolan said. “It’s good to just get truth poured into you by someone who has dedicated his life to God. That’s sorta what he did to mold me and shape me.”

The small changes gradually led to larger ones. Nolan made a goal to get on his knees and pray every morning after getting out of bed. The more he added God into his life, the more he found the arrogance, pride and sin left.

As he strengthened his relationship with God, a question persistently lingered in his mind: “Why wrestle?”

Every morning for nearly a week, he dropped to his knees and asked that same question, waiting for an answer. On one of those days, his question was answered at LifeChurch in Stillwater, where a comedian delivered the sermon with a central question: “God, why do you want me to do this?”

As the comedian spoke, he explained he’s not supposed to receive laughter from people. Contrastingly, he believes his purpose is to give people the gift of laughter.

“I was like, ‘You know what, I’m not supposed to get wins,’” Nolan said. “I’m not supposed to get success that I want; I’m supposed to give to somebody somewhere.”

Ripping the veil

When Nolan came home after his sophomore season, he asked a question that left his parents speechless.

“I can’t wait for my junior year, how about you guys?” Nolan asked.

His parents sat in shock. They dreaded any sort of discussion about wrestling, knowing their son had no intention or desire to talk about it with them.

“We were both kind of really guarded because that was taboo,” Russell said. “The veil had been ripped.”

Russell said that was near the time Nolan met Carlie, who is now Nolan’s wife.

“Nolan couldn’t have picked a better, stronger, more supportive wife,” Russell said. “She is super.”

Coincidence or not, the year Nolan opened up to his family turned into the best season of his career. After losing three of his first four matches in the NCAA tournament, Nolan went 5-2, finishing fourth in the country at his weight while clinching All-American status. He knocked off top-ranked Gabe Dean in Cornell. He began asking his parents for advice and talked to his dad about which techniques could be improved.

“Nolan Boyd, I’ve said it all along, he’s an overachiever; always has been,” Smith said. “Found a way early in his career to make our team. No one really saw that. It just gives you an idea of what kinda guy Nolan Boyd is.”

New Life

On May 13, Nolan graduated from OSU with 111 wins, placing him in the top 30 in Cowboy wrestling history. He graduated before becoming an assistant at a dental office, and he applied to dental school.

He’s an example of what hard work, determination and a bit of faith can do for someone, which is something Russell says Cowboy fans are quite fond of.

“They love to see somebody go out there and wrestle seven full minutes,” he said. “They love to see somebody who’s a good sport. They love to see somebody who never gives up. Our fan base loves people who do the best they can do.”

Most importantly, Nolan graduated as an expecting father. Carlie, whom Nolan married Aug. 3, 2016, gave birth to Atalie Jean Boyd on December 10, 2017.

“Everything I’ve done, I have at some point thought, ‘What would my kids think of this?’” Nolan said. “Would it help them or would it motivate them at all?”

Nolan said the post-wrestling lifestyle is humbling. He went from having his name announced to thousands of fans in GIA to suctioning out patients’ mouths and assisting with dental work, but he still remembers his career fondly.

After matches, win or lose, Nolan took time to make sure his young fans’ requests were fulfilled: a high-five here, a picture there.

After his semifinal victory in the 2017 Big 12 Wrestling Championships, a young fan yelled Nolan’s name as he staggered back into the tunnel. Nolan, panting and sweating profusely after defeating his opponent 9-0, looked up into the stands and saw the boy who stood with his arms stretched through the bars of the railing.

“Nolan!” The boy yelped. “Can you sign this, please? You’re my favorite wrestler!”

Still sweating, still gasping for breath, Nolan reached up and took the hat and a sharpie from the boy’s hands before crouching to sign it.

He looked exhausted, but as he heard the excitement from the little kid in the stands behind him, he couldn’t stop a smile from taking over his face.

“He’ll stop and talk to any kid,” Russell said. “All they gotta do is walk up to him and ask if they can take a picture. He has that personality that people just love. He didn’t create it. It’s just him.”

Most Read

Copyright © 2011- 2023 White Maple Media