He once threw his wrestling gear away. Now, Kyrel Leavell is a state champ, eyeing more.

Before Kyrel Leavell was a state champion wrestler at Warren Central, he was a kid ready to give up on the sport.

Leavell laughs at the memory now, but it was not humorous at the time. He was a sixth grader, wrestling at a national tournament in Pennsylvania. He was losing match after match. That younger version of Kyrel was talented, but did not yet possess the will and desire to match.

After another loss in the tournament, Kyrel tossed his wresting bag and shoes in the trash.

“Some guy — I don’t know his name or even know him — grabs my bag and shoes out of the trash can and says, ‘This could be the worst choice you could ever make,’” Leavell said. “‘Don’t do that.’”

Leavell, admittedly, probably would have eventually grabbed his bag and shoes anyway. What else was he going to do the rest of the weekend? But it was a message he needed to hear at just the right time. Like a guardian angel looking over his shoulder.

“I put my shoes on and went out there,” Leavell said with a laugh. “And I lost again.”

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Losing? It does not happen much anymore for Leavell, a junior at Warren Central. He won a state championship as a sophomore in the 120-pound weight class, defeating Perry Meridian’s Toby Billerman in overtime in the state championship after taking his only loss of the season to Billerman in the semistate.

The state championship came on the heels of winning a middle school state championship as an eighth grader at Raymond Park and taking third in state in the 113-pound class as a freshman. A 5-4 loss to two-time state champion Alex Cottey of Perry Meridian in the 2021 state meet is all that is keeping Leavell from looking for a third state championship instead of back-to-back.

“My eighth-grade year, going into freshman year, I started to think I could go somewhere with this,” Leavell said. “I came in freshman year coming to workouts and there was a team full of seniors. They were telling me I could be a four-time state champion. I ended up placing third (as a freshman), but I started to buy in even more.”

It has not exactly been smooth sailing this season for Leavell. He had to undergo surgery after dislocating his right elbow during a tournament in Virginia in the spring with his club team. He started strong as a junior in the 132-pound weight class, winning the Marion County championship Dec. 17. But it was in the first period of that match, a 9-7 win over Perry Meridian’s Keaton Morton, when Leavell suffered an injury to his left wrist.

“It started swelling up fast,” Leavell said.

But the kid who threw his wrestling gear in the trash can five years earlier never thought about quitting the match, despite the pain. No one understood the extent of the injury until Leavell had wrapped up the championship.

“The trainer said there’s no way it’s broken because he would have flinched when I touched it,” Warren Central coach Jake O’Neill said. “But when he went out there with both hands in front and then yanked his left hand away and basically started wrestling with one hand behind his back. That’s unique. Not too many kids would have done that. That spoke volumes about his mentality and ability to compete in times like that.”

Leavell broke a bone in his wrist, which has kept him out of competition since that match due to the cast covering his injury. But he has been able to practice for the past several weeks and the cast was removed Wednesday, allowing him to compete in the sectional Saturday at Warren Central.

Leavell, already a highly-respected member of the wrestling team, jumped up a few more notches during and after the Marion County championship match.

“I could tell something happened because he let go and I heard him yell,” said sophomore Terry Easley, who wrestles at 120. “I was really astonished (that he kept going). It grew a fire in my heart to keep pushing. Even though something is not going your way during a match, keep pushing and just wrestle. If he can win match with one hand, I can win a match with both hands.”

Leavell is a wizard on the mat, but just as comfortable in front of a microphone. He has his own podcast on Warren Central’s student radio station 91.1 WEDM called “Beyond the Classroom.” Leavell, who goes by “DJ Rello” on the show, interviews teachers and administrators at Warren Central like principal Masimba Taylor, math teacher Ryan Blythe and associate principal Bre Brown.

In his 13 podcasts, which last about 15-20 minutes, Leavell is an engaging and funny interviewer, while also letting his subject be the star of the show. He took an introduction class as a freshman and then has taken advanced radio classes for two years.

“He is a natural with it,” said Adam Kashner, who is the program director for 91.1 WEDM. “He talks to the teachers about their interests and passions and what brought them into teaching. He does great work, but he’s also such a neat kid. He’ll just randomly burst out singing in the studio. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in a bad mood — unless he’s cutting weight.”

Leavell was not sure wrestling was going to be his sport growing up. He played running back in the youth leagues and continued to play football through his sophomore year. One of his good friends, Christian Arberry, who wrestles in the 138-pound class, played football with him growing up.

“I was the fat kid out there blocking for him,” Arberry said with a laugh. “But probably freshman year, he started loving wresting more than football.”

Though he played football through his sophomore year, it became increasingly clear wrestling was going to be his sport. Brady Eppert, who has been coaching Leavell with his Central Indiana Academy of Wrestling (CIA) program for five years, said the talent was always there. There was just some work to do to unlock that talent.

“He’s come a long way,” Eppert said. “He was always extremely talented, but he didn’t always love hard parts of the sport. The first year was like a roller coaster with one big hill down and them a bunch of little hills to work back up. We pushed him and were pretty tough on him, but I think we have a pretty special relationship that is earned both ways. He went from not really buying in as a sixth grader to beating kids who were going to be state qualifiers in high school as an eighth grader.”

Eppert said there is an earnestness to Leavell that makes him easy to like and makes him a natural leader. He saw that last summer when Leavell was working with younger kids in the 55- and 60-pound weight classes. “That stuff matters to him,” Eppert said. “Because he’s a genuine person and he wants to be there for other people. He takes as much pleasure in their accomplishments as he does his own.”

Leavell will have opportunities to wrestle at the Division I level, a path that should become more clear in the coming year. Schools like Indiana, Missouri, The Citadel and George Mason are among those that have shown interest. The elbow injury last spring took him out during a key part of the travel season. O’Neill, in his second season at Warren Central and 24^th year overall, said Leavell’s combination of talent and passion is “really unique.”

“I’ve seen that kid in some pretty intense situations step up when others would fold,” O’Neill said. “It’s been fun to watch Kyrel be Kyrel and see his raw emotions and personality come out.”

Those emotions come from a real place. Leavell said part of the reason he preferred football over wrestling at a younger age was that you can blame others in a team sport. In wrestling, there is no teammate on the mat. No excuses.

“Sometimes I didn’t even believe in myself,” he said. “But I just kept going. It grew on me. I started to love the sport and it loved me back. I feel like I started from the bottom and had to work my way up. And now I’m here.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.