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BENNETT: Braxton Amos ready for college life at Wisconsin

One thing is for certain when it comes to Braxton Amos, he’s always going to give it his best shot no matter what.

It’s been quite the whirlwind the last few months for the former Parkersburg South Patriot three-time state champion and two-time Robert Dutton Award winner.

I was able to catch up with him for a few minutes on Tuesday afternoon, a couple of hours after he had been honored with a portion of Beverly Street being renamed Braxton Amos Drive.

“Man, it’s crazy,” he said of everything that’s transpired before he even takes his first class at Wisconsin. “It’s exciting. It’s exciting to just see everybody supporting me and my family.

“Coming up through everybody was looking at us sideways and questioning whether everything or not was going to pay off and now that they have proof that it worked it’s awesome to see everybody come together for it.”

Amos said he left Madison at around 7 a.m. Monday morning and finally got to the Erickson All-Sports Facility about 5:30 p.m.

He wanted to make the trek across the country so he could see younger sister Presley’s debut for the PSHS Southern Belles.

“Presley has made so many sacrifices for me,” Amos said. “I don’t know how many things I’ve missed of hers and I knew there was a chance I could make it in to watch her first Belle’s performance so I sucked it up and drove. I’m happy I did. She’s been there for me whether she wanted to be or not for the last 15 years.”

Not that there is anything wrong with driving, but I wondered why he just didn’t opt to fly in.

“I’m taking my gun safe and a few hunting rifles up with me and I figured the TSA wouldn’t like me checking those in so I drove,” he said.

After leaving the Junior World Championships in Russia where he won gold in freestyle at 97kg and bronze in Greco-Roman, he flew back to Madison.

“It was tough. It was real tough,” Amos said of the Greco-Roman tournament. “I broke a rib in my finals match of freestyle. That was a lot of fun wrestling Greco.

“But you know, after a while you just quit thinking and let your training take over and that’s what I did. It was tough, but we made do and we finished the job.”

As far as his overall experience in Russia?

“It was awesome. The people were super nice. The food was, nah, but the people were very nice, very hospitable, spoke decent English and took care of us,” he added. “I can’t complain on how we were taken care of. It was good.”

He’s got a few things planned out before he heads back to Badger land.

“I’m going up to see Louden (Haga) and the boys on Friday afternoon and staying there Friday night,” Amos said of going to Morgantown and West Virginia University. “Got to go up and see the guys who have been there since day one and hang with them for the night and watch people do stupid stuff on High Street.”

On Saturday and Sunday, Amos is going to do a camp for the Benwood Bruisers Wrestling Club.

“We scheduled it a while ago and they’ve been awesome to work with. I’ve had to move it a few times just because of my travel and everything,” he said. “They’ve been really awesome about me changing dates and stuff and we finally settled on this date so it times up well.”

When I asked Amos if he was ready to be a student-athlete in college he quipped, “whoever let me pick this schedule should hit me in the head,” he said of having Russian, chemistry and zoology as his first three classes.

Amos also is learning to become an entrepreneur and fans who would like to support him can do so by checking out the website https://braxtonamos2021.itemorder.com/sale and placing an order before the end of the month.

“That’s part of the new NIL,” Amos said of the new college rules regarding name, image and likeness. “It’s nice to be able to make a little bit of money off of winning the world championship now. Beforehand, you could sell stuff under the table and risk the NCAA taking away your eligibility.

“Being able to legally do it is kind of nice. It’s not a lot of stuff, T-shirts, shorts, sweats with my branding on it. It’s a good start just as a test run to see if things will sell and if they do we’ll get more and more stuff going.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com

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