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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 26, 2016)
FEBRUARY 26, 2016, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A7 ZERO, continued from Page A1 run using his arms to carry him. Robles was 14 when he fi rst tried wrestling. After trying out – without his mother's knowledge – he returned home with dried blood on his stretched out T-shirt. “My mom thought I got beat up at school and she was ready to go after somebody,” Robles said. “I thought it was the most awesome thing I'd ever done. She asked me if I'd seen my face.” Robles placed last in the city in his fi rst year as a wrestler. After his last match, he went to shake the hand of the opposing coach and something in the man's voice told him he'd never had a chance. “That lit a fi re inside of me, I sat in my room alone and told myself it was the last time I would lose like that. I wrote down my dream of being a national champ in my bedroom,” Robles said, pulling out the now-laminated note he'd made to himself so many years ago. McCallister hit his fi rst roadblock when he tried out for a youth basketball team. “My older brother was playing basketball and I thought, 'Sweet, I'm going to go play basketball.'” McCallister said. “But when I tried out the coaches went CRASH, continued from Page A1 Potts' mother, Theresa, posted on Facebook Tuesday afternoon her son had a broken arm, a concussion and staples in his scalp, while Campbell was to my parents and said, 'We recommend your son doesn't play basketball.' They didn't want responsibility if anyone got hurt.” He eventually found a spot on a Boys & Girls Club team, but would discover a passion for wrestling in later years. By the time Robles fi nished high school, he was a two-time state champ and a high school national champ, but colleges weren't looking at him. “They told me they couldn't take the risk of offering me a scholarship, but when opportunity doesn't knock, you have to build your own door,” Robles said. Robles ended up earning an academic sholarship at Arizona State University and walked on to the wrestling team. He was in his second year, and starting to make waves as part of the team, when he was hit with a bout of mononucleosis. Then he found out his stepfather had left his family back home. “It was a negative time, but my mom encouraged me to stay at school and keep pursuing my dream,” Robles said. It all came to a head shortly before Robles was set to go to the national tournament. In an attempt to spur Robles to action, his coach pitted him against his alternate on the ASU team. Robles said he got destroyed six times before the coach told him, “You're not what we thought you were. There's the door.” Robles went to the locker room and started clearing out his things. Not long after, his coached followed him in – slamming the door behind him. “I stood up to face him and was planning to headbutt him in the chin as soon as he started yelling,” Robles said. “I'm waiting to explode and he opens up his arms and hugs me, and I told him everything that was happening at home. He told me there's always going to be an obstacle and you can use that as an excuse to quit or you can grind through that.” McCallister never let his lack of legs become an excuse. In addition to competing in sports, whenever he could, he found ways to tackle other challenges – even a paper route. “There was this huge hill on my route and I had to go up it backward in the chair,” McCallister said. “The cool part was getting to go back down the hill.” In college at the University of Arizona, McCallister joined an actual wheelchair basketball team, but soon discovered he was a wrestler moonlighting as a basketball player. “I couldn't dribble and I couldn't pass to save my life. My coach had me throw a ball against a wall for like an hour,” McCallister said. Robles' tenacity fi nally paid off as a senior at ASU. At the national tournament, he was slated to face the returning champ. “I don't remember much of the match, but I remember with 10 seconds left I was up 7-1 and the only way he could win was by turning me on my back,” Robles said. “I was on the ground underneath him and I had my elbows in. To try to get me to move my arms, he had his arms locked under my chin and kept punching me in the jaw as he tried to get a better grip. The whole time I had a smile on my face because I was thinking he could punch me as much as he wanted because I was about to be a national champ. Even if he choked me out, I wake up national champ.” Since achieving his dream, Robles said he cares less about the wrestling itself and more about the impact he can have on others. “I just want to be remembered as someone who helped someone else achieve their dreams,” Robles said. McCallister told the Whiteaker students that they, too, can do anything they dream of as long as they persevere. “You can do anything, but it doesn't just happen like that. It's not about trying hard one time, it's about trying hard day after day,” McCallister said. The journey for both men is far from complete; each of them has new goals they are working toward. For Robles, it's learning to run on a prosthetic leg. McCallister is set on fi guring out how to snowboard. still recovering from surgery but was in good spirits. Jeff Kuhns, deputy chief with the KPD, said it was a one- vehicle accident with the cause still under investigation as of Tuesday afternoon. The Marion County CRASH Team responded to the scene. KPD offi cers were assisted by the Oregon State Police and the Marion County Sheriff's Offi ce. There was rain off and on Feb. 19, but it's not clear if it was raining at the crash scene at the time. Windsor Island Road was re-opened to traffi c shortly before 8 p.m. Anyone with information or who may have seen the crash can call offi cer Eric Jefferson at 503-390-3713 ext. 3477. Word of the accident spread in the hours afterwards, including on the KPD's Facebook page. Around 1:30 a.m. Monday, Keven Potts responded to some of the speculation on that page. Powers said she saw a man who might have been the ever elusive Benny. “That day we were talking,” Powers said of herself and Jackson. “He said, 'Grandma, are you going to buy those clothes?' I said, 'No, I'm too cheap to buy something for myself.' I told him we couldn't buy anything. We were in the toy aisle. I had seen this guy being close (to Jackson). I went over near where he was and he left. I went back to the toy aisle and on the third shelf, right there on eye level where he'd been, was a $100 bill. No one could have just dropped it, because it was too high up.” Powers didn't know what to do and debated internally if she should pick it up or leave it. “I was just so excited,” Powers said. “I stood there for a few minutes, maybe 20 minutes. It was too much in plain sight for it to be an accident. It was sitting right there. I thought maybe that was meant for me. Then about 25 feet down, another shelf down, I found another $100 bill. I wasn't searching for more when I saw the second one.” Powers and Jackson returned home. Later, Powers showed the bills to her daughter, who noted “Benny” was written on both. This isn't the fi rst time such bills have been found in the area. Two springs ago, there was a rash of such occurrences in Keizer, as chronicled twice in the Keizertimes in the spring of 2014. Powers fi gures she must have been the target and suspects it was the man she saw standing near her grandson. “I don't know if he'd heard me say grandma didn't have a job,” Powers said. “I don't know for sure if it was meant for me, but it was weird we were right there. He had seemed out of place, then I looked to where he had been and there was a bill. It shows good things still happen. I feel very lucky and special.” The incident has left Powers itching to return the favor. “It's made me want to pay it forward,” Powers said. “I won't use this all for myself. A lot of people need things. I'll dole it out. Maybe I'll buy a lunch for some old couples or pay for a prescription for someone, just a way of saying, 'Guess what, someone cares.' I won't give big bills away, but I will share.” Powers said she wants to give Jackson a good haircut and he has expressed interest in getting a soccer ball. Jackson also suggested another purchase. “He said, 'Grandma, now you can buy something for yourself,'” Powers said with a laugh. “And I did. I got these jeans for $6.” In response to speculation careless driving was involved, Potts posted at 1:30 a.m., “Hey why don't you look at the condition of the road way before you make assumptions.” Potts also responded to another person who speculated the teenager was either texting or on the phone. “How about you fi gure out what actually happened before making assumption that makes teenagers look bad,” Potts posted at 1:28 a.m. “Adults are on there (sic) phones more then (sic) teenagers when they are behind the wheel. 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