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Seventy First's David Nobles:
Defining "Never Quit"
by David Culbreth, head coach, Seventy-First High School
David Nobles was 28-6 as a freshman at 103 lbs. He was bumped out of the lineup at the end of the year when Steve Wiggins dropped to 103 for Regionals. His sophomore year, the same thing happened again. Steve dropped down and knocked him out of the lineup.
His junior year, his break out year, a freshman came in by the name of Mike Valldeperas, and kept David Nobles from starting again. Mind you, Nobles could start on any team in the state with maybe a few exceptions.
David's senior year, as team captain, Richard Caisse moves in from Florida, and he was again knocked out of the lineup. In their last wrestle-off to see who wrestled at Regionals, with one minute to go in the third period, I looked down at them as they wrestled. I was officiating. Nobles was on the bottom with tears in his eyes. He was down by only a few points. I looked at Richard on top, he had tears in his eyes. I looked around the room and nobody was wrestling. I began to cry!
When the match was over, David had big puppy dog tears in his eyes and he broke right in front of everyone. Richard went outside and cried even harder. I walked away from David to try and save face. What did David do? The same thing he had always done. He went to the locker room and got a dry shirt. Ten minutes later he was back in the room working out with Richard.
The night of David's graduation I told him that there will be many wrestlers that I will talk about in years to come. His name will always be mentioned first among the great ones! He defines my philosophy of Never Quit!
David is now wrestling for UNC-Pembroke. I saw him lose in overtime the other night in their black and gold match.
David Nobles graduated from Seventy-First High School in 1999.
This article was written by Seventy-First head coach David Culbreth.
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