Tyler Lillard walks through the halls of Aurora High School and his peers can’t help but smile. His attitude is undeniable. An 18-year old senior wrestler, Tyler's free spirit is effortless, and his laugh is infectious. What’s behind that happy-go-lucky attitude is an inspirational story of a young man who has overcome the odds.
Tyler Lillard’s wrestling career was almost over as quickly as it started. Before he was one of the area’s most highly-touted recruits, before the Aurora High School senior made a commitment to wrestle at Indiana, Lillard was a kid from Atlanta, Georgia who nearly had dreams of his favorite sport snatched away.
One morning when he was in the third grade, eight year-old Tyler had a violent vomiting episode while getting ready for school. His mother took him to the family doctor who immediately sent Lillard and his mom to the emergency room. Numerous tests and scans were taken, without producing an immediate answer.
After a few weeks went by, doctors diagnosed Lillard with epilepsy. Doctors also discovered a tumor on his optic nerve. While the tumor was affecting his vision, epilepsy was the cause of the vomiting episodes, which the family later found were seizures.
“I was devastated,” Lillard’s mother, Tina, said. “I didn’t know what epilepsy was and it was just crazy.”
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The family spent the rest of the year traveling back and forth to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
“I didn’t think I was going to be able to step back on the mat,” said Lillard, who began wrestling at age seven. “My coach, Charlie Morris, he called my mom and said ‘bring him in.’”
Tina Lillard, who had divorced Tyler’s father, was hesitant. She wanted to keep her son safe, in a bubble away from everyone and everything. After the diagnosis and countless hospital visits she expected her son to have little interest stepping back on the mat. But Tyler -- and the doctors -- thought otherwise.
“We had a team of people. I had two doctors say ‘he can never do a sport,’” she remembered. “His surgeon and his ophthalmologist were like ‘Yes he can. As a matter of fact because he’s doing sports he can recover quicker.’ The neurosurgeon said ‘Keep him in wrestling, it’s keeping him alive. That’s what’s keeping him going. He loves it, he releases endorphins when he does it, he’s good at it. See what happens.”
Wrestling is already a physically demanding sport, and with her only child battling major health issues it was a big ask from Morris. But she brought her son in.
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“I think that was the point where it was like ‘this is probably going to be hard just to come back from it,’” Tyler Lillard said. “And then everything started to get a little easier after that.”
Now nine, he just watched practice. Then he gradually began drilling and practicing with other wrestlers. It took some time, but Lillard eventually got back to full strength.
There was still a concern for Lillard’s vision, however. Morris once again had an answer. The coach instructed Lillard to bring a friend with him to practice one day. Lillard did, but he was not expecting what was waiting for him at practice.
“He shut off the lights and put blindfolds on us,” Lillard said. “I learned how to wrestle based on touch and feel, not so much every single move. I think that’s enhanced my wrestling so much because I would have been a completely different wrestler had I not learned how to wrestle blindfolded.”
Just like that Lillard’s wrestling career was back with a new life. He became Georgia’s first eighth-grader to win a high school wrestling state championship in 2018. He’s won several other awards since then, including 2019 Freestyle/Greco-Roman Cadet Ohio State Champion, 2019 Fargo All American, 2020 Journeyman Champion, 2021 Journeyman runner-up and the 2021 NE Regional Freestyle runner-up.
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But his next battle came as a high school freshman. Between his eighth grade and freshman years, Lillard and his mother moved to Northeast Ohio. His wrestling prowess as a middle schooler caught the attention of several of the nation’s top programs, but the Lillards decided Northeast Ohio’s hotbed of talent was where they wanted to be.
“Moving from Georgia was my biggest sacrifice ever,” Tyler Lillard said. “That was the scariest thing for me. Coming into Cleveland I felt like an outsider at first.”
When the Lillards first arrived, Tyler enrolled at St. Edward, but found his experience as not a great fit. Once the school year was over he transferred to Aurora, which he says was much more his speed.
“I had a great year,” Lillard said about his sophomore year at Aurora. “Outside of wrestling it was a phenomenal year just with friends and people who care about me.”
For his junior year Lillard went to Wyoming Seminary Prep, a boarding school in northeastern Pennsylvania and one of the nation’s most elite high school wrestling programs. The intention was for Lillard to test himself against some of the nation’s best, but due to the pandemic, Wyoming Seminary’s wrestling season was canceled. At the end of the school year he was ready to come home.
“I even told my mom over the summer that I just wanted something normal for my last year of high school,” Lillard said. “I could go straight to Indiana right now, I could do a lot of things, but I just want something normal like how it was at Aurora.”
Now back with the Greenmen for his senior season, Lillard, who wrestles at 165 pounds, has a 32-2 record, his only losses coming in the semifinal and third-place matches at the Ironman.
He looks forward to this weekend’s state duals and climbing through the tournament levels leading up to the state tournament in Columbus before heading to Indiana this summer.
“He really is a joy to have around,” Aurora assistant coach Josh Decatur said. “He’s a very high energy guy and a very hard worker, and I think the rest of our team kind of feeds off of that. It’s great to have someone like that around because you know day in and day out what you’re going to get out of them.”
Lillard is taking his senior season in stride. He has learned to manage his epilepsy. He still has occasional seizures, but nothing compared to the 70 to 80 per day he once had. After considering dozens of college opportunities, he was drawn to Indiana.
“The culture, the coaches and the teammates,” Lillard said of what influenced his decision. “They all get along really well. When I went up there they all treated me like family. I had probably one of the best experiences of my life. I just had so much fun. Also the coaches. (Head coach Angel) Escobedo has always put me as a person first.”
Tina Lillard played a significant role in the decision. Upon learning about Escobedo and his background, she sent the Indiana coach a tweet asking if he would sit down for a conversation with her.
“He called me in like five seconds [after the tweet],” she said. “He said ‘I know who you are. I know who your kid is. I knew he was being recruited heavily. … I just didn’t think he would be interested.’”
From there Escobedo reached out to Tyler, and the two started building a relationship. The first conversation lasted over an hour, without a mention of wrestling. The Lillards hopped in the car and took a trip around the country visiting different schools, but Indiana was the clear favorite.
The relationship between the Lillards and Escobedo has only flourished. One moment that stands out for Lillard is when Escobedo called him after the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021. He asked Lillard if he was okay, how his family was and if there was anything that he could do for him. A simple gesture, but one that made a world of difference to Lillard and his mother. Additionally, Indiana offers Lillard’s intended comprehensive design major, which made his choice a little bit easier.
The physical concerns never go away for a mother, but she remains her son’s biggest cheerleader.
March 11, 2024 - Tyler Lillard, current Indiana University wrestler and a former Mill Springs Academy and 2018 GISA Wrestling State Champion, qualified for the NCAA Division I Championships this past Sunday, March 10. Lillard faced off against No. 8 Bryce Hepner (Ohio State) in a rematch from yesterday in the 11th place bracket to determine NCAA qualification. After making it through the tough Big Ten Championships, Lillard will compete on March 21-23 in Kansas City. Mats will be broadcast on ESPNU and ESPN+.
If you're familiar with wrestling at the youth level, I'm sure you've heard the name Tyler Lillard - he was Georgia's first 8th-grade high school state champion in 2018, the 2019 FS/GR Cadet Ohio State Champion, 2019 Fargo All American, 2020 Journeyman Champion, 2021 Journeyman Runner-up, and the 2021 NE Regional FS Runner up. Despite hearing the name and undoubtedly seeing his talent on the mat, it was learning about his personal life that truly intrigued and inspired me.
While getting ready for school one morning, Tyler became very ill and could not stop vomiting, so much so, his mother grew with concern and took him to see his family doctor, who, upon arrival, immediately sent Ms. Lillard and Tyler to the emergency room. While doctors were not 100% certain what was wrong, it was clear Tyler was experiencing something that raised great concern. After weeks of EEGs, MRIs, bone scans, blood work and visiting several specialists, including neurologists, ophthalmologists, and oncologists, a long-awaited call came, "Ms. Lillard, we found a brain tumor on Tyler's optic nerve, this is also called an optic pathway glioma, which causes visual impairment because it presses on the optic nerve. We need to run some more tests.
Her son was in third grade at the time Ms. Lillard received the phone call that forever changed her life - it was the day Tyler Lillard was diagnosed with epilepsy, a neurological disorder that causes seizures. The doctors could not figure out if the tumor was causing the seizures or if the seizures were the cause of the tumor.
Already involved with his local youth wrestling club at Johns Creek HS (Georgia), Tyler returned home with the expectation that his wrestling career was over. However, a club coach, Charlie Morris, at Morris Fitness Wrestling, had other plans. He reached out to Ms. Lillard and instructed her to bring Tyler to practice to watch on the mat, and she did just that despite Tyler's lack of interest in the sport since his diagnosis. Coach Morris knew better; he saw something special in Tyler.
Little by little, practice after practice, Tyler began to drill alongside the wrestlers as they conditioned and trained. Fast forward just four years later, a few nights before the youth state tournament and Tyler suddenly was unable to see, his vision went completely black. Ms. Lillard called Coach Morris to inform him Tyler could not compete, but this persistent wrestling coach knew Tyler's journey on the mat did not end here. Instead, Coach Morris told Ms. Lillard to meet him in the wrestling room. Upon their arrival, Coach Morris blindfolded Tyler with a sock, turned off all the lights and began to drill with him.
Despite his determination, support system and his natural ability to wrestle well, Tyler had to overcome many more obstacles off the mat, "I used to have 60-70 seizures a day. Sometimes I was aware of having them, and sometimes I had no idea. After my brain tumor treatments and going to different doctors and specialists, I was put on medication to control the seizures, so now I currently have maybe two major [grand mal] seizures a year.
In fact, it was just a year after winning his first state title when Tyler experienced a major grand mal seizure while on the mat during Liberty Nationals in February of 2017, "I don't remember what happened or what led to it, I just fell down and laid there unable to control my body. My mom remained calm and talked the trainers through protocol and with their help, I was able to safely get to the hospital."
Unfortunately, Tyler experienced another grand mal seizure that same year. This one was more severe than the last, as it lasted seven entire minutes and landed Tyler in the hospital for over a week. Although his condition has caused setbacks, it's not necessarily what Tyler focuses on; instead, he demonstrates and lives out the life of an overcomer both on and off the mat, "I never think about if I will have an episode. It's not something that crosses my mind when I get on the mat. I'm usually in a zone to think about how I plan on scoring. I do worry about if I lose my vision while wrestling; that is more of a concern for me than a seizure."
This concern doesn't go unwarranted; in fact, just a few weeks ago, while Tyler was competing at the Northeast Regionals, his vision went completely dark, "This happens every now and then, and I know one day my vision will leave me for good. But I don't focus on that because if or when it does, I know at that moment God would have allowed me to see everything that I was supposed to see.
As if that statement alone doesn't show you the type of Overcomer this young man is, Tyler and his mother formed a foundation called Team Tyler Epilepsy Foundation, which provides school supplies to children who are in the hospital and cannot start school in the classroom due to their medical conditions, "I remember being in school while I was in the hospital and teachers came around to keep us on track with our classwork, but no one had backpacks and notebooks and other cool stuff.
While the reality that Tyler will struggle with his epilepsy and visual impairment for the entirety of his life may seem overwhelming to most people, let alone continuing to wrestle despite his diagnosis, Tyler was able to walk out of the hospital after each incident. Because of that, he is sure not to take a single moment of his life for granted. Tyler doesn't allow epilepsy or the thought of one day going blind, hold him back or keep him from striving toward his goals.
With the support of his mother, coaches and his teammates, this high school wrestler earned his way onto a D1 wrestling program in the Big 10 conference - one Tyler has dreamed of competing in since he was younger. When he graduates high school, Tyler plans on attending and competing for Indiana University under the guidance and coaching of Angel Escobedo, "I definitely would like to be a National Champion.
Clearly built differently, this wrestler, wise beyond his years, wanted to share one final piece of advice for anyone facing adversity while chasing their dreams, "It may feel like there is nothing going your way, or your battles are not being won...never let anything or anyone get in the way of your dreams and goals. Set daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals and reach them knowing that I believe in you and God believes in you; the battle has already been won. It's also really important that on your journey, you share your feelings and emotions with others, your coaches, teammates, parents, pastors, anyone. It feels so much better to tell someone than to keep it bottled up inside.
Tyler Lillard moves back into the rankings and climbs all the way up to #16 for his Midlands title. Lillard put together an incredible performance with notable wins over Maxx Mayfield and Hunter Garvin. Despite those wins, Lillard has suffered losses this year to Christopher Minto and Cesar Alvan - those results keep Lillard from rising higher in the rankings.
Garvin's loss to Lillard drops him to #10 but his wins from the NCAA Tournament last year over Peyton Hall and Cam Amine keep him from dropping further. Should Garvin suffer another loss to a lower-ranked opponent, he'll likely drop considerably.
Tyler knows he’ll suffer at least one or two grand mal seizures a year. He’s accepted the fact his vision isn’t going to get better. He’s happy that medication has the absence seizures under control. He lives the Philippians 4:13 Bible verse he has tattooed on his right biceps: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That’s why he doesn’t sweat the bad days.
The Lillards came to Ohio in 2018 because they wanted life to mirror Tyler's passion on the mat. That came by challenging him in one of the top wrestling states in the nation.
“He always has a smile on his face, so it’s hard to be down,” Greenmen teammate Dylan Fishback said. “He’s always happy and energetic and feeling good. If something happens, he’s always bringing positive energy to you. He stays to himself but will reach out if you need it.”
Teammate Codie Cuerbo marvels at the support Tyler has for everybody. He knows when Tyler is going through a tough day and always goes out of his way to make sure he is OK. As much as he’s a rock for Tyler, Tyler is one for him.