When most young athletes first set foot on a high school campus, winning a state title is probably in the back of their minds. Maybe it’s something to really think about later, as a junior or senior with developed skills.
Cullen Telfer, on the other hand, just wrestled his way to a state championship as a freshman.
In his first year as a Strawberry Crest Charger, Telfer — a wrestler for over half of his life — brought his school its second state championship ever. And he’s the first to do it in a predominately male sport.
“It went well,” Telfer says. “I felt good, and confident, through the whole tournament.”
LIFE’S WORK
Telfer, now 15, began wrestling around age 7 with encouragement from his father, John, who had wrestled in high school. The Plant City native quickly took to the sport, and hasn’t looked back since then.
Before Strawberry Crest, Telfer wrestled for a club team through the sixth grade. He attended private school at Tampa Bay Christian in seventh grade, which allowed him to compete in high school sports. There he made it to the state tournament.
Last year, while home-schooled, he made it all the way to the state semifinals and finished third in his weight class.
C.J. Gittens, Strawberry Crest’s head coach for the last two seasons, first encountered Telfer in the 2014 tournament.
“I remember watching him at state, and I was like, ‘For an eighth-grader to make it to the semis and place third, that’s pretty good,’” Gittens says.
By then, it was essentially a given that Telfer would be attending Strawberry Crest for ninth grade: his mother, Natalie, is a teacher at the school. And Gittens knew he wanted to work with Telfer from this season onward.
“I said to his mom, ‘I want your kid,’” Gittens says. “‘I can help him with whatever he needs.’”
On the first day of practice, Gittens noticed the potential to mold a winner in Telfer. Although the boy was probably the slowest runner on the team, he made up for his lack of speed with a mat psychology beyond his age.
“When we started practicing, he was hitting moves that most freshmen, even if they wrestled in eighth grade, weren’t hitting,” Gittens says. “The only things he needed were a little bit of intensity, and a little bit of cleaning up.”
Gittens, a former NCAA Division 1 wrestler at Campbell University, immediately took Telfer under his wing. The coach opted to work one-on-one with Telfer for the entire season and made an early promise that almost any coach would be nervous about trying to fulfill.
“Because we’re the same size, I made a promise,” Gittens says. “I was like, ‘You will be my wrestling partner all year. As long as you’re my partner, you will become a state champ.’”
FIGHT NIGHTS
Weighing in at 113 pounds, Telfer finished the regular season with a 34-1 record, losing only to a senior from Lake Gibson High School. His goal was to make a deep run in the FHSAA State Championship Tournament, as he was coming off of that third-place finish in 2014.
“I just remembered what it was like to lose in the semifinals last year, and it helped me motivate myself to get through this,” he says.
Telfer got his chance to make a run through the 3A bracket and made the most of it.
Going up against older grapplers, Telfer had to be just as prepared mentally as he was physically. The mat tools were already there, as coach C.J. Gittens will attest. It was just a matter of Telfer keeping his head in the game and not getting caught up in the moment.
“I just reminded myself how hard I’d worked all year, and that if I’d worked that hard all year, I might as well win,” Telfer says. “It wouldn’t be fun to work that hard all year, and then lose.”
In the semifinal match, Telfer got on the board with a quick takedown and continued to be aggressive throughout. After the win, he knew he was up for a tougher challenge in North Port senior Anthony Tripke.
Tripke, who finished the 2014-15 season with a 45-6 record, gave Telfer quite a fight in the championship match. But, to his advantage, Telfer had already done plenty of scouting on Tripke before the bout.
“The weekend before (states), I beat him at regionals,” Telfer says. “I knew he was a tough kid, but I knew that my conditioning was better than his and, eventually, if I just kept sticking to my gameplan, I’d eventually come up with a win.”
Telfer’s aggression paid off in the end, as the freshman was able to secure a 3-2 decision over Tripke for the state championship. He was then given a nice-looking medal that, as a wrestler, went well with the busted-up nose he also had to deal with.
To celebrate, Telfer and the Chargers took a Monday off. Since then, they’ve been back on the mats again — Gittens likes to say that champions don’t have offseasons — and practicing for any upcoming tournaments they can. And, no matter what’s in store in the near future, Telfer’s ready to face the challenge.
“This is a great school, and I feel good that I’m able to represent it,” he says. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to help bring some attention to Strawberry Crest.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
COWBOY UP
Cullen Telfer is definitely best-known for his wrestling prowess. But the Strawberry Crest freshman has also been known to take part in the rodeo.
The Telfer family is passionate about bull-riding, and much of Cullen’s free time away from wrestling is spent on the back of a large, angry animal. Being able to successfully ride a bucking bull for eight seconds and live to tell about it must be a confidence-booster for someone who also has to wrangle another human on a mat for several minutes.
