[orchestral music]
Downloaded from YTS.BZ
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ
[music fades]
[somber music]
[man] There were so many days that I wanted
this to be taken away.
There's this story of a man who was waiting
at the Pool of Bethesda.
He had something wrong with him.
[keyboard clacking]
Many years earlier,
an angel had disturbed the water,
and whoever touched the moving water was healed.
[keyboard clacking]
That man sat by the Pool for most of his life,
waiting for the moving of the water.
[keyboard clacking]
Waiting to be healed.
[keyboard clacking]
I think about that story a lot.
What if the water never moved?
[water sloshing]
- [TV static] - [woman on TV] A local wrestler
could have used his physical limitations to quit sports.
Instead, he used it to his advantage.
[TV static]
It's a remarkable story of his refusal
to let a rare birth defect define him.
[TV static]
[man on TV] A genetic mutation gave Ben Kjar
a lifetime to make excuses.
[TV static]
[man 2 on TV] This guy has made it
to the pinnacle of the sport.
[woman 2 on TV] I think he came with that champion spirit.
[announcer] World champion.
- [man 3] A champion heart. - [woman 2] Mm-hmm.
- [man 3] That's what he has. - [woman 2] It's a winning attitude.
[uplifting music]
- [male voice] Stand out! - [crowd] Stand out!
[cheering]
[soft music]
[Ben] My name is Ben Kjar.
I didn't always tell my story. I was afraid
to tell my story, frankly.
Even to this day, I have friends...
...that see my story...
...they come back to me, and they're like, "Ben,
I didn't even know about this.
I didn't know you went through all this."
And these are some of my best buddies.
But there were a couple people I couldn't hide it from.
[static]
[rattling]
In the late '70s and early '80s,
my parents, you know,
tried to make their way through school,
tried to start a family.
[man] We've known each other for a long time.
[woman] We met in the first grade.
Miracle is she still married me.
[laughs]
The first three kids were born fully healthy.
[Stana] Amanda, Katie, and Luke.
And then I came.
- [somber music] - [glitching]
[Scott] When he was delivered,
instead of being a pink little baby,
he was gray. Gray/blue.
He was almost lifeless.
I will never forget that.
[Stana] He was struggling very hard for every breath.
[Scott] His eyes were bigger than the other kids'.
[Stana] He couldn't nurse and breathe at the same time.
[Scott] Stana had to feed him with an eyedropper.
Then one day when we woke up,
his soft spot, or his fontanel, was puffed.
I was alarmed.
[Scott] We got in right away to see a doctor.
[doctor] Being a craniofacial surgeon,
I get referred to those infants
almost immediately,
to ascertain whether there
is some underlying problem.
You could see, just based on his clinical appearance,
that Ben does have a diagnosis of Crouzon's syndrome.
Crouzon's disease, a congenital deformity
that causes the bones around the brain to grow incorrectly,
which, in turn, stops the brain from growing properly.
[Stana] When we called my parents to tell them,
"Surgery is set for this date,
this is what's going to happen,"
I remember hearing this strange noise
on the other end of the phone, and-- and I didn't understand
what it was at first.
And then I realized that it was my father,
and I had never heard him cry like that.
[melancholic music]
We got to the hospital.
[Scott] And this neurologist said,
"This is a serious surgery.
This will take ten to 12 hours.
I need to cut open his skull, peel the skin back,
cut the skull open, and move the skull forward an inch."
The little boy is nine months old.
[tense music]
We go into the recovery room, and he's crying.
He had this big bandage all over his head.
His eyes were swollen shut.
I mean, [stutters] it was like his head was a balloon.
He had a-- a inch gap all the way across the top of his head.
He still has a scar, to this day, that goes from ear to ear.
[Stana] But what I thought would be a breakdown moment--
not knowing if you're capable of caring for a child
after all that happens--
the opposite occurred.
I would take the little soft tape
and put it on his little swollen eyelid,
and put it up to his forehead so that one eye was open,
and he would start giggling and laughing
because he could see us.
I had just a blanket of warmth fall over me.
Every day that he is with us,
we'll do everything we can for him.
[heartwarming music]
[music turns bright]
[Scott] For the next two or three years, we were okay.
We had a family life. We're raising children.
[on video] Christmas Day.
We had three more.
[Stana] Adam, Sharla, and Danner.
You gotta get that elbow thing right around by your-- oh.
[laughs]
[Scott] We moved back here to Centerville
'cause we were close to our families.
[Ben] It was probably the perfect
place for me to be raised.
I had a lot of cousins, and the majority of my family
lived here in Centerville.
[Scott] And all the cousins-- all the cousins
turn around and wave to the camera.
- Wave. - [kids] Hi!
Hi, Daddy!
All his cousins were an incredible support to him,
and he just lived in that sphere.
My name is Logan Essig.
I am Ben's first cousin.
He's been my best friend, I don't know, my whole life.
It was like Logan was sent specifically for Ben.
They were just kindred spirits.
I mean, we had such a good time, and he loved me for who I was.
We'd see each other, and it was just--
we'd be screaming like, "Yeah, we get to play." You know?
We'd go outside. We'd play basketball.
Here's a good layup, look.
[young Logan] Okay.
Oh, that was a good layup.
It didn't even occur to me that Ben was viewed as different.
Nobody else in the family did.
They did not recognize that he was different at all.
In fact, some of my younger kids could not
figure out why Ben was having these big surgeries.
"What's the matter with Ben?"
[Stana] He was getting to the age where
he realized people weren't just looking at his whole family.
They were looking at him.
[projector clicks and whirs]
If he was with family, he could be as comfortable
as a child could be in his scenario.
But when you're outside that environment,
he could feel it happening.
And so he would start drawing in and looking down.
Ben? Come out of the shadows.
Come over here.
[Scott] Let's see a big smile.
[Stana] Many times, Scott and I would lay awake.
- We often wondered, - [slides changing]
how do you teach self-confidence to someone
that looks different?
[solemn music]
[Ben] Just down the street, there was a family
that moved in named the Clarks and the youngest was named Nate.
[Nate] Well, I grew up in a household with seven older brothers,
these tough athletes and always fighting and boxing
and playing tackle football with each other.
Ben and I-- we were kinda tied at the hip.
We were just like, "We wanna play."
[Ben] All my buddies played these sports.
I remember going up to my parents and saying, "Hey, Mom and Dad,
I know we just spent a lot of money on a surgery.
[chuckles] Can I go bang my head with other kids?"
[Stana] But the doctors would say,
"You know, you need to limit some of his activity."
[man] There was not a long history of, "How do we
deal with children with craniofacial anomalies?"
Logic would say, "Well, you treat them cautiously."
[Dr. Louis] I've had a lot of patients with
similar conditions as Ben.
Many of these kids wanted to play football, contact sports,
even wrestling,
and I would advise the parents against it,
just because with head holds and being hit in the face,
I was worried that he would re-injure
his face after surgery.
When I was told I couldn't play, it was hard.
It was really hard.
Even though they said, "No sports,"
they were bound and determined to help him
live as normal a life as he possibly could.
[Stana] Yeah, well, it says "Record" on this.
- [Scott] Does it say record? - [Stana] Yes, it does. REC.
There is Danner, and there's Ben.
[indistinct chatter]
[Scott] And so we tried to get him involved in lots of things,
along with all his other siblings.
W-- We didn't say, "Oh, you sit over there in the corner
and just be yourself, and, you know, you have problems."
We didn't let him do that.
- All right, Ben. - [girl] Go!
- It's scary. - [Ben speaks indistinctly]
- Go, Ben. - After you go, I'll go.
Ben, you're a wuss.
My parents and my siblings-- they were incredible cuddlers,
but they were not good coddlers.
[boy] If you don't go then I'm gonna push you off.
- [indistinct shouting] - [girl] Ben, go!
[Ben] It was like, "We're not gonna protect you with bubble wrap."
Instead, they put us in activities
to find something I could find confidence in.
So you'd come home from school.
I remember I'd just go straight to his house
and knock on his door and,
"Hey, can Ben play today?"
And it was always, "No,
Ben has piano lessons."
Like, it was just always something.
[instruments playing]
[Ben] Orchestra.
[bright dancing music]
Dance.
Gingerbread Kids singing.
[children singing]
I mean, how uncool is that, right?
I mean, you name it.
Even though I hated it.
So finally, I was just, like, determined
to hang out with my best friend. I was like,
"Well, I'll go to Gingerbread Kids with him.
Like, what is Gingerbread Kids?" And I got there...
[children singing]
And I was like, "What on Earth is your mom having you guys do?
This is crazy. Like, I just get to sign up for sports."
[Ben] Well, that wasn't an option.
[Scott] Okay, Ben. Come on.
But they still wanted me to find courage.
Something that I could fall in love with.
[girl] Just jump!
- [kids] Yeah! - [Stana] Hey...
[Ben] My friends, my siblings were always strong.
[soft, bright music]
I knew that with them around me, it's gonna be okay.
But one time, my parents let me go to the store by myself.
I had picked out a candy bar,
and I'd sat there just feeling like a king of the world.
[inaudible]
And the guy who was in front of me
was this adult man
with his kids who I'd never seen before.
He would look at me.
[somber music]
He grabbed his kids, pulled them close to him, and pointed at me.
He said, "Hey, get behind me. Hurry. Get behind me, kids.
Don't go near him, and don't touch him 'cause he's probably
contagious."
And he got out to his car like this,
like he was getting away from a monster.
[deep rumble]
A lot of times, I had been made fun of.
But it was when the adults made fun of me,
that's when I just broke.
[somber music]
I would go home, and I'd run in the bathroom,
and I'd slam the door and just collapse against the wall.
- [door slams and echoes] - [Stana] I went up and tried to
get in, and he wouldn't let me in.
I couldn't imagine what had just occurred.
I thought, "I've gotta figure out a way
to physically take my face off.
I gotta figure out a way...
...to physically remove the difference."
Luckily, my mom came in before I made any... smart decisions.
[Stana] At first, he wouldn't say anything,
and then he started saying what had just happened.
Ben felt like he was just broken and diseased.
[Ben] And she just collapsed on me,
and she just bawled with me,
and I just told her everything I was feeling.
It was the first time I had ever heard him say, "Why me?"
Very quickly after that, my mom
put me in front of the mirror,
and she said something that would affect me
for the rest of my life.
"Do you think this challenge that is yours...
...came because God looked the other way for a minute?
Do you think that it's going to go away?"
[Ben] "You're gonna attract attention just
because you look different, Ben."
"Other people do a lot for someone to notice them.
You know, they act out just trying to get someone
to pay attention to them.
You know what? That's not your deal."
[Ben] "You were born different,
so why don't you make a difference?"
[Stana] "You're gonna have to reach deep.
But since you are standing out anyway...
...use it.
Use what you've been made for, and stand out."
[music fades]
[heartwarming music]
[Ben] At the time, the local high school
had a youth program called Little Viking Wrestling.
All the youth in the neighborhoods
and in the surrounding area would come,
and they would match kids up.
And, like, once or twice a week, they'd have
this practice that was basically, like,
glorified babysitting.
And Bart Thompson was the coach there.
[Bart] Viewmont High had had some real serious success,
but... that had disappeared.
Not long before that, the-- the film Take Down had come out.
[bright music]
It was about an English teacher who drew the short straw
and was told he had to be the wrestling coach.
He had this odd assortment of kids.
[Ed] Uh, winning is not the only thing.
The main thing is, uh... to have fun.
That was us.
We did not have a single set of uniforms for everybody...
...and we struggled. [laughs]
[people cheering]
[whistle blows]
I knew that you've got to have a program
before the high school
to have a shot.
[indistinct announcement]
[Ben] My older brother Luke would go and wrestle
and compete in this little league.
And I would feel the passion cheering my brother on.
"Go, Luke! Go, Luke!"
[man] Get in there, Luke.
[Bart] Ben wasn't allowed to be in the program yet.
But he was walking around while the tournament's going on...
...and anybody he could go over to the bleachers
and grab by the hand, he would pull them out
onto the edge of the mats and wrestle with them.
[indistinct chattering]
He did that through the whole tournament.
I-- I'll bet he wrestled eight, ten different kids...
...all of whom were bigger than him.
[sobbing]
[Ben] And at the end of the tournament,
Luke got a medal that was about, like, the size of a penny.
[chuckles] Right?
And as he got this medal,
I was so mad
that I didn't get a medal.
I wanted a medal.
And I informed him they have to be earned.
"You have to earn a medal, and you weren't in the tournament."
But that was not...
...a satisfactory answer for me.
- I made such a scene. - [static]
Finally, my mom went up to Bart Thompson
and said, "How much do I have to pay you for an extra medal?"
I said, "I got him taken care of."
Picked him up, set him on top of our award stand,
and awarded him a special award for
wrestling the most people that night.
[Ben] And he said, "Congratulations, champ."
And that, like, gave me a sample of what it was like
to feel... just, like, noticed.
That's when we started to see Ben just get a...
...fire in the gut that takes him somewhere.
There was no doubt.
We knew right there we couldn't limit him anymore.
Doctors hesitated, but we weren't
going to live in fear of what might happen
or what might not happen.
[Ben] After that, my parents put me in everything.
I mean, you name it, from indoor soccer...
[Scott] All right. Get up, Ben. Hustle.
[Ben] ...to basketball, baseball.
[Stana] He loved every sport he played.
We were just so happy to see Ben smiling, you know?
Although I want you to know that
sometimes it was hard to watch him do it.
[whistle blows]
It was hard because if Crouzon syndrome wasn't enough
to go bang heads with other kids, it was my size.
[coach speaking indistinctly]
I was the smallest dude on the field by far.
[indistinct shouting]
I looked like Spaceballs in the movie, with the huge helmets.
- [rattling] - [panting]
I remember seeing it on the field one day.
I saw the biggest on the opposite team just hit him...
[man] Yeah! Keep going!
...and I remember him just laying on the field
like-- you know? [chuckles]
And-- and I just thought, "Wow...
...how many of those are we gonna take?"
[indistinct chatter]
But I also had a-- a big heart.
- [indistinct chatter] - [man] Go, go, go.
- [whistle blows] - And so I would work hard.
[cheering]
I started gaining confidence through sports.
[man over microphone] Ben Kjar.
[cheering]
[Stana] Are you gonna do this again next year?
- Yeah. - Yes, ma'am.
[bright music]
[Ben] I started to think in that realm
when kids would bully me.
Like, for an example, in elementary--
this had happened numerous times.
There was a kid a couple ages older than me,
and he would look at me and literally, like, call me names.
And so he would just look at me and be like, "Flat face.
Hey, flat face.
Everybody look at flat face."
I would think, late at night in my bed, you know, cuddled up,
"Why would he do that?"
The kid was bigger than me, and I didn't feel like I could,
like, box him or beat him up.
But eventually I started to think of ways to defend myself.
And then the next morning when he said, "Hey, flat face.
Look at flat face!"
I remember thinking, "I'm gonna do it this time.
I'm gonna do it this time."
And I pointed at him. I was like,
"Hey, round face. Look at you, round face!"
[inaudible]
Ben's not very good at being mean.
[Ben] Was that the best thing to do?
A-- Absolutely, probably not,
but he kinda shut his mouth after that.
[hands clap]
Ben's confidence grew in every sport that he touched,
but he truly got the most out of wrestling.
And I think a lot of the reasons for that came from Shandell.
[Shandell] In high school, Bart Thompson was my coach.
I won two state titles.
Then I won a Junior College National title.
[man] At that time, Centerville Junior High School
was the worst in the district, the worst.
And all of a sudden, my uncle walks out
of the principal's office.
I'm like, "What are you doing here?"
'Cause he was just barely out of college.
He says, "I'm your new wrestling coach," and it just lit me up.
[Shandell] I was the head coach here at the junior high,
and I was the assistant at the high school.
People think that all we had to do was build the fundamentals
and build the excitement for our sport.
But a lot of the coaches are going
to be teaching the same techniques.
There's all sorts of foundational
or fundamental techniques that you teach.
[man on TV] There are a variety of ways to score in wrestling.
Every move a wrestler makes contributes to scoring points
or preventing their opponent from doing so.
[whistle blows]
[man 2 reads]
[whistle blows]
[man 2 reads]
[Shandell] Where the secret is, is we teach the young men to,
ultimately, stay away from the things
off the mat that will make them weak.
You've got to stay away from the bad pictures.
You got to stay away from the bad movies.
You got to stay away from drugs, alcohol.
This is your recipe for success.
He was teaching boys to be men, and not just good men,
but great men.
I realized early on that Ben's opportunities may be limited,
and so we spent maybe a little extra time
as he started wrestling because early on, there was no success.
- [playful music] - [whistle blows]
[Dr. Gregory] They had the state freestyle tournament.
Ben, who was in elementary school, said, "What the heck?
I-- I wanna go up and wrestle, too."
He came away with the third place medal,
and he was just beaming from ear to ear.
He didn't know that there was only three guys in his weight.
I don't think he won a match.
[Shandell] The challenges that he was faced with...
...would have... caused anybody, I think,
to just absolutely... you know, fold up shop.
[melancholic music]
He was at a fundamental disadvantage in many ways.
Shorter than almost every opponent.
Small hands, short limbs.
It was painful because his teeth were
so packed in, and the braces and everything that he had.
His mouth was largely bleeding in almost every single match.
[Bart] Maybe the best way to say it is,
"You've probably got more athletic ability
in that much of your little finger
than Ben had in his whole body."
[Shandell] Kids would go out and just push him around and thump him.
There were many times where he would come off the mat...
[chuckles]
[voice breaking] ...fall at my feet...
[sniffles]
...and just cry.
And my sister, she'd let me have it.
"I can't believe you're doing this to my kid.
Is this good? Is this bad?
Is this--" Whatever.
- [woman] Shoulders up! - [whistle blows]
[Stana] In my heart, I knew
there are hard things that happen
that you really learn from.
[indistinct chattering]
So we just prayed often as a family.
We hoped that that helped him.
[indistinct chattering]
[woman] I was talking to him, and he said, "Do you know what?
I could never lay on my back."
I said, "What are you talking about?" He said,
"I have had every sport outgrow me except for wrestling.
So I have to do well.
The thought of my shoulders touching a mattress or a mat
is something that I don't wanna feel."
[Shandell] For him to want something so bad...
...that's building character.
That's what's gonna make him great.
[playful music]
In junior high I was the lightest weight, 78 pounds, in seventh grade.
Ben, soaking wet, was not close to 78.
And wrestling is a true sport.
It's not the coach saying, "You're varsity, you're JV."
We have wrestle-offs.
You compete against the guys that
are your size, your weight,
and the winner gets varsity, and then the next gets JV.
But he had not been able to beat Zac Morby, his teammate,
his drilling partner.
[announcer] In fourth place, Zac Morby
of Northside.
[Zac] I was quicker than Ben.
I felt like I was a better technician than Ben.
And so we wrestled off every week for that entire year
for the varsity spot, and I won all the time.
[people cheering]
The varsity guys had, like, the cooler warm-ups
and all that stuff.
[whistle blows]
[Ben] And that meant that I had to wear
the old, worn-out singlets
[chuckling] that were way too baggy for me, right?
Looked like I was wearing a parachute.
But there was something else way worse than baggy singlets.
[deep rumble]
As we would go to roll out the mats and get ready to warm up,
we would always pass by the cheerleaders.
[melancholic music]
And numerous times them seeing me, these girls,
and them laughing, snickering in groups of three or four
and pointing at me and being like,
"Ah-ha, that's your boyfriend.
- That's your boyfriend." - [echoing chuckles]
Like, I would be the last thing that they would ever
want in their life.
[indistinct shouting]
And then going out and performing on the same mat
as them cheering.
[indistinct shouting]
And every single time before a big performance,
something like that would happen.
[indistinct chanting]
My biggest fear was, "Could I be loved?"
People would say, "Hey, is that kid that kind of
looks like Quasimodo,
is he on your team?"
[Shandell] Every away match, so many people thought...
...that he was mentally handicapped, too.
It was... crushing.
[Ben] You know, in football, I could hide behind a mask,
but not in wrestling.
Everyone saw who you were.
I said, "Hey, pal, use it as venom."
[music turning dramatic]
"Let it be the venom that drives you."
[man] Ben and Zac and I were weightlifting partners.
You know, we went to the gym on our own.
But Ben always took that to a higher level.
It was, "How much more weight can I push?
How much faster can I run?
I mean, there was never a let-up.
If Ben was ever losing a match, I would go like this.
And it meant, "wipe off the crybaby face,
and get back to work."
I saw his faith, his confidence,
his conditioning grow.
I loved it... because it was just me.
I can control how many repetitions I did.
I can control if I show up early or leave late.
I can control my attitude.
[shouting]
I had waited my entire life
to have control over something,
and I finally felt like I had that in a sport like wrestling.
[uplifting music]
[Shandell] At the end of the season, we have a qualifying tournament,
the South End Wrestling Tournament,
where each school gets to bring two wrestlers.
So I got to bring both Zac and Ben
and enter them in the same weight class.
They were on the opposite sides of the bracket.
They ended up meeting in the finals.
[announcer] At 78 pounds,
from Centerville Junior High, we have Zac Morby,
and also from Centerville, we have Ben Kjar.
It seemed like even though I felt
like I was faster, you know, probably more technical,
I felt like I was just wrestling to hang on.
He was just so mean.
[intense music]
It was a different feel, for sure.
[cheering]
And it was not a close match.
- [whistle blows] - [cheering]
Ben ended up, like, pinning me in the second round.
[cheering]
At that time, I was like, "I don't wanna be JV.
That's not good."
I was worried about losing the cooler warm-ups,
and Ben was just like-- he didn't care about that.
He was like, "Whatever. I got the varsity spot,
Zac, keep the warm-ups. I don't even want 'em."
[uplifting music]
[Shandell] Then they were able to go to the
district championship.
[cheering]
During that tournament, little tiny Ben,
still probably eight pounds under the lowest weight,
got to the district championship, the finals
of all of Davis County, and wrestled this big ninth grader
that also weighed 78 pounds.
[Zac] His name was Blake Isom.
He won the district tournament the year before.
- [indistinct announcing] - [whistle blows]
[Shandell] This big ninth grader probably cut weight
down from 88 pounds down to 78.
Given the history, we didn't expect
to even be close in that match.
I just didn't think I could handle it.
[chuckles] In my opinion,
I thought it was gonna be no competition.
- [whistle blows] - [shouting and cheering]
But then he gets an escape.
[clapping and cheering]
And then all of a sudden, it was like, "Holy cow,
he could actually stay in the match
and have an opportunity to win."
[Shauna] I remember sitting with Stana on the bench,
and it was to the point where if...
...the ninth grader escaped,
then Ben would lose.
[shouting]
[whistle blows]
And Stana just calling out, "Reach deep, Ben.
Reach deep."
[Stana] Reach deep, Ben. That's it.
Reach deep, Ben. That's good.
Come on, Ben! Come on!
Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
[Shauna] And that is exactly what he did.
[Stana] Way to go, Kjar!
[cheering]
Come on, hold on.
- [buzzer] - [cheering]
[Shandell] That was one of his most
gritty turning points in his life.
[cheering]
Nobody in the grocery store, no mean kid
can ever take that away from you.
[inaudible]
And you look back and say, "Okay, th-- that was worth it."
After that... he was a confident boy.
["Adaptation" by Brett Belote plays]
That gave me such... swagger.
♪ I'm ready to go get it Like a Labrador ♪
♪ Dog day's done and I'm Tired of the tug of war ♪
When you think of the glory sports,
wrestling does not normally come to the top of mind.
You're stripping off your clothes
and getting down into your singlet.
You're wrestling around with another man.
That's not something most people are like, "Dude,
this is the most glorious sport ever."
Ben somehow turns it into the coolest thing ever.
[Ben] I started to make friends.
I can do this.
I remember my first day at Centerville Junior High.
I was brand new.
It was scary going to a new school.
And I saw this little short boy [laughs]
with a little strut walking down the hall.
And he had this entourage of people behind him.
He just had this confidence that was insane.
As I looked at him, he goes, "Hey, what's up?"
[laughs] And the first thought that came to my mind was,
"Wow, he's a cool kid." [laughs]
[Stana] At that point,
when people said something mean about his face,
I also saw the metamorphosis for Ben to know how to react.
Rather than just retaliate with another negative comment,
he went to humor, often.
One day, some neighbor girls were in the park.
[Nate] We were out jumping on our trampoline.
And he was singing, "The sun will come out tomorrow.
I love you. I love you."
[Stana] And Nate said, "Hey...
...Ben wants you to be his girlfriend."
[laughing]
They just started laughing and saying
that he had a weird face and he was ugly and there was
no chance.
[Stana] Ben piped up and said, "Well...
...I'm not giving up on you, babe."
[laughs]
[Nate] And the funny thing was is he ended up
kissing one of those girls a couple years later.
[man] First time I met Ben was at a wrestling tournament.
I'd never seen anybody
that had a face like his face.
He had his singlet on, and he had some thermals on
under his singlet.
[indistinct announcements]
I mean, I was like, "I'm gonna kick this kid's butt.
Like, he has no idea what he's doing.
Why is he wearing thermals on under his singlet, right?"
[whistle blows]
[shouting]
And then he kicked my butt in a wrestling match.
[whistle blows]
And I was like, "Dude, that kid is freaking tough."
Ben significantly improved very quickly.
By the time he went to a high school,
the question is gonna be how far he could potentially
push himself.
[solemn music]
[news host] Viewmont High School is 53 years old.
It's home to 1800 students.
[Ben] After years of junior high, other people
become accustomed to seeing you.
But when I went to high school, it-- it wasn't that.
[man] Coming from the junior high in the wrestling room,
for sure, people underestimated him.
The first day when he walked in the room
and people didn't know him,
you know, they would have ma-- made some judgments
like anybody would, right?
That meant he had to kinda step it up a notch.
[man on TV] This is the NCAA Division I
Wrestling Championships.
[Scott] We wanted to help him,
so we went to the NCAA Wrestling
Championships for the first time.
[solemn music]
When he saw those men up on the podium...
...I could see him li-- staring like this.
And I looked at him, and I said, "Ben...
...you belong on that podium."
[Ben] And he told me... I could be an All-American.
And I would believe that I could do it.
He nodded his head and said, "Yeah, Dad...
but you've gotta pay the price."
[uplifting music]
[Shandell] We wanted to start getting him
additional training.
And it just so happened that Greg Williams
started an Elite Wrestling Club
for the kids here in Northern Utah.
[Greg] I said, "I'm gonna pick ten kids
that wanna get to the college level.
It doesn't matter how good they are now,
as long as they work hard."
- [indistinct chatter] - Ben stood out.
This kid is so hungry. You could tell by how he wrestled.
But I'm like, "Okay, here are some things he needs to work on."
And-- and Ben is not somebody who you teach him something,
and he just picks it up super fast.
Ben pounds and pounds and pounds.
He grinds it out, and he gets it down by working hard.
I can't count the number of nights...
I finally had to go in and lock the wrestling room up
and chase him out to go home
because he'd still be there working.
[Ben] I had some high goals.
My parents came to me.
They said they were buying me
a letterman's jacket,
which... was a lot of money.
I remember telling my parents,
"Mom, Dad...
...I got my last patch I want."
It said "3XSC."
Three-time state champion.
[Stana] It's one thing to set a goal
in the corner of your room.
It's another thing to stick it on your letterman jacket
where everyone can make fun of you
if you don't reach it, right?
I mean, that was one, you know,
I think Wade and I, we all kinda like...
[mutters] Kinda-- you know?
At the time, it was unheard of to have
a three-time state champion.
[Wade] It's not shocking coming from Ben,
confidence that can, you know, maybe be
misconstrued as arrogance or-- or cockiness.
[Ben] 3XSC.
I wrote that everywhere.
Just shy of tattooing it on my forehead.
I started noticing when he would sign his
bout cards, uh, at tournaments.
Well, he'd sign it, "Ben Kjar 3XSC."
This is when he was a sophomore.
[Hadyn] We've all had doubt, but I think Ben was just like,
"Hey, I'll show them."
- [woman] There's Mom. - Hi, there.
We're going to Ben and Luke's wrestling match
in-- at Cottonwood.
Anybody that had any doubts or any worries,
he took that out of them by his performance
in an awfully big hurry.
[announcer]
[Logan] You know, he was a bit of a Mighty Mouse.
Just the power that he could produce...
Li-- I re-- literally remember matches--
kids trying to crawl off the side of the mat
to get out of bounds, and he's dragging them back in
and pummeling them.
- [whistle blows] - He wrestled violently.
When he got on the mat, I would think, "Ben, be nice."
[whistle blows]
[Shandell] Because he was a fierce wrestler,
there were coaches that said, "I don't want my kids
to wrestle against him.
We don't wanna, you know, give them
traumatic experiences."
Guys saying, "What weight is Ben Kjar wrestling?
Okay, I'm gonna go to a different weight
'cause I don't wanna wrestle."
That was how dominant he was.
- [whistle blows] - It was so fun to finally shine.
[news host] Prep wrestling took center stage in Utah
at this week's state tournament.
The reigning champions, Layton High School,
prevailed against an underwhelming performance
from challenger Viewmont High.
One bright spot, though, for the Vikings
was sophomore Ben Kjar,
who won his very first state title,
dominating that 103-pound division,
Ben was, like, the first state champion that we'd had
in a long time.
His popularity was, like, through the roof.
[man on microphone] Viewmont High Homecoming King, Ben Kjar.
- [cheering] - [indistinct voices]
[Zac] Everywhere we went, there was a line ten people deep
of wanting to say hi to him.
We'd always make the joke like, "Let's go get our number
and stand in line so we can say hi to Ben."
[uplifting rock music]
[Logan] And then all of a sudden, the cutest girls in school
were, "Oh, Ben!" You know, they'd give them big hugs.
And like, "You're the best." And
me and my buddies were like, "Oh, man, he's-- dude,
he's getting a hug from her? Like, this is crazy."
I was stealing girlfriends one match at a time.
[laughs] I'm just kidding.
Eventually, we learned the news had gotten hold of the story.
[newscast music]
Wrestling is a sport where it's difficult
to hide any weaknesses.
When a soft spot is found, a savvy opponent
should, and normally will, capitalize.
I was so excited for this to be going out.
Like, oh, my gosh.
They filmed all the posters on my walls where it said 3XSC,
and they filmed me.
This is crazy.
And then the night that it's supposed to air, it comes on.
On the mat, Viewmont's best wrestler gives other wrestlers
very little compensation.
[whistle blows]
[Ben] And it's of me wrestling.
[intriguing music]
But the filming was of me neck down,
and I'm like, "What are they doing?
He doesn't even know how to hold a camera."
And then all of a sudden, I... realized why.
[reporter] Viewmont wrestler, Ben Kjar,
had a lifetime to make excuses.
[Ben] They moved in to my face...
...and it was like...
...slow motion,
and, like, "This is what he looks like.
Look at him."
It's a weakness.
All the camera angles were really close up.
Like, look at this freak, right?
I felt like I was being mocked.
I-- I didn't like it at all.
I was so afraid that people in my school saw it.
I even thought about not going to school the next day.
I'm like, "I'm not going.
I don't wanna show my face."
I go into my class the next day,
and I sit in the back of the room, and I just kinda sit there
with my head down.
I didn't want anybody to mention what happened the night before.
And I looked up.
My teacher, Mrs. Haslam, rolled open this whiteboard,
and on the back whiteboard, she had written 3XSC.
And I...
...didn't know what to say.
[woman] I r-- remember thinking, "That's awesome.
There's a kid who knows what he wants to achieve
and has all the tools and discipline to make it happen."
[Ben] And she said, "Ben, I watched last night.
Thanks for putting yourself out there, and just know
that we're all rooting for you."
In a moment of complete self-doubt,
she completely changed the perspective.
[Shandell] We felt like there's literally nothing
that could stop him.
He was that dominant.
[Ben] And the next year, everyone had cleared out
at my weight at 112 pounds the entire year.
It was a cakewalk.
I'm like, "3XSC, easy, green light!"
[playful music]
[Zac] Ben was wrestling at 112.
I was 119, and Ben decided he was gonna
go back to this tournament.
It was called the Beast of the East.
It was the same time during the Viewmont Invitational.
The 119 class was tougher.
[Shandell] Zac tried it. He wrestled down
because nobody was there.
He did really well. I think he won the tournament.
[Ben] When I came back, he had dropped weight,
and he was like, "Hey, I wanna wrestle here."
I was not as strong mentally as Ben.
So at 112, I have a better chance.
[Hadyn] The thing is, it might just be a
five-pound gap between weights.
But I'm telling you, u-- unless you have wrestled,
y-- you don't realize that that five pounds
might as well be 1000.
[Bart] I knew how much Ben weighed because I'd
[chuckling] had him on the scales.
He probably could have made 103.
[Logan] Like, nobody does this.
Nobody says, "Hey, you know what?
I think it's better for the team if I wrestle up a weight,"
and really take a significant risk that that
three-time state champion patch wouldn't come true.
[Shandell] And I said, "Do you wanna have a wrestle off
and just... stay down and say,
'Hey, I'm staying at this weight?'"
And it was almost as if
he went and looked at me and goes,
"Wipe off the crybaby face."
You know, kinda, "Where's the challenge?
Where's the challenge in that?"
[indistinct chatter]
And the very next tournament...
...he got beat by a bigger kid that was wrestling 119
that probably came down from 130.
That was his first high school loss in the state at that point.
[cheering]
[Ben] And then I took a second loss.
I'm like, "What am I doing?"
[Stana] We all went, "Oh, my goodness."
[Scott] And when he came home that night,
he says, "Dad, he was so big.
And I felt like I was wrestling Goliath."
[cheering]
[Zac] And everyone was, like, starting to question,
"Was this the right move?"
I knew, like, if he ended up losing that year,
that he would probably--
I don't know. I don't know if he'd resent me,
but that-- that thought did cross my mind.
[inspiring music]
[Bart] It was amazing to see how
he came back from that.
He didn't cry about it.
He didn't throw a fit about it.
He just got better.
Every single lunch break, every single moment of freedom,
where I had a little bit of a choice,
I was found doing whatever I could
to have a different outcome at state.
[Nate] I remember being at home, and my brother came home.
He said, "Hey, Ben Kjar is out doing sprints
on Main Street at midnight. What is he doing?"
[Shandell] However, when he made the decision
to go up a weight class, that put him
on the same side of the bracket at state
as this Sullivan kid from Brighton.
Tall drink of water. I think he was almost six feet tall.
In order to get to the state finals,
we gotta go through Sullivan in the semis.
This guy had starved
down 20 pounds.
Two totally different builds, both wrestling
in the same weight class here.
That is a coaching nightmare.
I-- I was a little nervous, quite honestly.
[Shandell] For so many reasons, I thought,
"Ben, you're not gonna beat Sullivan."
And I remember the match just being, like,
- very, very close. - [whistle blows]
- [Scott] Shoot. Come on. - [Stana] This is it, this is it.
- This is yours, Ben. - [woman] Come on, go!
[Scott] They got into overtime,
and the guy got into his legs
and was taking Ben down.
Sudden death.
[Stana] Clear mind, clear mind, Ben.
This is yours.
They started rolling.
Reach deep, Ben. That's it, Ben. Yes!
[Scott] As he was rolling through that, he could see his 3XSC.
He was reaching for it, going for it,
and he wanted to grab it.
[Stana] That's it, Ben. That's it.
- [loud shouting] - Reach deep, Ben. That's it.
[Scott] I don't know how it happened.
I don't know how he did it.
- [cheering] - [Stana] He's on top.
[Scott] Ben came out on top.
[screaming] All right! All right!
Pin him! Pin him!
- [whistle blows] - [excited cheering]
All right!
Woo!
All right!
Ben!
Woo!
Walking off the mat, he says, "See, Coach? I was okay."
[laughs]
[Scott] Woo! All right, Ben.
- [cheering] - [Stana] Great job!
[Bart] After that, I think, in Ben Kjar's mind,
there wasn't a human on the planet
that he couldn't take down.
[announcer] From Viewmont, Ben Kjar.
[cheering]
[Zac] In the finals, he wrestled a kid from Orem...
- [whistle blows] - [announcer speaking indistinctly]
...and the match wasn't even close.
- [cheering] - [whistle blows]
[uplifting music]
[Shandell] That confidence is contagious.
Everybody around him realized,
"Oh, my gosh, we could win
a state championship as a team."
And as we started the next year, that was
the single focus and the single goal.
[Ben] Viewmont High School had never won a state title.
Bart Thompson had been there, sacrificing his life
for pennies an hour.
But this was the year.
[Hadyn] When you wanna win a state championship as a team,
you really have to get everybody to be on the same page.
And how do you get on that same page?
You have to have a leader.
And everybody else was like, "Well, I mean,
if he's gonna push that hard, I've gotta do it, too."
"If Ben can be positive and set goals,
then I can be positive and set goals."
He expected everybody to be as committed as he was,
and that fed...
...everybody in the room.
[Zac] And that year, we just...
absolutely obliterated everyone,
which was so fun.
[reporter] After years of disappointing finishes,
Viewmont High School's wrestling team
looks to finally win
their very first state championship
at the 5A tournament this weekend.
They enter the tournament as Utah's number one ranked team.
[Ben] As we go to state, it's a three-day tournament.
And after day one, Bart comes up to me, and he says,
"Ben, Viewmont is having a pep rally.
This is what you have to tell the school."
And what he told me, I couldn't believe.
[clapping and cheering]
I have the microphone handed to me,
and I just restate exactly what my coach had said.
"After day one of a three-day tournament,
Viewmont Vikings...
...are the 5A 2002
state champions."
And everyone was like, fr-- like, "What-- what's going on?"
Confused.
[cheering]
We had gained so many points
that it was impossible for anybody to catch up.
[cheering]
[indistinct chatter]
We broke every record.
- [cheering] - [whistle blows]
[Bart] Which meant that for the next two days, the kids
could wrestle for fun...
...and they did.
[Scott] The 3XSC was a spark plug.
Put it out there, pay the price, and go for it.
I was just as proud of them as I could possibly be.
[cheering]
It was something that they had earned.
[male voice] This is Talkin' Sports.
[reporter] Don't mess with Viewmont senior Ben Kjar.
Kjar led his Vikings to their first ever state team title
and is now looking ahead.
[Ben] I've talked to some of the top colleges in the nation,
and that would be awesome.
He's going to be an incredible asset to whatever program
he ends up with.
[Logan] Every big wrestling school in the country
was trying to recruit him.
[Ben] But at the same time in high school,
I kept pushing back my surgery.
And if you can imagine how much the structure of your face
changes through puberty...
I looked... really different.
I knew that I had to have it.
I just wasn't functioning--
I-- I couldn't breathe at night.
[Dr. Louis] Ben needed surgery
to help reconstruct the mid-face.
We presented the procedure,
what needed to be done at that point in time.
[Ben] Doctors were telling me, "You gotta do it
in multiple different surgeries,
and you need to wear a halo around your head."
[Dr. Louis] This device still requires surgery,
but then instead of moving it all at one time,
we do it by moving the face incrementally.
I'm like, "Man, we did all these surgeries before in one go.
Cut my head open. Why can't we do that again?"
[dramatic music]
But what shocked me the most is he said,
"I don't know if you can ever wrestle again."
I'm very aware of the time frame of doing surgery
and what is best in terms of their activities.
If you want it fixed, you can't go back into the same activity
that you were doing before.
He wasn't given any options.
Do you want your face fixed or not?
I was afraid that once I have that surgery,
this dream would be gone.
So after telling them, "I need to have surgeries,"
many of the schools backed off.
There was only one recruiter left.
[playful music]
[man] We were going to the Kjar home to recruit Ben.
I'm from a family of seven kids,
and I think Ben's, like,
from a family of maybe two, 300?
[laughs]
With the surgery, I introduced to him
the concept of a grayshirt.
You can actually come for a year of training,
and it does not count against your eligibility.
It helps you prepare.
It's a tremendous advantage.
And then what happened was it was a package deal
because Luke decided to come as well.
It was just such a perfect match for me.
[solemn music]
Right after we got to Oklahoma, my older brother Luke,
he had a little bit of an underbite as well,
and he just wanted to fix it.
And Luke goes into this appointment with this doctor.
[indistinct chatter]
[Luke] I was talking to the doctor and I told him
just briefly about what Ben was dealing with.
He was, like, so intrigued by the challenge.
[inaudible]
And my brother says, "Hey, Ben,
the doctor wants to meet you."
And they looked at him, and they said,
"I think we can do something totally different."
"And we can get you back on the mat before you know it.
You can absolutely wrestle again."
Today's my surgery day.
[nurse] There you go.
When they took the bandages off, we just sat there in awe.
[Stana] Son... you look wonderful.
You see him look at his face and go, "I'm done.
I'm-- I'm released."
It was an answer to our prayers.
After all the surgeries, I'm like, "Oh, man, like, he looks great."
But Ben's face, my whole life, that was--
that was happiness to me.
I'm happy for him, but I-- I miss that face.
[Ben] After my surgeries, I was given three years to heal.
Staying off the mat as much as I could, it wasn't easy.
I loved Oklahoma.
I wanted no more than to just go back and fill in the spot.
[announcer] Jack Spates shaking hands.
They know they have another national champion.
[Jack] Coming back after the surgery,
I'm hesitant in that because
it's really hard,
when a guy's been away from wrestling,
to come back.
And so we didn't go that route.
So what do I do?
I prayed about it, and I felt like I should really
look at going to Boise State.
It's close to home.
There's a Division I program. I believe
they were, like, top ten in the country.
And so I verbally committed to Boise State.
And literally, the next day... we get a call.
Utah Valley's wrestling team announced Greg Williams
as their new coach today.
My club coach has taken over a program
that I never knew was an option.
I mean, at the time, it was a junior college.
But UVSC is about to become Utah Valley University.
Yesterday, state lawmakers approved
giving university status to the, now, Division I school.
Utah Valley jumped directly from junior college
to Division I. My wrestling program was
really young at the time.
We needed Ben, who could come in and change the culture
and kinda show the rest of our wrestlers
that they can compete on the national scene.
But in that jump, they were given a provisional status.
[Greg] That means the wrestling team can compete against D1,
but they can't go post-season,
so you don't get that opportunity
to be an All-American or national champion.
So for Ben to come here, it meant two years
where he couldn't go to nationals.
[Ben] The first time that I could go to nationals
would be my junior year.
They didn't even have a wrestling room.
I would have to haul in mats and haul them back out
and wash them, like,
worse than I was in junior high.
Why would I do that?
[Greg] Ben's driving home from Boise.
I get a call. And he says, "Yeah,
after, you know, visiting and stuff,
I decided I'm gonna go to Boise."
And he says, "Ben, I totally get it, I totally understand."
I said, "Hey, Greg--"
I'm like, "What if I told you I was lying to you?"
- [laughs] - [upbeat music]
[reporter] The Wolverines announced their most impressive recruit yet.
Ben Kjar of Viewmont joins as Utah Valley makes a jump
into Division I competition.
I don't know...
[voice breaking] ...how many people really understand...
[clears throat]
[exhales] ...the sacrifice...
that that was for him, because he knew...
that he could go to nationals his first year.
It's not like he didn't believe that.
[Ben] I felt like Utah Valley University
was the place for me to go,
and I don't know why.
[Greg] We ended up with 17 guys living in two houses,
so the wrestling team was super close from the very beginning.
[gentle music]
[Seth] We were living in the house.
So one of the rules of this house
was there's no alcohol in the house,
and this was a time where I-- I drank.
I was not doing good at all.
Like-- It was, like, taking my medicine.
I was, like, self-medicating.
And, uh, I remember I drank, and I was in the house.
And Ben came home, and he knew.
I thought I was gonna get kicked out or whatever.
And that's the last thing on planet Earth
I needed, you know, it was, like, someone to
sit down here and lecture you about drinking.
I'm not a dummy. I know I shouldn't be drinking.
I'll never forget what he did.
He sat there, and he was a friend.
And he asked me questions
because I needed someone to talk to.
- [inaudible] - He never shunned me.
He never condemned me. He never kicked me out of the house.
And he never said anything about it after that.
That's, like, one of the moments, I think, in my life
where I'm like,
"I'll go to war for Ben.
Like, Ben is-- he is a friend."
[Jared] He was the face of the university immediately.
Everybody wanted to be around Ben.
[projector whirs]
[LaCol] I ran track at Utah Valley University.
I had seen pictures of Ben before.
His poster was always posted around the halls
in the athletic program.
I just wanted to be his friend.
I just wanted to be around him.
[man] You'd see him on banners.
You'd see him on magazines.
He was on billboards.
Ben was the man, the myth, and the legend.
And everybody liked themselves best
when they were with Ben Kjar.
[Jared] But on the mat, Ben had that tenacious, gritty,
like, "I'm here to just rip your soul out" type of mentality.
Our first wrestling match,
Ben pins his opponent in, like, 20 seconds,
before people have e-- even sat down yet.
- [whistle blows] - [cheering]
There was an absolute mutiny of fans.
So from that point on, we always wrestled Ben last,
to make sure that every single fan had a chance
to come and watch the guy that they came to watch.
That year, as a freshman, I led...
...the entire country in most wins,
over the entire NCAA Division I.
[solemn music]
But then to go to nationals
and sit on my butt in the chair in the stadium
and watch guys I competed against...
I'm like, "I should be there."
And then the next year, same thing.
Beating guys that were going.
I'm like, "What am I doing?
Why did I come here?"
I had a thing on Facebook pop up that said,
you might know Ben K-jar."
I didn't even know how to say his last name.
[chuckles] But I said,
"Yes, I want to know him.
- Add Friend." - [mouse clicks]
The next day he messaged me, and then he
invited me to hang out with some friends at this party.
And she said, "Well, that depends.
Is this a date...
[reads]
[message tone]
I was so nervous,
but I'm like, "You know what?
I'ma take a shot."
[message tone]
[music turns bright]
[LaCol] We had so much fun on this date.
We played racquetball.
And when she beat me in racquetball,
I knew that I either hated this girl or I loved this girl.
Well, I remember sitting in the car looking over
at him, just super giddy, and we laughed so much that day.
[Ben] Going home that night, I'm like, "Wow,
I don't know where she's going, but she's going somewhere
that I wanna be."
[LaCol] That night, I wrote in my journal,
"I think I'm in love with pocket-sized Hercules."
[laughs]
He was nothing like anybody I'd ever dated.
And from there on out, we just were inseparable.
[LaCol] I was just beaming.
I was on cloud nine.
There was a little caveat, though.
[LaCol] I had been planning to move to Italy
and live abroad for a couple of years.
It was my dream.
And then I met Ben. [chuckles]
I was supposed to leave really soon.
And I had no idea.
And I knew I was in trouble...
...but I was afraid.
Could she really love me?
Especially if that meant raising kids that looked like me.
We were spending some time together,
talking things through, trying to figure out what to do.
I said, listen... this is a serious... thing.
Our kids, if we have them, naturally
are gonna be born with Crouzon syndrome.
You know, I'm not gonna lie,
I really had to think, "Is this something
that I'm capable of handling?
'Cause it's gonna take a strong person."
[exhales]
I needed to know what Crouzon syndrome... was.
You go look it up on the internet.
And it can be scary.
[keyboard clacking]
What it could mean for our kids, for our family, our lifestyle,
our dreams.
And it was like this big, dark cloud...
literally had settled into my mind.
I was just a mess. I was not sure.
And then I started to think about Ben.
[soft sob]
I remembered that first time seeing Ben.
I remembered what I felt.
And it brought back a memory
that from a very young age...
...I had always felt...
...like... God had a calling for me...
[voice breaking] ...that was different than the path
that I would typically choose.
I didn't know what it was. I just...
...had a feeling there was gonna be something
different about my family.
And when I remembered that,
it was like that dark cloud lifted...
[sobbing] ...and I could see everything.
What my life with him would be like.
I knew exactly what my answer needed to be.
[Ben] She said, "If our kids are gonna have Crouzon syndrome,
well, then, Ben, who better to raise them than us?"
At that moment I realized, "Oh, my gosh, I could be loved."
So the day before she was supposed to leave,
I asked for her hand in marriage,
and we went to her house and told her parents.
[bright music]
[woman] It had been a lot of work to get LaCol ready
to go to Italy.
We were waiting for her to come home
so we could send her off the next morning.
Ben comes in the house,
and the only thing I could think of is,
"That's funny. I don't know why they're here."
Well, I just kind of--
Yeah, I wondered...
He was just a good friend coming
to wish her...
...whatever.
[somber music]
[Valenna] I didn't really know a thing about Ben.
And then they said, "We decided
that we're gonna get married."
It was a real shock.
I didn't know she was dating anybody.
[Daryl] I had a feeling Ben was a good person.
I think that helped me accept what was going on.
But I was concerned about my wife.
[Valenna] I think he thought I'd be so happy.
[Ben] But she was not happy...
...and I don't blame her at all.
This interesting looking guy comes in, being a complete bozo
and dropping this on them without any warning.
[LaCol] My mom is the kindest person you'll ever meet.
What happened next was so unlike her.
I've never seen her be unkind to anyone.
But when we told her, she flipped out.
[eerie music]
[Valenna] I was already stressed out with some
family stuff going on.
LaCol had always been my easy kid.
She always made the right choices.
So I was so mad.
If he wants to marry my daughter so bad, why couldn't he wait?
So I thought the worst.
Is she pregnant?
Is she-- whatever.
But I did not handle it good.
I just blew up.
[music turns gentle]
[LaCol] She got up
in front of Ben's face, and she let him have it.
["Catch You When You Die" by Benjamin Cocks plays]
[lightbulbs explode and shatter]
♪ Oh, baby sister, we know That God's got mercy ♪
[exploding]
♪ But not enough to Waste on men like him ♪
I felt like I had to protect him
and physically stand between them.
I have never in my life seen someone
take such a verbal beating.
And Ben just stood there.
It hurt him for a really long time.
[exploding]
[Daryl] Not all of us
do things
exactly as we should all the time.
Sometimes good people have a bad day.
♪ Sister, put away your guns ♪
♪ You said it In your own words ♪
♪ He'll pay for What he's done ♪
They planned their wedding really soon...
...and I could see how happy they were.
And it made me realize my reaction was stupid and bad.
I apologized to Ben as good as I could.
We all wish we would have done
something a little bit different.
Uh--
[Valenna] I'm just grateful...
...he is such a forgiving person.
He's a wonderful son-in-law, and we love him to death.
He fits in with our family perfectly.
[LaCol] It was a really awful experience for us to go through.
But as you go through hard times together,
you grow closer together.
And that wasn't the worst of what we would face.
[man on TV] We are in Omaha for Division I wrestling.
[Ben] It was my junior year,
and I was finally getting my opportunity.
And I go into nationals--
[female voice] No, no, no, no, no.
What happened? Guys, what happened?
[Ben] And I lose to two kids I'd beat that year.
[female voice] Yeah, he's done. That's it.
[overlapping voices]
[Ben] I was absolutely depressed,
pointing fingers at other people and coaches
and training partners, and "Who else?" Right?
[LaCol] With everything we were dealing with and now this, it was like,
"Is there a reason that God is having us go through this?
Like, I know there's a reason."
Why?
[Ben] I wanted to pack up and go home.
But before I could...
...a friend of mine stopped by the wrestling room.
[Seth] I was done wrestling, and the reality is is...
...I was disgusted with myself and my decisions, and
I hated myself.
I made every mistake there was to make
along the whole entire way.
And I think that's why it was so heavy on me.
It's 'cause it's all my fault.
I know what it feels like to not accomplish the goal.
And then actually having to live with that.
Like, it's a horrible feeling.
And I was like, "I need to do whatever I can do to help him."
We went at it for a couple of days,
drilling, wrestling.
[Ben] And he barked in my ear the entire time,
"The Ben Kjar that I know doesn't opt out.
The Ben Kjar that I know rebounds.
The Ben Kjar that I know continues forward."
[Seth] Look, man, you gotta, like, buck up.
This is do or die, like, I'm telling you right now,
I know what this feels like.
And if you don't place this year,
it is gonna chew you up the rest of your life.
I want Ben to win. I want him to win in life.
I want him to win in his marriage.
I want him to win in everything.
Something changed...
...and I just started believing.
This was my last shot.
Who could stop me?
[clears throat]
All right.
My name is Anthony Robles.
I was born missing my leg.
I've been on crutches since I can remember.
My mom tried to get me to use a prosthetic leg, but
it was really heavy, really hard to move around.
I felt like it slowed me down in a lot of ways.
[whistle blows]
Getting into wrestling, I was very much
at a disadvantage at the beginning.
I said, "Okay, you know, we just have to figure it out.
We just have to treat this like a puzzle."
My coach and I were trying to create a whole new style
of wrestling from scratch.
- [cheering] - [whistle blows]
Going into the NCAA tournament my senior year,
I was the number one seed, and I was undefeated.
[upbeat music]
[announcer] Welcome to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
where tonight, the nation's best collegiate athletes will
compete for a national title.
[Seth] In the wrestling world, NCAA All-American
is like the pinnacle of the sport.
It is the toughest tournament in the planet to place that,
to be honest with you.
And there's 20,000 people
watching you and screaming
and hollering, and it's like the best
of the best... of the best.
[Ben] Because I'd lost to guys
that I should never have lost to,
I went into nationals unranked.
His path to get on that podium?
That was a very loaded weight class.
You have an undefeated wrestler seeded fourth.
The fifth seed becomes a four-time All-American.
That's who he had to go through to be an All-American.
[Ben] My first match was with the guy from Hofstra,
and I think he ate, like, rocks in the morning.
This dude was bad.
[announcer] Takedown, and Kjar is in control.
[Ben] And I got through him, beat him.
[whistle blows]
And then I'd go into the next match against a kid
from Old Dominion. Undefeated.
Top four in the country.
Tall, strong.
[announcer] That was a nail biter,
but Ben Kjar is going to win this match.
[Ben] And I beat him.
The unranked person beat the undefeated guy.
It was the best he's looked, ever.
He wrestled every single match exactly how
he needed to wrestle those matches.
[Ben] I come out in the quarterfinals.
Utah Valley never had an All-American.
And if I win this match,
the unranked kid
would be an All-American.
But I had to beat Zach Sanders from Minnesota, who was
a multiple-time All-American.
Bad dude, short, stocky, mean, fast, had heavy hands.
I'd never beat him.
Earlier in the year, we wrestled him.
Ben was trying to do his rotation,
that he was trying to do off bottom to get an escape.
And Sanders kept bumping him off and bumping him off,
so he kept having to get back to his hands, back to his hands.
And he just kept doing that.
We got ridden out for the two minutes,
so we lost 2 to 0.
Fast forward to nationals... same scenario.
All we needed to do when he was--
kept bumping and bumping and bumping
was just... slide with it.
- Ben does that. - [crowd cheering]
He got out, and that's where it changed.
[announcer] Kjar with the takedown.
- Sanders is stunned. - [whistle blows]
Took him down twice in that period.
That was the match.
[Ben] Utah Valley University's first ever All-American,
and I was a bracket-buster.
ESPN SportsCenter was saying, "He's shattering the brackets.
This kid from Utah Valley University-- who is this kid?"
[announcer] Out of nowhere, Ben Kjar has erupted into the semifinals.
I started to believe that maybe I could be a national champion.
[cheering]
[announcer] And just like that, Anthony Robles
gets a one-point escape.
[Anthony] Going into the semis, I was rolling.
They were pretty convincing wins.
Robles was a monster on the mat, and he dominated
almost everybody he wrestled.
[announcer] Once again, Robles is an All-American.
[Shandell] This guy is probably six feet tall,
and you're talking about the length of 170-pounder.
But in reality, because he didn't have a leg, he...
qualified at 125 pounds.
[Jack] When he started wrestling, people would say, "Well...
he can't do anything with one leg."
And I didn't recruit him out of high school,
you know, for that reason.
But at the end of it,
they were saying, "Well, he's got an advantage.
Look how big he is.
He's got an advantage with one leg."
Yeah, my friend, you hack off your leg
and see how well you do.
[announcer] Congratulations to Anthony Robles.
He'll move on to face Ben Kjar.
[Shandell] I knew it was gonna be a tight match.
You don't train your whole life
to beat a wrestler with only one leg.
[Anthony] Going into the semis against Ben,
you're one match away from punching your ticket
into the finals.
So that round brings a lot of pressure with it.
And it's on ESPN live.
The crowd's going insane.
And then on top of that, it was-- we were friends.
Anthony is, like, one of my heroes.
I've known Anthony for a long time.
- [whistle blowing] - [Anthony] Ben and I had been
competing against each other since true freshman year.
[Ben] Him and I wrestled back and forth, and I had beat him
and he had beat me.
He was wrestling similar challenges that I was wrestling.
- [whistle blows] - [man] Woo!
[Anthony] I expected a battle.
[announcer] And here we go.
The semifinals are underway.
It was the poster child against the Cinderella story.
[announcer] After one period, we are still scoreless here.
[Katie] You see these two men come on the mat,
and you know that there's nothing but character
going head to head here.
[announcer] Kjar has been unable to get an escape in the second period.
It was extremely close from start to finish.
[announcer] Robles gets an escape...
[cheering]
...and now there's a takedown.
Robles goes up 3-0.
[Anthony] Both of us left our heart on that mat
and fought to the very end.
[announcer] And now Kjar gets an escape.
It's 3-1, Robles.
It came down to a last scramble.
[announcer] Kjar can tie it up with a takedown here.
Right at the end, you know, Ben's shooting,
and you kinda see that extra
- umph. - [whistle blows]
[announcer] Kjar gets the takedown.
Oh, but it's after the whistle.
No overtime.
This one is over.
If we had had five more seconds in the match,
he would have tied it, sent it into overtime.
It was that close.
[Ben] I gave him the closest match he had in that tournament,
but... he had a better match.
[Anthony] When you lose in tight situations like that.
It can be heartbreaking. There's poor sports.
You know, there's guys that throw tantrums.
There's guys that just slap your hand
and walk away.
Ben-- You know, I just remember I could--
I could see the pain in his face...
...but he was still so gracious, even in that moment of a defeat.
You know, he still shook my hand.
I remember we hugged afterwards, and...
...Ben, to me, is an example of what a true champion is.
You know, like, yeah, it's-- it's easy to win
and be gracious,
but, you know, how do you handle a loss?
[cheering]
[Jack] As he was walking off the mat, everybody's cheering.
And my sister says to me,
"Why are they cheering that he lost?"
I said, "Honey...
...they weren't cheering that he lost.
They were cheering the magnificence...
...of his performance."
[Greg] It was amazing.
Fans at the NCAA tournament, they get it,
and the respect that was there was-- was incredible.
- [cheering] - [inaudible]
[Ben] It was hard for me to lose my last match,
and it didn't sit well with me.
But I tried to forget it and celebrate
the victory of being Utah Valley University's first ever
All-American.
My greatest memory is being able to hear the PA announcer say
"Ben Kjar is Utah Valley University's first
NCAA All-American."
[announcer] From Utah Valley University,
All-American, Ben Kjar.
[cheering]
The first All-American from Utah...
That really, for the first time, put Utah Valley University
on the map on a national scale.
[projector whirs]
[Seth] You're stoked. You're happy for him, you know? Like--
It's almost like we won.
When he wins, we win 'cause he's a friend.
[Jack] And this is the wonder of sport, right?
You say, "Well, they can't do that," and then they do.
It opened up a lot of doors for others
that may have questioned, "Well, can I do this?"
W-- Well, Anthony did.
Well, Ben did.
[cheering and clapping]
[Scott] It's just the things of what dreams are made of.
The respect that I have for Ben.
The ability to--
It isn't winning. It's achieving.
You belong on that podium.
[cheering fades]
[waves crashing]
We were on a family vacation, all of us.
Ben and LaCol-- one night, they just went out and said,
"We gotta go out for a walk."
[Stana] I had a couple of our kids say, "Is Ben okay?"
Something's going on.
You know, something is wrong.
[gentle music]
[LaCol] Those years after the NCAA tournament
were a really hard time in our marriage.
We decided that we would start our family.
And... it didn't come so easy.
[LaCol] It was eight years that we tried to have kids.
We got some doctors involved eventually,
and... we did four rounds of IVF.
And with two of those rounds, we had pregnancies happen.
And about week ten of the pregnancies,
we lost the baby.
It was... emotionally draining.
And then we decided we'll try adoption.
[Ben] We decided not to tell anybody.
We don't wanna have people be like, "Oh, poor you,
poor you," and feel like victims, right?
So nobody in my family even knew about the miscarriage,
let alone the adoption.
I was so nervous going into these
- adoption agencies. - [mouse clicks]
You would be expected to fill out
this application with pictures of you, of what you look like.
What if they wouldn't choose us because I look different?
But after we had put in our application,
we had a birth mother immediately matched with us.
[bright music]
[Ben] And she was pregnant with a beautiful girl.
Every month, we would be paying for her housing and all
her expenses.
And then after the last payment...
[email tone]
...we'd find out through an email
that she would keep the baby.
[somber music]
Later, we were matched with another birth mom.
And for six months, we were so excited,
paying her every month for room and board and living expenses.
And then she stopped showing up to the medical appointments.
[thunder rumbles]
We would find out that she was placing the same baby girl
with two other families,
and she was financially triple-dipping.
We were tons of money out.
["Catch You When You Die" by Benjamin Cocks plays]
♪ They'll take Everything you have ♪
♪ And dress you up in red ♪
[Ben] That was one of the hardest things
I ever went through...
...because now I had someone else who was involved,
who was a part of this journey that seemed to be,
like... never-ending fails.
♪ You'll think of What you've done ♪
♪ Of what you have become ♪
My wife just pounded on my chest and just bawled.
We were complaining to each other about the frustrations
and the anger and how mad we were.
[rain falling]
We would look up to God and say, "God, why us?"
- [thunder rumbling] - [music fades]
It just felt like we were living a nightmare.
[buzzing]
And literally, the next morning we get a call.
"Hey, Ben and LaCol, how would you like to be parents?
[engine buzzing]
- [gentle music] - There's a baby boy.
He was actually born last night."
[LaCol] It was incredible to hear those words.
Of course. Of course, we want that boy.
Fifteen hours later, from phone call to touch down...
...we're parents.
She hands me this baby.
He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
And we just couldn't believe it.
And the best part was my family has no clue
[chuckling] at this point, right?
[uplifting music]
- This is absolutely nuts. [laughs] - [gasps]
When we came home, we were able to surprise our families.
They knew nothing about the adoption.
[Ben] We get the whole family at this dinner.
We're all chatting, and then there's a knock, knock, knock.
[knocking]
[Stana] There's another thing at the door?
- [man] What is it? - Uh, that's a baby.
There's a little baby boy on our front porch.
No, it isn't.
- It's a baby. - [gasps]
- No, it isn't. - What is happening?
[gasps]
We're saying, "What is this?"
- Who brought this baby? - [woman] No.
As we're looking around, kinda frantic,
trying to figure this out,
we see a different look
on Ben and LaCol's face.
[woman] Ben, Ben.
- Ben, is this yours? - [woman] Ben.
No. Is this yours?
[shouting, crying]
Are you serious? [screaming]
- [screaming and shouting] - [overlapping voices]
And it was like the floodgates opened, of joy, of tears,
of gratitude.
[voice breaking] This prayer has been answered.
[overlapping, indistinct voices]
Of course, we thought that was the surprise.
And then, as we were loving on this little baby
and asking all these questions
and crying and giving gratitude...
[sniffles]
...there's another doorbell.
- [doorbell ringing] - No, you gotta be kidding.
- No! - [overlapping voices]
[Ben] Right after we'd signed the papers to adopt Liam,
the adoption director says,
"I just barely got off the phone...
...with another birth mom.
Baby girl.
What do you think?"
[shouting and laughter]
[screaming]
Oh, my gosh.
[screaming continues]
To top it off with a second one, you see my wife go crazy.
[woman] A girl.
[screams]
[Stana] When you pray so long for something to happen,
when God delivers...
...He really delivers.
[Scott] Ben has always dreamed about being a father,
and he loves being a father.
LaCol loves being a mom.
It was one of those days that you'll never, ever forget.
[uplifting music]
[LaCol] We had created a video of the surprise.
Initially, it was just supposed to be for us.
Well, it ended up kinda going viral.
This is, in my opinion, the greatest baby reveal ever made.
I love this video.
[Katie] People from all over the world were so inspired by it.
There are beautiful things going on in this world
that you would think are impossible,
but they are happening.
[somber music]
[LaCol] Of course, with any video,
you'll get some negative things that are said.
These comments were all new to me.
I had never been bullied before.
To have someone say these mean horrible things
about my husband, the person that I love the most...
[sighs] It--
A-- At first, I'd get angry.
[Ben] I wanted to hide.
I wanted to react with anger and resentment.
I tried to laugh it off, but I couldn't.
[Stana] What would you do in
this scenario for this person that
just said this?
What would your response be?
[Ben] When you're backed against a wall of hate...
...what are you gonna choose?
[somber music]
Finally, I responded back to a comment
from a kid I'd never met.
[heartwarming music]
I never expected to hear back from him.
Five years later, he reached out to me on social media,
and that moment changed my life.
It showed me, instead of
you know, calling people "round face"
or running away or laughing it off, I can be me.
I am enough.
And all that I'm meant to be is me.
[inaudible]
[Stana] One of the women that wrote something very mean,
she wrote back and said,
"My son's name was Liam,
and he passed away.
When I read about you getting a baby and his name was Liam,"
she said, "I exploded."
[LaCol] And she said, "The way that you responded
changed my life.
And I have, since then, been trying to...
...be that person that you told me I should be."
It's happened so many times.
People will come back, and you'll see that change.
[inaudible]
Recently, Ben and I were able to take
my mom to a retreat for kids with craniofacial differences.
She was loving on these kids,
loving on them.
And they were able to feel her love to be there.
[inaudible]
[Valenna] You just have so much love for those kids.
Looking in their face, it's like looking at angels.
[Ben] I have such good people in my corner.
[Shandell] Life is full of a bunch of choices.
We can make excuses, or we can just...
chew the excuses up and swallow 'em
and never let them leave our mouth.
And we can keep going and doing the hard things.
And then you end up like Ben.
[Ben] I still think about that story at the Pool of Bethesda...
...but it's different now.
I'm no longer the man who waits.
[music increasing]
[water splashes]
[music fades]
[doorbell ringing]
Oh, my gosh.
[screaming]
Oh, my goodness.
I can't believe we fell for this twice.
[laughter]
[stadium announcement]
[announcer] And that is going to do it
for All-American, Ben Kjar.
He finishes fourth overall.
[man on microphone speaking indistinctly]
Sixty-seven.
[Rowan] Go, Dad!
- [indistinct] - [whistle blows]
- [groaning] - [man] Oh!
[stadium announcement]
[cheering]
[woman] Yeah, Ben!
[crowd cheering]
[uplifting music]
[reporter] Tani Taufa has autism.
It makes it tough for him to communicate,
especially in social situations.
Then he found wrestling.
[Ben] Roll it. Nice. Good job.
He started training with coach, Ben Kjar.
[Ben] There's just that inner understanding of,
"I got your back 'cause I know you've been where I've been."
It felt like good things are finally
gonna come to me in my life, alongside Ben.
[music continues]
[girl] When I was younger, watching TV, all the villains
had scars and deformities and everything.
They portray us as monsters, ugly, unworthy.
Like, I didn't think I had a place.
Ben-- he's a representation for the whole community
to create dreams or create goals for yourself.
I know that he's able to do it.
Why can I not do it?
[crowd] I was born to stand out!
[Ben] I was born to stand out!
[crowd] I was born to stand out!
- [Ben] Stand out! - [crowd] Stand out!
- Stand out! - [crowd] Stand out!
- [Ben] Stand out! - [crowd] Stand out!
[music increases, then halts]
[crowd cheering]