<p>Freed from the constraints of having to cut weight for wrestling, Drake Buchanan was eating whatever he pleased and packing the pounds back on for his freshman football season at Center Grove.</p>
<p>One phone call sent him scrambling to shed the pounds yet again — but Buchanan didn’t mind.</p>
<p>Ranked second nationally in the 136-pound weight class at the 14U level, Buchanan was an alternate for the team that USA Wrestling will be sending to the Schoolboy Pan Am Championships next week in Villahermosa, Mexico. But a few weeks ago, top-ranked Thor Michaelson had to pull out with an injury and Buchanan received an invitation.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
<p>His initial reaction was more panicked than anything.</p>
<p>“There’s no way I’m going to make the weight,” Buchanan recalled thinking. “Because I had wrestled for nationals and I was trying to make the team, didn’t, was a backup, and (Michaelson), I didn’t think he was going to back out. So I was doing my gains for football … halfway through all this, I’m 150.”</p>
<p>Amazingly, with little more than a month to cut back down, Buchanan is back under 140 pounds, and he expects to be ready to make weight for the tournament.</p>
<p>Wrestlers compete in folkstyle the high school level in the United States, but at the Pan Am Championships, Buchanan will be competing in the freestyle and Greco-Roman disciplines. Fortunately, he’s been training in both since about age 8.</p>
<p>Greco-Roman is particularly advantageous for Buchanan — there are no attacks below the waist, and at a wiry 5-foot-11, he’s got a considerable height advantage over most young men in his weight class.</p>
<p>“He’s hard to deal with. Most of the guys he wrestles at his weight come up to about his chin,” longtime coach Mike Hesser said.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if he just understands his leverage, but he’s explosive and he does a lot of things you can’t coach on the wrestling mat. He falls the right way. He’s got a lot of built-in wrestling IQ that you can’t coach.”</p>
<p>One of the most exciting parts of this upcoming experience for Buchanan is that he’ll get to wear the same USA wrestling singlet that the Olympic wrestlers wear.</p>
<p>That, naturally, has got him thinking about representing the country at another level in the future — but Buchanan isn’t getting ahead of himself just yet.</p>
<p>“I’ve got to put in a lot more work if I want to get there,” he said.</p>
<p>Making the trip to Mexico has meant having to balance extra wrestling workouts with football practices — and it will also mean missing one football game. But Buchanan’s coaches have been incredibly supportive throughout the process.</p>
<p>“Without those guys, and the teachers, this doesn’t happen,” said Joel Buchanan, Drake’s father.</p>
<p>Hesser won’t be able to make the trip to Mexico, but he plans to follow Drake’s performances next week from a distance. No matter how it turns out, he’s proud of his protege and believes he’s still just scratching the surface of his potential.</p>
<p>“He’s worked so hard over the years, and I’ve seen him grow and grown and grow,” Hesser said. “And I don’t think he’s peaked yet.”</p>
