David Taylor Talks About Ben Mower, an Inspiration and Motivator in the Wrestling Room
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State wrestling head coach David Taylor met with the media for around 20 minutes on Tuesday, Sept. 29th. Taylor talked about the upcoming new event, the OSU Invitational. He also answered questions about the upcoming season and how much fun it is to be coaching a teams with a deep and talented roster. He spoke of the competition each day in the wrestling room.
“Wrestling’s challenging your mental toughness all the time,” Taylor said in general during his press conference on Sept. 29th. “You know it is a tough deal, you come in our room and you are not like mentally focused you are probably going to have a tough day.”
Then he made sure to talk about Benjamin Mower, okay you say you haven’t heard of the Cowboys senior heavyweight from Edmond Memorial, well understandable. The Cowboys return All-American Konner Doucet at heavyweight and have welcomed U20 World Silver medlaist Dreshaun Ross.
Mower would be third, at best, at the weight. However, you can tell that Mower is much more important and carries as much respect for Taylor and his teammates.
“Super hard-working kid, awesome and he was diagnosed with cancer this summer,” Taylor said anwering a question from Ben Hutchins of The Oklahoman. “He’s gone through a coupel of surgeries recently and just had another one.
“This kind of explains Benji, so he wrestled two Tuesdays ago and he was getting ready to go into surgery the following week and he was, ‘Coach, can we wrestle live one more time before I go to surgery?’ ‘Yeah, Benji we can do it,’” Taylor said with his reply. “He’s been battling cancer all summer and he comes in the next day and wrestles.”
Mower was a All-State wrestler for the Bulldogs and finished second at 170 pounds in his senior season. He also played football at Edmond.
Mower has been with the Cowboys wrestling team for the past four seasons and has accumulated a 29-12 overall record in mainly open tournaments. Of his 29 wins, 13 are by fall, four by tech fall, and also six major decisions.
A solid career for an Oklahoma State wrestler that has seen Doucet and then NCAA individual champion and USA Wrestling standout Wyatt Hendrickson wrestle at the heavyweight position for the Cowboys, before Doucet made All-American last season. Benji has all the respect you could ever expect from Taylor and the team.
Taylor was more than happy as were his teammates to give Benji another practice with live sparring before his most recent surgery in battling testicular cancer.
“Surgery went well, Taylor said upbeat. “He’s recovering in the hospital and is supposed to get out in a couple of days. I went and saw him. He is just an awesome dude, so mentally tough, unbelievable perspective on life and how he approaches things. He just loves the sport of wrestling. All he could talk about was that he couldn’t wait to get back to wrestling practice.”
Taylor understands he has All-Americans, NCAA champions, and likely Olympians for the games in Los Angeles in 2028. He also has a young man that can inspire all of those tremendously talented wrestlers and inspire the head coach.
“What wrestling can mean to somebody is pretty great and what he means to our program is pretty significant,” Taylor said getting a little choked up. “Definitely thinking about him and looking forward to getting him back around us. He is an awesome dude.”
