A tough

What is Justin Fox like?

Smart?

Yes.

Tough?

Absolutely.

But the noun Waterloo wrestling coach John Foster keeps bringing up is a very different kind of word:

"Goofball."

Because, yes, Fox is a goofball as well.

The Vikings senior is a delightful study in contrasts.

His toughness borders on the absurd.

Like the text Foster got from Fox just before the start of the season:

"I got a text middle of the night, ‘Hey Coach. I got some bad news,’ and I'm thinking, ‘Oh boy, what's going on,'" Foster said. "He sends me a picture and he's sitting in the yard and he's got, I think, 17 staples in his head, skull showing through or whatever."

What happened?

Well, Fox, who works on his family's cattle farm, was working with a couple of steers and got drop-kicked toward the top of his neck. (Fox calmly said it was more like 10 staples and noted he was lucky the steer hit him at the top of his neck and not the back of his head.)

And after all that, Fox showed up at practice the next day.

"The next day he's at practice and I'm having to tell him, you can't," Foster said. "Until you get to the doctor, you can't. The kid absolutely loves competing and loves wrestling."

That's Fox, as jovial as it gets, and yet, when he gets drop-kicked by a steer or dropped on his head by a foe at the Waterloo Division III Classic, there might not be a tougher competitor.

Indeed, as Foster recalled after the Classic, Fox got up after his opponent dropped him on his head, and then waved to the crowd as he assumed the down position for the restart.

Once it was clear Fox was physically fine, Foster didn't have to worry about the mental part. The more physical the match, the better the Record-Courier Athlete of the Week seems to get.

"He's fun to be around, constantly just joking and goofing off," Foster said. "He's just constantly in a jovial mood, but I tell you what, as far as competing, even in the room with his own teammates, I don't know that I've ever seen somebody that competes to the level that he competes."

Justin Fox was meant for the mat.

It isn't just that he developed a powerful body and mind working with the animals on his family farm.

Fox grew up in a wrestling family, including his father, Jim, who also wrestled for the Vikings, and his older cousin, T.J., who was a state qualifier at Field.

"[Dad] grew up in the hammer times of Southeast and Streetsboro," Fox said. "So he's like, ‘Oh, you got to be tough and all that,’ and that's how I was raised, just being tougher than a box of nails."

As the Fox family likes to say, Justin made a seamless transition from the car seat to the wrestling mat, starting before he was in Kindergarten.

Foster, who got to know Fox from a young age through his own son (Deegan), with his wife even baby-sitting Fox once, said that Fox was always passionate about the sport.

Indeed, per Foster, Fox used to wrestle in two separate divisions at open tournaments, just so he could double the amount of matches in which he got to compete.

"He's one of those kids that just he loves it," Foster said. "He was that kid to go and wrestle in two different divisions to wrestle 10 times in a day. He was that kid that, from the time he was little, wrestled year-round and he's definitely one of those kids that put in the work, that really deserves anything that comes to him because he put in the work."

That's not to say everything came easily to Fox.

Indeed, Fox said that he "looked like an Oompa Loompa" in middle school, before competing at the Disney Duals with some of the area's top talent convinced him to focus more on his fitness.

"Being with that good group of kids who were just always top-notch in the area just [made] me push myself a lot better," Fox said. "I tightened up in the stomach area, face as well, and just got healthier."

As Foster hinted, Fox's constant ability to find the humor in life shouldn't mask his commitment to greatness.

After all, Fox, a three-time district qualifier entering his senior season, has never been the type to settle for less.

Take his sophomore season, when he finished 23-8, including a pair of wins at the Garfield Heights district meet.

Not bad, right?

Well, Fox fixated on the three losses that ended his season and robbed him of a state berth, with two of those defeats coming by a single point.

"[Angry] and motivated was just an understatement," Fox said. "I looked back and looked at all my videos again, and I was like, what do I need to get better, and that's what I improved. Like those moves I hit, instead of going 80 percent at practice, still doing stuff, feeling relaxed, I make sure there's almost no flaw in them now."

As a junior, that tireless work paid off.

Fox captured his first Waterloo Classic title, at the same tournament he watched Vikings great Will Bolanz wrestle at when he was a kid; won his 100th career match; and snagged his first sectional title.

And then he went to Garfield Heights and avenged his three losses to end the 2020-2021 season, qualifying for state.

Even that wasn't enough to satisfy Fox.

An 0-2 record at the Schottenstein Center last year left him wanting more.

"The 0-2 at state was always on my mind," Fox said. "So, this summer, I was just looking up videos from people from Oklahoma State University, Ohio University, Ohio State and Penn State, Iowa, wrestlers like me, like moves I like to hit, because I'll tell everybody this right now. I love my firemans and throws."

The lesson from state was simple, per Foster.

He recalled a particular moment from Fox's first trip to state, when Foster, Fox and fellow state qualifier Mason Duncan drove up to the Schottenstein Center.

"When we went into that first day, I'll never forget as long as I live, Justin's that kid who's constantly kind of relaxed, constantly trying to lighten the mood and goofing around and joking around just all the time," Foster said. "He doesn't really get too wrapped up into the serious moments and tense moments. He's always kind of a goofball. Well, we went into Columbus and I said something to him and he's like, 'I'm here on a business trip,' and he said it with this straight face."

That's a common adage, of course, and it's understandable why Fox chose that approach, given how many elite athletes like to talk about their biggest games as a business trip.

That's fine for many.

But it simply isn't Fox.

So this year, the plan is simple.

Don't try to be a silent assassin.

Simply be the fun-loving, tough-as-nails wrestler Fox has always been.

"Going into this season, that's what we talked about," Foster said. "I'm like, 'You got to be you, regardless of the situation, regardless of your nerves or a big match or a good opponent or whatever it is, you got to be you.' You got to keep it light because that's how he wrestles and that's what he's done this year."

How's that working so far?

Well, Fox is 18-0 with 17 pins.

"I wrestled all through youth, like everywhere," Fox said. "From all the way up in Lansing, Michigan, all the way down to, well, Florida. I found the best thing is if you're just having a good time and actually just smile, you loosen up your whole body and you just wrestle better."