Darrius Little wasn’t always a wrestler. The freshman from Thomasville, N.C., played football for two years and ran track for four years. He got into wrestling his freshman year of high school, although he said wasn’t too sure about it.
“I was playing JV basketball, and I got in a little bit of trouble with a teacher,” Little said.
“The second game, I got kicked off the team. So one of my boys was like, ‘Come out and wrestle.’ And I was like, ‘Naw, that’s gay,’ men wrestling in tights. I told my momma that I wanted to wrestle, and she was like, ‘All right.’ She didn’t think that I was going to stay that long. And I ended up liking it. That’s basically what happened.”
Little’s change of heart his freshman year landed him at the high school nationals his senior year, catching the eye of N.C. State coach Carter Jordan.
Jordan said Little had shown some interest in State and decided to go to nationals to see what Little was like.
“When we saw him at the high school national tournament, we saw some talent there, and we were excited about [bringing] him in for a visit,” Jordan said. “We thought he had tremendous upside. He didn’t start till ninth grade. Most kids who wrestle in college start in grade school. The rest is history.”
Though Little is now at State, his family isn’t a big fan of the Wolfpack.
“Most of my family went to Chapel Hill,” Little said. “They like that I wrestle here, but they don’t like I’m wrestling with State.”
Little, who wrestles at 133, said his teammates have been helping him with improving his skills and adjusting to college wrestling — including help from sophomore teammate Darrion Caldwell.
“He’s been pushing me a lot,” Little said. “Sometimes, we might come in a little earlier than normal and roll around. Taylor [Cummings], when we do go at it, it’s hard to take him down sometimes. I got to be on my A game because he’s a little scrambler.”
Cummings, a redshirt sophomore, said Little fits in with the team and has been making a lot of improvements since he arrived at State.
“He’s good to work with,” Cummings said. “He still does a couple of quirky high school stuff, but neutrally, on his feet, he’s gotten so much better. And he improves every day, and he’s just got a winning mentality.”
Jordan said Little could compete for a conference title by the end of the season — if he continues to work hard.
“[He’s] incredibly explosive; he has great balance,” Jordan said. “He has quick twitch muscles that are off the chart. He’s got the potential to be very good if he’s willing to work.”
Although he has just begun to complete, Little already has an idea how he is doing.
“I’ve only wrestled two matches, but I think that [I] did pretty well in my first one,” Little said. “My second one, it was a little iffy. I won, but it wasn’t the way I wanted to win. I started off a little rocky, but I got into my game, but I’m coming along. I’m not where I want to be, no where close to where I want to be.”
