Garrett Tyre was 5 years old when he discovered his reason for entering the wrestling ring.

"I thought my brother was the coolest person in the world," he said. "That's why I went to that [wrestling] club."

With a little push from his older brother along the road to the top, the Clay High School senior is the latest Blue Devil to join the list of the Times-Union's All-First Coast athletes of the year in boys high school wrestling after winning the Florida High School Athletic Association Class 1A boys championship at the 220-pound division.

Tyre won an all-local final by a razor-thin 4-3 margin against Jamari Watson of Raines, becoming Clay's second boys state champion in as many years. Cale Hoskinson brought home the 160-pound title in 2021.

Longtime Clay coach Jim Reape said that for Tyre, the winning approach comes down to a fighting spirit on the mat.

"When a match is on the line and he's going against a guy that he has no business beating on paper," Reape said, "he finds a way."

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Tyre credited his brother Nathan, older by seven years, with sparking his interest in life on the wrestling mat.

Growing up in Wakulla, in the Panhandle, he followed his brother into wrestling at the age of 5. 

While Nathan Tyre's wrestling journey didn't end in a state final — he finished just short of placing at the state meet during his high school career at Wakulla — he inspired Garrett to pursue the sport all the way to the top.

"He made the sport of wrestling fun to me," Tyre said. "It was just that big brother thing where I want to do what he does because he's so cool and all this."

A few years later, Tyre moved from the Wakulla area, south of Tallahassee in Florida's Big Bend, to Clay County. 

Initially wrestling in the lighter categories, he hit a growth spurt in eighth grade and jumped up several weight classes — from 132 pounds in seventh grade to nearly 50 pounds heavier as he prepared to enter high school.

The result was an uncommon mixture of skills and deceptive strength.

"I just had to keep wrestling like a lightweight because that was all I knew," he said. "And especially against bigger kids who don't know how to defend a shot or something like that, or if they aren't very fast, it's a very good thing to know."

Reape said that opponents encountering Tyre for the first time often underestimate just how much strength he brings to the mat.

"He has the ability to generate force in ways you don't expect," Reape said. "He can move in odd ways and he's a lot more agile than people think."

The road to a championship wasn't always easy for Tyre. 

Getting to the next level meant developing the right mental approach. Several years into his wrestling career, Tyre realized that his thought process on the mat was throwing him off track.

"That mentality wasn't just bad for wrestling, it was bad for life, and it wasn't going to put me in very good situations to do things I needed to do ... it was really holding me back," he said. 

So he went to work, on the inside. Learning how to maintain an even keel during the setbacks. Learning how to enter the mat mentally prepared for a battle against every opponent, every time. 

Tyre said he could tell his attitude adjustment was paying dividends this winter at the Christmas Classic.

He had already lost one match to a Georgia opponent, one of only two defeats in the high school season. Earlier, that setback might have snowballed for him. This time, he recognized, it felt different.

"I could see that I was keeping my head. I wasn't getting frustrated out there," he said. "Then [three rounds later] against a kid from Paducah, Kentucky, it was 1-1, there's about 30 seconds left in the match, he takes a shot, I just dig it up, throw it over and score.

"I think that was really the turning point. I could tell my head was in a lot better place."

The wins kept on coming throughout the season. During one stretch, he won six consecutive matches by fall.

"When it comes to applied strength, he's the strongest guy in the building," Reape said. "He just knows how to apply force."

Even though Tyre entered the Class 1A state meet as regional champion, he said he had learned from experience that he couldn't afford to take any match lightly.

Tyre defeated Lemon Bay's Ben Arnett by fall in the opening round, won by fall against Mater Lakes freshman Damian Soto in the quarterfinals and picked up a victory by major decision against St. Petersburg Lakewood's Pharee Reed in the semis.

That left only an all-local final against Watson of Raines, an opponent he had defeated twice earlier in the season. In a tense battle, Tyre achieved the 4-3 victory. 

"I was just looking at the clock. I still couldn't believe it," said Tyre, who signed in February to wrestle at Coker University in Hartsville, S.C. "I don't know how long it took for me to register that I won the match, probably a good 30 seconds. I remember I was just on top and I looked up and I kind of froze there because I was that the clock at zero.

"I was like, 'No way I just did this.' It was just a lifetime of work all coming together, and it was just hard to grasp in that moment."

His victory also achieved the 25th individual FHSAA title in Clay's wrestling annals, a history that goes back to Marc Meyer and Clay Ridding in 1993.

"The goal was always I wanted to win a state championship," he said. "None of the little youth tournaments really mattered in the long run. I just wanted to be a high school state champion, and it means the world to me."

Resume: Won the Class 1A state championship in the 220-pound category. ... Completed the season with a record of 49-2. ... Also won district and regional titles. ... Signed in February with Coker for college wrestling.

Clayton Freeman covers high school sports and more for the Florida Times-Union. Follow him on Twitter at @CFreemanJAX.