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Despite being deaf and mostly blind, Bettendorf senior headed to state wrestling
‘He was like, “I'm just so happy,”’ father says of wrestler Miguel Mendoza
Feb. 16, 2026 4:45 pm, Updated: Feb. 16, 2026 5:31 pm
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BETTENDORF — Having never wrestled an ultimate tiebreaker before, Bettendorf High School senior Miguel Mendoza at districts on Saturday — while battling in the blood round for a ticket to the state tournament — needed the rules explained to him.
But he’s completely deaf, blind in one eye, and has limited sight in the other — with the goggles he wears to protect his “good eye” often fogging up during matches and clouding what’s left of his vision.
“He had no idea what was going on,” Sergio Mendoza said about the scramble to explain both the rules and the coaches’ strategy to his 157-pound son as the score remained tied through overtime period after overtime period.
Even his translator Amanda Wilson — who’s been signing for Miguel since he was in third grade — found herself scrambling to keep up.
“One problem that we had was the competitive juices were flowing for both sides, and we're hearing yells from the other side where they're like, ‘He's stalling. He's stalling,’” Mendoza said. “And we're trying to sign to him that you're going to get 30 seconds on your feet, then 30 seconds down, and then it's going to switch.
“And all Mandy can do is sign it. It doesn't mean that he's going to see it.”
Having been with Miguel for so long — both in the classroom and at every wrestling practice and tournament — Wilson has become more than a translator.
“She's gotten a lot more comfortable being in his corner and trying to really be an advocate for him,” Mendoza said. “We just love her to death, man. She's just right there all the time.”
Wearing bright colors — like the yellow sweater she donned for districts Saturday — Wilson is not just mat-side but circle-side, rushing around the perimeter to stay within his line of sight, translating the coach’s guidance in rapid-fire signs or reminding the refs that he can’t hear their whistles.
“Some of the refs are awesome and cooperate really well with her,” Mendoza said. “And some of them are like, ‘Don't tell me how to ref my match.’ And she stands toe to toe with them.”
On Saturday, because Mendoza lost his first match, he found himself battling back on the consolation side of the bracket at districts, reaching the third-place bout with an upset win against a wrestler who two weeks earlier beat him by technical fall in under three minutes.
In Class 3A, the top three wrestlers from every district earn a spot at the Iowa High School Athletic Association state wrestling tournament in Des Moines — making the third-place match the difference between state and the end of a wrestler’s season, or career in Miguel’s case.
With all eyes in the gym on his mat Saturday afternoon, Miguel scored first in his third-place bout, heading into the final period up 4-1. His opponent added an escape in the third and then went ahead 5-4 with a takedown, before Mendoza got an escape at the last second to tie it and send it to overtime.
Neither wrestler scored in the first overtime — giving each 30 seconds to escape in a fifth and sixth round, which they both did. The coaches knew Mendoza had the advantage because he got the choice of top or bottom in the seventh ultimate tiebreaker round — having scored first.
But they were having a hard time communicating that to him.
“The coaches are strategizing, and they're saying all the right things in the corner,” Mendoza said. “And he has no idea what's going on. He just knows he's got to keep wrestling.”
On the whistle in the ultimate tiebreaker, Miguel got to his feet and turned to face his opponent, winning the match with an escape and earning himself a spot at state and a standing ovation — which he couldn’t hear.
“He didn't even realize what was going on until later,” Mendoza said. “He was like, ‘Dad, did you see how many people watched my match?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah bud, the whole gym was on it.’ And he was like, ‘I'm just so happy.’”
‘I’m wrestling’
Miguel — the youngest of the Mendozas’ four kids — was born deaf and with bilateral coloboma, a rare congenital condition affecting fetal eye development. In Miguel’s case, his left eye never grew to full size and the family opted for a prosthetic in its place.
“So he’s complete blind in that left eye,” his dad said, “and he only has a very small range of vision in that right eye.”
And doctors early on warned the family Miguel could lose his sight entirely at some point and advised them to send him to the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs.
“But we just thought that wasn’t an option for us,” Mendoza said.
So they worked with the Davenport and Bettendorf school districts to get Miguel into the right classes with the best supports, like Wilson.
“Everybody was just all in,” Mendoza said. “It’s been truly remarkable.”
Miguel has always been strong and loved sports. And at age 7, he decided he was going to wrestle like his older brother.
“We were just like, ‘Absolutely not. There’s no way you’re going out. This is a tough sport. We’ve got to find something else for you to get into,” Mendoza said. “And he said, ‘I’m wrestling.’ And I’m like, ‘There’s no way.’”
But the night Mendoza was about to leave with his older son for the start of his fourth-grade season, Miguel — who was in first grade at the time — parked himself at the door with a duffel bag full of his brother’s old wrestling gear.
“And he was like, ‘I’m going and I’m using these shoes,’” Mendoza said. “And I was like, ‘What the heck. He’s gonna see how difficult this is, and he's not gonna like it. And I’ll just have to let him find out for himself.’”
What Miguel discovered was that he did like it and was pretty good at it and — after a pause to try basketball in middle school — decided to go out for wrestling as a freshman and sophomore under Bettendorf High Head Coach Dan Knight, who’d been working with him for years.
“When he was little, we would pound on the mat at these little kids’ tournaments trying to get a vibration that he could feel,” Knight said.
But while his physical limitations ruled out other sports, like basketball, Miguel could still wrestle. And he competed on JV his first two years in high school until a scare sidelined him during a freestyle tournament in Des Moines.
“After my 10th-grade year, somebody poked me in the eye, and it was really hard, and it made it hard for me to see,” Miguel told The Gazette through his translator.
The injury took him to specialists in Iowa City, and his dad said it was enough to pull the plug entirely.
“We thought, ‘That's it, man. This isn't worth it. I don't like this at all,’” Mendoza said. “Me and his mom were both like, ‘This is not worth it … We have to protect that eye.’”
The parents went back and forth with their son and discovered the option of wearing goggles for eye protection. Miguel didn’t wrestle his junior year, but they agreed to let him go back out for the sport if he wore the goggles.
“And he absolutely hated it,” Mendoza said, remembering the first practice they used them for. “After that first practice, he was running laps, and he took him off, and he threw them at me, and was like, ‘I want nothing to do with them. I can't see nothing. Everything's foggy.’”
Miguel’s face was bruised from where the goggles had been slammed into his cheeks.
“But I was like, ‘Look, man, the deal is either you wear them or you don't wrestle. That's just it. Either you wear them and you protect that eye or you're not going to be able to go out there,’” Mendoza said. “And I threw them back on him as soon as he made his next lap around. And I said, ‘You got to put them on or you're done.’
“And he put them back on, and that was it.”
‘I was so excited’
Heading into his senior season, Miguel said he set his mind and his goals and battled his way up from JV to varsity.
“I worked really hard every day, every morning, practiced every morning,” he said. “I never give up. I just keep working hard, and I focus and I just had to get better.”
Heading into districts, Miguel said he was optimistic.
“Because a lot of people and a lot of coaches and the whole team, they helped me,” he said. “They supported me.”
When asked how he felt about his third-place match, Miguel said, “I was so excited.”
“That was my first time ever qualifying for state,” he said.
And Mendoza said his son is ready.
“A lot of wrestling's mental, it's in your head, you know,” he said. “If you're giving up on your shots, if you're stopping and you're not going hard in some of these positions, you're going to lose them.
“But now he’s like, ‘I can win these.’”
So even though Miguel won’t be able to take in the thousands of fans in the Casey’s Center in Des Moines this week or hear them cheering or screaming for stalling or stalemate or locked hands calls, Mendoza said, “He’s so excited to get up there.”
Because the state wrestling energy buzzing through the arena on waves of emotional highs and lows amplified by every upset and fall — he’ll definitely feel that. And, in that way, Miguel will be just like every other wrestler competing for a coveted spot on the podium.
“He’s wrestling with his head up. He’s going after it a little bit more. He’s feeling really confident about it. And that's all you can ask for,” Mendoza said.
Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.
Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com
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