ORANGE PARK - With an athletic career that includes state wrestling medals, two national titles and three district team titles, Ridgeview High first year wrestling coach Mark Detoro has returned to the wrestling conversations in Clay County and Florida with another outstanding accomplishment.

"It was actually my wife, Whitni, who opened the letter because they had been trying to contact me a couple of different ways and that's how I found out about it," said Detoro, a state runner-up (171 in 2001) and fourth place (2000 171) wrestling finisher for Clay High. "I was selected to receive the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's "Medal of Courage" award through the Florida Hall of Fame chapter."

Also among Detoro's high school accolades was holding the single season sack record for Clay High football, state weightlifting and state track. Detoro has always won a few 5K road racing first place medals—one recently at the Keystone Heights Freedom 5K. Detoro also wrestled at Lassen Community College in California before joining the Army, earning a region title and a national tournament ticket in 2002 and 2003.

For Detoro, 43, with the loftiness of the Hall of Fame award coming from his lifelong passion to not let a missing leg deter him from continuing his passion for the sport of wrestling, the honor puts him in the same building as two other Clay High Hall of Famers, Jim Reape and P.J. Cobbert. Reape, a 30 plus year head coach for the Blue Devils and Cobbert, a four-year state champion under Reape and also a state champion teammate with DeToro and a few other Blue Devil notables.

"This may sound a little petty, but I used to ask myself what does it take to be noticed for what I do," said Detoro, who will be honored in Stillwater, Oklahoma in August and at the Florida state championships in March. "I'm not saying I'm like Caeleb Dressel or Cliff Avril or even Jim Reape, but this honor gives me a little acknowledgement that my perseverance was worth it."

For his wife, Whitni, who was in Boston when the pair communicated online during COVID before marrying in 2022, it was Detoro's continued pursuit of life that connected.

"He has never let what happened to him keep him from living life to the fullest," said Whitni, 37. "That's what I see the most."

In the letter from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, executive director Roy Smith notes that Detoro's selection was based on "Detoro's use of the disciplines of wrestling to become a role model to young people..making the right decision as opposed to the easy decision when confronted with difficult life choices."

Among the difficult life choices was having his leg amputated after a horrific car vs. bike accident that left Detoro in a ditch bleeding out for nearly two hours in Gainesville. Detoro, who was conditioning himself to do a 100-mile bike race prior to joining the U.S. Army, was hit on his bike and suffered injuries, having to have his right leg amputated.

"I got hit, spent two hours in a ditch on the side of the road, got found and, 16 hours later in the hospital, I woke up to find a bunch of my wrestling friends—Coach Reape, former CHS wrestling coach and principal Pete McCabe and others standing over me crying and saying it sucks that they have to amputate your leg," said Detoro, who was given nearly 250 pints of blood to save his life. "I think I said, 'Well what do we do from here?'"

Detoro's journey started a lifelong journey of rehab, strengthening and conditioning while returning to the wrestling mat. Detoro is currently a recipient of some of the latest technology of prosthetics for athletes.

"I had a surgery called osseointegration—a bone implant, where they put a small pin that always snaps when I wrestle," Detoro said. "My surgeons keep telling me to quit wrestling, stop breaking our stuff. Not happening, it's all I've ever known."

Coach Reape at Clay was one of the first to reach out to Detoro to keep him active, but Detoro later accepted an invitation for a sport he never played and was never good at.

"Coach Reape had me working with his guys When I got my leg rebuilt, a lot of it at Walter Reed Medical Center, then I started up with wheelchair basketball," said Detoro. "I played on two national championship teams in wheelchair basketball out of Auburn University, then my dad got cancer and I returned to Clay County."

Detoro's basketball career was mainly as a defensive specialist.

"I couldn't shoot worth anything, but I was good on defense and could rebound," Detoro said. "I came home for my dad in about 2019 and P.J. called me to coach some with him at Fleming Island and we built a pretty good team there."

From that return to home, Detoro eventually won three team district titles as Oakleaf High's head coach, then got the gig at Ridgeview recently.

"The athletic director at Ridgeview, Aimee Stutz, was pretty cool about hiring me and we are building the team little by little," Detoro said.

Two Ridgeview wrestlers that were first impressed with Detoro's entrance into the Ridgeview wrestling room, senior Sam Constanza (a 150 pounder) and Horatio Bady (a 215 freshman), both see Detoro's aura as a testament to just being tough.

"I didn't know any of coach Detoro's back story, but when he walked in, you can kind of figure that this guy has been through something and here he is coaching a high school wrestling team," Bady said. "My first impression is that he must be a pretty resilient person, much like the University of Arizona guy who won an NCAA title with one leg (referring to Anthony Robles, a 125-pound wrestler who won an NCAA title in 2011)."

In the end, Detoro's motivation to keep moving, wrestling and competing is a product of returning the love and support of his inner circle.

"I used to let it bother me, but I'm thankful for a wife who loves me, my dog loves me, a family that loves me and great friends," Detoro said. "I just keep doing me."

One of Detoro's mantras for his journey has been: "Obstacles are just things to overcome. Life will be hard, accept it and press on."

"I try to coach with the same mentality, compete hard, gather data from wins and losses, correct flaws and compete better," Detoro said. "We strive to improve every day and be ready in March."