NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — To answer that question in the headline above: I did not know that until doing this story.
Gabe Tolentino is not only a really cool dude, but he's strong — physically and mentally.
He has played both offensive and defensive line in football. I want to share a little bit about what caught my attention at first. Gabe is dialed into anything he's doing. He's a student of the sport. Even though he's focused and determined, he likes to have fun at the same time. He's polite, looks you in the eye, and you feel like you can have any type of conversation with him.
He's 16 years old. He knows he's onto something pretty cool.
"I joined and on my third day, I won a tournament," he told me. "Gold."
Yes. Just three days into a sport, he won gold at a tournament.
"Sumo is like raw, just human to human power," he said.
Gabe learned how to be tough early on in his life. He grew up with brothers, including an older brother.
"Him and his brother, they were typical boys," said Gabe's mom, Sarah Chavarria.
"Yeah especially me and my older brother, we used to always just go at it," Gabe said.
That didn't always mean those 'hey break it up, break it up' or 'knock it off' type of fights.
"They fought, but they loved each other to the core," Chavarria said.
Loving someone to the core can not only be joyous, but also heartbreaking.
"My brother passed away back in the start of quarantine," Gabe said about his older brother's passing early on in 2020.
"He got into drugs," Chavarria said.
Gabe was young and learning to process something like this.
"You load up with stuff to push it out of your mind," he said. "For me it was sports. And some other people it's sports as well."
Sports became Gabe's outlet.
"That's one thing he wishes," Chavarria said.
"'Man I wish my older brother was here to see this,'" Chavarria said Gabe mentions often.
But focus on the word "this." We're not just talking about Gabe's sumo.
"Team USA," Gabe said.
"We're really looking forward to Poland," Chavarria said.
From winning gold just three days into the sport, not to representing Team USA at the Sumo World Championship in Poland. All this happened in a matter of just eight months.
"In my book, he's the winner," Chavarria said.
Check out the player above to see Gabe practicing sumo at Music City Muscle.
Do you have a positive story you'd like to share? You can email me at Austin.Pollack@newschannel5.com.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
