2004 Olympics: Other Sports

09:08 PM CDT on Friday, August 27, 2004

By KEN STEPHENS / The Dallas Morning News

ATHENS, Greece – When Daniel Cormier steps onto the Olympic mat today, he'll be wrestling for all the people he has lost – his father, his grandmother, a high school friend, but most of all his daughter, who died in an auto accident at 3 months old last year.

"She's always with me," Cormier said. "She's my motivation. She's here in my heart."

Cormier, one of three former Oklahoma State wrestlers on the U.S. team, finished fifth at the 2003 world championships and will be a medal contender in Athens, a long way from the tough neighborhood where he grew up in Lafayette, La.

"Where I grew up, we were across the street from the high school," Cormier said. "It was 98 percent black. My street was pretty good. They kept it cleaned up because of the school. But two streets down, it was real bad. All of my friends lived on those streets. When we were younger, they were in my world. They'd come to my house. But when we got older, we drifted apart as I got into wrestling."

Cormier, who wrestles freestyle in the 211.5-pound class, said some of his friends went after fast money by selling drugs. One went to prison for five years for murder, though he was eventually cleared.

When Cormier was 7, his father, who had divorced Cormier's mother and remarried, was shot to death by his father-in-law.

When Cormier was in high school, a close friend died in an auto accident. Cormier was depressed and played poorly in his first three football games that season. He was moping around the house on a Friday night when his mother, Audrey Benoit, sat him down.

"She said, 'Daniel, you have a life plan. You can't change it. You have to find a way to get through this. Whatever you need, I'll be there for you. But you have to find a way to move forward,' " Cormier recalled.

Moving forward has been his philosophy ever since, though he has occasionally been challenged.

Last year, his only child, Kaedyn Cormier, died in an auto accident. He said he was still torn up by the loss when he wrestled in the world championships three months later.

During a tough loss to Alireza Heydari of Iran, his emotions boiled over. Cormier thought Heydari had wrestled a dirty match, and when Heydari started to celebrate his 6-3 win, Cormier shoved him.

"It was the worst thing to do because it didn't change anything," Cormier said. "He still won the match. I embarrassed myself, and I embarrassed the USA.

"There was a lot going on outside of wrestling that I wouldn't talk to anybody about. I didn't think anybody knew what I was going through. Nobody had lost a daughter."

Since then, Cormier has sought help in controlling his emotions on the mat.

He no longer allows himself to be controlled by things he can't control, like the deaths of people close to him. Instead, he seeks to honor their memory by wrestling well at the Olympics, which he called "the biggest stage in the world."

"The only way I can honor them is just wrestle," he said. "They're gone. What else can I do?"

E-mail kstephens@dallasnews.com