A chance encounter on a beach during vacation has turned into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Kyle Brown.
The Blue Springs native has been involved in wrestling lately as a coach with the Platte County youth program and has also worked with the Mo West Championship Wrestling Club.
But when it comes to wrestling, he hasn’t really done much in years.
His job had him going to California last month and he and his girlfriend, Kaydon, planned a vacation around the work trip, which was between Aug. 18-22, for his job as a computer design engineer for an industrial company.
The two left the Kansas City area on Aug. 13 for some time at the beach, but which beach was initially the question. Brown said they looked at Venice Beach, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach.
The decision ultimately paved the way and made you think about what a coincidence is and what fate is.
The two decided to go to Huntington for reasons; he said neither of them was unsure of why.
After arriving in California, the two went to the beach on Aug. 14 and then were back there again on Aug. 15.
While catching some rays, Brown noticed a couple — a man and woman — doing some wrestling moves. It piqued his interest and he told Kaydon he was going to go talk to them.
That changed the trajectory of the vacation for the two.
Brown wrestled at Blue Springs and was a fourth-place medalist his senior year for the Wildcats. While his college journey focused on playing football, he still loved the sport.
Chatting with the two people, he was asked if he was wrestling in the tournament on Aug. 16.
Clearly puzzled, Brown asked what the two meant. Unbeknownst to him, the California Beach Nationals were being held in Huntington Beach.
Brown said that the man he was talking to, Brock Howard, suggested he come out and try beach wrestling. Brown said he had done it once in his life. It was after his football playing career at Pittsburg State wrapped up in 2017.
He mulled over the idea of taking part in this event almost eight years after his last wrestling match. His girlfriend was on board with him trying it.
Logistically, there were a first things to do.
He didn’t know how much he weighed. Brown said he guessed he was 200 or 205, but really didn’t know. The weight class for the beach wrestling was 90 kg, or 198 pounds.
“I think it was in 2018 when I did it,” he said of beach wrestling. “But before that, I hadn’t really competed since my senior year of high school in 2012, so I was a little nervous. [Kaydon] was really supportive through the whole thing, so I was pretty lucky with that. Because, you know, not everyone every girlfriend’s going to be like, “Yeah, we can take half of our vacation to have you wrestle, at the spur of the moment thing, you know? So I was pretty lucky with the whole her support.”
He learned it is pretty hard to find a scale in a state you are unfamiliar with. On the second stop, he found a gym owner who allowed him to check his weight.
He was at 206 pounds at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, with the tournament slated to start the next afternoon.
Brown found an infrared sauna to go to while Kaydon shopped and then the two went on a run later that night. The next day, he made weight with a little bit of extra workout.
He was supposed to start at noon, but he didn’t get his time on the beach wrestling until 4 p.m. He said they planned on being done at around 2:30 p.m. or 3 p.m. to spend more time on vacation, but that didn’t happen.
In pool matches, he ran up against Brock — the guy he met at the beach on Friday — and lost to him.
Brown made it to bracket play and beat Evan Brown in the semifinals. Brown was a 2009 Division III national champion and is a member of the University of Dubuque Hall of Fame.
In the finals, he faced Howard again and won this time.
The victory has provided a chance for Brown to have a trip to Katerini, Greece, to take part in the United World Wrestling’s 4th Beach Wrestling World Series.
That event will be held Sept. 25-28 at Aloha Beach, with his age bracket being held Sept. 27-28.
He’s been working out at Sharkbait’s MMA & Jiu Jitsu Academy in Blue Springs to get ready, as well as working in the Mo Wrestling room.
Brown will be heading to Greece early, this time with his mother. They will sightsee on the 25th and 26th and, after wrestling, will spend more time before coming back to Kansas City on Oct. 2.
“I never would have guessed in a million years that at 32 years old, I’d be representing the USA on the world team in the beach wrestling world championships, you know?” he said. “So for my mom to be able to come and watch me do that again, you know, the last time she watched me wrestle was in 2012 when I was a senior in high school.”
Brown said the timing of all of it was crazy.
What would happen if they chose Venice Beach instead of Huntington Beach?
He also said this work trip that happened in August was set to happen in February but it was delayed multiple times.
“The amount of things that had to go right for me to be in Huntington Beach that day were just like, nothing short of a miracle,” Brown said. “It was pretty wild how it all, you know, the stars aligned for me to be in Huntington Beach that day.”
There was another thing that was a coincidence or fate.
While in California, he texted his high school coach, Hall of Famer Mike Hagerty. He sent Hagerty a photo of the book he wrote, “High Performance Living,” to show his former coach that he was reading his book.
About 30 minutes after texting the former Blue Springs coach, Brown ran into the couple wrestling on the beach.
As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.
“Just all the things that added up are just pretty crazy,” said Brown, who will be an assistant coach this winter for Grain Valley and former teammate and Eagles head coach Donnie Horner.
