By Sports Editor Andrew Simonson
HOOVERIn September 2024, Bradley Williams, a wrestler from Spain Park, was going about his routine in a Southeast regional tournament in Atlanta, Georgia. He was eager to demonstrate his abilities against some of the top players in the area after winning his first Class 7A state championship and being unbeaten during the academic year.
On the inside, though, things were anything but normal.
In order to get below the 141-pound division limit, Williams had just undertaken one of the simplest weight reductions of his career. It was simple since his water weight Type 1 diabetes was being stolen by a silent thief.
Fighting a struggle on two fronts, he never lost a step as a wrestler despite managing his new diagnosis. Among a crowded field of gifted athletes, he is currently the Shelby County Male Athlete of the Year after his achievement in 2025 led to a state championship and his second consecutive unbeaten season.
His journey is just getting started, though, as the rising senior is once again aiming for gold while standing in for something greater than himself.
Strike quickly and forcefully.
Williams was a young boy who was only following in his father’s footsteps before he achieved any success with Spain Park.
Almost immediately after his family relocated to Alabama when Williams was four years old, his father Jeff enrolled him in Stronghold Wrestling, a club in Alabaster.
After suffering two knee injuries in high school that prevented him from competing in college, Jeff’s wrestling career was quite the roller coaster. About 20 years later, though, his nephew entered the world of professional wrestling and won a wager with Jeff that compelled him to return.
Jeff continued his amateur wrestling career after coaching Bradley at Stronghold. He finished second in the 2016 US Open before switching to jiu jitsu and taking home the world title in 2021.
Bradley, like his father, had a modest beginning before achieving much of his accomplishments. Bradley just began moving up the rankings later in his youth career and never won a youth state championship, in contrast to many of his highly ranked peers.
To flick the switch, someone has to be creative. A chin whip, which is similar to a guillotine choke in jiu jitsu but involves the wrestler turning their body to whip their opponent to the ground in order to set up a pin, is something he added.
At the end of his sixth-grade year, Bradley added it to his repertoire, and he soon became well-known throughout the state for it. He frequently wins varsity competitions with it, and his father even likened it to a sanctioned variation of Cobra Kai’s well-known leg sweep from The Karate Kid.
“If you can get people out of position and such, it even works here at the highest level that he’s at right now,” Jeff added. So, if you enjoy watching large throws, it’s fairly crazy.
The chin sweep helped him reach a new level of skill, and soon after, Bradley received a call from Spain Park to join their varsity team as a seventh grader. He was successful right away, going 34-0 to earn a spot in the 2021 Class 7A state championship before losing to Camden Tipton of Oak Mountain in the 106-pound finals.
Bradley was only encouraged to keep up his hard work and win as many games as he could at the varsity level by that experience.
Bradley stated, “It really just made me not accept a loss to go undefeated in the seventh grade in the high school division with only one loss.” Therefore, I believe my skills increased as I grew older. I believe that I simply refused to accept any losses since I knew that going undefeated was possible.
As an eighth and ninth grader, he replicated the accomplishment, winning the North Super Section titles both seasons and placing second in the 126-pound and 138-pound divisions in 2022 and 2023, respectively. He went 55-3 as a freshman and 39-10 at the end of his eighth-grade year.
Bradley’s most recent varsity loss was an 8-7 decision loss to Jake Ciccolella of Huntsville in the 2023 state title match, which was a rematch of the sectional finals that Bradley had won.
Williams has since won 108 straight games for the Jags, including a 54-0 record in the 2024–25 season to capture the Class 6A 157-pound title and a 45-0 record in Class 7A to win the 144-pound division. In 2025, he received a pin in all of his matches at state that ended before the 2:30 mark.
Bradley believes that his varsity wrestling experience in middle school set the tone for the remainder of his career, which included two state titles and five consecutive finals appearances.
According to Bradley, “I’m glad my coaches gave me the opportunity to wrestle when I was in middle school because I think I would have become a two-time state finalist in high school without it.” And I believe that only served to highlight my abilities. And I believe that if I hadn’t known it when I started my freshman year, I might not have performed as well for the rest of my career and other things.
We’re going all out, sugar.
But before Bradley’s junior season began, genetics dealt him a huge curveball.
Bradley made a regular cut from 150 pounds to 141 pounds in September 2024 in order to prepare for the Southeast regionals.
But something had changed.
I’ve wrestled for a very long time. Bradley remarked, “I’m used to cutting weight.” I usually lose 20 pounds for competitions like nationals, and it’s never easy, but I didn’t lose any weight for that tournament. It simply dropped off. I never had to cut my weight very hard or wear sweatpants to practice. It simply dropped off. And I thought that was odd. Since I didn’t have to reduce the weight, I was okay with it.
His parents said that he woke up four or five times a night to use the restroom during the cut, which was very rare for him. At first, though, Jeff wasn’t worried.
As a father, I think, “That’s strange,” Jeff remarked. I am an elderly man, correct? It seemed strange for him to wake up so frequently, even though I also wake up in the middle of the night. Naturally, my coaching side then says, “Well, he’s flushing a lot of water out.” He is training a great deal. He will, therefore, make a nice weight, right?
He did really make the weight. At 136 pounds, there are five pounds left over.
As the competition drew near, Bradley grew weaker and sicker, but it was hoped that rehydration following weigh-ins would help him recover.
That was not true. Bradley’s constant desire to use the restroom during the tournament began to cause him some discomfort.
The following day, two parents from out of state approached me and said, “Hey, Bradley has been losing a lot of weight.” Jeff remarked, “He looks kind of gone.” And I say, “Yeah, it has been a little strange.” He goes, I don t know, Jeff, because he was going to the bathroom every second of that tournament. And it just it got to the point of that tournament, if he wasn t wrestling, he was in the bathroom. And so, a couple parents are like, I think that might be diabetes. And we re like, No, that can t be.
Type 1 diabetes runs in the Williams family as Bradley s cousin was diagnosed at 18 years old. However, they never thought Bradley would get diagnosed himself.
But after the Williams family rushed to Children s of Alabama following the tournament, his glucose readings were off the charts. Bloodwork revealed his glucose level was 850. A normal level is 130, and Jeff said 850 should ve left Bradley in a coma.
That led to a three-day hospital stay, Type 1 diabetes diagnosis and plan to combat it from then on. He now takes insulin three times a day as well as a long-term insulin shot each night.
Not much has changed in Bradley s personal life. He still eats about the same as he did before, just now with insulin. He also quickly returned to the wrestling mat at the Elite Eight, but not without one major change his weight.
Before diabetes, he was around 150 pounds walking around and cutting to between 141 and 144 for wrestling. Almost immediately after starting insulin, he shot up to 163 pounds, so he cut to 157 pounds for the state championship. He s planning a move up to 165 for his senior year as he continues growing into his new natural weight.
A major downside to having diabetes though is having to manage his insulin alongside weight cuts. Jeff said the constant fluctuation of weight makes wrestling one of the most dangerous sports to have diabetes in.
Bradley now views it as a positive as now he s not wrestling while sick and instead filling out his natural weight.
It makes it dangerous for when I do cut weight, because my sugar would drop fast, and then that would make me not able to compete or just become weaker and stuff, Bradley said. So I haven t been able to cut weight as much, but I think with the insulin, it s made me fill in a lot more to my weight, so I think I haven t had to cut as much weight, but I ve also filled into the weight that I am, so really, there s not any weight to really cut.
While diabetes didn t affect him during his undefeated run to the postseason, he did have a speed bump thanks to a skin infection that flared up as a result of his diabetes. It jeopardized his spot at the state championship, but he overcame it quickly enough to get to Huntsville and secure his second-straight title.
Never satisfied
Bradley has goals beyond his two state championships. In the near future, he will compete in the Junior National Duals championship in Milwaukee, Wisc. before taking the mat at the individual national championships, known in the wrestling community as simply Fargo for its location at North Dakota State s Fargodome. He will also compete in the Elite Eight and Super 32 in hopes of boosting his national rank ahead of his senior season at Spain Park.
He also recently accomplished a major longtime goal of committing to a Division I school. Bradley is set to wrestle for Davidson College in North Carolina after his senior year with the Jags.
While he has his sights set on a third-straight state title and undefeated season, he is now even more motivated to compete at a high level collegiately because of his diagnosis. Bradley said he knows of at least two Division I wrestlers who also have diabetes, but he wants to be an example for others with the disease that they don t have to be limited by it.
I m happy that I m committed to a Division I college a year after getting my diabetes diagnosis because I ve kind of shown that people don t need to be restricted by really anything personally, Bradley said. I just think it s not a factor that you should see and think that it stops you. You should just overcome it, and no matter what happens to you, like through your life, you can always just find a way to overcome it, find a way to get around.
It s a mantra and mentality which Bradley lives by on and off the mat as he never rests until he reaches his goals. But now, he carries an entire community on his shoulders as he aims to redefine what a life with Type 1 diabetes looks like.
