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Steeler Daulton Seaburn

January 31, 1994 – April 6, 2012

Steeler struggled early in life with the most basic of communication due to his Eustachian tubes being almost 100% blocked.  It was during these developmental years that some of the best "Steelerisms" came into play.  Because everything he heard sounded like an underwater conversation, Stee developed his own language, and boy, was he good at it.  He would talk about anything and everything, all very loud and very fast.  The problem was no one else spoke his language.  Because of this, and before surgery repaired his ears, he learned to not sweat the little stuff, and to just enjoy....life!  I guess if being basically deaf for two years, and having to do speech therapy for 4 years allowed him to see the silver linings in things most of us miss, he definitely took his lemons and made lemonade. 

One area that Steeler never struggled in was sports.  He would watch the professionals, then the very next day, be emulating their exact motions.  Because of his abilities to "catch on quick", Stee developed what could be referred to as a GOD complex.  He never lost a game, the TEAM threw it away!  His mother was at her wits end trying to teach him humility and teamwork.  After one last "if they had just passed the ball to me......" she told him he was going to wrestle.  He was told that win or lose it was all up to him and there would be no one to blame but himself.  He was also told that once he had learned the aforementioned humility, he could quit.  Since he continued to wrestle for 11 more years, he either had a slow learning curve or had fallen in love with the sport.  We choose to believe the latter. 

Steeler was not the most skilled wrestler, nor was he the strongest his god given talent came in the form of leadership.  He was never quiet and serious, but still dedicated to the work it took to be a 6 minute wrestler.  He would crack a joke about everything, and he and his teammates had a relationship so intricate and all-consuming, that it often made their coaches wondering if they were benefitting at all from their workouts.  He suffered through starvation, slept in trash bags, gave 7 hours to school, another 3 to wrestling then spent 4 more at his job.  He missed out on many events, activities and other social functions all for the love of wrestling.  We saw a boy turn into a man due mainly in part to what wrestling taught him.  Stee wasn't just a wrestler, he was a football player, a golfer, he ran long distance, and had the seasons been different, he would have been a soccer player too, BUT he lived for wrestling season!  He anticipated the camaraderie that came with being with his coaches, his team mates, and dozens of "wrestling parents" for 4 straight months. 

When Steeler would talk to parents of younger children he would urge them to put their child in wrestling.  He knew from first hand experience the life lessons taught by such a grueling sport, and how it had prepared him for the upcoming challenges he would face in adulthood.  Steeler had planned to go to college, get his teaching degree, then come back to his hometown and hopefully coach wrestling.  We knew, by watching him overcome obstacle after obstacle in his life that he was going to do just what he said. 

There is a wrestling documentary made by a young man who lost his father his junior year of high school.  In it he remembers how his father tutored and coached him in wrestling throughout his youth years.  Once his father passed he found himself floundering with no real direction, but when he got back into wrestling he flourished and thrived. This was, in part, because he could rely on his memories of his time with his father on the mat, but also from the love, support, and encouragement that is so unique to wrestling communities.  Steeler took the life lessons he had learned in wrestling and passed them on to us.  He taught us that nothing worth having comes easy, but mostly he showed us how to survive, to always make life fun, and to never sweat the small stuff.