As a rising high school senior, Kamal Bey was the unquestioned king of the mat in suburban Chicago.
Violently throwing down opponents en route to a state championship and regional glory, Kamal gained a reputation as one of the best Greco-Roman wrestlers in the area. But his father, Karriem, wanted more for his son.
Another state title may have further cemented Kamal as a local star. Karriem, however, had unwavering confidence his son’s talent could stretch across the globe with the red, white and blue across his chest.
He wanted the entire world to know his son’s name.
“I wasn’t thinking college. I was thinking Olympics,” Karriem said.
So in August of 2015, Kamal and his family decided it was time for the then 17-year-old to leave home and move to Colorado, swapping his Chrysler 200 convertible for a truck to train at the United States Olympic Training Center, hoping that one day he could represent his country.
Nine years later, Karriem was overwhelmed trying to put into words the emotions of seeing his son get an opportunity to live his dream. Kamal is one of 16 wrestlers representing the United States at the 2024 Summer Olympics, starting on July 26.
He will compete in the Greco-Roman 77-kilogram tournament after he received an Olympic quota berth due to vacated spots from Individual Neutral Athletes from Russia and Belarus.
“As a parent, you wish for things for your children and try your best to put them there,” Karriem, 64, said as his voice cracked over the phone. “(Kamal) has worked hard. He deserves it.”
“He strives to be the best”
Thirteen miles west of Chicago’s downtown Loop, Kamal — one of four siblings — was an energetic 4-year-old who bounced around the house. Karriem thought it was a good idea to burn off that energy through wrestling.
“My dad picked me up from school one day, and when I woke up (from a nap), I was outside of a gym,” Kamal said.
Kamal played multiple sports, including football and baseball, but Greco-Roman wrestling became his passion. The challenging nature of the sport, which requires competitors to use only their upper body to take opponents to the mat, appealed to him.
“You get to throw people. It’s fun, man,” he said.
Karriem, who spent 35 years working for the U.S. Postal Service, recalled one of Kamal’s first matches when he put a kid in a headlock before pinning him down using a move Karriem had shown him ahead of the match. From there, Kamal wrestled for a local club called the Harvey Twisters before moving on to Oak Park and River Forest High School, where he was a USAW Greco-Roman champion and Illinois state champion in folkstyle wrestling.
When Kamal was presented with an opportunity to train at the Olympic Training Center, he couldn’t pass it up. Karriem talked to former Olympic wrestler and fellow Illinois native T.C. Dantzler, who competed in the Beijing Games in 2008, about Kamal living with him in Colorado Springs.
While he stayed with Dantzler and his family, Kamal finished his education at Pine Creek High School as he trained at OTC.
“A state championship ain’t (nothing),” said Dantzler, who has known Kamal since he was 8. “We were looking at world titles (and) Olympic (medals). We were looking at (Kamal) traveling the globe, wrestling the best people, and training at a high level.”
Kamal took full advantage of the transition to Colorado.
He was a U.S. Senior Greco-Roman national champion in 2016. The following year, he won the Junior World Championship while placing second in the U.S. Open, a tournament he eventually won in 2018 and ’19. Last year, he won gold at the Pan-American Games.
“He strives to be the best,” said national Greco-Roman coach Herb House, himself a native of Oak Park, Ill. “He’s very explosive, so overseas everyone is locked in whenever he wrestles.”
Kamal Bey of the United States, left, celebrates his gold medal victory over Brazil’s Joilson de Brito, at the end of their men’s greco roman 77kg match, at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.(AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
When Kamal is not wrestling on the international stage, he cooks for the masses. Eager to become an even better wrestler, Kamal joined the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program’s wrestling team in 2021, becoming a culinary specialist.
Based out of Fort Carson, Kamal starts his days at 3 a.m., prepping breakfast and lunch before training. He makes a variety of meals from recipes provided by the Army. Having grown up watching his dad make chicken wings and burgers on the grill, even during Illinois’ harsh winters, Kamal enjoys preparing food.
“He even came over (to my house) and cooked some meals,” House said. “He’s a good cook.”
“I can do that, too”
Inside the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum on Monday, Kamal signed autographs for fans who traveled to Colorado Springs to get a glimpse of the wrestlers who will represent the U.S. in Paris. Seated to his left was House, whom Kamal considers a father figure. House has watched him since he was wrestling in Illinois as a 10-year-old.
At one point, it was uncertain whether Kamal would compete in Paris. He missed out on the opportunity to compete in the Tokyo Games, postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic, after he accepted a one-year sanction for failure to properly file and maintain his whereabouts information. With a shot at redemption this year, he won the 77 kg Greco-Roman title at the U.S. Olympic team trials at Penn State in April, but he lost to Zoltan Levai of Hungary in an Olympic qualification playoff match that determined the final quota at his weight.
His Olympic aspirations remained in limbo until late June when Sergey Kutuzov, a Russian wrestler, did not make the International Olympic Committee list of eligible athletes, opening the door for Kamal.
“It was like a sense of relief,” he said. “There was a lot of anxiety just wondering whether or not I’ll be going to the Olympics, especially since time was ticking and family and friends (wanted) to buy tickets.”
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Now, Kamal will strive for more than winning a gold medal. He and House hope their presence at the Olympics will inspire Black children back in Illinois to use wrestling to change their lives.
Growing up in a single-mother household, House said his life could’ve gone in a different direction if it wasn’t for wrestling. For Kamal, wrestling provided a chance to see the world.
When he goes to France with his family by his side, he wants to remind the youths back home that there is more than one avenue to success.
“Everyone wants to be a football (and) basketball player, but we can excel at wrestling, too,” Kamal said. “I know seeing my face (at the Olympics), there’s going to be some kid back at home who is like, ‘I can do that, too.’”
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