WATCH: Palm Bay’s Caylor Williams Was Four-Time U.S. World Team Member, Armed Services Champion

SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME: Williams went 50-0, won state championship senior prep season

WATCH: If not for a little smack talk from one of his buddies on the Palm Bay  High School football team, Caylor Williams may have never stepped on a wrestling mat. He went 50-0 and won a Florida state championship in his final prep season. William’s career highlights include being a four-time U.S. World Team member, a two-time U.S. Open champion (2014, 2015), 2016 Armed Forces champion, a 2012 University World Team member, and a 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials runner-up.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame selection committee announced that the 2025 induction ceremony will occur on Saturday, May 24, at Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne. This will be the first in-person induction since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. To make a reservation for the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony, e-mail Contact@SpaceCoastDaily.com or call 321-323-4460. CLICK HERE to see the 2025 Class of the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame.

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2025 SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – If not for a little smack talk from one of his buddies on the Palm Bay  High School football team, Caylor Williams may have never stepped on a wrestling mat. He went 50-0 and won a Florida state championship in his final prep season. 

“You think football is hard?” Francisco Grullon told Williams in 2005. “Wrestling is way harder. You wouldn’t last one day at a wrestling practice.”

Williams accepted Grullon’s challenge, and he immediately learned precisely what his buddy was talking about. There were times – “a million times” – that Williams wanted to quit wrestling that first season.

During his first year of competitive wrestling, as a freshman at Palm Bay High School, Williams was thrust into the starting lineup at 171 pounds.

His instructions from fellow Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame inductee, coach Sean Ballard, were straightforward each time he went out onto the mat.

“You know your job,” Ballard said. “Don’t get pinned.”

As you might expect, Williams had trouble not getting pinned that first season. Facing older and much more experienced opponents in one of the heavier weight classes, he stepped onto the mat 24 times that season.

He was pinned 22 times. He didn’t win a single match he competed in.

But Williams stuck with it. The guy who couldn’t win a match as a freshman didn’t lose as a senior. He went 50-0 and won a Florida state championship in his final prep season.

The remarkable transformation of Williams continued as he then landed a spot on the U.S. World Team in Greco-Roman wrestling.

Still relatively inexperienced on the Senior level against international opponents, Williams didn’t shy away from setting lofty goals as he represented the USA in the 211.5-pound class at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

“I want to win a World title,” Williams said. “That’s the goal. My focus is on being the best. I want to be No. 1.”

The goals Williams sets now have changed dramatically since his rude introduction to wrestling as a prep freshman.

“It was a terrible experience – not being any good and losing all of those matches,” he said. “A lot of guys would have walked away after getting their butt kicked like that. I had never encountered anything that difficult. There were a million times I wanted to quit.

“I eventually started setting little, little tiny goals like not getting pinned or just trying to get one takedown in a match. I kept working and tried to stay positive. Gradually, I started to get better.”

Williams continued to wrestle and train that summer, making significant improvements in his sophomore year of high school. He finished with a record just under .500.

“Coach Ballard stuck with me and pushed me,” Williams said. “His coaching was a balance of being supportive and being hard on me. The program didn’t have much of a legacy – a lot of the wrestlers were brand new to the sport, like I was.”

Williams made another big jump in his junior season as a Pirate, finishing third at the state tournament before capturing a state title as a senior.

“I felt like the state title was overdue because I thought I should’ve won it the year before,” Williams said. “It was a great feeling to see how far I had come. I was floating on air when I won a state title.”

He accepted a college scholarship offer from past U.S. World Team Greco-Roman wrestler Jason Loukides at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, an NCAA Division I school.

Williams earned a spot in the starting lineup as a redshirt freshman during the 2010-11 season, earning Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honors while qualifying for the NCAA Championships in Philadelphia.

Just three days before the start of the NCAA tournament, the UNC-Greensboro team was called into a meeting with Athletic Director Kim Record. It was announced that the school was dropping wrestling.

Instead of transferring, Williams and a number of his teammates elected to stay at UNC-Greensboro, and Loukides offered to continue to coach wrestlers in Greco-Roman wrestling. Williams chose to stay in Greensboro with Loukides and the YES Wrestling Club.

He jumped onto the Senior circuit in Greco-Roman wrestling and made a quick impact. He placed third in the New York AC International in 2011 before winning the event in 2012.

Williams, at the age of 22 in 2013, became an E-4 in the Colorado Army National Guard and brought that resilience to the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG).

William’s career highlights include being a four-time U.S. World Team member, a two-time U.S. Open champion (2014, 2015), 2016 Armed Forces champion, a 2012 University World Team member, and a 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials runner-up.

– Craig Sesker of USA Wrestling contributed to this report

THE 2025 SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME Banquet and Induction Ceremony will occur at Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne on Saturday, May 24. FOR INFORMATION about the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame, or to make a reservation, e-mail Contact@SpaceCoastDaily.com or call 321-615-8111.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MEMBERS OF THE SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME

The 2025 Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame induction dinner and ceremony is presented by Tom and Suzie Wasdin

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA—The Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame selection committee announced that the 2025 induction ceremony will occur on Saturday, May 24, at Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne. This will be the first in-person induction since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame induction dinner and ceremony, sponsored by Health First and presented by Tom and Suzie Wasdin, will be held on the evening of May 24. The Meet-and-Greet will begin at 6 p.m., and dinner and the program will start at 7 p.m.

Tom and Suzie Wasdin are longtime Brevard County entrepreneurs, community supporters, and philanthropists. Tom, an NCAA Final Four basketball coach and Brevard Sports Ambassador, was inducted into the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.

The meet-and-greet will include an opportunity to talk with the area’s sports royalty. Dinner and the induction proceeding, which will include compelling video tributes to each inductee, will follow.

The Brevard County High School Breakfast of Champions recognition awards will be held Saturday, May 24, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., also at Eastern Florida State College.

During the Breakfast of Champions, more than 40 awards will be presented to the best of the 2024-2025 male and female high school student-athletes in each sport. For sponsorship information, call 321-323-4460 or e-mail Contact@SpaceCoastDaily.com.

Both the Breakfast of Champions and the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame events will be streamed live on Space Coast Daily TV.

Health First, Erdman Automotive, Eastern Florida State College, All Points, Clear Choice Health Care, Brevard Public Schools, Space Coast Office of Tourism, EDC of the Space Coast, 4Ever Young Merritt Island, and Savings Safari sponsor the 2025 Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame induction event and the Brevard County High School Breakfast of Champions recognition awards.

To make a reservation for the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony, e-mail Contact@SpaceCoastDaily.com or call 321-323-4460.

INDUCTEES SELECTED IN FOUR CATEGORIES

Nominees are chosen in four categories: professional sports, college sports, high school sports, and amateur sports. Special honorary recognition is also bestowed upon individuals and groups that have made significant contributions to sports on the Space Coast.

SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME CLASS OF 2025

■ PROFESSIONAL CATEGORY INDUCTEES: Jamel Dean, Football; Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Wrestling; Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, Football; Randy Pobst, Auto racing; Juwaan Taylor, Football

■ COLLEGE CATEGORY INDUCTEES: Paulette King, Basketball, Dylan Lewis, Soccer; Steve Freeman, Soccer; Bryan Cook, Baseball

■ PREP CATEGORY INDUCTEES: Lexy Denaburg, Volleyball; Andi Sellers, Soccer; Kaira Simmons, Track & Field; Jayvan Boggs, Football

■ AMATEUR/RECREATION CATEGORY INDUCTEE: Alli Penovich, Free Diving; Peter Blount, Track & Field; Caylor Williams, Wrestling

■ COACHING CATEGORY INDUCTEES: Doug Butler, Cross Country and Track; Gerald Hodgin, Football; Jim Oler, Basketball; Don Smith, Basketball

• SPORTS OFFICIAL INDUCTEES: Ted Ruta

• SPORTS JOURNALISM INDUCTEES: Steve Vaughn

• SPORTS DEVELOPMENT INDUCTEE: Loren McClanahan

■ LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT INDUCTEES: Larry Garrison, Clint Hurdle

■ SPORTS AMBASSADOR AWARD INDUCTEE: Rusty Buchanan

■ CHALLENGER AWARD INDUCTEE: Joshua Dillon

■ TEAM OF THE YEAR: Cocoa Tigers Football

■ LEGACY CHAMPIONS: Merritt Island Baseball, 1999-2000

■ SPECIAL TRIBUTE: Tim Wakefield

Space Coast Daily created the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 and has inducted over 200 of Brevard County’s most outstanding athletes, coaches, and sports personalities. Eastern Florida State’s Titan Fieldhouse on the Melbourne Campus hosts the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame. Portraits of the Hall of Famers are displayed on the wall in the building’s main hallway, which runs parallel to the gym and outside the athletic department offices.

To make a reservation for the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony, e-mail Contact@SpaceCoastDaily.com or call 321-323-4460.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE MEMBERS OF THE SPACE COAST SPORTS HALL OF FAME

SPACE COAST DAILY TV: Tim Wakefield talks about his induction into the first class of the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame. Space Coast Daily created the Space Coast Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 and has so far inducted more than 200 of Brevard County’s most outstanding athletes, coaches, and sports personalities.

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