Photo courtesy of UNI Athletics: Northern Iowa's Cayd Lara, a Fort Dodge Senior High graduate, orks toward a pin on Tuesday in Florida.

Cayd Lara faces challenges every single day as a member of the University of Northern Iowa wrestling team.

The two-time Fort Dodge Senior High state runner-up would like nothing more than to simplify his complicated career on the mat. Nothing has ever come easy for Lara, who is currently fighting tooth and nail with Derek Holschlag for his spot in the Panther lineup at 157 pounds.

The 22-year-old Lara is off to a strong 12-7 start this season, recording six wins in his last seven matches. The 2018 FDSH graduate’s only loss during that period of time was to Holschlag (12-6) — a fellow hard-nosed, gutsy competitor — at the UNI Open by a 9-7 count.

The records and numbers only tell a small portion of Lara’s story, though. Injuries and adversity have always come with the territory during his time as an athlete.

In the real world, he’s been to hell and back.

Lara doesn’t spend much time dwelling on the past or advertising his health concerns. In the summer of 2019, though, he faced a battle that left his entire future — not just as a wrestler, but as a son, brother, cousin, friend — in doubt.

During a family trip to Colorado, Lara — who was born with sickle-cell anemia — fell ill. Lara and his mother, Jamie, quickly returned home to Fort Dodge, where doctors put him on medication to try and combat the sudden symptoms.

A few days into the fall semester of Lara’s redshirt freshman year at UNI, he came home, not feeling any better. On Sept. 2 of 2019 — after a battery of tests — doctors at Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames decided to remove Lara’s spleen.

The surgery didn’t go as planned. Lara’s body didn’t stabilize, and after doctors discovered he had a cut in his small intestine, Lara went into septic shock. Both of his lungs had collapsed, and he was also dealing with a staph infection. He was transferred into the ICU, suddenly fighting for his life.

Lara was eventually transferred from Ames to Iowa City, where he spent weeks in the ICU there. By the time he was in the relative clear and allowed to return home to Fort Dodge weeks later, he’d shed nearly 40 pounds from his then-180 pound frame.

I vividly remember Cayd sitting with me in the Dodger Stadium press box for a FDSH football game later that fall. It was Cayd — easy conversationalist, big heart, inquisitive mind — but it wasn’t Cayd. Always an impressive physical specimen, he looked fragile and, to a certain extent, defeated. The three prior months had really taken a toll on him, and he wasn’t sure what the future held for him as a Div. I athlete.

A few months later, after patient rehabilitation and recovery, Lara was finally cleared for full-time physical activity. His return coincided with the arrival of the global pandemic, though, meaning the spring and summer of 2020 didn’t allow for the full or normal training regimen he desperately needed.

These days, Lara is “back” — relatively speaking. He has physically and mentally recovered from the trauma of 28 months ago, but his body may never again reach the levels of his 2018-19 redshirt season. There have been other injuries — three knee scopes, a torn labrum and a damaged AC joint, suffered during his first week back from the forced eight-month hiatus — that have complicated matters even further. Lara refuses to complain or make excuses. He just keeps grinding away.

Lara has found peace in his educational endeavors. The construction management major at UNI hit the books hard this fall, securing the first 4.0 semester of his collegiate career.

If you’re looking for a student-athlete to openly root for this winter, Cayd is your guy. There’s no telling what the future holds for him on the mat, but for everything he’s gone through away from it, the love he has for his hometown and the perspective and maturity he now carries, no one is more worthy of experiencing a breakthrough moment.

Even if it doesn’t fully materialize in wrestling for whatever reason, Cayd Lara will be a difference-maker in life. Soon. Success as a Panther athlete was once his main motivation. These days, it would be more like the icing on the cake.

Eric Pratt is Sports Editor at The Messenger. Contact him via email at sports@messengernews.net, or on Twitter @ByEricPratt