NAMPA − Few wrestlers in Idaho history have won state championships in two different classifications.
Fewer still have done it in consecutive years. And only one — Madison junior McGregor Miller — has done it on one and a half feet.
Miller did so by tech-falling Lake City’s James Vincent 16-1 in the Class 6A 215-pound final at the Idaho High School State Wrestling Championships on Feb. 28 at the Ford Idaho Center. It came a year after he won the 4A title at South Fremont, becoming what is believed to be the first amputee state wrestling champion in Idaho history.
“When you see your son excel at this level despite an injury like this, it kind of replaces a little bit of that broken heart as a parent,” said his father, Justin Miller, after watching his son make history again. “He is continually beating the odds, getting better, meeting his dreams. In some aspects, I would never trade any of it for his foot back.”
He didn’t always feel that way.
Justin and his wife were at a friend’s wedding when his phone rang.
His stomach dropped.
There had been an accident. McGregor’s grandfather had been mowing the lawn when the then 4-year-old ran behind him. He didn’t see his grandson until it was too late.
When he backed up, the lawnmower blade severed McGregor’s left foot in half. By the time they got to the hospital, all they could do was wait and wonder what their 4-year-old’s life would look like now.
“It was our worst nightmare as parents — your worst nightmare when your kid gets hurt,” Justin said. “It was a total accident. There’s no blame. It’s just kind of emotional when your 4-year-old kid gets hurt like that.”
Eighteen surgeries over six months followed.
The surgeons at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City worked to salvage what they could — essentially a heel and nothing more. No midfoot. No toes. Just a heel and skin grafts. When doctors spoke to the Millers about McGregor’s future, the questions outnumbered the answers. Would he run? Would he play sports? What would be off limits?
But they didn’t know their son.
"He was the kid that was absolutely full of energy. If any kid had undaunted heart, it was McGregor,” Justin said. “So if this accident was going to happen to anyone and they were going to be able to handle it, it was McGregor."
That was evident when the minute doctors cleared him to get back on his feet, he ran through his cast. Over and over again. McGregor never took no for an answer. In PE classes at school, he ran himself bloody trying to win races. Even now, when his school holds mile runs, McGregor pushes himself to the edge trying to be as fast as he can.
“My mentality is, ‘This is what cards I’m dealt. I’m gonna deal with it, and I’m not gonna let myself lose because of this,’” McGregor said.
That mentality eventually led him to wrestling.
He didn’t start wrestling until the fifth grade. But former South Fremont coach Rhett Banta saw something in him. A coach among many others in St. Anthony that McGregor credits for building the foundation of the wrestler he is today.
Banta invited McGregor to join the Upper Valley Aces, the club program that shaped him into the wrestler he is today.
But first, they needed to solve a problem.
When McGregor started wrestling, he wore a regular wrestling shoe on his right foot and his everyday prosthetic shoe on the left — a short, stubby shoe with a really flat, hard rubber bottom. It provided stability for walking on hard surfaces, but on a wrestling mat, it was a liability. No flex. No pliability. No grip.
“You use your toes and the front part of your foot to do all your takedowns, to push off, to drive with, and he doesn’t have that,” Banta said. “So that was something he had to work through.”
The family found a company in Oregon that specialized in custom footwear. Through trial and error — baseball cleats, tennis shoes, different wrestling shoe designs — they eventually landed on the current version. It’s a shoe that extends up McGregor’s calf like an old boxing boot, with an inch and a half of foam at the toe for a slight push.
Each shoe costs $1,800.
The custom shoe helped solve one problem, but it couldn’t solve them all. While his teammates run sprints for conditioning, McGregor’s foot won’t allow for that. He uses the air bike instead, staying late for extra mat time to try and make up for the difference.
He still went undefeated in seventh grade until the state finals. It was the first of three consecutive state championship losses. The one as a freshman was particularly tough — a 13-3 loss to Buhl’s Gabe Finley in the 4A 195-pound final. Finley finished a perfect 54-0 that year. But to McGregor, it didn’t matter.
“I left it on top of my shelf in my room,” McGregor said about his runner-up medal. “I don’t like looking at that medal — I actually hate it — but I leave it on a shelf. I look at it every once in a while just to remind myself why I’m working so hard in the practice room.”
But last year, he replaced that medal with something a little more his style.
He once again made the 4A 215-pound final, this time facing defending state champion Quinn Hood of Fruitland. Hood had beaten McGregor twice that season, including pinning him at the Rollie Lane Invitational.
But since then, McGregor had gotten up at 5:30 every morning to shadow wrestle, visualizing one last shot at Hood in the state championship match. For an entire month, he wrestled Hood in his mind. Working through shots. Defending shots. Running through scenarios.
When the real match came, McGregor executed his game plan perfectly.
The first round ended 0-0. Hood escaped to go up 1-0 in the second. Then McGregor hit a snag single, picked Hood entirely off the mat and put him on his back. Hood escaped, but McGregor led 3-2 heading into the third.
With 12 seconds left and him clinging to a 4-2 lead, Hood shot in deep. McGregor hit the mat, gripping Hood’s legs tight. The whistle blew. Fruitland’s coaches shouted for a takedown. The refs huddled, deliberating. Then came the wave-off. No takedown.
So McGregor was finally a state champion.
“With half a foot, it comes with so many challenges that most people don’t even realize,” said South Fremont sophomore Grayson Packer, who won back-to-back state titles. “So it was really good for him to finally get that win.”
This past summer, McGregor transferred to Madison.
He did so not for athletics but for medical reasons. His orthopedic doctor recommended moving to a bigger school with more resources to monitor his foot as he continued to compete and grow.
“Definitely a lot of mixed feelings. Sad to leave teammates, friends and schoolmates that I’ve basically been raised with,” McGregor said about leaving. “I love South Fremont. I don’t have anything ill against it. It’s great. I wish them all the best.”
The transition proved smoother than expected.
McGregor had attended Madison’s summer camps the past two years, so his new teammates already knew him. His work ethic and quiet confidence made him a natural leader in the room, and his story — resonated with everyone around him.
“I think anytime a kid is fighting through any type of adversity, especially if they handle it the right way like Gregor has — never once complaining, never once using it as an excuse — I think it inspires everybody,” said Madison head coach Aaron Peterson. “Everybody says, ‘Geez, I’m not dealing with that and here Gregor doesn’t complain at all.’”
Madison 120-pound junior Brand’n Edstrom echoed his coach’s sentiments.
“It’s cool to see someone who could have every reason not to wrestle, but he pushes through,” said Edstrom, who also won a state title. “I can’t make excuses when he’s doing it with half a foot.”
Especially when the one good one failed him this season.
Right before districts, he rolled his ankle. A high ankle sprain that nearly ripped a tendon. He practiced just three days before the state tournament.
He walked into the Ford Idaho Center wearing a walking boot. His ankle was at about 65%. Add in shoulder and neck nerve damage from Rollie Lane that caused repeated stingers in practice, and McGregor was far from 100%.
“I was kind of nervous,” McGregor said. “I know my level, and I know my level wins that 6A bracket, but I was kind of scared my ankle wasn’t going to hold up.”
It held up just fine.
McGregor needed just 56 seconds for a first-round pin and followed with a tech fall in the quarterfinals. That set up a semifinal showdown with Caldwell’s Liam Rodebush, who had beaten him at Rollie Lane while McGregor was still recovering from a concussion earlier in the season. This time, McGregor never trailed. He jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the second period en route to a 13-9 victory.
So the only thing standing between McGregor and a repeat was Vincent. He took him down just 39 seconds into the match. McGregor added two more takedowns, a reversal and seven nearfall points before all was said and done.
The only point Vincent managed to score was on a escape in the second round when McGregor chose to cut him lose. It all resulted in 16-1 tech fall less than a minute into the third period for back-to-back state championships — something that seemed unimaginable all those years ago in that hospital room.
“I try not to think like, ‘Well, I’m doing this with half a foot,’” he said. “Because there’s a lot of other phenomenal wrestlers and people who have done far bigger things with less than just half a foot — like missing whole legs. I just work with what I’ve got.”
McGregor (41-6) was one of four state champions for the Bobcats. The others were Edstrom, Ace Ingram (144 pounds) and Sidi Kante (285). It was a program record and the most of any team in any classification this year. Madison finished third with a program-best 213.5 points.
Two weeks later, McGregor earned All-American honors at the Folkstyle Nationals in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 15 by taking sixth at 215 pounds. It was his third All-American honor.
While feats like that continue to defy the odds, McGregor knows he can’t settle. Not when there’s a three-peat within reach.
“I can’t get lazy or sloppy or anything like that because I’m on the flip side of this story now,” McGregor said. “I’m the big dog that some underclassmen are tracking down and have their crosshairs on my back. So definitely stay disciplined, keep getting better and have a fun year.”