Life sometimes has a way of getting the best out of us. In the case of Vic Watts life has done just that up to this point.

Vic Watts is a 2010 graduate of Leeds High School.  He was a part of the 2008 State Championship, the first football state title in Leeds football history.  Watts helped lead the Green Wave to the fourth round of playoffs where Leeds lost a heartbreaker to Piedmont.  Going into his senior year, Watts was dealt his first of quite a few blows with the death of his father.  He managed to finish strong the rest of his senior year at Leeds in baseball despite the emotional setback. 

Watts would later make the decision to serve his country and join the United Stated Army.  His mind was focused fully on being ready for Army basic training when he arrived.  For eight months he got up at 4:30 a.m. and worked out hard, went to work for nine hours and then ran in the afternoons.  That mindset and training paid off rather quickly when he got to basic.  Only two weeks in, he became leader of his platoon and carried the flag at his graduation.  Success had finally started coming Vic’s way. 

Shortly after Watts was set up at his base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, he was sent to his first deployment in Afghanistan.  He was hit once again with two big life blows.  His then wife decided to file for divorce and he suffered an injury.  Those two things combined would have gotten the best out of most people, but not Vic Watts.  He overcame the adversity and got bigger and stronger mentally and physically from it.

Watts was later shipped out on his second tour to Afghanistan, but once again just before his time was up to be over there, he suffered yet another injury, this time to his head.  That set up a severe case of depression and anxiety.  The doctors at Fort Campbell helped bring Vic out of a very, very low point in his life.  However, just as things finally started looking up, life happened one more time.  Vic received a phone call that no one wants to receive.  He was told that his mom had been hit by someone and had passed away from it.  That was a crushing blow.  But as always, when life knocked Vic down in the ring, he rose back up.  Vic gave a very powerful and moving eulogy for his mom’s funeral.  He left Leeds feeling hurt and alone at times.  But once again Vic got up.

After being medically and honorably discharged from the Army, Vic enrolled at Austin Peay University in Clarkesville, Tennessee and walked on to play football.  After one year he left there and moved back to his hometown of Leeds and enrolled at Miles College.  He will be playing football but Watts has discovered something that he has been blessed and built for, and something that has given him new life after all of the blows life has given him and that’s bodybuilding.

If you’ve ever seen Vic, he is a pretty put together young man.  He has decided to show off his hard earned muscles on stage.  During Father’s Day weekend in June of this year Watts decided to put his hat in the ring for his first Bodybuilding competition to see where he stood.  His first show was in Houston, Texas at the Summer Shredding Classic held by Instagram sensation Christian Guzman. Vic held his own and walked away with a victory.  Not a bad way to start his bodybuilding career.

One month later Watts competed in the Clash at The Capstone Bodybuilding Competition.  There was some great competition in this show, but once again Watts’s talent stood out.  He won his first division.  He threw his hat in the ring against some big and veteran competition in Open Bodybuilding.  The young man finished fourth over all in that division.  It was a sample of the kind of competition Watt’s will face on a regular basis. 

If you want to come and watch Vic Watt’s in action, there will be a show this Saturday Night in Birmingham. It is the 2018 NPC Champions, held at Double Tree Hotel.   He will have a quick turn around and compete in the State Championships in Gadsden held at Gadsden City High School on Saturday August 25.  Each of the NPC shows will be steps closer to him getting his pro card. 

This just goes to show, life will knock you down, the real thing is if you stay down and wallow in your sorrows, or do you get up swinging.  Vic Watts got up flexing.