The social media cesspool reared its ugly head in the days following Derek Cote's first Maine Class A individual wrestling state championship.

Keyboard warriors — as Cote described them — called the then-Noble High School freshman's significant visual impairment that constitutes legal blindness fake. They accused him of possessing an unfair advantage with the slight modification to the initial start of his matches, even though his opponents lined up the same way.

Cote, now a freshman on the University of Southern Maine wrestling team, believes everyone deals with adversity, and vision is his, but also embraces the idea that his story can uplift others.  READ MORE