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In the history of NCAA athletics, there may not be a championship as unlikely, extraordinary and inspiring as Anthony Robles’ 2011 individual wrestling national championship at the 125-pound weight class — accomplishing the already remarkable feat with only one leg.

Robles’ story is captured in the new film “Unstoppable” that plays in the Isis Theatre as part of Aspen Filmfest on Friday at 5 p.m. The film stars Jennifer Lopez as Robles’ mother and Don Cheadle as his wrestling coach and was produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

The Aspen Daily News spoke to Robles from his home in Arizona about his life and about the new film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Aspen Daily News: Let’s take it back to the beginning. Where did you grow up? 

Anthony Robles: I was born in California, but I grew up in Mesa Arizona. We moved out here when I was 14 years-old and that’s when I got introduced to wrestling. I’ve been in Arizona ever since.

ADN: You eschewed the prosthetic leg when you were very young, like 3 years old. What do you recall about growing up and dealing with your situation? I don’t want to call it a disability because you have never treated it like one. 

Robles: I refer to it as my challenge. That’s what my mom always called it. We tried off-and-on with the prosthetic leg. But for me, I just remember wanting to be like everybody else, to get around as quick as I could, run around with all the other little kids and I felt like the prosthetic leg just weighed me down. I couldn’t keep up with everybody else and I felt like using the crutches was my perfect outlet. They were more comfortable to me. It was more my style. And so my mom was like, “It’s your decision,” and when she gave me that choice I ditched the prosthetic leg and I never looked back on it.

ADN: Kids are mean. Did you get teased at all? 

Robles: There were instances where kids teased me or said things, especially kids who didn’t have the experience of being around someone different, someone who’s missing a leg. So it was difficult growing up. There was some hard times but my strength always came from going back home to my family because they didn’t treat me any differently and my mom always told me that God made me this way for a reason and having that reassurance back home gave me that strength and the ability to keep fighting forward. It gave me strength and confidence.

ADN: Tell me about your home life. Do you have siblings?

Robles: I have three brothers and one sister, all younger. Growing up we were all very close. They never treated me any differently and they all had the same mentality handed down from my mom that missing a leg was never gonna hold me back in life. I just saw things as a puzzle at times. Whether it’s riding a bike, carrying things with my hands — It was never that I couldn’t do it. It was just about, “how can I make this work in my way, how can I do it my way?

ADN: You mentioned riding a bike, that must have been a life changer in terms of getting around. 

Robles: I gotta give a huge shout out to my mom. We got one of those foot pockets where you slide your foot into the pocket and it holds your toe as you move up and down. That was my way of using the bike. And that first time I fell quite a bit. My mom just backed me up the whole time and picked me back up and I did it over and over and over again until I figured it out. I got the bike for my birthday. But it was huge. The kids in the neighborhood would be out all day long riding bikes all over the place. It was definitely a freeing experience for me. I felt just like all the other kids, so it was awesome.

ADN: At what point did you decide that you wanted to be an athlete and what was it about wrestling that drew you in?

Robles: I love sports. We always watched the Raiders on Sunday. I played flag football in sixth and seventh grade and then we moved to Arizona … right before my freshman year started and I didn’t know anybody. I had no friends but my cousin lived in Tucson which was about an hour and a half away from Mesa and he started to drag me to his wrestling practices and to the gym. One day, he encouraged me to step out on the mat and I got thrown around. But what I loved about wrestling was that it was just me out there which was kind of strange for someone who just wanted to fit in. It gave me the power to control the narrative of my life. It was a constant fight for me to show the world that it didn’t matter what I didn’t have and wrestling just gave me that platform and that spotlight to really show them, “Hey, look at me for what I have, not for what I’m lacking for what I’m missing.” I felt like it was my opportunity to show people what I was truly capable of, and I loved the physicality of it.

ADN: Was there any kind of natural leverage you were able to get, was there something that was actually an advantage for you? 

Robles: Starting off, everything was a disadvantage because I actually had to figure out how to do the moves completely differently. Luckily I was blessed with a great coach, especially my high school coach, Bobby Williams who said, “We’re gonna focus on your strengths and camouflage your weaknesses. Everyone’s thinking your leg is a weakness, but you have certain strengths.”

One of them was, being on crutches my entire life, my grip strength and my upper body was solid even though I was light. I was only 90 pounds as a 14 year-old wrestling in the 103-pound weight class. I had this natural upper body strength so we just figured out little by little over time how to create a style that worked for my natural abilities, dropping lower to the mat, getting control when they tried to grab me, things like that.

But that just came about just by trial and error, going out there and and basically losing a bunch, but coming away with notes and data that said, “OK, you know this isn’t working, but this is. This is a possibility. Let’s pursue that, let’s build on that.” And so, little by little really, It became an advantage in a way because I could train for my opponents, a lot of whom were tall. I could just grab a tall teammate. I could train for my opponents who are stocky or well conditioned, but there was nobody that could mimic my style of wrestling in the wrestling world. No one could get as low as I could and find the angles that I could and things like that. So that really became an advantage for me, especially mentally, just knowing there’s no one that could do what I could do.

ADN: What are the lessons that wrestling teaches?

Robles: Wrestling teaches accountability, self confidence, humility, mental toughness, having grit, being willing to stick through a butt kicking and keep fighting, keep standing back up and those things. Those are great lessons I learned that I’ve been able to apply in my everyday life. And I think it’s very useful especially for the youth coming up these days. There’s so many things out there, social media, always caring about what people say about you and bullying. Wrestling gives you these tools that allow you to overcome things in your life, and it 100% helped me.

ADN: What was your lowest moment? Can you point to a moment where you contemplated giving up? 

Robles: There was a specific point, and they show a version of this in the movie about what happened. It was my junior year of college and I fell short of my goal of being a national champion. I lost in an earlier round and it really broke me because I was dealing with a lot of personal issues at home and mentally I was just tired. I was drained and I had put so much work and time into wrestling to fall short. It was heartbreaking for me. I didn’t know if I was gonna come back my senior year. I was really considering walking away and one of the things that inspired me to come back was when I received a big package in the mail and it was full of letters from a group of third graders and they were writing me as their “Hero of the Week.”

Their teacher had shared my story with them. They had seen some video clips and after I lost they decided to write me as their “Hero of the Week” and shared with me how my story inspired them to overcome their challenges. And that motivated me to come back one more year because I felt like I was wrestling for more than just a trophy. I was wrestling for more than just my own goals. It was about these kids. It was about others out there who were wrestling with things in their lives and just showing them what unstoppable is all about. So I was extremely motivated to come back for more than just myself.

ADN: Who were your inspirations? Who motivated you and inspired you when you were young?

Robles: The people that motivated me were my high school coach, Bobby Williams, and my Arizona State coaches, but above everyone else my hero and my motivation was always my mom. She was the one who always encouraged me. I have a little boy. He’s gonna be two in December. I’m in awe of how she raised me and my siblings, always teaching us to believe in ourselves, to give our very best. So my mom is always the one I looked up to. It wasn’t an athlete. It was her.

ADN: Were you raised by a single mom, or was there a father figure in your life?

Robles: I never met my biological father. My former stepfather came into the picture when I was probably around 3 or 4 years old. But as people will see in the film, it’s more than just about wrestling on the mat. It’s about wrestling through life’s challenges, and one of those challenges was him. He wasn’t the best father figure. He wasn’t the best husband. There was somewhat of an abusive relationship there. So unfortunately, growing up I didn’t really have a dad that I could look up to and respect and admire as a man that I wanted to be one day which is why I really just looked up to my mom because she was in a lot of ways my mom and my dad put together.

ADN: What do you hope that people will take away from the movie?

Robles: I hope they take away just this one word: unstoppable. I think they’re going to be pleasantly surprised that this isn’t just a sports movie. Wrestling is just a portion of it. What I say is, we all wrestle through things. It can be a flesh and blood opponent, or it could be a physical challenge like a missing leg. It can be wrestling with an abusive parent. There’s always something. Everyone has an opponent. But what I want the audience to walk away from watching this film is that no matter what they’re wrestling and no matter what they encounter, It’s all about your mentality. It’s all about how you approach the challenges that you’re facing. Are you focused on what you can’t do in your life and what’s not there? Or are you focused on the possibilities, the opportunities, what you have at your disposal? You can overcome anything in your life, but it starts and it ends with your mentality. That’s what unstoppable is. It’s your mindset. We’re all unstoppable.