LAS VEGAS (AP) – As Brandon Paulson dragged himself back to his Minnesota home after a marathon-length finals match in the U.S. Olympic wrestling trials in May 2004, waiting on his front doorstep was a high school coach begging for help.

The coach had a 14-year-old named Jake Deitchler who loved to wrestle but needed advanced help – even if Paulson, a 1996 Olympic silver medalist, was only beginning to recover from an exhausting loss in the final bout of his career.

“It’s a funny story. He was right there in my driveway – he (coach Todd Springer) said he’s got an unbelievable kid, but didn’t know what to do with him,” Paulson said. “He said the kid wants more and more and more. The kid ended up hooking me, because he’s got an unbelievable passion for the sport.”

Four years later, what more could Deitchler ask for?

That eager-to-learn kid is headed to Beijing as one of the youngest U.S. Olympic wrestlers in history, an 18-year-old in a sport where champions in their mid-30s are common. It’s the kind of every-four-years story that isn’t supposed to happen but, against all odds, somehow gets written by a determined, visionary Olympic athlete who refuses to listen to those saying he’s too young, not good enough or unrealistic in his goals.

Not many outside the tiny world of amateur wrestling had heard of the 18-year-old before he beat one of the world’s best Greco-Roman wrestlers, two-time world bronze medalist Harry Lester, in Saturday night’s 145-pound U.S. trials semifinals.

About an hour later, Deitchler defeated two-time former Turkish champion Faruk Sahin in the finals.

“Harry Lester, I thought, could win a gold medal for us in Beijing, for sure. He’s that good,” U.S. Greco-Roman coach Steve Fraser said Sunday. “He (Deitchler) did it on his conditioning, he outwrestled everybody, he was in everybody’s face. He got Harry Lester tired, he got Faruk Sahin tired. That’s how you beat a guy who has better skills, you take him out of his game and get him tired.”

Maybe Deitchler saw this coming, although no one else did – even if Deitchler was the surprise No. 2 finisher in the U.S. nationals in April, days after he graduated from high school.

“I believe I can do anything,” said Deitchler, who celebrated his Olympic trials title by dropping to his knees and raising his fists high in the air.

Last fall, before starting his senior year at Anoka (Minn.) High, Deitchler had two Chinese characters tattooed under his right armpit – with his mom’s permission, of course. They stand for “God, warrior, wrestler.”

A few weeks before, he had wrestled in the world junior championships in Beijing, in the very arena where he will compete in the Olympics in August. He lost his first match in the junior worlds; the competition in two months will be immeasurably harder.

Paulson played a major role in getting Deitchler there, but there were many other factors at play, too, in perhaps the most intriguing tale in amateur wrestling since Rulon Gardner’s Olympics upset-of-a-lifetime over the supposedly unbeatable Alexander Karelin in 2000.

First, the new kid on the mat had an intense work ethic and skill level uncommon for someone who began specializing in Greco-Roman only two years ago. Unlike the folkstyle wrestling of U.S. high schools, Greco-Roman permits no holds below the waist.

“He won a high school state championship, and the next day he’s on our (U.S. training center) mat in Colorado Springs,” Fraser said. “Every chance he can come and get better, he’s there. He’s already told us he wants to come in early for the Olympics.”

Second, Deitchler is blessed with the kind of quickness and on-his-feet improvisational skills that can’t be taught. Third, he is a thrower nonpareil who, while kindergarten-aged in experience compared to most Olympic wrestlers, already has the uncommon ability to throw an opponent for big points while in a defensive position.

“He’s a phenomenal athlete,” Paulson said. “When he’s down, he’s got to score points, he’s so competitive.”

Deitchler credits that to being fresh out of high school wrestling, in which there is far more scrambling than in Greco-Roman, where wrestlers often lock up face-to-face in confined quarters. Deitchler won his final 111 high school matches.

“For some reason I can do it (score while on bottom) to a lot of people,” Deitchler said.

According to governing body USA Wrestling, only two other high schoolers previously made the Olympic team, Greco-Roman wrestler Mike Farina in 1976 and freestyle sensation Jimmy Carr in 1972.

Few other wrestling nations would allow this to happen, a potential gold medalist bumped from the Games by a mere kid. Symbolizing the American sporting tradition of winning one’s way to a championship, Deitchler wasn’t legislated onto the Olympic team but earned his position.

“It’s a big surprise. I think it was a surprise to everybody,” Fraser said. “But the kid’s got some great hunger and I know he’s going to go to the Olympics and wrestle his heart out.”