Cannon Begay battles back from broken vertebra to place fifth at state

Posted by Navajo Times | Apr 2, 2026 | Wrestling |

By Jalen Woody
Special to the Times

WINDOW ROCK

After a fractured vertebra in his lower back sidelined him for a season and a half, Cannon Begay fought his way back to the mat and finished fifth at the 2026 AIA Arizona State Championship in the Division I boys 287-pound class.

The Mountain View High School senior from Mesa, Arizona, returned to competition knowing the injury had not healed the way he had hoped, then closed his final season with a state medal.

Begay comes from a family known for athletics. His older brother Kimball won a state wrestling title in 2019 at Page High School, and his older sister Mikaye won a state basketball championship there in 2016. Begay is Bit’ahnii and born for Tł’ízíłání. His cheii is Bilagáana and his nálí is Tsé Deeshgizhnii.

His setback began during his sophomore year. Begay noticed pain in his lower back between football and wrestling season, and a medical checkup showed he had fractured his L5 vertebra. He stopped competing and missed the entire wrestling season that year.

“I was really sad because I love watching him (Cannon) play football and wrestle,” Kimball said. “All his friends play football, and they wrestle. It was sad seeing that he couldn’t really spend time with them. The year he sat out in football his team made it to the 6A state finals and he wasn’t part of it.”

In October 2024, during his junior year, rescans showed the injury was not healing and was getting worse. Even so, he later chose to return to sports after missing one football season and one wrestling season.

“A big motivation to return to sports was just that I wanted to be at sports,” Begay said. “I wanted to be a state placer. I wanted to be a varsity football player just like my brother, Kimball, and my other brother, Rigdon. I knew that both those seasons out from football and wrestling were a step back.”

Begay did not play football during his junior year, but he returned before wrestling season and had to make up for lost time. He said the decision came with risk. Doctors laid out the possibility that the injury could worsen and that the back pain might stay with him. Begay chose to compete anyway.

“There are injuries. But then there’s injuries like his, he essentially broke his back. It’s pretty significant,” Begay’s wrestling coach Corey Anderson said. “A lot to come back from and he was able to do it. He was just excited to come back and finally do something when he got the opportunity that I think he really took advantage of it.”

Before the season, Begay spent the summer in the gym rebuilding strength and size. He lifted with the team, worked to regain muscle, and got himself back into shape for competition. After a year and a half away, he returned to the mat knowing he was behind in experience but determined to find out what he could still become.

“That was just kind of like a shell of what I was or what I could have been my junior year,” Begay said. “I was just going to practice, lifting weights with the team, eating as much as I could. I bulked up a lot. I got a lot of muscle mass, and I became a good-sized lineman.”

By the end of his senior season, that work had carried him to the state tournament podium. For Begay, the fifth-place finish was more than a result. It was proof that his time away did not end the goals he had set for himself when the injury first forced him out of sports.

“I didn’t have enough energy to just be worrying about my back all the time,” Begay said.

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