Many of those who roam the halls of Wahlert go unknown and unnoticed. A perfect example of a student, who is the polar opposite of this description, is Ivan Gruhl. Those who haven’t been able to get to know Ivan have missed out on a lot.

A senior at Wahlert, Ivan is a rare mix of both fun and frustration. Although many of the students find his jokes funny, a lot of teachers can find him frustrating. Watching him in class isn’t always fun because the awkwardness between him and his teachers sometimes creeps throughout the classroom, and you can almost feel the tension.

“A big reason for my crazy personality comes from my family,” Ivan said. “I grew up in a house with four other siblings, who all have awesome, fun personalities just like me. So let’s just say we didn’t really make it easy on my parents, Ivan and Kathy Gruhl,” said Ivan.

Besides his crazy stories at home, Ivan had a different passion other than messing around with his siblings: sports. Name a sport and he probably played it. He was involved in sports like baseball, golf, and, what his family is known best for, basketball. He continued to play sports throughout his childhood and through his middle school years, up until sophomore year.

At the beginning of his sophomore year at Wahlert, Ivan was enjoying his fall season. Something that wasn’t so enjoyable was his health. “After every day of school, I would come home and just sleep,” Ivan said. Along with the added hours of sleep, were several symptoms that seemed to never go away. “After realizing this was becoming a constant cycle, I finally decided to go to a doctor to see if there was an issue with my health,” he said.

“I found out that I had type 1 diabetes,” Ivan said. Not only did this have a huge effect on him, but also on the things that he was passionate about, things like sports. There was an obvious difference in the way he performed athletically. Many of his friends and he himself noticed a decline in his stamina and energy when he was on the court, field, or course.

Although this decline seemed like it would never go away, he fought against it. He found new interests, things that were fresh in his world, and things that he could work on and improve on. These two things were soccer and weightlifting.

Beginning last year, he made weightlifting his new passion, his new drive, something he could do, and always keep improving on. Ivan has gotten a lot stronger as a result and, his health continues to improve as well. He makes sure he goes in every day of the week, and also sometimes on weekends, just because he loves to see himself improve and get stronger.

He also found a love for soccer where he has the same exact work ethic: always wanting to improve. His teammates and coaches have all seen an improvement in his skills since joining the team his sophomore year, and those skills will translate to helping the team in its upcoming season.

Whenever people hear Ivan’s  name, they usually think of his outgoing, crazy personality, and his silly fights with different teachers around the school. But what they don’t know is how much he has been through in his high school career. Everything that has happened to him has gone on behind the curtains, where nobody really sees it, but he is a true example of a person who only loves to improve while having fun doing it.