Official Erin Whiting ID: What the Young Teach US

By Erin Whiting, Idaho Wrestling Official

Written at RMN Events’ Smash Nationals in Bullhead City, AZ

Sometimes in life, we are placed in people’s lives but for one small moment.  Yet these moments can inspire generational course corrections. On the first weekend in December during a historic 2020, in a remote town on the Colorado River in western Arizona, I had such an event.

I have the wonderful privilege to live a lifelong dream, officiating a sport that has had a profound impact on my life. Growing up in a small farm community in Idaho during the 80’s, there was not much happening. It would be 10 years before the internet, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube were invented … and what was a cell phone? 

Wrestling was the only way to get out of class early for a bus trip to the neighboring school. More importantly, it was a way to release frustration and tension from a hormonal, actively growing body.

Along with the ability to kill time and entertain myself in a town without a single streetlight, I also found that wrestling provided other valuable benefits. Soon, I learned to take advantage of the sport as a healthy outlet to release emotional stress and pent-up energy that, 18 years later, I realized was a result of superpower ADHD.

Wrestling helped regulate those bursts of energy and, oddly enough, my relationship with my family and friends began to improve. As a result, relationships with others improved, not from what others did, but from what I was doing. 

What does all this have to do with December in Arizona some 30 years later? After stepping off the mat late in the day, having officiated all day long, I sat this older body down next to a young man who had just finished wrestling, a younger reflection it seemed of the competitor I had once been.

Without asking his name or the town he was from, I somehow knew that younger version was from Washington State. Now a senior in high school, I learned that 2020 had been a unique year for him as well.  He shared that he was just getting back into shape after being out of action following an operation that had set him back several months. 

While he was recovering from surgery, his high school team had traveled out of town and contracted Covid-19. Though he and another teammate were not on the trip, they still had to be quarantined. Shortly after being cleared, his good father brought him over a thousand miles just so he could enjoy the sport that he loved and longed to participate in. 

This year his trusted coach in another sport had been arrested for having inappropriate contact with some youth, which additionally devastated him. Fortunately, while he had not experienced the physical abuse, the emotional torment was still apparent. To add insult to injury, within the past month, another trusted adult mentor had taken his own life while struggling with life issues.  

Through all this devastation, my new friend was not about to be taken down, on or off the mat.  He had his own goals and dreams; he was going to find a way to accomplish them.

There we sat in an event center filled with 2000 wrestlers on 28 mats, all going about their activities, unaware of a chance conversation that brought the two of us to tears. 

We talked about the importance of emotional awareness, the value of good counselors who can help us through difficult situations, and the importance of knowing who we are as persons and defining what we personally value. 

We discussed how great it is to be able to wrestle but that there may be more important things than getting on the mat. The very life we live is so precious, so full of potential far greater than we can imagine, if we only dare to dream. 

As we talked, I soon realized that compared to his, my trials are not so difficult. Through sharing his story, this nameless young man full of life and enthusiasm gave me a shot in the arm, complete with the youthfulness and gratitude that I had not known I needed.

This young man, who had been so much on his journey from Washington to Arizona, made me realize the blessings in my life and the good that is all around us. 

We come from all walks, each from different situations that mold us into the people we are. Between matches, this opportune encounter helped me remember that when we forget about ourselves and focus on others and their challenges, we feel much better inside. 

At last, I realized that my five-minute break had turned into fifteen minutes. It was time to get back to work, but I returned with a renewed soul. As I stood, I wiped away tears, shared a few final tender comments, and never saw him again that weekend.   

In a remote town on the Colorado River in western Arizona on the first weekend in December, an unknown young man from Washington inspired in me a generational course correction.