Local wrestling clubs' big wins at state tourney sweetened by return of coach from deployment, support from community – County 17

GILLETTE, Wyo. — Just when four local youth wrestlers thought it couldn’t get any better than winning their state wrestling championship matches in three different styles, it did. Their longtime coach Danny Provost, who is attached to a long and storied Gillette wrestling family, returned just in time from military deployment to watch them do it.

When Provost, head coach of Touch of Gold Wrestling in Gillette, got the call to ship out on deployment for the Wyoming National Guard’s Alpha Battery 2-300th Field Artillery Regiment, he wasted no time to get out there and serve his country. Meanwhile, the kids he had been coaching from a young age to be elite youth wrestlers were left to pick up the pieces with an interim coach and a hunger to take home big wins anyway.

Coach JR Draper held it down and steered the right course for 16-year-old Wyatt Mason and 14-year-old’s Tarren Sarver, Paxton Steinmetz and Burke Malyurek to take a Triple Crown, a championship win in three different categories: Folkstyle, Freestyle and Greco. Simply put, what they accomplished was no small feat.

To make the win even sweeter, Coach Provost was relieved of his duties just in time to see his wrestler’s compete. He said that, when he was given the chance to travel, there was no place in the world he would have rather gone.

“That’s a blessing,” Provost said. “And the fact that the dates lined up to where I was able to go — that’s awesome.”

Having been a wrestler himself, being able to see those athletic dreams continue to come to fruition for his students was also quite something to see for the coach, who had been gone for the kids’ entire season.

“I know what it’s like to want to succeed and I know what it’s like when you finally get success,” Provost said. “I also know what its like when you’re not really succeeding. That’s when it’s not too fun. Now, we’re winning matches.”

That’s a big thing in Gillette, where there exists a wrestling culture and tradition so far unmatched by anywhere else in the state. From the youth club level to high school and college, Gillette lives and breathes wrestling. For Provost, that culture is the culmination of the effort of the city’s athletes, parents, coaches and fans.

“It’s just something that’s built into us. We have a passion for it,” Provost said. “The other thing is fan support, too. Our home tournament we have is always packed.”

And the culture extends not only to the wrestlers who rose up and grabbed the coveted Triple Crown, but to the rest of Touch of Gold’s athletes and the athletes of other local clubs like Camel Kids.

Multiple athletes from Touch of Gold have taken the state tournament’s Governor’s Award in years past. This time around, Lucas and Jacob Stirling of Camel Kids took home the award.

Camel Kids Treasurer and longtime wrestling parent Terrisa Henry said that achievements like that are highlighted, not by individual accomplishment, but how the wrestling community of Gillette as a whole can come together and support its athletes.

“In recent years Gillette has really come together as a wrestling community,’ Henry said. “Our clubs have come together to build a hard working group of wrestler that have great promise to fill the junior and high school wrestling rooms.”

She noted how support for fellow athletes extends off the mat, too. It isn’t an uncommon sight at tournaments around Wyoming to see Gillette wrestlers from across all the community’s clubs cheering each other on.

“Each match our wrestlers had a whole corner of fellow wrestlers supporting their teammates,” Henry said. “Often in this sport it is seen as individual, but when they come together and support each other, that is what makes this sport the best!”

Touch of Gold President Molly Wass said the same thing. Regardless of who wins what, these kids are going out and putting everything on the mat to compete and grow and have fun with each other.

“Yes, it’s a very individual sport when you’re out there and you are the only one you’re relying on, but then to see the support of your teammates, whether or not its an eight-year-old out there wrestling, you’ll have teammates galore out there cheering them on,” Wass said. “The camaraderie that goes along with it is amazing.”

And whether its reigning in multiple styles, the ecstasy taking home a big award or just seeing your old coach for the first time in a while, the heart of wrestling comes from moments more than it does from trophies, and supporting that can take a village.

“We’re just lucky that we’re able to work well together, and the ultimate goal is to do what’s best for the kids,” Wass said.

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