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The 2nd Annual Wrestle Against Autism Tournament was held on the campus of Ohio State on Saturday May, 17. The event was a fundraiser, a celebration, a chance for kids to compete, and most of all, another sign of how the wrestling community comes together to support those in and out of the sport. Read Mark Walters' recap of the event, and find out how this has touched the lives of many, now and in the future.
By Mark Walters
TWM Freelance Writer
Kayla Smith-Tolliver gave a golf wave to the crowd after accepting her medal this past Sunday. At the 2nd Annual Wrestling Against Autism Tournament held on the campus of Ohio State, in the historic St. John’s Arena, she kissed her medal and bowed. Never mind that she didn’t win any weight class, let alone wrestle in a single match, but the 4-year-old was just bubbling with joy.
Kayla has a form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. While she is intelligent beyond her years, she struggles socially. It might be hard to picture the young girl being applauded and cheered by hundreds of spectators, but according to her mother, Jessica Smith-Tolliver, she handled it well.
“I asked her, ‘Where did you come up with that?’” Smith-Tolliver said.
“Well, they did it on the Olympics, mommy,” Kayla replied. “That’s how you accept a medal.”
The medal given to Kayla was in lieu of a check that was given to her family in order to help in the purchasing of an autism-assistance dog. In addition to another family, Kayla’s family received a check worth $1,500 from the funds raised by the tournament to help buy a dog from 4 Paws for Ability, an organization that trains autism assistance dogs as well as other service dogs for people with disabilities.
“This is just a God-sent for us,” Smith-Tolliver said of being chosen to receive the check. “It was an experience for Kayla that was unreal and also was helpful for us in our fundraising efforts because this dog is very important for her and will make her quality of life so much better.”
Jeff Sitler, the tournament/committee chairman who works for the Mad River Wrestling Officials Association, used to know very little about autism. It wasn’t until he did some research about it that it hit him. In January of 2008 Sitler contacted the Ohio State head wrestling coach, Tom Ryan, and told him he was doing a charity tournament and that he would like Ryan’s help. Ryan wanted to do autism. His sister, Kim Ryan-Debrowski, has an autistic son named Ethan.
Ryan-Debrowski founded the Ethan Foundation for Autism after starting a camp out of her own home that has grown so much it’s now at a local YMCA. At Debrowski’s home there were therapists, teachers and volunteers to help kids with autism. The Ethan Foundation started as an accounting team to financially back the camp.
“The mission statement of this foundation is to help any child in need and to help the parents as well,” Debrowski said. “Whether they’re fighting for the school district, trying to get coverage, or battling the insurance companies because no one wants to pay for the insurance for these children.”
Debrowski has been working tirelessly for years to raise money and awareness for autism, and her brother has been a big part of that.
“I have seen first-hand what families who have autistic children go through,” Coach Ryan said. “You get a lot of people that have loved ones that have autism and everyone seems to know of someone that has autism as a child.”
Despite all that’s been done and all the money that’s been raised, Kim Ryan isn’t satisfied and won’t stop until she is.
“Have you met my brother?” she asked. Of course, she was referring to the competitive drive and nature of Tom, who despite two second place finishes at Division I nationals with the Buckeyes, wants a national title. More so than that, he wants to help people in need. Along with guys like Jeff Sitler, Brad Potter, Dan Sayers, Mad River Wrestling, the Ohio State University, it’s in the works. She wants to start a similar tournament near her home in New Jersey and has been working on extending the YMCA program to other states and regions.
“This is not enough yet. We’re impatient people, the Ryans,” Kim said. “There’s a lot of emotions at that tournament. It’s really therapeutic for me. I could spend my days crying over [Ethan’s] diagnosis but I choose to help other people. Seeing everyone come together, especially people like Jeff and Brad who really haven’t been exposed to autism just do it out of goodness of their hearts because they wanted to do this tournament, it’s overwhelming.”
One out of every 150 children has autism. It affects boys more so than girls and almost 1 out of 94 boys have it.
The tournament is put on by Mad River and it is something the organization feels very strongly about. Ryan-Debrowski has been inspired by Sitler.
“People like him, like my brother, they inspire me everyday that there’s hope, that people still do want to help other people,” she said.
“It’s just a fantastic opportunity to make a lot of money and donate it to a fantastic cause,” said Brad Potter, the assignor for Mad River. Potter helps with running the tournament and like the rest of the people that work it, he doesn’t collect a dime. Tom Ryan gets his team involved, which helps draw people from the community. On the Saturday before the tournament Ryan put on a clinic which is part of the paid event for ticket-buyers.
“Seeing everyone’s response to my brother was overwhelming,” Ryan-Debrowski said of the celebrity status of Coach Ryan at the tournament. “He signed everything from kids’ sneakers and headgear to a little six-year-old’s bicep. That was surreal for me to see how he’s shaping so many different children’s lives.”
Sayers, the vice-president of Mad River, volunteered last year as well as this year, but it wasn’t until he read about the autism assistance dogs online that he really took the bull by the horns.
“This year I’m taking a lot more out of it,” Sayers said. “As much as we can do for these children and their families, it’s awesome.”
REAL PEOPLE, REAL LIFE
There is a picture of a family. The mom and dad are standing and smiling at the camera. Their two sons, one sitting in a chair and the younger one kneeling down beside the chair, are a little distracted. Christian is the one in the chair and he has a half smile on his face, glancing over at the check being presented to his family.
“The gentleman from the foundation and my youngest son are both just kinda looking at Christian,” began Brandon Nichols, father of Christian, nine, who has autism. “You look at this, at their facial expressions; you can tell that he cared.
“And that just means so much because so often you get judged just going to Wal-Mart.”
Nichols was talking about bringing his son to the store and being stared at. He said he commonly feels judged in public if his son has a meltdown. Despite not being able to talk, Christian was full of happiness this past Sunday at the Wrestling Against Autism Tournament, shaking people’s hands and smiling.
“He loves to interact with people,” Nichols said. “All too often he’ll wanna shake somebody’s hand and somebody may look at him like they don’t wanna touch him.”
On Sunday though that was far from the case. Christian’s autism is a rare form, and it makes communication very difficult. He didn’t need to say anything.
“He can’t tell you if he’s just hungry but you can look at him at that moment and know and just see how happy he is,” Nichols said. “He smiles and laughs and just glows in the face.”
Ryan-Debrowski was especially moved by Christian’s outgoingness on Sunday. She related well to the behavior of an autistic child. Her son Ethan will say things repetitively until someone repeats it because he gets joy out of seeing people’s mouth move. Comparatively to that, Christian likes to see people shake hands.
“Seeing Christian’s face when they were giving him the check, it was a great moment for me, just knowing what Christian was excited about,” Debrowski said.
Like Jessica Smith-Tolliver and her 4-year-old daughter Kayla, Christian and his family had a great weekend. They were both immensely grateful for the charity and full of emotion.
“It’s hard not to get choked up at a time like that,” Nichols said. “It brought a tear to my eye when that happened. The words ‘thank you’ just don’t mean near enough to that foundation and every wrestler that showed up that day.”
Over the phone, Kayla’s mother wanted this article to include her thanks to all the people who volunteered and chose them and gave them that experience.
“She wanted to learn what wrestling was and how you did it and now she wants to wrestle,” Smith-Tolliver said about Kayla. “It was a constant talk the whole way home. It was just a phenomenal experience for her.”
TOURNAMENT A SUCCESS
This time around the tournament certainly outdid its funds from a year ago. The gross profit last weekend was $23,010 compared to the $13,104 in 2008. The net will be slightly less than that after some bills, rent paid to Ohio State for the facility use as well as insurance, t-shirts and medals. There were 427 wrestlers in all, a big increase from last year’s 279.
“I can see this tournament in five to six years having over 1,000 wrestlers,” Sitler said. “We grew over 75 percent in one year and we almost doubled our gross. I’m quite sure we doubled our net—we were over $18,000 this year, $9,000 last year.”
Three of the 427 wrestlers were a father and his two sons. Mark Quinn is the father of Nathan, who is autistic. Mark Quinn, at 40-something, took to the mat and wrestled for the first time in his life to support his autistic son, who wrestled. Jensen, his other son, also wrestled.
Additionally, the Quinn family came with $1,300 as a donation and were presented with a small plaque to honor them.
“It was a very emotional day,” Sitler said.
Mark Walters can be reached at walters.mark2@gmail.com
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