Erin Golston comes from a wrestling family, but for a young girl growing up in the 80s, wrestling wasn’t a first option.
Yet that changed after her father, who wrestled in high school in Chicago and in college at Illinois State, enrolled her older brother in the sport.
Erin, who was 5 at the time, watched her brother from the sidelines not as a disinterested spectator, but as a future competitor. A year later, she told her father that she wanted to wrestle too.
So at the age of 6, Erin Golston began her career on the mat.
In her first two years in the sport, Erin, who was the only girl on her team, went 36-2, an amazing start that she attributes to her father, who was also her coach.
“I definitely picked it up quickly,” she told me in our interview. “And it did help that my dad was the coach of the beginner and intermediate group because I was the only girl on the team…I think if I walked in any other room without my Dad I don’t think it would have been as comfortable. But since he had the wrestling background, and he was there every second of my first year wrestling, I think I was able to pick it up quite quickly.”
And with wrestling in her blood, she exceled quickly.
It was a stark contrast from playing soccer, which she found little interest in.
Wrestling made her more focused as she quickly discovered its purpose and structure.
“I just knew ‘alright, just get them to their back and I win.'”
Simple enough, but to do that, you need more than recognition, and that’s where the practice, dedication, hard work, sacrifice and learning came in to the picture.
For young girls in the sport at that time, wrestling came with limitations as it wasn’t an NCAA championship sport, so building a long career in the sport came with tempered expectations.
But Erin was different.
Not only was the sport in her blood, but from an early age, she knew where she wanted to go.
The Olympics.
“In kindergarten, my teacher introduced us to what the Olympics were and I was like ‘I want to do this.'”
So her parents began taking her to camps, including at the University of Iowa, a school known for producing some of the best collegiate wrestlers in history.
For them, it wasn’t about their daughter being a girl who was going to wrestle.
It was “You’re going to wrestle.”
And that’s just what she did.
But despite her success and love for the sport, some remained skeptical.
“What? Really? I didn’t know girls wrestle.”
“Is that your boyfriend’s sweatshirt?”
Ignorance can be alarming, furstrating, humorous or, for athletes, motivation.
Talking to Erin, it was easy to see it was the latter.
Sacrifice, Doubt and Rediscovery
When she was a sophomore in high school, Erin moved by herself from Illinois to Marquette, Michigan to train at the Olympic training center.
A young, 15-year-old Black girl moving up to a majority white town to wrestle. That couldn’t have been easy.
Her family was almost 10 hours away, she was the youngest wrestler in the program and she was surrounded by very few who looked like her.
That takes confidence, passion and a deep belief in yourself, especially at such a young age. And as impressive as that is, and as good as the overall experience was, her face told me that that there were painful moments was well.
But she persevered.
“It was definitely a transition, but it was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life and my wrestling career as well. It gave me the edge I was looking for [in freestyle wrestling] and allowed me to grow on my own,” she said.
Four years later, she headed west to the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, where she simultaneously pursued her college degree and her wrestling dreams at the Olympic training facility.
This period become one of the most challenging times in her life.
While she was learning to manage the intense balance between hitting the mat and hitting the books, Covid arrived in 2020, pushing back both the Olympic Trials and the Olympics.
So she moved to Wisconsin to continue training, which wasn’t a good experience for her.
This was when Erin questioned her future in, and love for, wrestling.
Fortunately, her inner 6-year-old self appeared and reminded her of her goal. That reminder was followed by a call from wrestling legend Randi Miller, the first Black woman to win an Olympic medal (bronze, 2008 Beijing Games).
Miller, the head coach at Texas Women’s University told her to come down to rediscover her love of the sport.
And that she did as the assistant coach of the program.
Making History and Building the Future
Oftentimes, people don’t get a moment to reflect on their lives and careers to see what they’ve accomplished and the part they’ve played in building something special.
In the last five years, wrestling has experienced amazing growth and history-making moments, particularly regarding Black wrestlers.
In 2021 in Tokyo, The U.S.’s Tamyra Mensah-Stock became the first Black woman to win Olympic gold and the second U.S. woman to win Olympic gold (Helen Maroulis was the first to do it at the 2016 Rio Games). At those same Tokyo Games, Gable Steveson also won gold, becoming the fourth Black American wrestler in history to do so.
A month later, Morgan State revived its men’s wrestling program, becoming the sole DI HBCU to field a men’s team. The following year, the Bears hired Kenny Monday, the first Black wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal, as its head coach.
Over the last five years, multiple Black champions were crowned at every NCAA Wrestling Championship event.
Last November, Delaware St. announced they would launch the first D1 HBCU women’s wrestling program, which begins this upcoming school year.
Then in January, the NCAA finally approved women’s wrestling as a championship event.
It’s an amazing streak of success for the sport, and Erin has been a part of that success since she first stepped on to the mat almost 30 years ago.
She’s a 2x US Open Senior National Champion, won a silver medal at the 2019 Pan American Championships and is nationally ranked No. 4 at 50 kg.
Through her success, she’s inspired countless others to take up the sport even though she might not realize it. Just seeing her compete shows other girls, especially Black girls, that there’s a place for them in the sport.
And they’ll have another chance to see her this weekend.
On Saturday in Newark, the 4x Olympic Team Trials Qualifier is taking another step towards making the Olympic team by battling Audrey Jimenez at her first USA Wrestling Final X/Beat the Streets event. The winner makes the World Team and takes a big step towards making the Olympic team for the 2028 LA Games.
Making the team would complete one part of the goal she set almost 30 years ago in kindergarten.
The second part would be winning an Olympic medal in the sport she has sacrificed so much for and traveled to 25 different countries for, while also putting her in the same category as former teammate Tamyra Mensah-Stock and her mentor, coach Randi Miller.
After reflecting on her career, I asked Erin what she would tell her 6-year-old self.
“You’re capable of more than you think,” she said.
Ironically, that’s exactly what her 6-year-old self reminded her during her moment of doubt, and that’s why she’s still pursuing the dream she first set in kindergarten.
