VETERANS WRESTLING Goldman’s passion keeps growing
by Gary Abbott Veterans wrestlers are a unique lot, for sure. At a time in their
lives when many wrestlers not only have hung up their wrestling shoes for good and often have little connection to their sport, these warriors travel the country and the world seeking wrestling competition. One of the more active and successful Veterans wrestlers on
the U.S. scene is Jason Goldman of New York. He started wrestling at the age of seven and is still going strong at age 41. He has wrestled straight through for more than three decades without much of a break. His passion for wrestling seems to grow as he moves into higher age divisions. “There wasn’t ever a long gap that I took off from wrestling.
My longest gap was when I was a freshman in college. I strug- gled with time management, academics and fell behind a little bit. It made wrestling difficult and I struggled to do as well as I wanted to. I got called back that second semester my freshman year and finished out that year of wrestling. I have been wrestling ever since. I competed every year at some level of competition,” he said. Goldman started on the Veterans circuit in 2011 when the
U.S. Veterans Nationals were in Tucson, Ariz. “I started asking some of the guys who had been around the cir-
cuit for a while what the World competition was like and how much I needed to raise and what the experience was like. After a couple of years, I decided that was something I wanted to do,” he said. In the last three years, Goldman has been very consistent on
the Veterans level. He won five World medals in the International Veterans Div. A, led by a freestyle World gold medal in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 2013. He won three silvers, with Greco-Roman silvers in 2013 and 2014 and a freestyle silver in 2014. Add in a freestyle bronze medal in 2015. The ages differ in the USA Wrestling program from the UWW groupings, and Goldman moved up from Div. B to Div. C at the U.S. Veterans Nationals. He came away as a double champion, winning both the freestyle and Greco-Roman division at 58 kg. He defeated Jeff Brewer of the Las Vegas Wildcats in best-of-
three series in both styles. In Greco-Roman, Goldman scored two technical falls, 12-2 and 8-0. In freestyle, Goldman had a first-period pin and a 10-0 technical fall. “I am not getting any younger, that’s for sure. I moved up in
both USA and UWW for the World Championships as well. I am hoping to come up against a new set of guys. I wrestled a guy today I had never wrestled before. The same thing with the World level. I expect to see some different competition out there as well. It’s good to be in a new age group. It brings new chal- lenges. I am excited about training and getting better,” he said. Name the wrestling style. Goldman does it. He went both freestyle and Greco-Roman again at the Nationals this year. He wrestles a lot of folkstyle as a high school coach. And a few years back, he was a national champi- on in Beach wrestling when the 2012 U.S. Beach Nationals were held in nearby Rochester, N.Y. Goldman can boast international medals at two other age-
groups before he became a Veterans athlete. Look him up in the UWW results database, and you discover that he was a Cadet World Greco-Roman silver medalist in 1991, and won a Maccabi Games freestyle silver medal on the Senior level in 2009. Goldman can switch back and forth from Greco-Roman to
Jason Goldman hits a sweet gutwrench during the 2016 U.S. Veterans Nationals. Robbert Wijtman photo.
freestyle very easily. “It’s a flip of the switch. It’s like riding a bike. I have been
doing this for so many years. It comes natural. I enjoy compet- ing in both,” said Goldman. This summer, Goldman will compete at the Veterans Freestyle Worlds in Walbrzych, Poland, October 7-9. He does not plan to go to the Veterans Greco-Roman Worlds in Seinajoki, Finland. In recent years, they have held both styles together, and Goldman always enters both of the styles. “Unfortunately, at the UWW World Championships, they are splitting the styles this year, so I will be able to focus on freestyle,” he said. “The (U.S. Veterans Nationals) is my only Greco opportunity of the year. I am going to choose freestyle. With my training, I have not been able to keep up with the Greco end of things,” he said. Goldman did agree to wrestle a few exhibition matches in
Greco during the U.S. Veterans Nationals, so he could have a few more Greco-Roman bouts during the day. In addition to focusing on his own training, he is now respon-
sible for a high school team in his community. “I coach a varsity program. I am always involved in some kind
of folkstyle, which is close to freestyle. I am at Greene High School in Greene, New York. We have had some good talent out of there. It’s a small program. I just took over the program this year. The numbers are small but its building, a good oppor- tunity for me. It keeps me active and gives me some good guys to train with. It gives me a room to train in. It’s a good support system, and I am really excited about it,” said Goldman. It is not easy finding the funds to compete on the international
Veterans circuit. Thus, he created Team JGold, which is his list- ed club for the U.S. Veterans Nationals. “The kids have kind of followed me over the years, and jump
on board. I sell these shirts as a fundraiser for my World Championships travel overseas. I do a couple of other fundrais- ing things to generate that money, because it is all out of pock- et,” he said.
USA Wrestler 35
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