CINCINNATI — High school wrestling here in Ohio is just a few weeks away from the state championships.
A contender from the Cincinnati area is making a name for himself, not just for his wrestling, but for proving doctors wrong. They told his parents he was blind and would never walk. But now, Sycamore High School senior Adam Gelman is a favorite to return to state and vie for a medal in the 113-pound weight class.
“I just go out there and wrestle hard,” Adam said. “Some are quick like that. Some of them go longer. I just wrestle as hard as I can every time.”
It’s been a long, hard road since the day he was born.
“Adam was born premature,” said his mother, Effie Gelman. “He was born blind. He had a lot of health issues when he was two. We had been through six surgeries already. He had finally gotten his vision. He was wearing glasses, but he was blind in one eye. And everybody kept saying there was something wrong. We were doing early intervention, all the different things, and I went to one doctor who was supposed to be this great doctor in New Jersey and he said, ‘I’m really sorry. Your son will never walk and never talk. He’s just he’s low-functioning autism.’ And I didn’t agree with it. I walked out crying and called my husband and my husband said, ‘We’ll find another doctor.’”
More medical experts predicted the same grim prognosis, but Gelman kept looking until her family found a doctor who gave them hope.
“She said, ‘I’m not telling you he can’t do stuff because if you put in the work and he puts in the work, there’s no limit to what he can do.’”
Once he was healthy enough to compete in sports, the family turned their attention to wrestling. Adam’s father, Oren Gelman, wrestled at Rutgers. Adam’s older brother David is on the team at Heidelberg University and his younger brother Simon also wrestles for Sycamore. Adam is following in his father’s and brother’s footsteps, establishing a reputation for being a hard worker who inspires his teammates and impresses his coaches.
“The biggest thing with him, what he does in wrestling is what he does I think a lot of times in life: he just perseveres,” said Sycamore wrestling coach Tim Arnold. “He finds a way, and he just keeps going. Even when he has setbacks, we recruit, we recover, and then we go again.”
More than a half dozen colleges have been recruiting Adam and with good reason: At the conference tournament in Middletown, he broke his school’s record for pinning opponents, with more than 80 over his high school career.
“I feel great,” Adam said. “I feel like I can win it all. I really do. I don’t care who they put in front of me. I’m going to wrestle all out and the result will come.”
When he’s not training, he hits the mat as a referee.
“I love just being around. Wrestling and officiating is no different,” he said. “I just love being the one out there making the calls. And when I see something, I’m going to call it. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if I know you. I’m there to do my job and I want to do it right.”
His mom is as proud of his officiating as she is of his wrestling.
“One of the wrestlers came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you’re Adam’s mom. And I said, ‘Yeah.’ He’s the most unbiased referee there is I’ve ever seen. He calls it. He sees it, and he does what he’s supposed to do. It’s kind of cool.’”
His fans think it’s cool that Adam won the conference tournament by pinning every opponent. He’s confident he can make it back to the state high school championships, and make the podium too. Along with wrestling in college, he has some big dreams.
“I want to go to the Olympics,” Adam said. Last year, he visited the site of the first Olympic games in Greece. “I love freestyle. I love Greco. I love folk style. I just love the sport in general. And I work hard and I know that I can do anything I put my mind to.”
His mother won’t be surprised if he one day is chosen to represent his country at the games.
“He’s proven everybody wrong,” she said. “I believe from what I've seen of my son, he will continue to do that.”