A champion at heart

Wrestler Anthony Parkin reflects on his time wrestling for Superior. While defending his state champion title from last year, Parkin took fourth place at the State Tournament.

SUPERIOR – A Superior High School wrestler recently returned home after trying to defend his title as state champion at the tournament in Billings.

Anthony Parkin comes from a family dedicated to wrestling. With many people in his family being wrestlers, it was only natural he would become one too. His younger siblings have also entered the family sport.

“My dad, my uncle and all of them, they wrestled in high school,” Parkin said. “A lot of the people who raised me were wrestlers and liked wrestling.”

He joined the team in third grade, the earliest the schools allow students on the wrestling team.

“I’ve always enjoyed wrestling, I always wanted to wrestle,” Parkin said. “I just couldn’t wait to be in third grade.”

Parkin has been on the team every year since. All those years culminated at last year’s state tournament when Parkin won the championship. The reputation did not go to his head and felt the same after the win as he did before. He was aware his skills would be put to the test now as he had something to prove to other wrestlers.

In this year’s season he felt more pressure as he realized the other participants at the state tournament were aiming to take him down.

“You definitely do have that chip on your shoulder,” Parkin said.

In the end, Parkin was unable to defend the title and he took fourth place in the tournament. Despite the loss, he was happy with how he performed. He said he did his best, but went up against competitors who were better.

“There are good competitors every year,” Parkin said. “Just, this year was a little tougher [and] I made mistakes.”

Parkin has no regrets about the loss and would not change anything. While winning again would have been great, he could not think of anything he could have done differently to change the result.

Being on the wrestling team was a great experience and the practices were fun. The road trips on the bus to tournaments were also full of fun memories.

This season was different for Parkin. His brother, Blaine, joined the team and added a new dynamic to the experience.

It was fun for the brothers to be on the team together as it gave them the opportunity to vent their sibling rivalries.

“It’s good,” Parkin said. “You get to whoop up on him in practice and not get in trouble for it.”

Parkin was proud of his brother and said Blaine had a good year as he took sixth place in the state tournament.

Being on the team was fun, but it would not have been the same without Head Coach Charlie Crabb. Crabb enjoyed having Parkin on the team. He said the senior was a great leader who did the extra work during training. Even as a kid in the earliest parts of the wrestling team, Parkin was on fire. He was always the firecracker of the group, regardless of the age group he was in.

“If we could get everyone to do [what Anthony does], we would be state champions every year,” Crabb said.

Many other kids do not have the drive to reach that level. Crabb was happy knowing his contributions helped Parkin reach his full potential.

The approach was especially helpful, as it did not push the wrestler too hard while preparing him to defend the title.

The goal was to encourage the wrestlers to do the best with little pushes to guide them instead of driving them toward the goal. The team never aimed for specific places and always tried to do their best.

“We don’t worry about what the place is,” Crabb said. “If it’s going to be first place, it’s going to be first place. I’ve never said ‘ok, we need to get first place.’ We stress on one match at a time and whatever happens happens. You do your best and everything else will happen the way it’s supposed to happen.”

While everyone wants to be state champion, Crabb has never made it a priority goal to shoot for.

Parkin does not plan to participate in college wrestling, however, this will not be the end.

Little Guy Wrestling will be one area where a presence in wrestling will be maintained. With a younger sibling participating, the future generation will be guided through the sport.

“I don’t want to see him take the wrong path and play basketball or something,” Parkin said with a laugh.

Parkin will go to the University of Montana in Missoula and plans to study carpentry.

While he does not plan to wrestle in college, he still loves the sport and would not change the experience for anything.

“It’s [been] the best years of my life,” Parkin said.