Home is where the heart is and Rulon Gardner’s massive heart is solidly set in Afton, a small farming town nestled in the mountains of western Wyoming at the intersection of Highways 238 and 89.
He has been to the far reaches of the globe during a wrestling career that included two Olympic medals in Greco-Roman wrestling – a gold in Sydney and bronze in Athens – but ask him where his favorite place in the world is and he’ll say, simply:
“Afton, Wyoming”
Why?
“That’s where home is, that’s where my brothers and sisters are from.”
Afton is the place where his book, “Never Stop Pushing” (Carroll & Graf Publishing, $15.95), keeps returning. It is where Gardner built the physical and mental strength to which he credits his wrestling and professional success.
The Star Valley town of fewer than 2,000 people is where Gardner carried calves across frozen fields, struggled through high school, wrestled for the first time and built up his lung capacity at 6,000 feet above sea level.
It is also the place he nearly froze to death when he was stranded in the wilderness on Valentine’s Day 2002.
And while graduating from the Teacher’s College at the University of Nebraska is his proudest accomplishment – when he speaks to schoolchildren, he tries to instill the importance and opportunity of education – surviving that night is his favorite part of the book.
“The most fulfilling moment was surviving,” he said. “Making it – that I was alive, that I had a chance to exist another day.”
Gardner takes the book’s message of pride and fulfillment, overcoming the odds in what he calls an “American story about an individual (that goes) out there and (does) his best,” to schools and business meetings across the country.
It’s not education, he insists, but inspiration.
While he would like to be a teacher someday, possibly when he moves back to Afton, he revels in the opportunity to touch so many lives. “Instead of talking to 1,000 kids a year (in a classroom), I will talk to 100,000 kids,” he said.
Whether he is being paid thousands to speak at a business meeting or talking to a group of schoolchildren at no charge, he simply hopes to make a difference and do his state proud.
A video of the 2000 gold medal match shows his father waving a Wyoming state flag, which he said is the essence of the Olympics.
“It’s not about being an individual, I was representing the state of Wyoming,” he said.
“There are so many great people that came from Wyoming,” he said. “People travel around the world and their heart is in Wyoming,” he said.
– By PETER GARTRELL, News-Record Writer
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