By Rodney Haas 

605 Sports

SIOUX FALLS — Tyler Jones tries to get as far away as possible when his son Slaton wrestles. So on Feb. 28 he was sitting in the second level of the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center watching his son wrestle for the Class A 165-pound state championship.  

Tyler, who is former two-time state champion for Mitchell in the 1990s, watched the match with his brother Eric and cousin Bryce as Slaton, a sophomore from Sioux Falls O’Gorman defeated Yankton’s Shayce Platt with a 13-2 major decision to finish the year 32-2.   

“I was actually calm,” Tyler said. “We had a tech fall and pinned the kid earlier in the year and at that point Slaton wasn’t wrestling well and there is this feeling that I think he was going to put together his best match together.” 

For Tyler, who appeared in four state championships in high school — winning two before heading to South Dakota State where he wrestled and was a four-time All American, it was a moment he knew all too well. 

“You just think of all the time that he has put into it,” Tyler said of winning a state championship. “It's a family commitment. The one thing about being a state champion is that it never goes away. That’s a badge of honor that you get to wear for the rest of your life. I was just really happy for him. I was happy for all of us. We all had to make sacrifices, especially my wife.” Meanwhile for Slaton, the moment still hadn't sunken in by Monday night that he was actually a state champion. 

“It was pretty crazy. I do a lot of visualizations and what it would be like, but it doesn't feel real that I won,” Slaton said. “I’ve always dreamed about what it would be like to win a state championship, and it feels like I just won a different tournament. 

“That’s the best part and I can say that I’m a state champion. No matter what anyone says, I will never not be a state champion.” 

For Slaton, he said it wasn’t until he was in sixth grade that he began taking wrestling seriously, which was around the time when his dad took him to Legends of Gold wrestling academy. For Tyler, he had been out of the sport but still followed it, he suddenly found himself back in the sport when the owner made a proposal to him where he would coach Slaton, if Tyler would help him coach the rest of the kids. 

“I knew my sons would wrestle. I didn’t put Slaton into wrestling right away because I just knew how this journey works,” Tyler said. “I didn’t need my kid to be wrestling when he was 5 years old. It’s going to be a long journey. I was still a fan of the sport but I just wasn’t hands on, but I knew there would be a day when I would get my son into wrestling and then when that day came, it was ‘alright here we go again.’ This will be a 12 year grind and it’s like both feet are in, here we go.”

Tyler was coaching at O’Gorman when Slaton was in eighth grade, but said it became apparent to him after the year that this was as far as he could take him, and Slaton had to figure things out on his own.  

“In youth wrestling, you can make them go to their practices, in high school I can’t make you go to the weight room. I can’t make you go to your club practices,” Tyler said. “If you can’t find it among yourself to go do that, then it ain't going to happen and you have to figure that on your own. That’s why I had to walk away from that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t coach my kids. It was their journey and they had to walk the path for the first time to figure things out. 

“They have to learn to own the journey. It was a beautiful thing to watch and it was hard as a dad, but when you saw how they owned their journey, then you know they are on the right track.” 

It was a lesson that wasn’t lost on Slaton as he would notice how other dads would make their kids super involved and his dad waited and has always been supportive. 

“There’s a lot of kids when they are younger, they don’t want to be coached by their dads because it’s different. But when I started to mature he started showing me his moves and stuff,” Slaton said. “His best moves are probably my best moves. I try to do a lot of the same stuff that he does. Most dads are really intense with their kids and he never was. He let me figure it out for myself this year and it paid off.” 

The special moment for Slaton winning a state championship and for Tyler watching his son follow in his footsteps to become a state champion was shared by a pair of Tyler’s former SDSU college teammates Aaron Veskrna and Jeremy Roe, who were both watching their sons win state titles Saturday. 

Aaron, who won a state championship for Gregory, watched his son Levi capture the Class A 175 title for Brandon Valley by defeating Aberdeen Central’s Grayden Timm with a 7-3 decision to finish the year 37-6. Meanwhile Jeremy, who won a state title for Lennox watched his son Caden capture the Class A 106 title for West Central with a 5-0 decision win over Sturgis’ Sullivan Sigman to finish the year 46-3. 

“Watching Caden compete, I was pretty nervous watching him in his matches even though I knew there was nothing I could do,” Jeremy said. “I have coached Caden all through youth and now sitting in the stands just being a dad has been great. Knowing the amount of time and sacrifice he has put in the last two years — especially — it was awesome to see him reap the reward. Then watching Aaron and Ty’s boy win was pretty dang sweet as well. I have watched and cheered those boys on since they were young.”    

Both Slaton and Caden are sophomores as Slaton said he hopes to get more state titles than his dad. As for Tyler, the chance to share the moment with his former college teammates has been the latest stop on the journey that started when they were all starters for the Jackrabbits  during the 2001-02 season. 

“It’s awesome. We all care for each other so much,” said Tyler who helped form Heartland Wrestling Academy which he now oversees over 100 wrestlers including some of his former college teammates’ kids. “I think the beauty about this sport is there’s nothing better than seeing other people achieve their goals. I know what our family has put into this so I know what their family put into this. I’ve coached their kids in my academy at certain points. If they are watching my kid wrestle and they see something that they know I don’t like, they will say something to them. In a weird way we are still teammates and we are all looking out for each other. At the end of the day we are teammates for life and that’s the beauty about this sport.”