By Brian Jerzak
If anyone writes a book covering the history of high school wrestling in Minnesota, the driver of the Murray County Central High School wrestling van needs to be a footnote in that history. If that driver had not followed the rules of the road one November afternoon and decided to run the stop sign just outside the high school, he would have inadvertently changed the history of Minnesota high school wrestling.
"When I got to sixth grade, I had to choose between basketball and wrestling," former Fulda/Murray County Central wrestler Elissa Reinsma, now Elissa Wieneke, said. "I had a lot of friends on the basketball team that I played volleyball with. I played with them all the way through youth. "I was kind of doing basketball because I love volleyball. We had a group of girls around me – we were good at volleyball. I thought we would be successful at basketball too. They were trying to talk me into basketball. I didn't really like basketball, but they talked me into going out for basketball."
Elissa had been wrestling in the area youth program for years, but she was still going back and forth with her winter sport decision.
