Listen Here
By Andrea Hoffman
hoffmana1@findlay.edu
Adam Gelman is many things: a wrestler, a brother and a college student, but he refuses to let one label define him.
Gelman, a member of the University of Findlay wrestling program, is also on the autism spectrum. He does not view that part of his identity as a limitation, but as one piece of a much larger picture shaped by family, routine and a sport that has taught him accountability, resilience and focus.
Growing up, Gelman’s father’s marketing job meant the family relocated seven times. Instead of feeling untethered, he said the constant change tightened the bond between him, his parents and two brothers, a bond he still leans on today.
“All it really did was make me so close to my family,” Gelman said. “I talk to them every single day.”
That closeness helped lead him into wrestling, a sport that runs through his family. His older brother wrestled at Heidelberg University, and his younger brother wrestles in high school. Gelman said wrestling’s “brotherhood” followed him into college, where he was drawn to UF for its team culture.
“Being a wrestler, when you’re on that team, you’re basically one giant family,” Gelman said. “No team was as close as this one.”
Gelman first tried wrestling after he quit soccer. Two weeks later, he wrestled in his first tournament.
“That’s where I realized wrestling was something I wanted to do,” he said.
For Gelman, the sport’s appeal is its need for individual responsibility. In wrestling, he said, there’s no blaming teammates when things go wrong.
“If you lose, it’s on you,” he said. “If I lose, I just have to go back and re-watch it and be like, ‘Hey, this is what I need to work on.’”
Wrestling became a part of how he learned to handle being misunderstood about being on the spectrum.
“Especially when I was younger, because I was known as the weird kid, they would bully me,” Gelman said. “That’s another reason wrestling stuck. It helped me stick up for myself.”
Now, he said, being on the spectrum affects how he prepares for competition in a sport filled with noise, crowds and sensory overload. Gelman follows a strict pre-match routine to block out distractions. After weigh-ins, he eats, warms up, and then finds a quiet spot away from the crowd and texts his coaches where he’ll be. When it’s almost time, he moves toward the mat with headphones on, locked into music until he changes into his singlet.
“If I don’t follow a specific routine, I can’t tune those things out,” he said.
He remembers a moment in high school that showed him what happens without that structure: a district “blood round” match where he shut down from sensory overload and lost. He said people wondered if he would wrestle again, but support from others pushed him forward.
However, when he needs help staying regulated on the day-to-day, he isn’t doing it alone.
Mac, his certified service dog, was a 16th birthday present from his parents, and now he says Mac goes nearly everywhere with him, including his wrestling events.
“He just helps me go throughout my day,” Gelman said. “He helps me stay calm, regulated.”
Gelman considers Mac as a part of his family, and he even travels with the wrestling team.
“He has become a team mascot,” he said. “All the guys love him being at practice and everything. They love how he travels.”
Gelman says autism is just something he lives with, not something he suffers from. He chooses to push back on others’ views of autism as a disability.
“I have autism, but it doesn’t define who I am,” he said. “I want to clarify that it is not a disability. It’s just a different ability.”
His view of autism has shifted over time, he said. At first, he wanted to be “normal.” Now he doesn’t believe “normal” exists.
“Nobody is normal,” he said. “We all have different extraordinary powers. We each have something to offer, and for me, it’s positivity.”
Gelman hopes to use his positive outlook on his story to become a motivational speaker one day. He wants to inspire not only young athletes on the spectrum but everyone. His message is that the limitations others put on you are not yours to own.
“A lot of people throughout my life have told me, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t,” he said. “If you put your mind to it enough, you can do absolutely anything you dream of.”
