Mike Zadick always has an idea or two floating around in his head. His most recent brainchild has the potential to influence thousands. 

The Great Falls, Montana, native had a successful high school, college, and international career highlighted by four state titles, three All-American honors at the University of Iowa, and a silver medal at the 2006 Senior World Championships. Zadick will leverage his wrestling success to honor his father. 

“There was a piece of property I was raised in in Great Falls, Montana, that was my dad’s business,” Zadick said. “When my dad passed away I ended up selling the property and they were going to demolish the building to build a car wash. I couldn’t see that happening when it was a perfectly good steel building. I wanted the building so I disassembled it myself. I just went into the building with tools and a skid loader. 

“My whole purpose was to repurpose the steel frame. I’ve since transported that to where I live outside of Augusta, Montana, and my vision is to resurrect that square footage in honor of my dad. So much of what I learned through the sport was not only him being my dad but a wrestling coach to my brother and me, and so many others. 

Mike’s brother, Bill, is the current men’s freestyle national team coach at USA Wrestling. He was an NCAA champion for Iowa in 1996 and a World champion in 2006. They remain two of the most successful wrestling brothers in U.S. history.

This project is still under development, and the facility hasn’t been built, but Zadick hopes to change that in the coming months. The building will serve as a multi-purpose space and a wrestling facility.

“I want to give the same thing my dad gave to us,” Mike said. “Wrestling taught me how to be tough and how to deal with adversity. It prepared me the most I could be for life. If I didn’t have wrestling I probably wouldn’t deal with life’s challenges as well because I had the ups and downs of the sport to harden me for those emotional times.”

Visit benchmarkwrestling.org to learn more about the project and how to contribute.