Grappling With Tragedy Wrestling Binds Kin Torn By A Plane Crash 20 Years Ago

A tragic airplane crash set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led Lakeside High wrestler Matt Westenfelder to a state championship.

Westenfelder, a senior 168-pounder for the Eagles, moved here with his family from Lacey, Wash., when he was a sixth-grader. He has become a three-time 2A state placer for his uncle, Lakeside coach Scott Jones.

Jones and two sisters, including Matt’s mother Sheryl, were orphaned when their parents and a 6-year-old brother were killed 20 years ago.

The four-passenger plane in which they were flying on a trip from Olympia to Nampa, Idaho, crashed in June of 1979 during turbulant weather near Baker, Ore.

Westenfelder didn’t know his maternal grandparents. But the accident led Jones into coaching, the sport of wrestling led Westenfelder to Jones and reunited a family torn asunder by the tragedy.

“From a coaching standpoint, you always want to coach your blood,” said Jones. “More than an opportunity to coach Matt, I wanted our families to be together.”

Sheryl Westenfelder was 3-1/2 years Scott’s senior and was like a mother to her younger siblings. Their father and mother worked full-time, said Sheryl. It was she who watched them when they came home from school.

“We came from a pretty busy family,” he said. “Sheryl was really raising us, even back in those days (before the accident).”

After their parents’ died, the surviving children moved in with friends. Scott was entering eighth grade. Sheryl was a senior in high school.

“It was really a traumatic thing,” she said. “It makes you grow up quick.”

Upon graduation, she moved out, married and began raising a family. Scott, who became an all-state football player and two-time state wrestler, then became the first in the family to go to college.

“When he went to school,” said Sheryl, “we drifted apart.”

When the families got together during a summer vacation, Jones introduced her son to wrestling.

“Scott gave me my first singlet,” said Matt. “I went back home and that’s when I started wrestling. I didn’t really like it that much.”

His parents decided to move here with their growing family even without job prospects.

Sheryl and her husband Jon have four children and are in the process of adopting two others. Matt is the oldest.

“Scott and I had been close growing up,” said Sheryl. “We loved the area, loved what Scott was doing at the new school and really wanted Matt to be coached under him. Everything worked out.”

Added Jones “Our family being split the way it was, Sheryl made a huge commitment.”

The grooming of Westenfelder to become a state wrestling champion began in seventh grade. Jones coached his football team.

“I knew they were something special when they were coming through,” he said.

His nephew received extra attention. He learned the sport by filming varsity matches. He went with the high school wrestlers to intensive camps.

“J Robinson Camp was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” Westenfelder said. “I was the youngest of the group. But it definitely turned the corner for me.”

In order to develop mental toughness, coach and nephew ran in two Coeur d’Alene marathons. Midway through his first one, Westenfelder’s hip popped out. He won his age group despite excruciating pain.

“He tucked in behind me,” said Jones, “and told me, `don’t let me quit.”’ Said Westenfelder,“It was the hardest thing mentally, I’ve ever done.”

Westenfelder, by coincidence, has wrestled at the exact weights that Jones had in high school.

He finished fifth at state as a 129-pound freshman. Despite numerous injuries that affected his sophomore year, he improved to third in the 148-pound class. Last year, he won his first state title.

“My goal,” he said, “was to improve two places each year.”

The sophomore season was trying. Prior to the start of school he tore ligaments in his ankle at a wrestling tournament. He broke his knee and underwent surgery, missing eight weeks of football. During the wrestling season, he missed two weeks with a concussion and more time when he broke the growth plate in his shoulder. He was told his season was over.

“I was devastated,” said Westenfelder, “but ended up being OK in a week.”

He wrestled only 13 matches but qualified for state. Strapped in a shoulder harness, he reached his second plateau.

Last year, he went 33-3 while winning the state title.

Westenfelder and Jones this year hope to reclaim the team championship Lakeside won in 1997, but their goal also was grander. They wanted him to be considered the best 168-pounder in Washington. Then he suffered two losses in local tournaments.

“It was a huge disappointment, I think,” said Westenfelder. “But I understand, it’s not everything.”

How could it be, considering what his mother and uncle went through?

“My parents were 36 and 37 and I remember thinking, at least they had an opportunity to live,” said Jones. “Now, I’m here at age 34 and just figuring life out. They were just getting a handle on it and it was over.”

Their deaths and the resultant influence of coaches helped direct Jones into education. It also helped formulate his coaching style. The team is family. Practices are filled with life lessons as well as wrestling drills. He tells the athletes to appreciate their families and enjoy things that are really important today, because they never know when they could be gone.

For that reason, Scott Jones has relished his school family and the reunion with his sister. He’s enjoyed coaching her son, and Matt Westenfelder has appreciated learning at his uncle’s knee.

“I dreamed about, when I won state, running and jumping into his arms,” Westenfelder said. “When it actually came true, that was pretty cool.”