The top high school wrestlers in Montana will receive scholarship offers and notch state tournament wins while perfecting the craft of folk-style wrestling. However, for just a couple of weeks in the summer, the best of Montana’s wrestlers will also have a chance to see different kinds of wrestling, all while overseas. 

This year, that includes four athletes from Ronan and one from Arlee.

Team Montana Cultural Exchange is a Montana-based wrestling organization that has taken high school wrestlers from across the state to experience not just new kinds of wrestling but also other cultures.

Angelo Rivera, the director of Team Montana Cultural Exchange, was once an athlete back in 1979, when he went to Puerto Rico. That formative experience and his love for wrestling have now helped Rivera become the premier recruiter for this team of high schoolers.

Before they can even step on the plane, he looks for two things in wrestlers: potential and character.

While he wants talented wrestlers, he values character over anything else. If you are respectful after a match, Rivera will know. He even said it himself. He is traveling and watching events all year long as a coach.

“ I don't do anything else but coach wrestling,” Rivera said. “I'm usually at a lot of these wrestling tournaments and I don't sit down.”

Someone that vigilant will have their eyes out for some of the best wrestlers. For Rivera, he noticed that eastern Montana has dominated when it comes to state placements. Across all classifications and weight classes, 13 of the 56 state champions qualified from the Eastern Divisional.

“ Out of the west, there’s a lot of hunger. There’s a lot of desire,” Rivera said. “ If you look at the state tournament that we just had, the east dominates.”

That disparity didn’t go unnoticed and Rivera found some wrestlers from western Montana who checked off his criteria. The wrestlers also happen to be standouts from Lake County.

“They don't get a lot of recognition,” Rivera said. “They have a lot of hunger and desire … and that's exactly what I want.”

As of right now, the team features four Lake County wrestlers. Arlee’s Dominick Haynes is the most recent addition to the team. Ronan also has a couple going in 2026, including state runner-up Cooper Wayman, along with teammates Skylar Sias and Caleb Herrera.

Former Ronan wrestler Fortino Silva is also joining, as he continues his wrestling career at Eastern Oregon University.

For the wrestling side, these kids will get to learn how to do two different styles of wrestling while overseas. They will learn freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling.

For the average fan, the style that is wrestled in high schools across the United States is known as folk-style. Most kids will never reach a level at which they compete in the styles that are wrestled internationally.

The differences between each type are staggering, with the Greco-Roman style preventing wrestlers from doing holds below the waist. Freestyle is different because of exposure and scoring. While it has similarities to folk-style, wrestlers have more point-scoring opportunities depending on exposure.

These varying styles are all exciting in their own way but they are also challenging to adjust to. Most of the world wrestles in these different styles, while American high schoolers typically only do freestyle in organized competition.

These Montana wrestlers will get to experience these different kinds of wrestling, all while getting to take on a new country.

Wrestlers head to Germany in July

They will head to Germany, where they will not only get to wrestle with international champions but they will also get to experience German culture.

The trip also includes visits to old cathedrals, markets and even a trip to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial site. Rivera, a former Marine, he finds this part of the trip hard but rewarding for his athletes as they experience the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand.

“ One of our most somber trips is to Dachau, a prisoner of war camp,” Rivera said. “That is both the highlight and something that is really, really hard. For anybody that has any kind of understanding of humanity, that strikes really, really hard.”

As the kids wrap up days of experience in Deutschland, they come to Rivera’s favorite moment of the trip. The kids wrap up a day of wrestling, facing tough opposition that can be overwhelming physically. But, as the day winds down, all the athletes come together for one last meal.

“The most important thing that these athletes get to do while we are there is after our fight,” Rivera said. “As they are taking a shower, as they are getting themselves cleaned up, the entire gymnasium turns to picking up the mat and breaking 'em down. Then, out come the tables, out come the chairs, out come the food, out comes the beer cart and everybody sits down and breaks bread. You just got done having what they call a fight with your quote-unquote 'enemy,' and now you're sitting here breaking bread with them. That's what it's supposed to be about. That is in the truest essence of sportsmanship.”

Trip isn’t just learning about new types of wrestling but new types of people. The exposure that wrestlers search for on the mat gets matched on this trip by exposure to a culture they might never get to experience again. That, for Rivera, is just as important as getting these kids to battle together.

Team Montana Cultural Exchange will head off to Germany from July 8-26. To follow their journey, go to the Team Montana German Cultural Exchange Facebook page for more on their trip.

    The 2024 Team Montana Cultural Exchange is seen exploring the sites of Germany. (Angelo Rivera/Courtesy of Team Montana Cultural Exchange)
  

    Team Montana Cultural Exchange director Angelo Rivera shakes hands with German Culture Exchange Team Leader Jurgen "Jugi" Trinkle. (Angelo Rivera/Courtesy of Team Montana Cultural Exchange)