Wrestling club TOROTech’s class remained in session Tuesday night, but one long-time wrestler was missing: 19-year-old Minhaj Jamshidi, who was shot and killed Sunday night on the University of Arizona campus.
“Something like this is felt deeply because next summer he’s not going to be around,” Coach Anthony Birchak said. “It’s just a feeling of emptiness. That’s it.”
Birchak brought Jamshidi in to his wrestling club two years ago, after meeting him and two other Afghan refugees at the sauna.
“I noticed that a couple of these kids had cauliflower here and I was like, ‘Hey, do you do jiu-jitsu or do you wrestle?’ And, they said, ‘we wrestle, we’re from Afghanistan. We do freestyle.’ So, I said, ‘Awesome. I have a wrestling club.'” Birchak recalled.
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