At a physical after he turned 60, Craig K. Miner’s (BS ’77) doctor advised him to lower his cholesterol and lose weight. Within two years he had lost more than 20 pounds and his doctor called his blood pressure “perfect.” The unexpected cure? Wrestling.
Miner had wrestled in junior high school and for a semester at BYU, but in college he didn’t compete much. “I didn’t think I had the time to wrestle,” he says. “Looking back, I know I could have made time for it.”
At the time of Miner’s eye-opening doctor’s appointment, one of the employees at the Intermountain Farmers Association location he managed was wrestling on a high school team. After Miner joked that he’d love to get back on the mat, the young man invited him to join the team for workouts. Coaches told him he’d be welcome as an honorary member if he’d be willing to work as hard as the rest of the team.
So he joined, bookending his workday with a solo morning workout and late afternoons practicing with the high school team. He also began jogging with his wife, Barbara Christensen Miner (BS ’75).
During Miner’s first year wrestling in the U.S. veterans wrestling circuit, he broke a finger in a Las Vegas nationals match. The next year, he separated his shoulder. “But,” he says, “my goal is just to keep wrestling until somebody stops me.”
Miner now competes in both freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling against people around the world.
“I never thought I could be doing what I’m doing at this age,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of people tell me, ‘You’re crazy.’ But here I am wrestling at 63.”
