a story of
REDEMPTION K
urt Snyder, ’91, ’06, had hit rock bottom. He had dropped out of college after just one year of failing every class. He had gone to college to wrestle — but his addiction had gotten the best of him. “My addiction really destroyed something I loved in my life … I loved wrestling, and I remember walking away from it feeling just tremendous regret.” He was living in San Antonio, far away from his home state of North Dakota. That’s when his brother-in-law reached out to help him find recovery. It was through
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Momentum
his brother-in-law’s encouragement that Kurt was able to start going to addiction counseling — counseling that eventually saved his life and helped him overcome his addiction. About a year after that, his brother-in-law died by suicide. “It was really devastating; he was like a brother to me,” Kurt said. “Here’s somebody that saved my life, and I really couldn’t do anything to help him at the time.”
Kurt decided to move back to North Dakota to help take care of his nephews. It was at one of their wrestling tournaments that Kurt ran into Milo Trusty, a legendary Marauders wrestling coach. “He came up to me and said, ‘I know you; I remember you. You were a good wrestler. Don’t you have some eligibility left?’ and I said ‘yes, but I was a bad apple.’ But he sparked something in me,” Kurt said.
After he died, Kurt knew he had two options. He could either fall back into his old ways or step up and fill the shoes of the man who had done so much for him.
Kurt wanted to go back to college to become an addiction counselor, but he needed to know if he could handle classes and assignments before Kurt even thought
