The Long Road to Omaha

Wrestlers are generally not one to bring attention to themselves. On occasion you may find a flamboyant grappler that will put on a show for a crowd.

Most of them toil in solitude. Working hard. Sweating to lose that precious pound. Trying to get that little advantage they can for their next match.

So it’s fitting that in the raucous noise of the Class A, District 2 championship round, Grand Island Northwest’s Emma Harb retreats to a quiet stairwell off the main gym at York High School to share her story.

Emma’s story is one of doing what you love. But it’s also about courage and toughness and strength. And, most importantly, faith. 

Thyroid disease and, unfortunately, thyroid cancer has been a part of Emma’s family for too long. Emma’s grandma passed away before they were able to catch and treat her thyroid cancer. Her mom, Annette, had her thyroid removed at age 22.

“We have been watching my thyroid since junior high, I guess,” Emma said. “And, this year at my school physical in the summer my doctor’s didn’t like the look of it. It was growing too fast.”

It put a damper on the first few months of Harb’s junior year; one that she was really excited to get going.

As a sophomore, she medaled at state wrestling finishing sixth at 140 pounds. In the spring, she was a two-event qualifier for the Northwest track team and ran third on the Vikings 400 meter relay team that finished third at the Class B state meet.

Now, August and September were filled with too many doctor visits.

“I had an ultrasound the end of August and they immediately wanted to get a biopsy on it because they believed it could be cancer,” Harb said, matter of factly.

Getting any conclusive results was a struggle. Her tissue off the biopsy was sent to the Mayo Clinic and still came back inconclusive, though there was a 50 percent chance of cancer in the thyroid. Doctors feared that waiting during the school year would put Harb at risk of the cancer spreading if it was there.

In mid-September — way too close to wrestling season — she underwent surgery.

“There was a lot of praying about the surgery,” Harb said. “And, we didn’t know how soon we would be able to do it. At that point, we didn’t know how my body would recover to removing that organ.

“We truly had no idea if I could wrestle. After you have a surgery like that they don’t know what you’ll need for medicine, how much scar tissue you’ll have. We were playing with a big deck of cards.”

During surgery, the doctors were able to test for cancer determining there was some presence in the thyroid and Harb’s full thyroid was removed. Wrestling was the furthest thing from her mind.

In year four of his program, Northwest girls coach Jeff Paige has enjoyed building things from the ground up. After some early success, the Vikings were mostly in a rebuilding mode in 2023-24.

“I think 24 of our 32 girls that we had out this year were first year wrestlers,” he said.

But, he knew that he’d have Harb in his wrestling room as a leader. Someone to mentor his young group.

“She’s a leader, one of our captains, almost a unanimous pick by her teammates,” the coach added. “She leads on the mat, but off the mat, too. She loves to help the younger kids and she’s kind of our nutrition guru with all that she has been through.”

As preseason practices started Harb had massive doubt on if she’d see the mat this season. Her scar was tender to the touch. A lingering side effect from the surgery was difficulty breathing and she also nearly lost her voice.

“I can’t breathe and I can’t get touched on my throat,” Harb said, now with a laugh. “How am I supposed to wrestle? Wrestling is a physical sport.”

Courage. Toughness. Strength. Faith.

Harb practiced, but not as hard as she knew she needed to. Her practice partner, Miah Kenney, she said, “was really awesome” in working with her the best she could.

Over time, she started breathing a little better. The scar, forever visible, has healed well. But, doubt crept in. On the eve of her first tournament of the season in York, Harb admits to calling her grandma in tears.

“I knew there was no way I could do it,” she said. “I didn’t want to go.”

Her first match? A six-second pin and a tournament win at 155 pounds. It wasn’t easy, this wrestling season for Emma Harb.

She must keep a watchful eye on her parathyroid — it leads to monitoring of calcium levels and her sleep can be erratic. She has had to balance taking different kinds of medicines and lots of TUMS for calcium.

But, amazingly, the season — the one she though she’d never get — is also not over. On Friday, Harb, with two pins before a loss in the championship match at districts to third ranked Kristen Schellenberg of Scribner-Snyder, advanced to this week’s state wrestling tournament in Omaha.

She’ll take a 32-5 record with her and is ranked 8th at 155 pounds by newrestle.com. A medal is certainly not out of the question.

“Our girls look up to her,” Paige said. “We had a lot of young kids this year. She’s the rock (of our team). They respect her. She has done what they want to do.

“Right down there when she won that match, there were five or six of them crying.”

They say in journalism, you are supposed to be neutral. You should not show any emotion or favoritism to the story. No cheering, especially in sports.

But, it’s here where we break the rules and I tell you that Emma Harb and Olivia Chapman are the best of friends. Nutrition nerds, honor roll students and National Honor Society members. I often think their parents are the lucky ones; maybe it’s US doing the learning and not the teaching.

Because you know where we could find Emma Harb in those trials of September and October? On the cross country course cheering on her friend. And, so there was no place else the Chapman’s could be on Friday but at the York High School gym.

And, a normal state wrestling preview story would tell you, at some point, who Emma wrestles on Thursday at the state meet. But, she never wants to know who her opponent is, so we simply leave the link here for you to look.

“I don’t know, I might look at the bracket, but probably not,” she says.

But Emma Harb’s greatest gift may simply be that she shared her story with us. That she has persevered through trials.

Courage. Toughness. Strength. Faith.

“From thinking I wouldn’t be able to wrestle, to this,” she says, “I know God gave me this gift to wrestle and He gives me the strength to do this and I do it to glorify Him. I can’t have Him give me a talent and let it go to waste.”

By the grace of God, Emma Harb still has the chance to do what she loves. Her story rooted in faith, but wrapped with courage and toughness and strength. And, who knows, maybe this story is just getting started.