When you first walk into Toska Adams' classroom at Laukhuf Elementary, you're greeted with walls covered in artwork made by her students. There's a large picture of a lamp—the kind you'd expect to see a genie come out of, granting you three wishes. It's promoting the school's upcoming Disney play, Aladdin.
Adams has been the music/art teacher at Laukhuf Elementary for 16 years. She has been with Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) for 21 years, with previous stops at the Academy @ Shawnee and Central High School Magnet Career Academy.
While she is an elementary school art teacher, she also has a decorated wrestling career. No, she never donned a unitard and headgear and grappled with another person, trying to get a pin. She was a wrestling referee.
Adams' career in refereeing started at the middle school level.
"We would go to tournaments, and we would drive, like, two hours to a tournament. While [my son] was a big kid, just like he is now, and we'd go there and he'd have two people to wrestle,” Adams said. ”So, I was like, I'd like to do something.”
Before new technology could keep track of the pairings, typically, the wrestling moms were the ones doing that. "Tried that, wasn't my deal," Adams said.
So, a friend recommended she give refereeing a shot.
"And in 1998, I did it, and I was terrible," Adams laughed.
Eventually, the self-proclaimed band/theater geek caught the wrestling bug. What started as a cure for boredom during her son's wrestling days evolved into traveling all over the country and the world to referee wrestling matches.
She would learn that her role in wrestling was more than calling the winner or loser. She became an advocate for women's wrestling.
"When I first started refereeing, there were a handful of women in the United States; there were very, very few," Adams said.
She added that her male counterparts were surprised by her ability to officiate matches.
She developed a reputation for being an exceptional referee, and she would eventually run the women's side of the largest wrestling tournaments—the USA Wrestling Junior Nationals, in Fargo, North Dakota.
In the early days of the tournament, she spoke about the days when boys were able to compete in the FargoDome, but girls had to wrestle in a different venue that lacked air conditioning and other amenities.
"I really started fighting for women's [wrestling]," she said. "For the women to get better things."
She would then ask her fellow women referees from other parts of the country to help her officiate the matches because a number of her male counterparts thought "it was beneath them" to ref the girls' matches.
That all happened about 10 to 15 years ago, according to Adams.
Eventually, after showing her gratitude toward the referees who helped out at the women's tournaments, and alongside organizations like Wrestle Like a Girl, the sport of women's wrestling grew. Those same refs wanted to come back and work her tournament, and it led to her first honor in the wrestling world.
You don't normally think of a referee as being recognized for their contributions; however, according to the USA Wrestling Officials Association, she was so exceptional at what she did that the governing body named an award after her.
Each year, in Fargo, the Toska Adams Best Official at the Women's Tournament Award is given.
"I got passionate about [wrestling], and I got passionate about women being equal," she said.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, and many other accolades she's achieved in the sport, and she received another high honor— the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Inductee.
"A lot of people in USA Wrestling know who I am because of all the awards they've given me, you know. But to the National Hall of Fame, that's college, that's everything," she said. "I say it's about being a referee. It's about the mentoring I did with all the women. I don't realize how much I did until people tell me."
For her, it was all about teaching and helping young people enjoy the sport that she'd come to love, thanks to her son and those long car rides for only a few matches.
While she wanted to keep it quiet and not make too much of a big deal about it, her son, Thomas, who's also a teacher in JCPS, posted it on Facebook, bragging about his mom's honor.
As she prepares to be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Class of 2026, she continues to teach and focus on the upcoming play. The organization of the Disney show, Aladdin, is her top priority, as she retired from refereeing four years ago. She admits, though, that she has been doing some mentoring with the Bellarmine wrestling program for the last three years.
She says that directing plays definitely helped her Hall of Fame refereeing career.
"My level of detail on both is what made me successful at running tournaments," she said.
Although she could already be retired from teaching, when asked what's keeping her around, she simply said, "I love what I do. What else would I do? I love my job."
During the interview, two girls walked into her classroom and hugged her as they were leaving for the day. She said to them, "I'm having a meeting, okay? I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
She smiled at the pair as they nodded their heads and walked right back out.
That smile remained for the rest of the interview, as she reminisced about her other feats in the sport, including traveling to Sweden and getting to know Olympic wrestlers.