Diary of a Wrestling Mom

We all have been blessed to witness the booming growth of girls wrestling in the state of Iowa. Seven years ago, there were less than 100 girls on the roster of their high school wrestling teams. In 2024, 1602 ladies hit the mat in the now sanctioned sport. How do we keep those numbers growing? For starters, we need to do more than recruit and encourage girls to lace up a pair of wrestling shoes and compete. We need to recruit and encourage young women to be in these athletes’ corners and to officiate their matches. We need to support the next generation of leaders. Not too long ago, I found a post on Facebook that was written by a concerned wrestling mom. The picture she posted was of two women in their early twenties coaching their high school team. The message was beyond disappointing. She spoke about how the two of them had been belittled by male coaches, dismissed by officials and disrespected by parents.   What these individuals are unaware of is the amount of experience these tw

This is a nice story about jiu jitsu. How did this make me a wrestling mom, you ask? Ah, it's time for that story I told you about before.  This journey all started in 2016 when Ali started eighth grade. She was a yellow belt at Hard Drive, practicing a few days a week and planning her next tournament. At the same time, the gym was starting a wrestling club and offering it to the community. That was nice. Other than the sudden presence of little boys running around while we tried to practice, it wouldn't affect us much. They brought on Brandon Pence as the head coach and tasked him to create a team that would compete for USA Wrestling and AAU. Again, for us, that was nice but it didn't affect us. Boy, how wrong we were. Hard Drive was located on the second floor of an old building that housed several businesses. It may have been an old warehouse. There was a long hallway from the staircase and freight elevator to the black and red double doors that led to the gym itself. Al

I didn't plan on starting this blog. I have projects to make and books to finish. However, I'm a little pissed at the moment and proceeding without much thought. Knowing me, I'll forget to update it regularly. In this blog, I am going to relate my story from my point of view. Names may be dropped. I may edit them out later. Will it be everything? Probably not. My memory is crap at times (thanks, thyroid cancer). Anyway...Diary of a Girl Wrestling Mom. I am a wrestling mom. Did I ask to be a wrestling mom? No. It was sort of thrusted on me. It's a cute, very important story to me that I will tell later.  Did it ever cross my mind that I would be a wrestling mom? Never. I forbade my sons from being wrestlers. When they were little, I listed to a woman talk about the horrible things her boys had to do to cut weight. I couldn't wrap my arms around making my kids do that. Instead, the oldest decided to play football and both guys went out for track. Never, in my wildest