Takedown Report

A sport of their own

A high school wrestler from Kansas spent four years fighting to give girls the OPPORTUNITY to compete in an official state sport.
MCPHERSON, Kan.
She was awkward at sports that involved rackets, balls or any kind of equipment. And the middle school girls she considered friends picked on her instead. Finally fed up with being bullied, Mya Kretzer looked for a new crowd in seventh grade and found it in wrestling, a sport that ran through her family like strong winds whip through Kansas. She loved wrestling’s demands: the discipline and commitment required to control an opponent using only skill, technique and grit. And if she had to practice and compete against sweaty boys, the chance to wrestle was worth it, she decided. But no matter how much she improved, Kretzer soon realized she would never have a realistic chance to become a state champion. She could compete and enter any tournament she chose. But because Kansas didn’t recognize girls’ wrestling as an official sport, she would have to beat the best boys in her weight class to win a state title — a virtual impossibility given the greater strength and muscle mass boys tend to develop as they get older. What girls needed, she believed, was to have a sport of their own. Achieving that goal came to define her high school wrestling career. Rest of the story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/sports/girls-wrestling-high-school-mya-kretzer/?mc_cid=4e11e7aebd&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

November 12, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized