What a journey this has been: women's wrestling in the US

Seeing Terry Steiner on the podium holding that large 3^rd place team trophy was a special moment.  No one was satisfied with a bronze finish at the World Championships in Budapest; we left a couple of medals there, that’s for sure.  However, it is rewarding for everyone involved in this program to see the fruits of our labor.  Alyssa Lampe, Elena Pirzkhova and Adeline Gray all won bronze medals, Victoria Anthony nearly missed being in the finals finishing 5^th, Helen Maroulis was 7^th and Alli Ragan and Veronica Carlson were also in the hunt for a medal.

Terry was my coach at Wisconsin when he received phone calls from Mitch Hull and Rich Bender asking him to take a new position at USA Wrestling in 2001.  It was announced that the International Olympic Committee would add women’s freestyle wrestling to the program.  USAW needed a coach and Terry was the only choice.  When he accepted the position and told our team, I remember all of us were very confused about why he would leave a Big Ten team who had just finished in the top 10 in the NCAA in back-to-back years to coach girls.  Many of us had a negative attitude towards women’s wrestling for a variety of reasons, but he told us that he asked himself why he coaches and he concluded that his purpose to help transform lives through wrestling wasn’t gender specific.  That was a defining moment in my life.  I became intrigued by what was Terry was doing.  In 2003, the World Championships were held in New York and I had to opportunity to attend (as a spectator).

I saw a US team of women competing with one common goal – to win a team title.  Terry had inherited a team of athletes and coaches and things started to resemble a “team.”  They finished second in front of a home crowd and many people, for the first time, believed in women’s wrestling.  I was one of them.  I approached Terry after the tournament and told him I was all in.  He was a significant person in my life when he was at Wisconsin and I was inspired what he was doing.  I told him I’d do whatever I could to help him achieve his goals.  As a fresh college graduate, I didn’t know that he would believe in me almost as much as I believed in him.  He took my up on my offer immediately by sending me to China with a group of 14 and 15 year old girls.

I started going on tours with the girls and coaching at a variety of developmental and national team camps.  USA Wrestling added assistant coach Vladimir Izboinikov and he perfectly complimented Terry and his vision.  Coach Izzy was able to organize a comprehensive development plan that included identifying talent and developing them as a team in anticipation of building a program that would win that elusive team world title.  He put in place a group of volunteer coaches that each had his/her own unique style and it all meshed together perfectly.  This was the first year every member of the US World Team was a part of that development model.  All seven girls have an abundance of age-level international experience.  Each one of them has won a medal at the junior and/or university world championships.  With all of them between the ages of 21 and 25, this was our youngest team ever, but it was also the most experienced.  This is exactly what the plan was designed to do.

Terry standing on the podium represented much more than a bronze medal.  It represented the fruit of a 10-year plan.  It represented patience, persistence and consistency.  It’s also a lightning bolt of confidence to this program and for the girls.  The principle of the harvest is simple: you reap what you sow.  We planted the seed, watered and cultivated it and are ready for the harvest.  In agriculture, it’s easy to trust this principle, but with the human element of emotions and individual choice, it’s much more difficult to do so.  We’re getting close, though.  It was as if Terry standing on the podium was a proverbial ear of corn on a stalk assuring us that we are, indeed, going to have that bumper crop we anticipated when we planted those seeds years ago.  Now it comes down to timing and remaining patient as we actively wait for the crop to become ripe.  That ripening is the only piece of the puzzle left and it happens as these athletes begin to believe in themselves.  They need to see themselves as the best team in the world before it happens.

You cannot script it much better, can you?  Next year, the World Championships are in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.  We have a year to watch this crop of athletes develop and mature.  In 2015, the World Championships will be on our turf, in Las Vegas.  In 2003, the American wrestling community ordained Terry in his role and he’ll be able to show them over 10 years later what happens when you develop a plan and follow it; the principle of the harvest.  Going into the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Team USA will be, without question, the best women’s wrestling country on the planet.