Kayla

For girl wrestling on boys teams, there are many hurdles to overcome. A pleasant personality and strong work ethic and wrestling for the “right reasons” help. But do you know what’s better? Winning. And in wrestling, style points count. Wrestlers may not admit it, but enough have talked about what pin they’ve used or how much their armbar hurt their opponent, to know that if you kick ass, your teammates will notice. And Kayla McRorie knows how to kick ass. But that wasn’t always the case for Kayla.

Kayla goes to Sault Area High School in Michigan. I first interviewed her on August 4, 2010. I asked her if she would be interested in doing a story with me and she responded, “Well, I really don’t have any good wrestling stories.” The 2009-2010 season was not a great one for Kayla. She had a losing record and said she, “Hardly won any matches.” 

Typically I will write to them a few months later and see how their next season is going, and they often tell me they quit the sport. I do understand but I always find it sad, that one losing season can get to them that easily. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Kayla started the 2010-2011 season 2-0. On December 26, 2010, I inquired how she was doing and she told me she was 12-3, with “only 3 wins being against girls.” Kayla had obvious pride with having a 9-3 record vs. boys. 

When you think about it, wrestling is the most intimate and personal sport there is. Tennis can play mind games, boxing can break you, but wrestling challenges you in ways that are hard to describe. The competitors are constantly touching and you can feel your opponents will against yours. And in the end, the loser is helpless as he or she cant get up when someone else is holding them down. Then the loser has to go to the middle of the ring, and watch the winners hand get raised.

For the loser, it can be a very humbling experience. And though I often complain about many girls not having a killer attitude, this is my favorite part about girls wrestling. If a girl loses to a boy and has to face them again, they look forward to the challenge.

I’ve asked almost every girl I’ve interviewed their favorite match. And many will say the third match against a certain boy, because they got teched the first time, pinned the second, and almost beat him the third. They glow with pride that this once vastly superior wrestler, is *now* just a little better than them.  Many girls who were beaten by other girls have told me, “Yeah I want to win first place, but I want the match to be against xxxxx, because she beat me last year and I want revenge.”  And most of the girls I’ve spoken to, get significantly better and surprise the wrestler that has beaten them multiple times before.

But for boys, I’ve found its not that way, at least when they have to face a girl that has beaten them before. Caitlyn McCracken beat a boy named Ronnie three times and said, ““And I would like to say it got easier with each match.  Which means I just wanted to beat him more eagerly each time.”  Morgan Belanger beat a boy named James three times and said, “James will always be the person who took the best and worst of me at the same time I guess. He portrayed me to be greater than him, to my team, and thus created me in a greater light. Like I was the greater wrestler, always, when compared against him.” Darby Newman beat the same boy twice, and she said, ““I felt like I had accomplished something great. It was great doing it twice. The feeling of beating this kid again was amazing.”

As you can see, the girls felt invigorated with their multiple victories. And their teammates noticed.

Enter Kayla. It was her first match of her junior year. She was coming off two seasons that she wasn’t proud of. And for the first match, she was facing a boy from Cheboygan High School. Much like Kayla, he too was about to impress me, but in a much different way. Though he gave me permission to use his name, I’m going to call him Chris in case he changes his mind and doesn’t want this story to show up in a google search.

Kayla was coming off an injury and a concussion and she wasn’t planning on wrestling that day, but her new coach asked her if she wanted to give it a go and Kayla said yes. Though Kayla hadn’t been practicing and was coming off what she considered a subpar year, Chris was a welcome site. “Well last year he was like 95ish pounds. So I thought he is smaller than me and I have more experience and he’s a freshman, so I told myself I could beat him. “ She also saw herself in Chris. “As a freshman I was that little 95 pound kid. So I knew what it was like. But I gained a few pounds over the summer and I had been lifting weights so I was stronger. So that’s another reason I was more confident, because I was a little bit bigger and had been going to off-season tourneys all summer. My coach had a lot of confidence in me and I didn’t want to let him down.”

As soon as the match started, she knew she wouldn’t.  “Once he took a shot, I sprawled and I knew I could beat him. He wasn’t very strong. He shot, I sprawled, got behind him and got the takedown. From there he was easy to breakdown. He didn’t have a good stand up and the first time I got a near-fall. I told myself I was doing fine and to just keep doing that the rest of the match.”

Kayla worked hard to try and get the pin but Chris fought her attempts off each time and when the match finally ended, Kayla didn’t know why. “At first when the ref blew the whistle to signal the match was over I was confused because I didn’t notice what the score was. But then I looked over and realized I had teched him, but I really just wanted to pin him.”

Though a tad disappointed with getting the tech, Kayla had a lot to be proud of. She was not 100% for the match, “I was just getting over a concussion, and I was just happy the match was over. I started to feel dizzy.”

It wouldn’t be a good sign of things to come for Chris, as he got teched by a wrestler who was still suffering the effects of a concussion. Imagine what would happen when she was healthy?

Chris was to find out exactly what would happen two more times last season. He went against Kayla twice, and was pinned both times. “I was happy that I pinned him. I like pinning people better because at our school we get pin-pins when we pin a kid. The team manager makes them. We wear them on our varsity jacket, the colors are the school colors from whatever school the kid is from.”

Her teammates began to notice, Kayla was collecting a lot of pin-pins. “My team wasn’t very good, we lost a lot of duals, but my teammates were always happy when I’d wrestle because it was pretty much a sure thing I’d get us team points. Most of my losses from last season were from individual meets. “

Unlike the previous two seasons, Kayla was very happy her junior year, as she finished 32-12, a big improvement over 15-15. “Its dedication. I was wrestling all year long, off-season tourneys, wrestling camps…the victories helped me gain confidence in myself, especially the first time I wrestled Chris. Its nice to beat someone over and over because it shows that you’re actually better than that person, and you didn’t just get lucky.”

But as Kayla proved, things change quickly in wrestling. Especially for boys who have growth spurts. And Chris had one. Kayla went from outweighing him, to being outweighed. They once again met to start the 2011-12 season and just from the looks of things, last years dominance may not continue. “He was my first match and I was a little nervous because he was bigger than me.” But her nervousness was short-lived.

Chris was 112, and Kayla 103 pounds. Chris made the mistake of asking Kayla’s coach what weight Kayla was wrestling at, and when he found out she was smaller than him and not in his weight class, he was relieved. According to Kayla, Chris didn’t want to wrestle her, even though she was smaller and he had an advantage. “I thought it was kinda weird because he was bigger than me now, and I didn’t see why he wouldn’t want to wrestle me, considering I thought he’d just out muscle me. But it didn’t surprise me all that much, because he did bump away from me last year also. It did kind of bug me, but at the same time I just kind of laughed about it.”

Kayla understands that losing to the same person sucks, she’s lost to the same state qualifier a bunch of times, but she says, “I liked wrestling him because I knew the only way to get better, is to wrestle someone better than you.” Once she even pinned the state qualifier, but you have to be willing to get pinned to pin someone.

But it was soon clear why Chris didn’t want to wrestle Kayla. “We shook hands, the whistle blew, Chris took a shot, a really bad one. I realized his technique wasn’t any better from last year. I got an under-hook or a tomahawk, and threw him to his back and pinned him. It wasn’t a very long match.” As it turns out, Kayla didn’t have to worry about being out-muscled. “Not really, as it turns out, he was just taller.”

Kayla was a bit surprised Chris didn’t follow her career path. “Well last year I was just kind of whatever, he’s a freshman, he’ll get better. He was under 100 pounds just like I was. But this year it was just like the same thing, other than he was bigger. I was surprised he didn’t get any better or that he didn’t out-muscle me.” Kayla wanted to know why.

“His teammate told me he just messes around at practice. But I still give him props for sticking with it. I respect most of the wrestlers as long as they don’t throw fits when they lose (to a boy or a girl).”

The next time they wrestled it was more of the same, except the according to Kayla, the ref wasn’t very good. “I had him pinned a few times and the ref never called it. So I ended up teching him 17-0. I was a little annoyed the ref didn’t call it but our team was beating theirs so bad it really didn’t matter.”

While a pin can be quick, a tech is not. You spend a long time out on that mat, where one person is controlling the whole match. “I made him work. I made him shoot, I’d sprawl, get behind, get a near-fall, and he’d end up getting to his stomach. Then we would just repeat the process.”

The third time they wrestled this season Kayla was already being interviewed for the series of matches she had. It was the first time they wrestled since the interview started. A lot was on the line, considering a loss, would change the story dramatically for Kayla. “I was pretty nervous to go wrestle him, because I was like, what if he gets lucky and beats me?” But once the match started, there was nothing to be nervous about. “I calmed down and acted like it was just another match, and that I could do it.”

The video clearly shows the frustration of Chris, and the confidence of Kayla. Chris tries several times to shoot but Kayla easily just backs away. One of his teammates or coaches implores Chris, “Look at what you’re shooting at.” But then the coach is heard saying, “You’re not looking!!” He was right, his head was on the floor when he shot. Kayla quickly capitalized putting him in a front headlock, then grabbing his leg and riding him to the mat. Chris was on his stomach and Kayla ran a chickenwing and pinned him with a little bit left in the first period.”

If you watch the video, it appears Kayla was barely trying. And she and her coach agrees. “ (laughs) I wasn’t really trying, I was being lazy. The next day at practice coach was teasing me and told me I can’t always be so lazy.”

Though she may have been lazy for a match, you don’t go from a pretty bad losing record, to 15-15, to 32-12, to her senior year record of 39-10 by being lazy. You do it through hard work, believing in yourself, and positive reinforcement. And Kayla was able to get that in the form of Chris, who she defeated “six or seven times” by pin or tech without ever losing.

And to Chris’ credit, he agreed to an interview and realizes how good Kayla is. “She is most definitely the best person I've ever wrestled. No doubt. Out of the multiple times I've wrestled her, I have yet to beat her once. She is really flexible, and really strong. My matches with her have been some of my favorite matches.”

His favorite??? I was floored when he said that. He explained, “They've always been the toughest matches. I've had some pretty hard matches before, but none as hard as her.” Kayla had a similar reaction “(laughs) I’m not going to lie, that surprised me.”

Chris was mature beyond his years, and a class act. But he also was too self aware for his own good. “I really want to beat her, but honestly, she has alot more skill than I do, and I dont plan on beating her.” Kayla says she hopes Chris loses that attitude, because he will never get better. “No wrestler should think like that because anything is possible if you work hard enough for it. Because if you think you can’t do something then you won’t be able to. I used to be just like that having a negative attitude towards my opponents that were better than me.”  

And then Kayla told me about a time she lost to a girl, wanted a rematch, got it and beat her with a four point move with 30 seconds left to beat her by 1, at the finals of a tournament.

And that’s what I loved about writing this story. Kayla want from a girl who wrestled that had little confidence and didn’t believe in herself, to someone who doesn’t back away from a challenge, and became a wrestler. I’m hoping I can say the same thing about Chris next season. My advice would be work as hard as Kayla did.