That's right. Lorien is wrestling this year. She mentioned it in the fall and Will thought she had a crush on one of the boys on the team and so wanted to wrestle to hang out with him more. Nope. She just wanted to wrestle like her Dad.
So, she attended the open mat nights in the fall and started on the team when the season started in November. Will agreed to come help coach and they were off to the races...and by races I mean smelly wrestling rooms.
It has been so good for her. She does not like to do hard things and wrestling is no exception. But she persists and keeps on trying. She lost every. single. match...but had some close ones. She learned some lessons and got stronger.
When Will was in high school there were only a handful of girls in the whole state of Montana who wrestled. When they would have a girl as their opponent some of Will's teammates would forfeit the match. There was no glory in beating a girl and they weren't going to risk losing to one either. Now, 20 plus years later, there are whole tournaments for girls. There is almost always a girls bracket at every meet. AND, my favorite thing by far, her team of boys is so supportive of her. She is the only girl on the team. We all sit on the stands together and when she is called up all the boys start tapping each other for attention. They say "Hey, Lorien's up, let's go" and head over to her mat. They stand on the sides in a big group and cheer her on. I want to cry every time I hear "Hey, Lorien is up!" and watch them stand in mass. It is great...better than great...awesome.
I am so proud of her. Unfortunately, we didn't know she had to turn in a form by December 5th to get wrestling counted as a PE credit for this year. Good thing she wants to wrestle again next season!
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