M.A. girl wrestler builds resilience
Wrestling hasn’t always been a sport for girls. But in recent years, girls have taken the sport by storm.
High school girls’ wrestling has seen a record number of participants, and many girls participate in clubs across the country. First-year Nylah Hawkins is one of them.
Hawkins, as a girl in a predominantly male sport, has faced some adversity.
“When I first started, some of the guys would forfeit because they didn’t want to go against a girl, and it hurt my feelings,” said Hawkins.
But Hawkins has learned not to let it affect her.
“I realized every time they forfeit, I go higher into the bracket, so it’s easy for me,” said Hawkins.
Hawkins joined the sport about two years ago because she wanted to become a better, stronger version of herself.
“I just felt like I was weak. I really wanted to be stronger. So I just decided to [join wrestling],” said Hawkins.
In addition to finding her inner strength, Hawkins has learned many life lessons from her past few years of wrestling, including patience and resilience.
“I learned a lot of patience [and resilience], because you’re not gonna win every single match. It took me a while to even get started winning,” said Hawkins. “It took me about five matches to get my first win.”
Her motivation to get better is to prove people wrong and show the guys in the sport that she can be strong and beat them.
“I just want to prove that, even though I’m a girl, I can beat you guys,” said Hawkins.
This is true in the rise of girls wrestling. Many girls have proven the guys wrong, winning matches and even getting spots in the Minnesota State High School Wrestling tournament. The girls’ division is making its first appearance in the tournament during the 2021-22 school year.
Although there is a girls’ division, the option remains open to girls if they would like to wrestle in the boys’ division, and many still do.
Many girls have wrestled before Nylah Hawkins, but she marks the first for Minnehaha Academy. Wrestling hasn’t been super popular at Minnehaha, but previously, until 2019, Minnehaha had a co-op boys wrestling program with Totino Grace. But Minnehaha most likely won’t see a resurgence of the sport.
“When wrestling left, no one said a word,” said athletic director Joshua Thurow.
Thurow explained that wrestling hasn’t had much interest at Minnehaha, meaning it’s unlikely Minnehaha will have another co-op in the future.
Wrestling is more popular in smaller towns and public schools rather than big cities and small private schools. Many schools outside the metro area as well as large public schools within the metro area have strong programs, showing that wrestling isn’t a dying sport even though the Minnehaha community doesn’t show that.
But that hasn’t stopped Hawkins from continuing her sport outside of school.
Her advice to girls and others joining wrestling is, “Don’t give up. Just keep going.”