This year’s University Academy wrestling season has started, and the program continues to grow every year.
UA’s wrestling team started in the 2019-2020 school year, and athletes have already earned medals and scholarships from this young program. The program has already helped three former UA wrestlers earn college scholarships.
The wrestling program added a girls team in the 2022-2023 school year, and then it expanded to include middle school last year. This year, the numbers are higher than ever, with 50 total people on the team. Thirty of those are Upper School students.
What’s unique about this sport is that wrestling is a sport for everyone.
The wrestling head coach, Coach Jeremy Dorrell, said, “Anyone can wrestle—short, tall, large, small. It’s a very cool sport in that way.”
Nobody has to worry about wrestling someone way bigger or stronger because the sport operates in weight classes.
Marlei Jackson, a UA sophomore and first-time wrestler, said she wasn’t interested in competitive sports at first.
She said, “I do not like competitive sports, but wrestling, it’s like a good type of competition for me.”
Jackson went on to explain how after every match, whether you win or lose, you still shake the other person’s hand at the end. This plays a crucial factor in the sport’s sportsmanship.
This sport also gives people something to look forward to during the end of the semester. Junior Elijah Marsenburg is looking forward to getting another chance to wrestle after getting injured during his previous two wrestling seasons.
Marsenburg said, “My favorite thing about wrestling is the way it’s a team sport off the mat and an individual sport on the mat.”
The wrestling season has already started, and practices as of now have began. The first wrestling meet is Dec. 2. This year’s first ever wrestling tournaments hosted by UA are on Dec. 6 against Center High School and Guadalupe Centers High School and Dec. 11 against Lincoln Preparatory High School and Northeast High School.
As the start of competition draws near, athletes and coaches are setting goals for the season.
Jackson said, “My goals for this season are to find my strong suit and truly lock in. … I’m wanting to find my move this year and hopefully get to use it throughout my wrestling journey.”
Goals like this help athletes know what to work on so they can have an upper hand against opponents.
Another thing that helps give UA wrestlers an upper hand is the experience of Coach Dorrell. His all-time wrestling record is 135 wins and 12 losses. Coach Dorrell wrestled at Truman State University. He was team captain and even led the team his senior year with 25 wins.
Coach Dorrell originally got into the sport when a wrestling coach saw him playing football in the third grade.
“He came up and asked if I had ever thought about wrestling. Wrestling wasn’t something I was familiar with. However, I went to practice that next week, and the rest is history,” he said.
Come support the Gryphon wrestlers on Dec. 6 here at UA!
