New wrestling program adds another chapter to local legacy
Robbinsville – As times change, so do the environments that surround us.
When the Far West Wrestling program picked up steam last winter, it was mostly because of the unusually-high amount of girls that trotted onto the mat to grapple.
Yes, girls. Gone are the days where females are viewed as inferior in a sport like wrestling, which has long been chocked full of predominately male athletes.
It is not like a precedent was already in place. Women’s wrestling had already made waves nationwide when the N.C. High School Athletic Association elected to have its first-ever statewide women’s invitational tournament in February 2020. With all four classifications lumped together inside the Carolina Courts in Concord, Robbinsville’s Aynsley Fink and Gracye Burchfield donned singlets and competed for supremacy.
Fink went on to finish as the 106-pound runner-up; then she won the 2021 and 2022 women’s state championships at 106 and 107 pounds, respectively.
Young ladies across Graham County took notice. The Far West program was resurrected – like most anything outside the standard, a COVID pause interrupted the proceedings – and with a passionate coach in Josh Winfrey behind the marketing, the year-end youth tournament April 9 featured a whopping turnout of both boys and girls.
The wheels were set in motion from there, according to Sarah Orr. A 2015 graduate of Murphy High School, Orr has stepped in to lead what will be termed a Graham County “club” team for the 2022-23 slate, as the state athletic association will not officially sanction women’s wrestling until next year.
Orr walked into the Robbinsville wrestling facility on Oct. 19 for a historic evening: the first-ever Lady Knights wrestling practice. What she found were 11 middle school girls, eager to learn the basics and begin a quest toward immortality. By the second day of practice, seven more girls had joined the movement. Monday saw the addition of one more, bringing the roster to 19.
“I was a little worried about the turnout at first, but to watch the numbers grow has been extremely exciting,” Orr said in a Monday phone interview with The Graham Star. “I am privileged and proud just to be a part of this.”
Action might be scarce at the outset, but all good things have to begin somewhere. The only other school from the conference that is fielding an all-women’s team this season will be Swain County Middle School. Robbinsville is still mapping out a schedule for its middle school Lady Knights.
For a wrestler like Orr – who spent the majority of her career pitted against males – the buzz around women’s wrestling is a dream come true.
“I had always hoped for an all-women’s team, but this sport has always been geared toward men,” Orr said. “Now everything is falling in place.”
Popular movement
The decision to officially sanction women’s wrestling in North Carolina was an easy one.
The state association announced the addition of the sport April 27. It was the first athletic endeavor the N.C. High School Athletic Association had sanctioned since giving a nod of approval to lacrosse in 2010.
“Let me just say how excited I am that (the sports committee) arrived at this … this is a historical moment for us,” state athletic association commissioner Que Tucker said in an April 27 press conference.
The committee’s vote was unanimous.
Given that three statewide invitationals were already in the record books, to officially sanction the sport was almost an afterthought. Now, girls will be recognized as state champions by the association, rather than “invitational” state champions.
The association also noted April 27 that at least 210 of its member schools had at least one female wrestler on its roster – 125 North Carolina schools had at least two.
A March 4 report from the ABC affiliate in Denver cited that 34 states have sanctioned women’s wrestling. North Carolina’s decision almost two months later bumped that to 35.
Watching from afar
Now a freshman at the University of Tennessee, Fink cannot help but feel some pride about the trail she blazed at Robbinsville.
Not even two state championships and becoming the first female to win an individual Smoky Mountain Conference wrestling title can overshadow the influence Fink had each time she stepped on the mat.
“I started wrestling my sophomore year and had no clue where this sport would take me,” Fink said. “I never thought that Robbinsville would ever have their own girls team. It is truly amazing how much the sport has grown in three years.”
Young girls began to show up just to watch Fink wrestle. They would then approach her after a bout – but as children often do, find themselves speechless in the presence of a role model.
Admittedly, Fink did not realize the importance of what she was doing right away, but it clicked soon enough.
“I was at a tournament that was being held at our high school; it was the first tournament of my senior year,” Fink said. “Several little girls came up and asked me to take pictures with them, then they happily followed me around the whole tournament.
“I didn’t know these girls but … they knew me. I felt like a leader and a role model. It made my heart happy to know that there are little girls watching me. I wanted to do everything I could to show these girls that they can. I can’t wait to see these girls compete and show everybody how great this sport is.”