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At 20, Ellis is the youngest member of the Olympic wrestling team and one of the most successful wrestlers in the wrestling room coached by Mike Powell. All of us who watched Ellis’ career bloom from 2005-2009 can recall Coach Powell kissing Ellis on the top of the head before each match. And then Ellis would go out and annihilate his opponent.

Katie has had many obstacles to overcome being a girl in a male-dominant sport. Against the boys she loses more than she wins but never lets that beat her down. Every time she walks onto the mat she believes she can win. She has had some major victories too.

Headed to state tonight to watch our Huskies wrestle at Inidivual Illinois High School Association, Class 3A. Go Huskies!

If you are like me, you have been hooting and hollering about all the new viral “S—” different people say. I thought it was about time to give wrestling moms our due. I have so much material stay tuned for Part II.

The team’s amazing first-time ever in OPRFHS history feat of advancing 14 of 14 wrestlers on the roster to regionals in hopes of sweeping at state was a nerve-wracking blast to witness.

Wrestling is a great sport and I have been involved since high school as a mat maid, my younger brother being a state qualifier in Iowa and my oldest wrestling. Garett is my baby and I was looking forward to his last two years.

It’s Friday night and I am in a Coralville, Iowa hotel room, a little weary from the four-hour drive from Chicago west on 88 and then even west-er on 80, past texting truck drivers and horizontal snow winds, miles of empty ice-dusted fields and about 1,000 signs for Subway. I just finished putting six turkey, cheese and spinach sandwiches I made this morning and about a gallon of Vitamin Water in the small humming refrigerator for Colin to eat tomorrow after the weigh-ins for the Iowa City West quad against Apple Valley and Marmion.

I know we are all supposed to be above this kind of thing. We are not gloat. We are in it for the challenge and the discipline of the sport. But oh my, it is one of the 10 best feelings in the world when your son has his hand raised in victory in a [...]

You know you’re a wrestling parent when: Beyonce sings about all the “single ladies” and you hear “all the single legs” and wonder why Beyonce has a song out about wrestling?…The smell of wrestling shoes brings back memories of matches rather than makes you sick to your stomach (ok, it might make you sick to your stomach as well)…You know more about rashes than your doctor.

In the stands every wrestling season since 2004 I have had plenty of anxiety attacks about what work I needed to do once I got home, what I needed to get accomplished for the house or for life, how to keep all the pins juggling in the air. But it was always worth it to go, spend most of the day in a gym wearing the orange and the blue just to see what splendor my sons could create. And it was splendid, even if the gym smelled bad and the other parents were sometimes hostile and some kids cried when they lost.