Wolves claim first women's champ

Moorcroft Wolf Rebecca Anderson has taken the Wyoming women's wrestling championship in the 106 lb class in the first year that the sport has been sanctioned.

Anderson is no novice to wrestling; she joined the sport several years ago, when she was eight years old, with her father's encouragement.

"My dad wrestled in high school and started my brother wrestling with the USA team here when my brother was really young... and he encouraged me and my three sisters to wrestle," she says.

The youngster was not immediately enamored with the sport, though.

"Out of all my sisters and me, I was the most on the fence about wrestling. My parents really had to encourage me to try it and then I just really enjoyed it so I kept going," Anderson smiles as she reminisces. "It really stuck with me because I got a pin in my very first match."

Sticking to wrestling was not easy for the young girl as she was always pitted against naturally stronger adversaries. She admits the difficulty in wrestling the boys.

"Because I was the only female in the room, they kind of got to recognize that I had to work twice as hard as the boys and we were already working extremely hard. So it was a lot of hard work just to persevere through that," she says.

When head wrestling coach Charlie Williams told the team in 2022 that women's wrestling was probably going to be sanctioned in Wyoming, Anderson was pleased.

"It was just really amazing to be able to see the growth and be able to help the other girls here, in Moorcroft, to become better wrestlers throughout the season," she says.

To encourage more female wrestlers, the veteran sportswoman, along with the coaches, began to actively seek out those who already had strong bonds with the team.

"Quite a few of them were managers in years past and started to wrestle... And then [others] heard about it and were interested in it," she says.

This brought an entirely new perspective of the sport to Anderson.

"I felt really weak because the boys were just naturally stronger than me. It was just a natural difference that I couldn't really compensate for...but wrestling females brought my confidence up," she says.

"I realized that I really wasn't that weak, I had about the same amount of strength. It really helped bring up my confidence."

The high school junior has one more season of wrestling before graduation and has not, as yet, decided if she will continue the sport in college.

"It depends on the coaching staff and what the other girls are like...I'm definitely leaning toward probably wrestling in college," she says.

People may be seeing another Anderson joining the sport next season, continuing a brand new family tradition. Anderson says, "One of my younger sisters is the manager for the junior high team this year and is thinking about wrestling next year."

One of the strongest lessons Anderson has learned from her years in the sport has been perseverance, "Like learning how to take a hard loss, but coming back from it or working harder and doing better than I had. It's just really stuck with me and I know that when I'm older and in a career, when I have a setback, I know I'll be able to get back from it and do better."

The other hard-earned lesson was from her coach, Williams: "Charlie always tells us that it's a mental game – like when our bodies want to give up. If we just tell ourselves keep pushing, we will. I think that will help a lot even in our school work when I feel completely exhausted or I just don't want to do it; I just tell myself to keep going , then I can do it."

Recognizing the importance of the lessons she and her teammates have learned and continue to learn from this challenging sport, the athlete opines, "I think those are good lessons for anybody in the world to learn; I know there are other ways to learn it, too, but wrestling is how those lessons were taught to me – at a better age and in a better way than other people have learned them."

The student also acknowledges that there is a great deal more to learn, "Whether I learn it from wrestling...or my job when I'm older."

Anderson's parents are still strongly involved in their children's scholastic and athletic efforts, both having graduated from Natrona County High School before marrying and moving to Gillette when her father began working at an area mine.

"My dad still works at the mine, but we decided to move to Moorcroft after we got involved in some of the sports over here," she says. Her dad is now one of the assistant coaches to the wrestling team and her mother is the FCCLA advisor.

The junior has not decided the career course she wants, but is currently interested in either sports training or law enforcement.

Her greatest joy in this first year of women's wrestling is not her own success, however.

"I'd been thinking about it all season and I'm glad I got to see success for myself because it definitely grew my confidence, but I was even more happy to see success in the entire sport of women's wrestling because that's all I've wanted for a few years now – just to see it grow and see it be more accepted statewide and even nationwide," she says.