Kayleigh Angona (10), who has been wrestling for just three months, won regionals for the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) Division I and is the first female wrestler from White Station High to win such a highly competitive event.
“I knew that Kayleigh is a natural athlete so her making it to state isn’t really a surprise,” Brenden Rye, the wrestling coach said.
After the previous wrestling coach left to coach for Central High School, Brenden Rye, who has a passion for martial arts, wanted to bring back wrestling. As of now, it has only been four months since the team has formed.
“The biggest surprise is that all of the kids have only been wrestling for around four months,” Rye said. “For any of them to get as far as they did is honestly a shock to all the coaches.”
An athlete’s work ethic is defined by how an athlete approaches the sport before and after practices. Angona has proved herself to be a hard-working athlete at each 2 hours long practice, 5 times a week.
“She’s just one of those kids who is driven to be great,” Rye said. “Anything that you ask her to do, she will be one of the first people to hop in line and do it.”
From the beginning, Angona has proved herself to be a new star so the expectations from the team have been high all season long. Even her team captains agree.
“[I was] expecting it,” Marco Villa (11) said. “She did really [well.]”
After three-month-long practices and tournaments, Angona finally won the regionals, upholding her way to state competition.
“It can be challenging but it’s all worth it,” Angona said. “It means a lot because I’m the first girl ever to make it to state for wrestling at White Station.”
Even though wrestling has been a new journey in her life, Angona continues to fully commit herself to this hobby — Angona won against regional medalists of other schools and girls who have been wrestling for years.
“We coach the girls the same way we coach the boys,” Rye said. “We don’t teach anything differently.”
Generally, there’s a stereotypical belief that girls play ‘girly’ sports and not super physical sports like wrestling or rugby. However, to Coach Rye and the assistant coaches, the goal is to overturn this idea.
“I think we are just trying to break that stereotype in general for the entire wrestling team,” Rye said. “The state of Tennessee had little less than 10,000 student wrestlers who were women. Now we are definitely [growing] over 10,000.”
As of early February 2024, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) decided to suggest that Divisions I, II, and III propose legislation to include a national collegiate women’s wrestling championship and now it is part of the Emerging Sports for Women program.
“I think that’s huge because it now opens up more women’s wrestling and girl’s wrestling to go to a D1 college and compete for a National Championship for the first time in history,” Rye said. “Luckily, most of our kids are 9th and 10th graders so those girls will have a chance to go to a D1 college.”
In wrestling, there are different weight classes; at practices, Coach Rye challenges his wrestlers to drill against the opposite genders for more improvement and flexibility.
“She’s one of the few girls on the team who can drill with both boys and girls,” Rye said. “Sometimes it’s hard to drill with a partner that weighs 30 pounds more than you do, it’s just a different feel and aspect [but] she typically doesn’t have that problem. She’s really good at keeping her motor going and working.”
Right now, you might see Brenden Rye with long lavish green hair because he promised his wrestlers that he will undergo a crazy hair change if any of them qualify for state. Just simple promises like this have improved the team’s bonding and they continue to strengthen their relationship with handshakes.
“My best memory with her is when we made a handshake at the Memphis Girls open,” Rye said. “She ended up winning third place in a competition with a lot of good girls.”
