TIM RULAND The Pinedale Roundup | Posted: Sunday, May 23, 2004 12:00 am
The round table in the Big Piney Library is scattered with Crayola markers and bread crumbs. They are remnants of a very recent 4-H peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich party.
At first glance, Kolby Brown appears to be an average 11-year-old girl. Her hair is tied back in braids. Her ears are pierced. She wears fake fingernails with little butterflies airbrushed on them. Joining her is a 2-foot, stuffed cat in a dress.
"Her name is Cadence," Brown says, "She goes everywhere with me. Everywhere."
Her favorite school subjects are art and band. She talks about animals and how she wants to be a veterinarian. She goes on about her pigs, horses, cats, dogs, rabbits and donkey.
Upon second and even third glance, it's hard to believe that the fidgety little girl is one of the top junior wrestlers -- male or female -- in the state of Wyoming, let alone the nation. It's even harder to believe that she often competes against boys.
A member of Big Piney Pinners USA Junior Wrestling since 6, Brown has finished at least third in each of the 11 meets she has competed in this year. She wrestles in all three styles of competition: collegiate, Greco-Roman and freestyle.
Last year, Brown took first place at girls' nationals in Minnesota. This year, she took third. She also was the recipient of the 2003 Sportsmanship and Quick Pin (19 seconds) awards.
Two weeks ago at the state tournament in Casper, Brown finished second in 11-12 boys freestyle. She also took second in boys
Greco-Roman. In all, she wrestled six matches.
At the end of the meet, Brown was presented with the Wyoming Governor's Wrestling Award, which is given to the top boys' and girls' wrestlers in the state based on excellence and sportsmanship.
Brown accepted her award wearing pink pajamas.
Make no mistake, however. As friend and teammate Casey Romero puts it, "She kicks butt."
Pulling punches
Wrestling wasn't Brown's first choice.
"I thought it was boxing," she says. "Before I got into wrestling, I really wanted to be a boxer."
Brown's father, Todd Brown, took an interest in the sport when his children did, and he has been a Pinners assistant coach for about a year.
Kolby admits wrestling was a little confusing at first, but she gave it a try -- even if she couldn't throw any punches.
"I asked my mom if I could try it," she says. "She told me I would have to ask my dad. He said I could."
In half a season, Kolby learned the basics and quickly fell in love with the sport. It was not long before she began wrestling in the boys' division and winning matches on a weekly basis. The decision to compete against boys was hers, based entirely on a desire to wrestle at the highest level possible.
"There's no difference," she says of wrestling girls and boys. "Once you're on the mat it doesn't matter who you're wrestling. You always just pretend you're wrestling that kid who always beat you."
Kolby says preparing for a match remains the hardest part. She jogs around the arenas and gymnasiums to settle her nerves and get her muscles pumping.
"Once I get on the mat, everything just goes away," she says. "It helps to hear my team cheering behind me and it makes me feel better. Winning a match is really exciting, losing a match is frustrating."
'Every bit a girl'
Romero practices against Kolby on a daily basis.
"I know I'm gonna lose," he jokes, "and I know I'm gonna get launched and go flying through the air. But I also know that wrestling Kolby makes me a better wrestler."
Each week, Casey's mom, Tonya Ellison, writes articles about the Pinners' latest meet. She quickly confesses she is one of Kolby's biggest fans.
"Until I saw her wrestle, I didn't think wrestling was a sport for girls," Tonya says. "But Kolby is just as aggressive and just as tough as the boys she wrestles."
Tonya says that despite Kolby's achievements in a predominantly male sport, her personality is modest, and her everyday demeanor is far from boyish.
"She's every bit a girl," Tonya stresses. "She's definitely not a tomboy.
"When you see her downtown, she has her hair down. She's a normal fifth-grade girl who likes clothes, shopping and sleep-over parties. It just so happens that she's an amazing wrestler who beats boys."
Little brother Bonner probably knows that fact better than anyone.
When asked what her favorite move is, Kolby says, "It used to be the corkscrew, but now it's the cradle.
"Do you know what that is?"
She offers to demonstrate on Bonner, who appears to pop out of nowhere. Bonner is also a standout wrestler for the Pinners, but within seconds he is trapped on the floor, squirming to get loose.
"She has the best cradle in the state of Wyoming," says Pinners coach Bobby Hammer, who has worked with Kolby all four years. "She could put King Kong in that cradle."
Hammer says Kolby not only practices hard with the team, she spends a great deal of time working out on her own.
"She's a fanatic," he says, "And she has such a passion for the sport. I've been coaching her for four years and she's improved (each season). She does a lot of extracurricular work."
While clamping Bonner in a headlock, Kolby says she can perform 28 pull-ups.
Olympic dreams
This summer, the Summer Olympic in Athens, Greece, will feature women's Greco-Roman wrestling for the first time.
Kolby says she would love to be a part of that someday.
"It would be cool," she says. "There would be a lot of good wrestlers there and it would be fun to wrestle them."
Unfortunately for her, she may never have the chance.
Currently, Sublette County is the only county in Wyoming that does not offer high school wrestling.
"There's a lot of lost talent," Kolby's mother, Nancy, says of the many former Big Piney Pinners who have had to hang up their singlets.
Teammate Romero's mother, Tonya Ellison, feels the same way.
"It's too bad," she says. "A lot of these kids will have to miss out on a sport they love just because it isn't offered (through the school system)."
She says many parents have raised the issue with school officials and there is a push within the community to develop a high school wrestling program in Big Piney.
In the meantime, it's the parents of the Pinners who help their kids pursue the sport.
"It is a bit of a burden on the parents," Ellison says, "It's an expensive sport and it's not affiliated with the school, so everything comes straight out of mom and dad's pocket."
Each week during the Pinners' season -- February through June -- parents pile their wrestlers -- ages 5 through 16 -- into cars and minivans and make their way to competitions across the state.
"We're like a big family," Kolby says. "It makes me feel closer to my family. My mom keeps score, my dad coaches and my brother wrestles. I really look forward to the weekends."