University of Olivet Welcomes Women's Wrestling Club
- Nadia Tijerina
- 9 minutes ago
- 2 min read
By: Nadia Tijerina
OLIVET, Mich. - The University of Olivet has welcomed a new club on campus, the Olivet Women’s Wrestling Club (OWWC). The OWWC was created for women that attend Olivet or high school girls in surrounding areas who are interested in learning the sport of wrestling and competing at meets.
The idea of the club sparked when a group of girls on the college campus came up to Olivet wrestling alums, and current UO employees, Dylan Phelps and Benyamin Kamali with the interest of wrestling.
“It actually opened our eyes up to see that it was not just women who had wrestled in high school that were interested, women from different sports or no sports at all were really interested in learning about wrestling," said Kamali, a volunteer coach of OWWC.
The OWWC is designed for all levels of experience, with members who have some sort of knowledge of wrestling and others who may have not even played a sport before.
“My friend Natalie, she reached out to me and she wanted me to try wrestling. My other friends were also doing it so they kind of dragged me out there to practice, and now I love going there,” said Madelyn Jenkins, treasurer of the OWWC.
There were a couple of steps that had to be taken in order to get the club to be recognized as an active club by the university.
“We met with Student Government to figure out what we needed such as how many
people, what types of documents, et cetera," Kamali said. "We were told to come up with a constitution and to decide on who will serve as president, treasurer, et cetera."
But, interest in women's wrestling isn't just increasing on campus. According to Sports Illustrated, girls wrestling is one of the most rising sports in high school as participation jumped to nearly 74,000 nationwide, an increase in 15 percent from last year.
"A lot of other MIAA schools that have men's wrestling also have women's wrestling and Olivet is like one of the only schools that doesn’t and honestly, women’s wrestling saved wrestling as a whole," said Phelps, a volunteer coach of OWWC. "It's one the fastest growing women’s sports in high school and that’s just going to translate into college.”
As the club is growing everyday, there are long-term goals that Phelps and Kamali have for the program itself.
“The long-term vision is to grow the sport of wrestling not just for men, but for women and to help bring more opportunities for the local communities, and beyond that," Kamali said. "This goes hand-in-hand with where we hope the program will be. Which is established as an NCAA sport giving opportunities for women to excel and pave a new path at the University of Olivet."
Students that are interested in joining or learning more about the club are encouraged to contact Phelps or Kamali.