March 3rd-5th I got to travel to Adrian, Michigan to write the wrap stories and grab a few interviews for USA Wrestling at the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships. The NCWWCs are the NCAA-only nationals for collegiate women’s wrestling. This was my first trip as a freelance journalist and my first trip to the NCWWCs.
The tournament was established during the 2020 season shortly before women’s wrestling was granted emerging sport status in the NCAA by the committee on women’s athletics. In 2021 it was moved to Tiffin, Ohio, and back to Adrian this year. I know some intricate history very well because I covered collegiate women’s wrestling extensively for my own outlet, Transition Wrestling, from 2019 to 2021. I haven’t published new content since the Olympic Team Trials, which is just about a year ago at this point.
The weekend was fun because it was the first time I was back in the collegiate world as a journalist. In a very real way, it was comforting to tread back into that territory on assignment for someone else. Like I had the freedom to do work I love without a larger pressure to commit or sift through solutions or justifications for what I plan to do with my own small business in the future.
I was most excited about the interviews, which feels ironic because that’s where I was always most nervous for TW– I preferred to write from a ten thousand foot level. But I’m a different person a year removed. I did sideline reporting at the WIAA boys and girls state tournament this year, and, after each of those, I learned more about how to conduct interviews and how exciting it is to share those stories. It finally started to click, and I felt comfortable there in a way I didn’t know I needed to. It also sits well with some ideas I have for the future.
Then, last weekend, was the NAIA National Invitational. Unlike my first trip to the NCWWCs, this was my first season not going to the NAIAs. I was really torn about it but wanted to be at home to compete in the CrossFit Open, and also I didn’t really have an assignment reason to be present since I haven’t been covering college wrestling this year.
I feel this extra sense of connection to the NAIA. I attended a small NAIA institution (Waldorf College) and really value the smaller learning environment and how I could tailor my degree. I loved the support. I also coached in the NAIA while earning my master’s degree in organizational leadership.
On top of that, in a very fitting way, the first NAIA National Invitational in 2019 was the first tournament I ever covered as a journalist, and it was before I even built a website for Transition Wrestling. I coached on the floor all day and then hustled back to my hotel room to write the recaps. I had stats and facts, and I was really on fire to share what was happening on the floor. It was the first time that anyone had really shared my work, and it was all from Medium, a community-like journalism platform very similar to Rokfin. I was encouraged at the time about the potential of what I wanted to do, and the support I would receive from the community based solely on the first feelings of how my work was received.
I built my website that spring, and, in July of 2019, I launched a Kickstarter campaign and headed out to Fargo with K. Sugi. The campaign didn’t stick with the community, but I went on covering wrestling that season intensely–all while working full time in finance, and training full time with the goal of competing at the Olympic Team Trials in 2020.
So many good things happened from 2019 to 2021. I was supported by friends and family in different ways, and none of the work happened alone. One of my very close friends served as a legitimate consultant and editor. I learned a ton, got connected in amazing ways, and we really knocked some event coverage out of the park. In the summer of 2020, I quit training full time and that fall started working with the Wisconsin Wrestling Federation and coaching at Victory (still working in finance).
But wrapped up in the good that came about with Transition Wrestling, I dealt with a lot of doubt. I downplayed what I wanted to do, and I cared A LOT about what people thought. I got smaller over time, pushed around, exhausted, and lost sight of the fire in me until it was just autopilot. I think by the time 2021 rolled in I was constantly trying to patch up a looming sense of discouragement and disbelief in what I was doing. I wasn’t writing from a place of joy. I was feeling misunderstood, underappreciated, and taken for granted.
The driving force for all of that, and why it feels so obvious now, is that I was seeking validation in my work from every corner of the world except in my own heart. I was relying on the public to tell me I was good enough, that my work was good enough, and it was like trying to fill a bottomless sink. It didn’t really matter who believed in me, because I didn’t believe deeply in myself. That alone generated such a lack of confidence and need for my work to be great because that’s what I was resting my head on at night. That sense of my work as my worth destroyed me for a long time. There’s no way to last on the fumes of the public’s praise.
So this entire year from spring to spring has been spent healing and growing–from burnout and from things I didn’t know I needed to heal from as I uncovered them, like where that incessant need for validation stemmed from in the first place. Ahem, childhood. For several months I took everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary off my plate. I spiraled and pushed the world away before I felt like I could come back. It’s been a time for me to find within myself a who and how and why, and it’s been an intense year in a lot of challenging and good ways. It’s been hurtful and powerful to take ownership of my shortcomings and the pressures I put on myself, and some of my closest friends have been hurt and confused in the crossfire of me dredging through the multifaceted hurt wrapped up in this. It’s been one of the most painfully beautiful years of my life.
I do believe we’re created to add value and to use our lives to serve, but MY value is not measured by the work that I contribute. I needed to address that the most. And it’s not about not caring–I care deeply about the work I contribute and how it hits the world–it’s about not letting the work we do be the identifier of our hearts and our worth. It’s about taking complete ownership and creating within my own lane. It’s about stepping in, nerves and all, knowing that my worth is not in jeopardy.
So back to Michigan two weekends ago: as I prepared and tried to do some research, I learned quickly that I wasn’t able to dig up what I wanted to for history on the season. I realized in that moment the value I brought to the space, and how I was differentiated from the outlets that have been producing any type of content for women’s wrestling. I was so close to the fire that I couldn’t see the work that I was contributing, and I was comparing myself to the other players in the game so hard that I didn’t know the value I brought.
I asked my friend about it, and she said, “You were just focusing on everyone else’s progress but your own home dog,” and there it was, neatly wrapped up with a bow on top.
I think it’s probably going to require a lifelong practice of self-awareness, but I don’t tie my value to my work anymore. I am not who the world says I am. I am free to create and free to be whole exactly as I am. I’m strong and chasing better.
All the love in life through sport,
GLK
Love following this sister!