OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — The first ever women's wrestling team at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh hosted its first practice of the season this week.
- UW Oshkosh's first women's wrestling team brings players from across the nation.
- This is head coach, Jared Costa's, seventh year coaching wrestling and second year coaching women's wrestling.
- Women's wrestling is the fastest-growing sport in the United States, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Head coach of UWO's first women's wrestling team, Jared Costa, says the team’s motto is #bethefirst.
Costa says being the first means there's little anxiety or pressure on the team, but still, he hopes to push his wrestlers to be the best they can be.
“Just being driven to be the best every single day... whether you lose, whether you win, just coming back the next day, trying to improve," he says.
Costa grew up wrestling, and both his youth coach– who happened to be his father– and his college coach were hall-of-fame wrestlers.
Costa started recruiting for the UWO women's team last year.
“Started with trying to build a family-oriented atmosphere, just trying to find girls that love wrestling, love school, and, most importantly, love life," he says.
For the young women, this season is less about being the first female team, and more about getting to play the sport they love at the collegiate level.
"I love wrestling, whether I win or lose, like, I just love being on the mat," freshman wrestler Annesley Day says. "If I have a hard day, I just go to the mat room and just drill by myself... and it's just like, I don't know, it's like the best feeling."
For these wrestlers, being a trailblazer is nothing new. Many of the women were some of the first to wrestle at their high school.
“My first year of wrestling was our first women's program," freshman wrestler Paige Haaf says. "When it started, there were only four of us, and then from there, the next year, there was eight.”
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, women's wrestling is the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., growing 55% between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years.
Ten years ago, there were less than 10,000 female wrestlers. Now, there's nearly 50,000.
“Being a part of this growth, of the movement of growing women's wrestling, was really exciting for me," Costa says.
Despite the growth in popularity, there are still some misconceptions about women in this sport.
"Some people think that women's wrestling is, like, easier than men's wrestling, I've heard people say that before, but... I feel like it's the same, like environment and the same like push that you have to do," Day says.
Despite the first year of the program, Day says there's already a family atmosphere between the team members.
“Working my hardest and working with like the amazing team that I have and pushing each other," she says.
But at the first practice of the season, one wrestler was missing.
Junior Kaije Youngstrom is the oldest on the team.
"I would love to be someone they look up to," she says.
Youngstrom is originally from Florida, so when Hurricane Helene hit this month, she was worried about her grandparents, who were unable to evacuate.
After a couple of classmates chipped in and bought Youngstrom a plane ticket home, she was able to help her family in the aftermath.
"Being able to come home and give my grandma a hug and give my mom a hug, after losing so much, it was like really really nice, like it was definitely something I needed," she says.
Youngstrom planned to be back in Oshkosh Wednesday night in order to make it to her team's first practice. Hurricane Milton, however, stopped those plans.
Youngstrom says her family and pets are safe.
"That's truly what matters," she says.
Now, Youngstrom will be coming back to Wisconsin on Saturday.
"My mom, like, I mean, she feels terrible that I've missed, like, my wrestling practice– I mean, the first official practice, it kind of sucks to not have been there, so she feels horrible about that," she says. "But she's been really trying to express to me, like, how thankful she is that I am here, and I am helping because, I mean, like I said, she would have been doing most of the work– my grandparents are older."
The team's first competition is Nov. 2 against UW-Stevens Point.
