By DEB BENTLY
Staff Writer
NRHEG head wrestling coach Shawn Larson believes his sport is best at testing, and therefore building, character.
“You can’t advance as a wrestler without coming face to face with adversity,” he claims. “You have to fail before you can succeed. It’s not pleasant, but it’s what makes you stronger.”
While Larson is proud of all 23 of his team members and their accomplishments, he believes the one who has probably faced the most adversity is the lone female, Annabelle Petsinger. As stated in an accompanying article, the number of girl wrestlers in the state is growing rapidly. Despite that, however, only three of the 18 teams NRHEG faced this past season had female members, although some that did had a fair number of them.
Since Petsinger began taking part in tournaments during her seventh-grade year (She is now a junior.), Larson has noted a variety of reactions to her presence on the mat. “Some teams were welcoming and excited for her,” he recalls. “Others seemed to pretty much think, ‘What’s she doing here?’
“Of course,” he adds, “they consistently found out.
“Early on, some of the boys who were losing to her had some kind of ‘cheap’ reactions,” he continues. “A few times they would lose, and then they would hit her in frustration. Once, a boy hit her so hard she had to hit back to defend herself.”
When the boy’s mother came hurrying out of the stands, Larson remembers worrying that she was going to confront Petsinger, but instead the mother berated her son.
What helped pave Petsinger’s path to a state championship, Larson believes, are her tenacity and her matter-of-fact response to adversity.
“She pushes through,” he says. “Where others might have decided they were tired of some things and walked away, she doesn’t see situations as being that bad.”
Having a girl on his team, Larson continues, has helped him become a better coach. “I had to be more mindful,” he says. “I had to be sure I included everyone and looked out for the needs of the whole team.”
He remembers saying, “Hey, you guys…and girl” rather often before training himself to use different phrasing. He also remembers having become “huffy” on Petsinger’s behalf when she always had to be the last to weigh in.
He also realized over time that a female’s physical flexibility creates some important differences when it comes to their technique.
In some cases, he was learning without realizing he was doing so. Having been appointed to the Minnesota Wrestling Coaches’ Association advisory board, he would attend meetings and discussions about the possibility of creating a girls’ state wrestling tournament. During such sessions he would make observations or suggestions that others found insightful. “I guess they thought I was really smart,” he jokes. “But really, I was talking about situations I had faced because there was a girl on my team.”
Wrestling association members found him so “smart,” in fact, that he is now the organization’s president–a position he had never envisioned himself holding. “I must be really bad at politics,” he comments. “I couldn’t even get someone else elected.”
With the wrestling season now ended, Larson has his eyes set on the beginning of baseball practices. But as he looks ahead to the 2023-24 school year, he is glad he will be coaching Annabelle Petsinger for another season of wrestling.
“And I hope if there are any girls out there–or any parents–who have been wondering whether girls belong on a wrestling team, that Annabelle’s example, along with the rapid growth of girls’ wrestling in the state of Minnesota, will serve as their answer.
“I hope someday soon we have even more girls on the team.”