By Chris Cox

Circle senior Katelyn Schmidt admits she was a bit of a rambunctious child. 

“As a little kid, I was a little ornery and liked to play fight with my dad,” she says. “When I was able to join the wrestling, my dad said I should join.”

Schmidt admits she didn’t like wrestling at first but that’s something, she says, every wrestler feels.

“I feel like everyone goes through that experience when they first start,” she says. “It’s hard. It’s harder than any sport I’ve ever tried and I’ve tried a bunch of sports. Wrestling is the hardest sport because you can wrestle for six minutes and come off the mat so exhausted that someone has to help you walk. I’ve never had that issue with any other sport.”

Over time though, Schmidt has learned to love wrestling. While she enjoys the competition and physical nature of the sport, it’s the community she’s built that she truly loves.

“I feel like all of my friends are somehow related to wrestling, including my best friend Makenna Hoover,” she says. “I met her when I started wrestling and from then on, her family became my family. I’ve just created a huge network through wrestling and meeting people that way. It really goes back to the physicality. We suffer together, so we just get really close to each other. Even though it’s an individual sport, it’s still really important to be close to your team. Everyone in the sport knows how hard it is but that we got through it anyways.”

At Circle, Katelyn and the rest of her wrestling teammates set two types of goals every season: academic and athletic.

“For my academic goals, I want to keep my 4.0 GPA,” she says. “I also plan to return to the state championship and hopefully win it this year since I was state runner-up last year.”

Off the mat, Katelyn is involved with Heartstrings Animal Advocates where she helps foster animals with the Hoover family and work adoption events. She is also actively preparing for life after high school by taking concurrent classes at Butler Community College, where she will soon earn her associates degree. Following high school graduation, Katelyn has offers to wrestle in college and will pursue those but she is currently unsure where she will go.