At home on the mats
Monticello Trails Middle School Student excels at wrestling

Eighth grade wrestler Morgan Otteson has been involved with the sport since she was a little girl in grade school. Now she is one of the best on her team in addition to being the only girl as well. Enlarge photo — Photo by Kevin Anderson

Shawnee Mission Dispatch Newspaper
By Nick Bratkovic
November 19, 2007

Morgan Otteson, 14, wears plaid tennis shoes, hangs out with friends, enjoys wakeboarding and playing piano.

Then she enters the wrestling room. Otteson also is a national champion wrestler.

She is an eighth grader at Monticello Trails Middle School and a member of the school’s wrestling team.

She is the only girl on the team, and one of the best.

She is the first wrestler to pick up coach Travis Keal’s instructions and work the move. She is the last one to stop.

Otteson has performed the moves on youth wrestling’s biggest stages.

She won the 2004 through 2006 Body Bar National Champion. She also won the Kansas girls’ state competition those three years and is the USGWA Girls State Champion.

She was a USAW Kids State Qualifier and the 2005 Missouri Valley Most Outstanding Wrestler. She received the 2005 Wrestler of the Year Award from the Mill Valley Wrestling Club.

“She has great attitude, work ethic and dedication to the sport,” Keal said. “She should do very well in high school and college. She is a student of the game and will stay after practice to learn more. She wants to learn new things and is not afraid to ask questions. That is what makes her a step above everyone else.”

She is a dominant wrestler in a male dominated sport, though women’s wrestling continues to grow each year.

Morgan said she doesn’t want people to see her as just a girl in what has traditionally been a boys’ dominated sport.

“I am just a wrestler,” she said. “There is no difference.” At home, she asked her parents about it.

Cindy Otteson was surprised when her daughter wanted to wrestle, and said she could go to the meeting.

In the life of an elementary school student, one day they can want to wrestle, the next day it can be ballet.

Morgan, though, fell in love with wrestling and hasn’t stopped.

Cindy Otteson is now a wrestling fanatic.

She has learned with her daughter and now is a key figure in making sure everything gets done for a match.

They watch Morgan’s matches together.

Morgan is a student of the sport. Her parents and coaches tape matches and she spends hours watching film, breaking down what she did with 1:30 left in the first round or what she might have done differently to pin an opponent faster.

She watches matches from a few years ago just to see a correct technique.

The championship match in the USGWA tournament last season stands out on film. Her technique was awesome, she said.

She is concerned with every detail of the sport.

All of it makes it easier for her to succeed on the wrestling mat. It is instinct and second nature for her.

“She is self motivated in everything she does,” Cindy Otteson said. “She is on the honor roll, she plays piano. She doesn’t have to be told to do things. She just does them.”

Morgan tries to picture what it will be like when the match starts.

She envisions everything from how she attempt to make the first takedown or escape if she is in the down position.

She thinks about winning the matches.

She also has pictures of her future and dreams in the sport.While she is having fun in middle school, she is already thinking about high school.

“I want to win a state championship match so bad,” she said.

Cindy Otteson said more girls are becoming wrestlers.

“It is growing, most middle school teams each have a girl,” she said.

Still, Morgan said it is a nice feeling when her friends will come up to her and congratulate her on a match.

“It is different from what everyone else is doing, so it is cool to see someone who is doing something that she really likes,” her friend Gabbie Boyd said. “I think that is the cool thing, that she is not following everyone else.”

So far this season, Morgan has won the Wamego Open, Mill Valley Open, Turner Open and Linn County Open. Last weekend, she won the Effingham wrestling tournament.

The success is hopefully just the beginning for her as she continues in a sport that has more and more female participants.

“It is becoming bigger in the whole nation, there are a lot that wrestle in kids club, anytime a girl be successful, that helps,” he said.

The Olympics now have women’s Olympic Wrestling so that is a goal of hers. There are colleges that have female wrestling teams and she wouldn’t mind wrestling in college.

She is in the middle of a career that began on a whim and has unlimited potential.

Morgan was sitting in her fourth-grade classroom one day when a flier was passed out for wrestling.

She thought it looked like fun.