Coach Trey, Tuscarora wrestling coach who doubles as a special education teacher and case manager, has been very enthusiastic these past few weeks to get the word out to everyone about joining the newly formed girls wrestling team. This will be the first official Frederick County school to have its own girls wrestling team, and to hold practices and participate in matches.
Trey definitely had a gloat-worthy high school wrestling career during his last three years at Brunswick High, being the very first county champion to ever come out of the school, as well as the first most outstanding Brunswick High wrestler in a tournament. “When I was in tenth grade, they started a team, and I was always a real scrappy kid, so I just joined it.” This further proves how truly great wrestling can be for someone and how much it can impact your life, if you decide to let it.
When asked why he decided to start up a girls team, he said, “I think girls wrestling is the largest growing sport in the United States today.” He’s very determined to put together a good, strong team that will be acknowledged as such. “I don’t want any portion of the wrestling program at this school [to be] left behind on anything under my watch.” In this past year, there’s been an uptick in the amount of girls that wrestle or are showing interest in wrestling. Coach Trey believes the key to getting more people involved in wrestling, and making a program successful, is to not treat it as an afterthought to the other team(s). He is making both teams his priority.
“I took the same tactics that I used to fill up the boys team,” Trey explains, “and [I’m] doing the same for the girls.” The boys wrestling team had a pretty successful run this past season. After avenging their loss to Linganore High from the beginning of the season, they made it to the regional dual playoffs with a varsity lineup that consisted of 9 freshman, two sophomores, two juniors and one senior. This will be Trey’s 18th year coaching wrestling and he is certainly not looking to stop anytime soon. Though he hasn’t coached a full-fledged girls team before, he had a few girls on the boys team last year and believes that coaching girls is essentially the same as coaching boys.
“Girls may have a little bit better of a work ethic than boys,” he laughed as he went on, “And they’re a bit more focused, you know, less likely to goof around, which is a nice breath of fresh air.” He’ll teach the same moves to both teams, he motivates them the same way, and they will have the same workouts. His main goal in wrestling, for both the girls and boys, is just to win. He believes wrestling is the kind of sport that anyone can join. “It doesn’t matter how big you are or how small you are. You wrestle someone your own size, your own weight, and you never get hit without seeing it coming. It’s the fairest sport in the world.”
He’s excited for an upcoming tournament held at Tuscarora on December 27th-28th which will make many firsts in the history of wrestling. He’s invited a good amount of schools in and out of Maryland to compete, including two schools from West Virginia and Virginia. “In the wrestling world, It’s a big deal,” Trey stated. Normally, you don’t see a variety of states at one wrestling tournament, but this one will have five representing states.
So far, the success of the new girls team looks promising. Coach Trey is excited to start practices and get to work on helping the girls be the best they can be at this sport!
