TAMPA, Fla. — Daisy Santos shares a quote with her wrestlers, ‘Once you wrestle, everything else in life is easy.’
“When you’re out there on the mat, there is no hiding, there is no luck, there is no talent,” wrestler Kiki Bush,16, said. “It’s just you and another person.”
Callie Alfieri, 17, believes the mental part is the most challenging.
“I think people think it's more the physical part and understanding moves,” Alfieri said. “But really, it’s mental. You are more so competing with yourself."
Alfieri and Bush, along with 34 other wrestlers as young as six years old, are part of the Florida Phoenix Women’s Wrestling Club. The group started two years ago as a free practice for girls.
After the first year, the attendance has doubled and the Phoenix has risen to the reputation of the toughest club in the state.
Just last season, the Phoenix have built 11 district champions, four region champs and one state champion.
“I don’t think we are doing anything that is super crazy,” Coach Santos said. “I always tell them there is no secret to wrestling. It’s just consistency and having a drive, and doing everything with integrity. I think good karma comes back if we are doing things with the right intentions. Our girls train hard and rise up to everything I put out for them.”
The girls are currently training for folk-style wrestling for their high school seasons. When the FHSAA season is over, they’ll shift their focus to freestyle wrestling.
“Everything that you learn here might not translate exactly the same, but you learn skills here and things that you won’t learn anywhere else,” Santos added.
The team has qualified 11 wrestlers for the FARGO, the largest tournament for high school wrestlers in the country. To help cover the cost of tournament entries and travel expenses, they have created a GoFundMe page.
