![]() ![]() She was a welcome member of the team, and other girls around the state were following her lead and joining wrestling squads. Miesha was alone, but things were much different than they had been two years previously. I wanted to get better."ĭuring Miesha's junior year, Sharon quit the wrestling team for personal reasons. I'd never experienced anything that challenged me or pulled the most out of me like wrestling did," Miesha says. ![]() She loved the conditioning and the competitive nature of wrestling, but mostly, she just wanted to get better. She kept returning to that Franklin Pierce wrestling room to wrestle the boys. Miesha was downright determined not to be terrible at wrestling anymore, and so she worked. I left that wrestling room daily with mat burns on my face. I knew I could only get better," she says. She took solace in the fact that she was still standing, but most of her inspiration came from the fact that, when it came to actual wrestling, she was terrible. The boys on her team had given her no quarter, and she'd taken everything they had without uttering a peep. As her first practice drew to a close, she was tired and sore but undaunted. They put us through hell and high water." "They were on a mission to get us to quit. "Other girls had tried to do what I was doing, and they all quit almost immediately," Miesha says. Girls on the wrestling team? That wasn't right.Īnd so the boys went about the business of trying to make her quit, and in this pursuit they were relentless. Miesha and Sharon's presence on the wrestling team presented a problem for some of the boys, who at 15 years old were not used to girls encroaching on their territory. "When she wants something, she really goes after it," Rob says. He told himself that she was going through a phase, which would eventually go away. He didn't give her any words of encouragement, and he did not go to her matches. I don't think any father wants his daughter out there rolling around on a mat with a bunch of dudes."Īnd so Rob did not support Miesha in her wrestling endeavor. "If I'm totally honest, I was not supportive at all. Today, I kinda.," Rob says before pausing. Miesha and her mother had good reason to avoid telling her father about the whole wrestling thing. But I'm not going to tell you that you can't do something you want to do," her mother said. But then Miesha's friend, Sharon, offered a solution: Why don't they try out for the wrestling team? Miesha hated basketball, and she was bad at it. Only two winter sports were available to Franklin Pierce High School students. Running track and cross country helped curb her crackling energy levels.īut the cold and dreary Tacoma winters were different. The summer and fall months were fine soccer satisfied her competitive urges. It would not be the last.įrom sixth grade on, Miesha's mother encouraged her to pursue sports, mostly because her boundless energy never went away.īut in high school, she had difficulty finding things to keep her busy year-round. It was the first time her competitive and athletic sides melded. Her name went up on that wall, joining the other Tommys and Joes and Stevens who had made the climb before. Her competitive nature mixed with her athleticism, and she was successful. If it sounds like one of those things that adults dream up in a misbegotten attempt to teach youth about the power of perseverance, that's because it probably was. Not just once but three times, and you had to do it without allowing your feet to touch the ground. To get your name on it, you had to climb a length of rope that ran from floor to ceiling. The school had one of those gyms with massive ceilings in reality, they were normal ceilings, but to young Miesha, they appeared roughly the same height as the Space Needle. In fourth grade, she attended Harvard Elementary school, which led to all sorts of jokes later in life about graduating from Harvard. Perhaps it was the tomboy inside, but she was competitive. She loved the outdoors and the way that Washington's vibrant green never gave way to the colors of fall or the dreary dead of winter. Miesha, age three months Photo courtesy the Tate familyįinding her at the end of each day was never an easy task for her mother and father, and it was made even more difficult by the fact that Miesha didn't want to be found. ![]()
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