Athlete Spotlight: Stephanie Lindner, Wrestler

By Brian Flagg
Special to iBerkshires
03:50PM / Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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Stephanie Lindner

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Many teenage girls are wrestling with issues about growing up. Often it's about school, or friends, or what outfit looks the best to head to the mall.

Drury High School senior Stephanie Lindner wrestles with those issues but she also wrestles for real. Lindner is a member of the combined wrestling squad at Drury and Mount Greylock Regional High School.

"I started wrestling at 15," she said. "I always thought of myself as a tough girl and the type who wants to prove everyone wrong about [me]." 

Well, anyone who thought she couldn't succeed couldn't have been more wrong.

Lindner was still in middle school when she went to a meet to watch a friend's brother compete. She decided then and there that she wanted to be a wrestler. During the next season, her freshman year, she decided to go out for the team.  

"I went out for the team for the first time ever and having no talent or experience made the varsity team," Lindner said. "I have been wrestling at 103 pounds ever since."

Making the varsity team as a freshman was difficult enough. Lindner had more on her mind though than just making the team — she wanted to be good. And good she was — and is. She has had many high points during her past three seasons with countless awards and victories.

"My greatest success in wrestling I would have to say was my freshmen year, when I made it to the Western Mass. meet and was runner-up," she said. In that particular final, Lindner lost by only two points. It would simply have been a matter of reversing out of a move placed by her opponent and she could have been the overall winner.

Difficulties For A Girl

One might imagine the physicality of a sport such as wrestling would be a bit overwhelming for a young girl barely over 100 pounds. That was not the hard part for Lindner, however, it is the constant up and down of weight that has been more difficult for her to manage.

"It's a lot easier for males to build muscle weight or lose the weight they need to be in a certain weight class,"  she said. "For me, the only difficulty I deal with is losing the weight to make 103 because I'm already tiny and it's a lot harder and more tricky for females to lose a certain amount of weight."  

Lindner struggles to keep her weight constant for competition

(Lindner competes at the minimum weight class for high school students; the next weight up is 112.)

Lindner also recalls times when she completed her workout but had to stay longer to try and make weight for the next day's meet.

"If I'm to wrestle at 103 and I weigh 105 at the end of a practice with a meet the next day, I have to do things such as not eat that night or drink very little water or go to the gym for another two hours before going home and to bed to work off the 2-plus pounds to make weight the next day."

Mixed Reactions

Lindner says she gets reactions and comments from other wrestlers, coaches and parents quite frequently. Though most are positive there have been some "hard feelings" as well.  

"Sometimes when I beat a wrestler they take it to heart and get upset because they got beat by a girl," Lindner said. "Then there are others that look up to me and will come over to my match with the rest of their team and coaches to watch."

Lindner has left impressions not only on the mat but on coaches as well. "Other coaches say things about me as well all the time," she said. "They say how they have never met a girl as tough as me and hope all goes well me in the future."

There have even been college coaches who have talked with her about joining their squad.

Looking Ahead

After graduation next spring, Lindner plans are to attend college, a decision she's been, well, wrestling with.

"My plans after graduation are to go to dental school either in Portland, Maine, at the University of New England or carry on my wrestling career and go to school at Springfield College, where I will wrestle on the women's New England team."

Some of her competitors take being beat by a girl personally

Lindner's long-term plans are to stay involved with wrestling in some form or another. She said, "After college I have the option to wrestle in the USGWA (United States Girls Wrestling Association)."  

She also wouldn't mind getting involved from a coaching perspective.

"If I had the opportunity to coach then, yes, I would love to," Lindner said, adding, "Nothing feels more incredible to me than being that person that everyone looks up to or goes to for the answer to a problem, and I think coaching is where is all starts."

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