Isabelle Barkley is a 16-year-old Junior wrestler at Oak Hills High School. She has been wrestling since her freshman year but started competing in her sophomore year. Growing up, Barkley was always involved in sports outside of Oak Hills, like boxing and jujitsu, but she was inspired by school spirit and wanted to “be around great wrestlers like Lillie Anderson and Bri Graves,” who encouraged and pushed her ambition. Lillie continues to wrestle at Oak Hills as a Junior on the team while Bri has now moved on to be a freshman on North Central College women’s wrestling team.
When asking Barkley about her school schedule and wrestling-to-life balance, she explains, “Wrestling is really time-consuming but I still manage to get my school work done in the time I have available.” On top of this, Barkley values wrestling so highly, that she leaves very minimum time left for other hobbies and activities because she takes it so seriously.
Oak Hills has offered Barkly a phenomenal team and coaching staff, to whom she’s extremely grateful. Barkly explains, “Wrestling truly changed my life mainly because of the people I met through it. I get to train with amazing wrestlers, and the girls and boys team are all like a family.” She has grown so close to her wrestling family that she says, “I don’t know what I would do without my team.” Barkley says that her favorite part about wrestling has to be how close she got to her teammates because they all endure the pain in practice and what it takes to perform. On top of her team, Coach Lampe and Coach Graves have taught her “if we can survive wrestling we can survive anything.” Barkley explains that they push her and her teammates hard while holding them to high expectations, but it’s out of love and care for their players. Barkley exemplifies that her coach’s tough strategies help all the players realize their potential.
When asked Barkley what wrestling has taught her, she explained her challenging experience cutting weight and achieving the goals or placements that she had wanted. She never stopped showing up and pushing herself, so she now places high at tournaments when she used to hardly place at all!
Overall, Barkley is grateful for the opportunity to join the community while also being introduced to a great team and sport, all thanks to Oak Hills. Her great sportsmanship and team-player attitude with her great results at tournaments have led her to be a GMC athlete of the week! Barkley will continue to wrestle with grit throughout the end of her season.
