A Life-Altering Experience Riverside Senior Has Gone From Troublemaker To Just Plain Trouble As A Wrestler

Wrestling saved Lauren Alderson.

Ask her how, and the tough side she exhibits on the mat transfers into a sensitivity that most students at Riverside High School have never seen.

Tears come to her eyes.

“Wrestling saved my life,” she confides. “I would’ve been dropped out, pregnant or on crack right now.”

Five years ago, Alderson was headed down the wrong path.

She rebelled. She became the “wild child” in her Christian family. She challenged religion. She challenged her parents.

She moved out of their home and lived with a friend for three months before returning home. She partied hard and left school near the end of eighth grade to study on her own.

“I was a troublemaker,” said Alderson, who comes across as a mature 17-year-old.

She’s thankful she found wrestling. And she has become pretty good at it.

She will compete in the United States Girls Wrestling Association National Championships this weekend in Lake Orion, Mich.

Alderson - who is a senior at Riverside as well as in her second year of the Running Start program through Spokane Community College - was ranked No. 5 nationally at 120 pounds in the organization’s Feb. 12 rankings. She finished fifth in that weight class at the tournament last year.

Wrestlers are divided into 14 equal weight classes after weigh-ins. About 400 girls from seventh grade through high school are expected to compete.

Alderson never imagined she’d be entered in such a tournament. A friend talked her into turning out for wrestling when they were freshmen.

It sounded fun and Alderson made the decision on an impulse. She called home the first day of practice and begged her mother to bring her some wrestling shoes. They were ratty, but they worked.

Alderson’s friend, who wrestled at 168, only lasted one day. Alderson was disgusted and promised herself she wasn’t quitting. But she did give it thought at times. Competing in a male-dominated sport was rough initially.

Alderson knew nothing about wrestling. She had never heard of a reversal or a takedown.

Her father, Steve Alderson, a former wrestler, was concerned.

“It’s not the sport I’d pick for her, but it has done her a world of good,” he said. “It’s a discipline sport and prepares you for the trials of life. It has done a lot for her self esteem and confidence.”

And her toughness.

Alderson has been laughed at by opponents and referees. She’s been asked over and over again if wrestling is a sexual thing for her.

“When you’re wrestling, you’re not thinking about touching each other wrong,” she said.

People have assumed she’s lesbian.

And the father of a senior wrestler wouldn’t let his son turn out during Alderson’s freshman season because a girl was on the team.

“She’s gone through things that I will never be able to understand and many of the individuals on our team will never be able to understand,” said Riverside coach Scott Friedman. “In many regards, she has been a trailblazer for girls wrestling in the state of Washington and an inspiration for many guys on our team for the many things she’s been able to accomplish in such a short time.

“She battles and scraps, and actually is one of the hardest workers in our room. She’s earned the respect of every wrestler and the student body of the high school here.”

That’s fine with Alderson. But she’s not wrestling for attention.

“People always ask me `Are you out for the women?”’ she said. “I’m not out to prove anything. I hear that girls at the high school look up to me and I’m like `Why?’ It’s neat, but I didn’t mean to. I’m not a feminist. I’m just out to wrestle.”

Steve Alderson has come to accept his daughter as a wrestler.

“It’s a great sport,” he said. “It’s just hard when your little girl is getting beat up on and you can’t protect her from that.”

Alderson said she had broken blood vessels under both eyes and bruises covering her arms the first couple weeks.

She claims to know the number of lights on the ceilings in every gym she visited her first season because she was on her back so often getting pinned.

It took two years to earn her teammates’ respect, she said.

Actually, she had their admiration sooner, said senior Joben Nuesse.

Nuesse, who won State 2A at 122 pounds last season and 129 pounds this year, said the coaches tested her from the get-go. And she passed.

“There had been girls on my eighth-grade team, but none as tough,” Nuesse said. “She’s the toughest girl I’ve ever met. She can pretty much take anything.

“Some of our best guys would wrestle her a whole practice just to beat up on her. They just went all out with her. … She just took all our abuse.”

She took abuse from other teams, too.

Nuesse remembers in their sophomore season when an opponent cross-faced her for a whole match without trying to score points.

Nuesse was happy when he got to wrestle the guy next.

“I didn’t like that; you have to try and score points,” he said. “When I wrestled him, I made him cry a couple times.”

Yet Alderson rarely needs anyone to defend her, Nuesse said.

She stands just 5-foot-3 and weighs 125 pounds, but she is extremely strong. Her body fat is 14 percent, about 6 percent below the mean for college women athletes.

Alderson is no longer shy about her weight since it gets announced every time she competes. She wears a singlet just like everybody else.

She pulls her straight, long, dark hair up into a Lycra swim cap and her wrestling head gear goes over top.

She never wears makeup when she wrestles.

“I like to put on makeup and be a girl,” said Alderson, who has two tattoos and piercings in her tongue and naval. “But I’m in a guy’s sport and guys don’t wear makeup.”

As a junior, Alderson cut weight to make 115 pounds and wrestle varsity. Once, she had to shed 7 pounds in one day.

She said she would run for 2 hours in five layers of clothing after already having practiced 2 hours with the team.

“It was hell,” she said. “You go so long without food. After 1 hour I would be stumble running. I would start to cry. An assistant coach said if I was crying, the weight must be coming off.”

Alderson, who will walk on to the women’s wrestling team at the University of Minnesota at Morris this fall, gained weight after severely straining her back last June. She wasn’t able to do any physical activity for more than three months. So she wrestled 129 pounds this season on junior varsity, winning about half her matches and only getting pinned three times.

She feels fortunate to have been able to practice against Nuesse, who has been a role model, a friend and like a brother.

“My team is like my family,” she said. “Your team has to support you when you’re the only girl. They’re the ones weighing in with the other team and hearing comments. They’re like my big brothers.

“I’m so thankful,” she said. “When I’m down I’ve still got wrestling. It has kept me going.”