Wrestling, her sport: Emma Karhu is Powell High School’s first female wrestler

Posted 2/15/18

Rory Karhu, Emma’s father, coached USA wrestling and took Brody — Emma’s older brother — to practice.

With the kids needing more wrestling partners in the 35  pound and under weight class, Emma started practicing with the team — which …

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Wrestling, her sport: Emma Karhu is Powell High School’s first female wrestler

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Freshman Emma Karhu is the first female wrestler at Powell High School, but her wrestling journey started at the age of 4, attending USA practices with her father and brother.

Rory Karhu, Emma’s father, coached USA wrestling and took Brody — Emma’s older brother — to practice.

With the kids needing more wrestling partners in the 35  pound and under weight class, Emma started practicing with the team — which then grew to competing in tournaments. Now, 10 years later, she’s a member of the Powell High School wrestling team.

Emma said she enjoys wrestling because it is a sport “that is physically and mentally challenging. It just always pushes you to be your best, even if you’re just practicing.”

She defines wrestling “as the toughest sport there is.”

“It’s never easy, it’s just always tough mentally and physically,” Emma said. “You can’t do wrestling and just slack off ... you have to go all out.”

A supportive base

Powell High School head wrestling coach Nate Urbach sees Emma as simply a wrestler.

“I honestly don’t look at her as a girl,” he said. “I look at her as my 106-pounder.”

Father Rory says Emma has never been out to prove anything.

“She’s not out to prove that girls can wrestle. She’s out to wrestle because she enjoyed it at 4 years old and had some success with it and just continued to do it. That’s why she does it,” Rory said.

“I guess there is a lot of doubt, when people see a girl wrestler. First of all, they either don’t agree that girls should be wrestling a lot of times or if they do, that they should only be wrestling girls,” Rory said of the possible reasons why people have doubts about women wrestling.

Rory said there have not been as many issues in Wyoming as he expected — though he did recall an instance at a state USA wrestling tournament where a father told his son to hurt Emma to prove she didn’t belong on the mat.

The two were ejected from the tournament for doing an illegal throw where Emma landed on her head.

There have also been instances where male wrestlers have forfeited matches because they either refuse, don’t want to or don’t think girls should wrestle.

“That’s always going to be there,” Rory said. “She is always going to have to continue to prove herself and the way she does that is by hanging with them.”

At the high school, Emma said that her teammates accept her — something verified by how loud they cheer when she’s on the mat.

With the demands necessary for a wrestler to be successful, Urbach said he thinks Emma is “a good freshman, she’s got quite a bit of experience, but she’s still a freshman, so she makes mistakes.”

Urbach also calls her “very reliable,” being on time to all practices and taking the sport seriously. Emma has been accepted by her teammates because she is willing to battle and put in the work, he says.

“The thing about the sport is it doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter who you are. If you’re willing to put the work in, you’re accepted; if you’re willing to battle, you’re accepted,” Urbach said.

As for having a female wrestler, “It’s been absolutely smooth,” Urbach said, explaining that, as expected, he’s had zero trouble.

“[Wrestling] isn’t something that is for everybody — guys or gals. It’s just a tough sport,” Rory added. “There is [an] extreme amount of dedication that is required to even get to the point where she could now make the team and keep up with the physical and mental demands of a high school wrestling program.”

Coach Urbach describes wrestling as “an individual sport with a team aspect behind it and a sport that requires a lot of everything.”

By that, Urbach means endurance, power, strength, and discipline to hone the skills and techniques.

“Wrestling is just you and another person so your body and instincts are your weapon and so you have to work hard at sharpening your instincts and that takes discipline and time,” the coach said, adding, “there’s no time outs in wrestling; guys just hammer you and you can’t regroup and talk to your coach. You just have to keep going.”

In Urbach’s opinion, it’s a sport that “demands a higher level of participation to excel in it. You have to be all in.”

Wrestling is also “a very personal sport, because when you lose it’s because the other guy, or in this case girl, has out-performed you in front of your friends and family — and that’s tough. That’s tough to deal with,” Urbach said. “You can’t say, ‘well, if my teammate would have hit that block then we would have won or something.’ It’s all on you.”

Rory also said the Karhu family would love to have Emma wrestle girls, “but in a small state like Wyoming, that isn’t something that is readily available — there just isn’t the population.”

Emma’s mom, Veronica, did not come from a wrestling family, and said at first it was hard for her to have Emma wrestle. She tried to get Emma involved in other sports, because she didn’t see wrestling continuing on past fifth grade or middle school.

Emma also swims and participates in track and field at the high school level and when she was little, she played basketball, volleyball and did gymnastics.

But when Emma told her mom she didn’t want to give up on the sport, Veronica’s opinion changed.

“When she started calling it her sport, I started viewing it as her sport, too, cause she is passionate about it,” Veronica said. “You have to support your kid’s passions.”

“From my experiences, wrestling is the toughest out of all of them,” Emma said. “But it’s fun cause you can make yourself better by challenging yourself.”

Accepted as an equal

Emma has made it to the Rocky Mountain Nationals in USA Wrestling, has competed in the Montana Open as well as other various wrestling competitions throughout the region and nation within the USA Wrestling program.

During her middle school career, Emma was the eighth grade conference champion and placed in the top two in seventh grade. She competed for Lovell Middle School in sixth grade and made it to the Best of the Best match at the end of the season.

As for Emma’s first year of wrestling at the high school level, “it’s been good, it’s been tough and for the most part I’ve been enjoying it,” she said. “And it’s challenging mentally and physically, but it’s a sport I want to keep doing ...”

Brother and fellow teammate Brody, a sophomore, said he loves having Emma on the team.

“I mean, it’s just like having a little brother in wrestling, but it’s a little sister, which is even cooler cause there are less girls in wrestling, so I think it’s great,” said Brody, adding, “It’s so fun to watch her ... It gets me so pumped up. It’s awesome having her wrestle.”

Brody said Emma “has been in [wrestling] for a long time and knows wrestling and she does it because it’s a sport she knows how to do and enjoys it.”

“The main thing is, she’s a wrestler,” said Rory. “Above all things, she’s a wrestler and she does the things that are required of a wrestler and she wrestles to the best of her ability.”

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