Senior Kylee Slyter has been surrounded by wrestling her whole life. Her dad coached for many years and both of her brothers competed.
Slyter’s dad initially refused to let her wrestle when she asked him in seventh grade, but she didn’t give up on it.
“My senior year I started wrestling, and it’s funny that he said no, because he became like the most supportive person in my wrestling journey” Slyter said.
After losing in the blood round (the round that can secure a spot on the podium) at state her senior year, Slyter knew she could not quit wrestling yet. “I didn’t want to be done already. This was too much fun and I had originally just planned on doing it for the season and just being done.”
After deciding to stick with wrestling, Slyter’s next decision was picking what college to go to. Immediately after she finished competing at state, she started talking to coaches from various colleges.
“I actually talked to the Baker coach and a few other places,” after visiting Baker, Slyter fell in love with it. “Baker just seemed like it would have a lot of opportunity for me.”
Slyter has competed for the women’s wrestling team all four years at Baker, while also balancing a part-time job, student senate, being an RA and many more commitments.
“Wrestling at Baker has taught me how to work through a lot of adversity” she said.
Looking back at her time with the team, she thanks her coaches for always believing in her. Slyter went into the program with only one year of prior experience, but she did not let that stop her from giving it her all, and her coaches recognized that.
“We have a really good coaching staff who are really good at catering to who you are as a person” Slyter said. “Coach May, he looked at me, and he was like, you work too hard to not become something.”
Knowing she had the support of her coaches, she began to excel more in her athletics and in life. By the end of her senior year, Slyter qualified for nationals and became an all-time scholar-athlete.
“It just taught me a lot of time management and discipline,” she said.
After graduation Slyter plans to continue her studies and has been accepted to graduate school, with the goal to ultimately go into the field of mental health advocacy.
