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www.FredericksburgParent.NET 17 Born for the Mat The only child of David and Leslie DeFusco, Shea was born into a wres- tling family. Her father was a wrestler in high school, and her mother was the 8th grade wrestling manager for David's team. But that isn't what got Shea interested in the sport. Her father is a law enforcement officer and had worked a number of cases where he had seen women taken advantage of. He vowed that should he ever have a daughter, he would "get her involved in an activity so that she can take care of herself." Shea tried several sports early on, but she sparked when she tried jiu-jitsu. Though young — Shea was 6-years-old when she began — she excelled as a student at KOA Martial Arts in Stafford and began competing. Small in stature, Shea wanted to improve her ability to take down oppo- nents. Wrestling offered her a way to do that. It was John Barr at Rodney Thompson Middle School who worked with her to learn the sport. It proved a good time to get into the sport. High school athletics have surged in popularity in recent years, and they're being driven by rapid growth in women's sports. According to Sports Illustrated, women's wrestling and women's flag football are reporting record numbers of athletes. • Girls Flag Football: Participation surged to 68,847 athletes, a 60 percent increase from the prior year. Nearly 1,000 additional schools added programs, reflecting the sport's rapid nationwide expansion. • Girls Wrestling: Participation jumped to 74,000 for the first time ever, up 15 percent from last year. Nearly 1,000 more schools now sponsor girls wrestling. This season marks the first that the Virginia High School League has sanctioned women's wrestling. It's the 47th state to sanction the sport for women, with Hawaii being the first in 1998 and Texas being second in 1999. Over the holiday break, Shea and her family traveled to Delaware where she competed in the Girls Beast of the East Tournament, which featured 14 weight classes and several hundred women wrestlers from up and down the eastern seaboard. Though she did not win the tournament, she did earn All American status at the tournament — an unusual accom- plishment for a freshman. Shea is putting more focus on the sport now that she is at Mountain View. One of the things that attracts her to the sport is that she rou- tinely wrestles up a weight class. Because of the limited number of girls competing in her weight class, Shea wrestles against opponents that she is routinely giving up at least 7 pounds to. That extra weight gives her opponents a slight edge, but raw strength and weight are not the only factors at play in the sport. Wrestling requires a great deal of mental agility, as well. "It is a puzzle on the mat, and you're thinking several moves ahead," Leslie told the Advance. "Successful wrestlers are those who can string moves together." So far, Shea is coming out on top more often than not. Her high school record currently sits at 18-7. Balancing Competitions The strength of jiu-jitsu and wrestling is that there is nowhere to hide when one is competing. And there's no one to blame when you lose. "You win or you learn," Shea's jiu-jitsu instructor is fond of saying. The same is true of wrestling. Such training is great for strengthening one's self-confidence and ability to fight back against adversity. But there is a downside. "The more you succeed," Leslie says, "the more people want you to fail." As good as jiu-jitsu and wrestling are for developing self-con- fidence, neither is particularly good for developing a sense for how to work with teams. Shea has found a place that fills that gap at Mountain View, where she joined the school's Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (MCJROTC). There, she's a member of the Raider Team that competes on the outdoor obstacle course. "It's taught me to work with other people," Shea said. She found, for example, that heavy lifting can be a challenge. "I learned to ask for help." That sense of teamwork and camaraderie has strengthened Shea's "can-do" attitude. The idea to join came not from her parents, but from Shea. "I had no idea she had any interest in that until she signed up for it," David said. And he has been thrilled with where the program is taking her. "This family she is developing is affect- ing her trajectory," he said. "It's totally changed her whole direction." Looking Ahead The DeFusco family is tight, but one secret to Shea's success is both supporting their daughter and trusting others to help her grow and discover new things. "My favorite teachers," says Leslie, "are the ones who are just honest with the kids." The exceptional ones, she added, are "those who don't coddle, but help them get a little bit of suc- cess today." Shea has ideas of where she wants to go. She's thinking about flying and is exploring the possibility of one of the military academies. She's also aware that this is a challenging road with few guarantees. That seems to sit fine with her. Over the past seven years, Shea has learned to push herself, pick herself up when she fails, and reach for the next rung when she's successful. And through it all, she knows that her parents will be there to support her. "My mom and dad are very supportive," she told the Advance. And her mom, she said, is her "best friend." born for the mat looking ahead balancing competitions