Taking on the boys

In the sport of wrestling, the field is dominated by the boys and Crismore sticks out like a sore thumb, stuck out so much that she was offered a scholarship to wrestle on an all-female college team in Jamestown, North Dakota.

Editor's Note: This is the second article in a series of profiles of Sander's County graduating athletes who will be competing in college next year.

Plains graduate, Rio Crismore, has been proving herself on the mat against the boys all her life.

In the sport of wrestling, the field is dominated by the boys and Crismore sticks out like a sore thumb, stuck out so much that she was offered a scholarship to wrestle on an all-female college team in Jamestown, North Dakota.

A self-described tomboy, Crismore grew up on wrestling and grew up like one of the boys, influenced by her older brother, Cody, and her father.

"My dad got me into it," explains Rio. "I started in the second grade and after that I kind of got hooked."

It was her father who started her on the sport, but it then quickly became the other boy competitors who kept her there. Not being one to back away from a challenge, Rio stayed with wrestling because of her desire to take all the boys head on and to not back away from the challenge.

"For 11 years I was in the guys competition and it was a boys sport and people told me I couldn't do it and I turned around and showed them that I could," says Rio.

One of her favorite memories is one of her beginning years in Little Guy wrestling where she and all her competitors had to line up against the wall to be paired up with whomever they were to wrestle.

While lined up she overheard a boy beside her telling his friend that he didn't want to wrestle a girl, but when they were paired up together the boy exclaimed "yes" thinking it would be an easy match.

After a minute and a half in the ring Rio sent the boy home crying with a loss.

"That kind of thing drives me to wrestle," says Rio.

Although feeding off a little boy's misperceptions served as fuel for Rio, it was a battle that she had to fight throughout her wrestling career.

Although she says she was lucky to have a team such as Plains that accepted her openly into their family she describes other stories she has heard of special hazing given to female wrestlers.

The one thing she is used to is the hesitation and the awkwardness from her male competitors not being comfortable to take on a girl, a fact that she enjoys using to her advantage.

"If the girl or I am really aggressive about it they take a step back and say ‘wow she's really serious about this,'" says Rio. She explains that 90 percent of the matches are won by the person winning the first takedown. "If you get the first takedown it really intimidates the boys or whoever you're wrestling."

Even though she talks about battling the boys on the mat, it was another boy, her brother Cody, who continues to inspire her to keep working at wrestling and to push herself for the scholarship that she received this February.

Describing him as a quiet role model who has a lot of mental toughness Cody has always been there helping Rio at wrestling. He is the driving force helping her to become the first Crismore to accept a wrestling scholarship.

It's not the only arena where Cody has helped Rio break into a man's world. He also showed her the ropes of firefighting, and now Rio is working on a crew in Palouse, Idaho.

It was also her brother Cody also who helped her finally decide to accept the scholarship, a tough decision for Rio that took her a long time to decide. It was this February after the state meet, which was the third time Rio had made it to the meet, that the scouts offered her the scholarship.

And although she won't be battling the boys anymore in the NAIAA women's wrestling program Rio has another challenge to look forward to this fall, a change of style.

For the third time, Rio will change styles, this time relearning freestyle wrestling, a process that she laughingly says will take a little bit of work.

However, as to what she's already accomplished on the mat, it may be as easy as sending cocky little boys crying after taking home victories.

Comments or questions on this story can be directed to Matt Unrau by emailing him at editor@vp-mi.com.