As a student athlete, one of the main goals is to make it to the top competition and earn the highest place. For wrestlers, making it to State is the biggest goal.
Senior Khloe King was able to achieve that feat in only her sophomore year, as she was selected as an alternate for her weight class. Due to injuries, she missed much of her junior season. But she plans to qualify for State this year.
King, who wrestles in the 100-pound division, is currently the top performing wrestler in the program this season, with a team-leading 31 victories. Her experience, drive and overall dedication have helped her emerge as a team leader and one of the hardest workers on the squad.
“The best thing about Khloe is her competitive nature,” wrestling head coach Jeff Knight said. “She hates to lose and gives it her all. It’s fun to watch her compete.”
Something that has been prominent through her time in wrestling is injuries. Although they have hindered her performances, she has often pushed through them and kept competing.
“My freshman year, I broke my finger. That one sucked,” King said. “I tore my meniscus my sophomore season and wrestled on it.”
Her worst injury was the concussion she suffered during her junior year. The concussion sidelined her out for most of the season. She missed the first weeks of November all the way up to the week before districts. Despite this, she won the district title. However, the injury still took a major toll on her.
Although wrestling is a physically challenging sport, the concussion was caused by her other sport – barrel racing. King started competing in the rodeo-event four years ago. Barrel racing is a sport in which competitors ride a horse around three barrels in a clover-like pattern.
Trying to train a horse to do this is difficult and dangerous, and it is what led to King’s injury.
“I was working a very young horse who I was bringing onto the pattern,” King said. “I got bucked off basically into straight concrete. I got back on and then I got headbutted two or three times by the horse.”
Recovery was slow and wrestling had to stop while she healed.
“I couldn’t do anything,” King said. “They had me in the trainers pretty much every day to do concussion protocol. I couldn’t come to school the first week after it because the light stuff made me want to puke.”
Just like wrestling, riding horses have played a major role in King’s life. She started off competing in horse cross country, but eventually switched to barrel racing.
“I changed to barrel racing just because I felt like I actually enjoyed it a lot more,” King said. “Not being in a strict environment, I have a lot more fun with it.”
Juggling wrestling and barrel racing, King’s schedule includes a lot of long drives and late nights. She heads to her barn in Crosby to practice riding almost every night after wrestling practice. She rarely makes it home before 8 p.m., meaning that she doesn’t have a lot of time to recover after both wrestling practice and training her horse. Even with all of this, she still has put in a great amount of effort in order to maintain her top position on the wrestling team.
“It’s just mentally staying in check,” King said. “There’s been so many times where I’ve wanted to quit just because I feel like I’m not good enough or I’m not doing as well as I should be doing.”
She has seen much success her senior season though. With her 31-10 record, she has won gold at the Houston Round Robin Tournament and second at last weekend’s Cy Ridge Invitational Tournament.
This weekend she will compete in the District Championship as she chases her dreams of wrestling in the State Championships.
“I’m expecting a district championship again, and definitely be one of the top four at regionals,” Knight said. “I think she’s just going to build on that and finish a great senior year.”
King is hoping to go to Oklahoma State University in order to study animal science and eventually go to veterinary school. She hopes that the traits and skills she learned from high school translates into her future career.
“It goes back to discipline,” King said. “I feel like wrestling has made me a lot more polite. A lot more talking skills and people skills, so I feel like they’ll translate over because it will be a people person kind of job.”
