For Destiny Nunez, staying on the sidelines while her brother wrestled was not enough. The Beebe High School junior has been wrestling since her freshman year, and this year, she became the first female wrestling state champion in Arkansas when she won the 106-pound-weight-class title at the Class 5A state meet.
Destiny started out as a water girl for the wrestling team her freshman year. Her brother, Aaron — who is one year her senior — was on the team, and she wanted to go to every match to support him.
“A couple weeks into practice, I had been watching them. I talked to my friend Jenna, who was the manager, and I said that it looked kind of fun,” Destiny said. “We didn’t have a lower weight class, but I felt like I could still do it. I tried to convince her to do it with me, but that just wasn’t her thing.”
The next person Destiny approached about her desire to wrestle was her brother. She said Aaron was surprised that she had that interest, and he was immediately supportive of her plans.
“He showed me a couple basic things at home,” she said. “Then he told me to bring some shorts and a shirt to practice the next day and talk to the coach about it.”
Destiny said she was a little nervous talking to the coach about wrestling. After a few quick questions about practice and weight class, she started hitting the mat with the rest of the team.
Having a girl on the team with them was a little bit of a shock to her teammates, but Destiny said she was welcomed onto the team with open arms.
“The whole team was accepting about it,” she said. “I mean, they were surprised, but they were fine with it.”
The team bonding turned out to be one of Destiny’s favorite aspects of wrestling. She said her teammates constantly help each other improve, and her brother has been a significant source of encouragement to her over the past three years.
“In practice, you push each other,” she said. “If someone’s slacking off, you step in and tell them that’s not going to help them get any better. My brother played a big role in me winning. He’d tell me champions don’t sit down, and he would push me. He wanted me to win just as badly as I did.”
The overwhelming majority of high school wrestlers are boys, but Destiny said she has come across a few other female wrestlers around the state. Still, she has been faced with some frustrating attitudes from a few of her opponents and some spectators, simply because of her gender.
“Most of the time people say it’s a lose-lose situation for them. If you win against her, what are you going to say? You beat a girl? Or if you lose against her, you’ll never live it down,” she said. “Since I won, I’ve seen comments [on Facebook] where people say, ‘Oh, she’s just a girl. She shouldn’t be wrestling in the boys league.’ Or they say, ‘She’s good for a girl but not a guy.’”
Destiny’s record, however, shows that she is a worthy opponent for anyone in her weight class of her chosen sport. In her first year of wrestling, she placed fourth in her division and weight class. Her sophomore year, she placed third, and this year, she prevailed as the champion.
“Ever since I’ve started wrestling, I’ve been the only girl to place in Arkansas,” she said. “This year I was able to be the first girl to get a state championship in Arkansas.”
While the title is exciting and something to be proud of, Destiny said she has mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, she has worked hard to get where she is. On the other hand, she wants to be known as a good wrestler overall, not just a good female wrestler.
“I’m excited and proud of myself,” she said. “My goal was to get state, so I’m proud of myself. It is cool being the first girl wrestler to get a state championship in Arkansas. I have a little bit of pride for that, but then it goes the other way. I want to be considered a good wrestler, not just ‘good for a girl.’”
Outside of wrestling, Destiny is on the volleyball team at school, takes Pre-Advanced Placement and AP classes and is involved with the youth group at her church, Crosspoint Ministries.