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HILDALE, Washington County — Velvet Barlow fidgets next to her coach, hiding her smile with her hands, as she prepares to do something she couldn’t even conceive of three years ago.
In a three-year-old school serving a community that has a conflicted history with public education, Barlow prepares to compete in Water Canyon’s first-ever home wrestling dual.
It is a remarkable moment for a community that is still making peace with a system its religious leaders shunned 18 years ago, made even more remarkable because the athletes representing the Water Canyon Wildcats on this December night are almost all girls.
The man who started the program, Cortney English, offers her some last-second advice before she nervously makes her way to the center of the never-before-used wrestling mat, showered by raucous cheers from her family and friends.
“This is our home,” Barlow said as she and her teammates stretched before the match. “We get to prove what we’ve been working on for two years.”
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