West Platte senior Kristen Crockett signed her letter of intent to wrestle at Quincy University alongside her parents in the High School Library on March 31.
West Platte senior Kristen Crockett was the first female wrestler to be a part of the program for four years and she will be continuing her athletic and academic career at Quincy University.
The 2023 West Platte senior will be heading to Quincy University, a Division-II college in Quincy, Illinois. That is nearly 240 miles from Weston and the fact that it was close was a deciding factor for Crockett who was also considering Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“I grew to love wrestling and realized that this is the sport that I wanted to continue to do. I’m ready to go off to college to wrestle more and especially for Quincy, since I believe that would be a fun way to meet more people and find ways to make more friends,” Crockett said.
Crockett never wrestled before her freshman year of high school. While she practiced the summer before she was in high school, the future Quincy student athlete comes from a wrestling family.
“I kind of got my love for sports through my whole family and my whole family is like a wrestling generation. I got that love from my dad, and he wanted to start me out younger, but my mom said no, so I waited until later to start,” Crockett said.
While she is going to Quincy to wrestle, Crockett is planning to study art and animation. Crockett told the Platte County Citizen what she plans to do after college.
“I want to focus more on gaming, movies and TV shows for animation and draft up storyboards, backgrounds and character designs. I grew to love it due to fit to other family members that were also artists, so I think that is kind of what influenced me my whole life,” Crockett said.
With girl wrestling being a relatively new sport, Crockett was the building block for West Platte. She was the only girl on the team in certain years of her career, but that didn’t stop her from improving and eventually earning a chance to do it collegiately.
“I kind of just pushed it out in my mind because it was a sport that I wanted to do. I didn’t really care that I was alone, because I knew that I was passing it on to other people when I leave and I was more focused on myself than being like, ‘Oh, I’m the only female wrestler for West Platte,’” Crockett said.
Crockett posted an 18-12 record as a junior and earned her first district win as a senior. With the girls being moved from one to two classes this past winter, she was able to have success in her final year.
“Kristen is an extremely hard worker; Quincy is getting a heck of a worker and is lucky to have her,” West Platte head wrestling coach Brett Swope said. “I know that hard work and that work ethic that she has now is going to carry over into college and I’m really excited for her and excited for them because I get to watch it the next few years.”