Freestyle standout Alli Ragan ready to fulfill lifelong dream

Three-time World Team member Alli Ragan has had the sport of wrestling running through her veins since birth.

The Carbondale, Ill. native first walked onto the mat when she was just five years old, and with her dad Dennis in her corner, Ragan has made her way to the doorstep of her dreams.

In two weeks, she will step onto the mat once again, the same way she did when she was five years old, only this time it will be for a shot to represent her country at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.  

"It would mean everything,” Ragan said. “It is my life's work. It’s my family…it’s just everything.”

The Ragan family has always been a wrestling family. Dennis, a 2011 inductee of the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame, has been a coach for over 30 years. At first, it was just her brother Jared on the mat, but it didn’t take long for Alli to get off the sidelines and into the action.

“My wife would bring our son to wrestling practice and when they would come so would our daughter,” Dennis said. “I think she just got tired of watching us so she gave it a shot. There really never was a push, which I believe is the best way to do it.”

Ragan was a quick learner when it came to technique but her dad saw something inside of her that made him take a step back and realize that she could be special.

“That first year was just practice, practice, practice,” Dennis said. “We put her in one tournament where she could be competitive and I was really shocked. I watched her grow up but I never really saw that side of her. You can develop certain things but you are also born with certain things and I could tell right then that she had a desire to win. She just went out there and competed."

From there, it was just a matter of time before she developed a reputation as not only one of the best female wrestlers in town but just one of the best wrestlers, period, male or female.

"A lot of guys out there say ‘I can't get beat by a girl.’ Alli developed this reputation where she wasn't viewed like that. The guys knew that they had to wrestler their best to beat Alli. She was just a wrestler.,” said Dennis.

She may have been “just a wrestler” to the boys on the mat but Ragan was much more than that outside of wrestling. She played many sports growing up, including soccer and volleyball, but the independent sense of responsibility in wrestling really resonated with Ragan.

"I loved playing soccer, but I wasn't fond of the whole team aspect,” Ragan said. “Don't get me wrong, I love my team here, but there was something about individual sports. Being able to fully blame a win or a loss on yourself is a great feeling. If I lose then there is no one else to look at but me, or if I win then same thing. The thing about wrestling is the competitiveness. I love to compete so I think that is what drove me towards wrestling."

Ragan went on to have an incredibly successful career while at King University, winning the 2013 WCWA National Championship and winning a pair of bronze medals at the Junior World Championships. Those major accomplishments have helped her prepare her for the senior level.

"Any international tournaments can get you ready for the bigger stage,” Ragan said. “Those foreigners do not care who you are, and when you’re from the United States they want to beat you even more. Now I know that they are going to scrap with me and I have to scrap right back."

Ragan used those experiences from the junior level and immediately made an impact at the senior level by making the Senior World Team in 2013.

"My first year on the World Team was a bit of surprise because I had just come up from the junior level,” Ragan said. “Making that first World Team was huge and every year after is just what I expect. I have come up a little bit short when it comes placing so now I am expecting to make that World Team and I expect to get that medal.”

A year later, Ragan was once again repping the Team USA singlet at the World Championships but fell just short in the bronze medal match. Following that disappointment, Ragan faced more adversity, as she needed surgery to repair an injured thumb, which would keep her off the mat until 2015.

"I had just moved to the Olympic Training Center by myself for the first time and was kind of down in the dumps anyway following worlds,” Ragan said. “Then one thing happened after another. I had to get surgery on my thumb and couldn't wrestle. Wrestling is one of those things that I could go to when I had tough times so not being able to have that was rough. I left the OTC because if I can't wrestle then there is nothing really for me here. I was able to go home and refocus."

After four months away from international competition, Ragan wasted little time informing the world that she as back on the map. She ran buckshot through the 2015 Dave Schultz Memorial, including a dominant 10-0 victory in the finals to capture first place. She followed that up with a solid third place at the U.S. Open in May and then defeated Kelsey Campbell at the World Team Trials to make her third consecutive World Team.

U.S. National Team coach Terry Steiner sees a number of different attributes that keeps Ragan among the best in the country.

"Number one, she is very athletic,” Steiner said. “Her athleticism keeps her in the game alone. Then the next thing is that Alli is a student of the sport. She grew up in a wrestling family and she understands sports in terms of the work and commitment involved. She has put herself in a great environment to get the most out of her career. Lastly, she doesn't like to lose. If you put all those things together it creates a winning combination."

Coach Steiner has seen exactly what her father saw in her all those years ago and knows that if she can just stay in the moment then she can be the one in Rio this summer representing her country in that weight class.

“She is going to have to be engaged the whole match,” Steiner said. “In the past, she has gone out and scored quickly and then stopped attacking or she waits till the second period to start attacking. We can't do that. We have to be engaged the whole match. She has to be willing to let things fly but at the same time she has stay within herself. She has to believe that this is her time."

After all those years as her coach and raising her as a father, Dennis knows that this could be a special year for the Ragan family.

"She wants it,” Dennis said. “She has always done whatever it took to accomplish the goals she set for herself. There have been the baby steps along the way that continue to help her build momentum toward even higher goals. There isn't anyone that needs to tell her where she needs to be or what goals to set. This is what she wants."

Despite the many accolades attached to her name, Ragan wants more. She is not even close to being satisfied with her wrestling career and knows that this summer could go along way in achieving her goals.

"As far as my career, I don't see much success because I have such lofty goals for myself,” Ragan said. “I want to be on that medal stand at World's. I want to win Olympic Trials. I want to qualify my weight and win the Olympics. Then I will be able to call my career successful."

She may not call her career successful but the man who invited her onto the mat for the first time, the man who has been in her corner from day one, the man who she calls dad, that man could not be more proud of what she has grown into. No matter what happens at Iowa City in a few weeks, Ragan will be a winner in his eyes.

"I am most proud of everything about her,” Dennis said. “I am proud of the way she goes about her life. It doesn't have anything to do with wrestling.”