Andre Roberts, former UFC heavyweight fighter, is stepping back into the ring. But he’s not wrestling. The 6’2” giant is coaching a new junior high girls wrestling team at the Meskwaki Settlement School.
On January 29th, 2024, the Meskwaki Junior High Lady Warriors joined 9 other schools to compete in the South Tama Middle School Girls Wrestling Scramble. For many on the team, this is their first season competing. Andre’s face lit up with pride as he informed us that several girls got their first win.
For Andre, coaching the team is not all fun and games. It poses a unique challenge: how to inspire his same passion for martial arts in a group of middle schoolers. “It’s a learning experience. Out of the eight girls, for six, this is their first time ever wrestling. It’s hard to get them to show up with their shoes. It’s like, bring your shoes. Bring your headgear. Bring that, bring that. And then when we get to the venue where we’re having our meet, and it’s all, ‘I didn’t bring my shoes. I forgot my headgear.’”
Sure enough, at the team practice after our interview, several girls showed up late and forgot their equipment. Their punishment: running laps.
It’s not everyday you find an ex-professional fighter trying to convince a gaggle of 13 year-olds to bring their shoes to practice. We asked Andre what drove such an accomplished fighter to create a middle school team. “Passion. I mean, I love it. I love wrestling. I’ve heard my coaches for years and years say ‘you have to have passion.’ To see a kid grow from day one to our last practice, to see a kid actually do the moves that we’ve been working on: the counters, combinations, escapes, the takedowns. That would be my biggest accomplishment, seeing those kids really learn and execute those moves. To see them learn that passion.”
For those new to the sport, Andre offered the following advice: “I would tell them to try. Give it a try, give it a practice, give it a week’s practice, give it a couple of weeks. There’s going to be aches, pains, bruises, blood. There’s going to be a lot of sweat. This sort of wrestling teaches you good parallels with life and work. The harder you work, the more dedication that you have to not quit, the more you will grow. Trying is what’s most important. All successes, big or small, are a step in the right direction.”
Andre paused and smiled. His eyes glowed. “You never know… There could be a diamond in the rough out there somewhere. It could be some kid that just needs a little push to get out there and try it and then he, or she, might be the one that’ll go far.”
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