REED CITY — Carolyn Beilfuss didn’t grow up when high school girls sports were offered as they are now.
But when asked which sport she would have joined if she had the chance, the lifelong Reed City resident didn’t hesitate to answer.
“This one,” she said while attending a wrestling match in the Reed City gym. “I don’t know if I could have done it, but that would have been my choice.”
Beilfuss had three sons wrestle at Reed City. But even without any relatives wrestling, she still comes to the home matches. At the recent Reed City Invitational, she was in her usual place, sitting in a chair at the corner on ground level.
“I’ve been sitting here for 36 years,” she said. “I just love the sport, I just love it. There’s no other sport. These kids are not friends out there (on the mat) right now. They’ll come back over there and then they’ll be friends. You see that in wrestlers. My boys were football and baseball players, but you don’t see it. You go to state meets and these kids, people come up to you. It’s just family.
“It just blows my mind. It’s the neatest sport I think. I love it.”
“She’s been very supportive to the wrestling program, and comes to all of our home meets,” Reed City athletic director Kris Griffin said. “She has followed wrestling since her own kids were in high school, her oldest graduated in 1982. She has been coming for at least that many years.”
Beilfuss has had plenty of relatives in other sports.
“I don’t miss many softball games to be honest with you,” she said. “I have a great grandson that’s 14 who will be in the high school next year. I hope he’s on the baseball team.”
She was born Carolyn Crane and her dad owned Crane Motor Sales. As a sports fan, wrestling remains her No. 1 love.
“This is the only sport in my book,” Beilfuss said. “It really is. These kids are really neat. They work harder than any other sport.
“I give these kids so much credit that they can go six minutes. I’ve always said that. It’s not football or baseball that you have 10 other kids with you. It’s all yours baby. I love it. If you saw these kids practice, you’d know it. Roger Steig is a super coach.”
