A conversation with Kimberly Strout, ORHS wrestling coach.
How did you get involved in Oyster River wrestling?
My son Noah Strout was a wrestler, and if I didn’t step up, he wouldn’t have been able to wrestle.. and that’s literally why I’m here today. He started wrestling around eight. Our elementary school didn’t have anything, our middle school didn’t have anything, so we’ve been independents all along, and then we got to high school, and then we found out we had to be independent, but part of being independent is we had to have a coach.
We had no coach. So I became the coach.
Did you have any wrestling experience or knowledge before you started coaching?
Just watching him wrestle–we went to many, many [wrestling arenas] with Noah.
I got to coach under Kay Lee Ray [Scottish female professional wrestler]. She did some classes with me, so I got to see what it was like to wrestle. That way I could feel some of the moves. I mean, I’ve been wrestling with Noah, but it’s not the same.
I’ve coached many different sports, and I did utilize a lot of other coaches to help me out throughout the years with Noah. But being a female coach has not been good.
Why has being a female coach not been good?
It’s not a female world. I don’t know if there’s any other female varsity coach [for a male-dominated sports team at Oyster River High School] other than me.
Females are allowed to be [coached] under the males. They have no problem if you [coach] all females and you’re a female.
[Other wrestling coaches have] told me that my seat is in the back of the bus, because coaches sit in the front. My son Noah had to sometimes sit with me.
When Noah went to nationals, there was a hundred and fifty something other male coaches. I was the only female. They wouldn’t let me sit anywhere. They were leaning into the seats, putting their feet on the seat. Noah and I ate in the car on that one. I just said, “Noah, why don’t you and I just go sit in the car and eat?”
They’ve patted me on my head and said, “You got this one, girl.” Noah has watched a coach push me physically out of my seat and say, “You need a real coach for this?”
We’ve had to go through a lot. But years later, through [Noah’s] amazing talent, I have now been honored as a female to be in that spot, and they now treat me as an equal. So it has stopped—11 years later.
What made you stick with coaching wrestling after all of that?
I stuck through it for other women, and for my son. I mean, he wouldn’t been able to wrestle.
I didn’t want to mock [those coaches] back and didn’t want to create a scene, because then I’m not being any better than them. So I went through four years, and after those four years, I had another female.
I don’t know, you do it for the for the athletes. Because we don’t have a team, how do you say no to an independent? They wouldn’t be able to wrestle if they didn’t have someone backing them. So, that’s why I stay.
Dover also has a mother [coaching her son], but because of me has been able to come up free of all this. She’s been able to walk in, go into that corner, and nobody gives her a hard time.
I’m very thankful that I stuck it through and did not “act like a girl.”
What do you like the best about coaching?
I wanted to be a motivational speaker. And I believe when we’re on the mat, I can be that motivational speaker. I do feel like I’ve changed the world out there of wrestling [as a result of my coaching] because they now are making men change their disposition, being better behaved, having higher expectations.
They’ll say, “yeah, I just really like the way you coach with Noah,” and they’re starting to be more inspirational coaches instead of the, “what are you an idiot?” That’s not me. I’m like, “breathe, you’ve got this, find it in your soul.”
And now my wrestlers, like Mackenzie [Macleod], she just got fourth in the state for girls, as a freshman. Those other coaches can’t say that. I’d like to say it was because of my coaching, but really, I just have amazing athletes.
I do try to coach to the athlete. I don’t care if the athlete loses every single match. I will still be the same coach, whether you lose or win, just as excited. I know you’ve trained so hard, and sometimes your best just is not good enough on that day.
I do coach differently than all the other coaches. I will say that I am hard, I push, I do drive. And I tell them that. I will push you as far as you wanna be pushed. but you know your body. So you need to stop when it’s enough. I had my son, an elite athlete going off to nationals. Had I never pushed him, he would have never gotten to his level.
[All my athletes] were amazing, and I remember every one of their matches, and we celebrated. That was their best, which to me was that was good enough, because they gave it their all, they tried so hard. They came off that mat sweating, saying “Did you see me, Coach?”
And I’m like, “Yeah, I saw you.”
-Paige Stehle
Mouth of the River 
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