Barbara Morgan has dedicated over half her life to growing girls wrestling and coaching her athletes to become not only better wrestlers, but better human beings, on and off the mat.
This year Morgan was inducted to the Washington State wrestling coaches Hall of Fame as a member of its 2025 class, the first ever female coach to receive this honor. Morgan’s love for wrestling started early.
Her brother wrestled and she would watch and wrestle with him. Although she couldn’t wrestle herself at the time, she was passionate about the sport and knew she wanted to be involved.
“I kept stats for the boys’ team. I wasn’t allowed like the managers now to come into the room,” Morgan said. Morgan started working her way up in the wrestling community. “I started coaching in our youth room. I knew wrestling because I wrestled with my brother and been around a long time. If I had 12 girls and we were at a tournament and I was the only coach, my girls wouldn’t wrestle without me. The men would just make them wrestle. It kind of was like they were mad at me for being there,” she said.
Due to the resistance of male counterparts, Morgan felt the need to prove her worth in a sport that catered to males. These challenges were pivotal steps to the successes she has achieved.
Morgan highlighted some of her favorite memories from her 32-year coaching career, helping girls pass their classes and get through school which without wrestling probably wouldn’t have happened. Morgan talks about a wrestler on the team named Sarah.
“She reminded me of myself when I was young, [she] just wrestled hard.” She was failing five of her six classes. She was a freshman, and just like mad at the world,” said Morgan “And so we brought her in, and we started wrestling and she loved it.”
Morgan went to talk to all of her teachers, and asked what to do to make her eligible. “Once she decided she was going to get good grades to wrestle, she got very good grades,” Morgan said Sarah took 2nd at state one year, “but she won the match to go to finals and, just, you know, the joy and the tears and all the emotion and, like, I can still feel that.”
Morgan emphasizes the mindset in the mat room and in life. “I think you can do anything if
you believe you can do it. I think you could be a CEO of a company. I think you could be a state champion. I think that if you truly believe who you are, there are no limits,” said Morgan.
Morgan believes you have to train your brain, especially as women, “We are conditioned to think we are not quite as good as men,” said Morgan “We tell our little girls you can be anything you want, you have to make them believe it, you have to show them. And honestly that’s why I’m here, it’s why I’ve stayed here, it’s why I’m not ready to be done yet.” Morgan’s words show our next generations what’s possible. Because look at how far girls wrestling has come.
