Lumberton’s Kylie Brigman, center right, signs to wrestle collegiately at Randolph College during a ceremony Thursday in Lumberton. She is pictured with her grandmother Sue Hicks, left, her mother Amanda Brigman, center left, and her father Brian Brigman, right.
Chris Stiles | The Robesonian
LUMBERTON — Many high school athletes hoping to compete at the collegiate level more or less wait for college coaches to find them, Lumberton wrestling coach James Bell says.
Only a few are Kylie Brigman’s type, proactively contacting programs to try and find themselves an opportunity.
It paid off for Brigman, who signed Thursday to wrestle at Randolph College.
“At the beginning of my senior year, I got in contact with the Randolph Coach, Coach Brooke (Richards). I contacted her first, because a lot of people said good things about her, and she had switched from Bluefield (University). … I just decided I’m going to go and visit Randolph, see how that goes. I talked with everybody there, I really liked the faculty, and just being able to contact coaches and taking the initiative, and figuring out what I liked and didn’t like helped with that, and it just all clicked in at the end of the semester before I graduated.”
“She was very proactive and trying to find the school that fit her the best,” Bell said. “She did a lot of college visits, she made a lot of contact with a lot of coaches. Anywhere we went where coaches were going to be there, she shook hands, she had conversations, she took their cards, she sent emails. To be that proactive in the process and have that type of determination, that’s something you can’t really teach. Technique and other skills can be taught, but you can’t teach a lot of that type of determination, a grit is what I would say.”
Randolph, an NCAA Division-III institution in Lynchburg, Virginia, will sponsor a women’s wrestling team for the first time during the 2024-25 school year.
“I just fit in there,” Brigman said. “I really like the scenery. It was in the mountains, it felt like I was at Hogwarts, it was a very nice place. I think it’s more of the area, and it being a smaller school so there’s not as many people, that helps a lot.”
Brigman was 38-5 in her senior season with the Pirates as part of the Pirates squad that won the team championship at the North Carolina High School Athletic Association State Championships in February. Brigman reached the 120-pound quarterfinals individually before losing her next two matches.
“(Randolph is getting) a lot of determination and grit,” Bell said. “Kylie was our Iron Woman this year at our awards, and that was mainly because of a lot of the obstacles she’s had this year and previous years, and the fact that Kylie’s never really given up. She’s always seeing an opportunity and taking opportunities, to get better, to wrestle, to do something proactive.”
That proactivity helped lead to not just high school success, but a college opportunity as well.
“For a moment there I didn’t think I was going to be able to wrestle at the next level, due to things going on in school and stuff, but it all worked out in my favor, so I’m able to actually wrestle at the next level and I think I’m going to do pretty good. There’s a lot I need to work on but I think I can do it.”
Brigman is eager to attend Randolph despite the school being about a four-hour drive from home in Lumberton.
“I planned on going somewhere outside of North Carolina, because all the schools in North Carolina just weren’t the fit for me,” Brigman said. “I wanted to venture out, I didn’t want to be stuck here, so I decided, Virginia’s not that far, let’s try that.”
Brigman is the third member of the Lumberton girls wrestling team’s senior class of 2024 to sign collegiately; Wyntergale Oxendine signed to Indian Hills Community College and Janya Rolland to Allen University.
