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Gritty grappler Betts pins down opponents, adversity

Tuesday, January 23, 2001

By JOHN HEUSER
NEWS SPORTS REPORTER

The odds against Milan's Katrina Betts were already as heavy as a pair of 275-pound grapplers locked up on the mat.

A talented female in the male-dominated sport of high school wrestling, Betts had unflinchingly faced down foes that included taunting fans and wrestlers who dreaded competing against a girl, much less one who could very well pin them.

But when Betts got into the back seat of a friend's Ford Escort in March of 1999, she would soon be in for a battle that would demand more of her than wrestling ever could.

Then a sophomore, Betts sat unbuckled in the back because the seat belts had been tucked behind the seat cushion. When Betts' friend, a novice driver, began driving with one hand on the wheel, Betts asked her to use both hands, Betts' father Mike said.

Instead, the driver jokingly raised both hands in the air.

The car slid into roadside gravel and the driver lost control. When the Escort came to rest, it had rolled four times, Mike Betts said. Katrina had smashed through the front passenger side window. The two girls who were sitting belted in the front seats, escaped relatively unharmed.

Katrina Betts lay on Stony Creek Road with her head split open and a vertebrae that was fractured. Only a firefighter who happened by - and kept Betts laying flat on her back until an ambulance arrived - prevented paralysis, doctors later told the Betts family.

For the Betts family, where wrestling ruled, its favorite sport was put temporarily on hold.

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Mike Betts, a 1976 Milan grad, caught the wrestling bug as a youngster and never rid himself of it. In fact, he passed his love for the sport on to the rest of his family.

A coach for 25 years, Betts started a freestyle wrestling program in Milan and later moved his base to Ann Arbor, where he works as a physical therapist assistant. Three years ago, the team returned to Milan when Betts also took the reigns of Milan's high school varsity squad.

As a freestyle coach, Betts coached mostly boys, but he welcomed girls, too.

Parents liked the discipline of the program, said Betts. I didn't treat the girls any different than the boys.

One of his first pupils was his eldest daughter, Katrina.

I kept competing until about four years ago, Mike Betts said. We used to take Katrina with us in the baby carriage to meets. One weekend, I think when she was 6, she asked if we would let her wrestle in a tournament the next weekend.

Betts and his wife Lou Anne -who handles the administrative side of the Mike's wrestling teams -said No, at first. But Katrina continued to pester her parents. Finally, they relented.

Her interest - and ability - came naturally.

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The Lake Orion tournament was the last Betts would wrestle for a long while.

Following the crash she spent three months in a wheelchair and five months wearing a back brace. Attending school was put on hold, too.

"I think the hardest part was not being able to do anything," Betts recalls. "When I did come back it was like starting all over again. I was usually in a lot of pain."

Besides the excruciating three-days-a-week physical therapy sessions, Betts struggled to regain her academic form because of her head injury. Math, which used to be her best subject, is now her weakest. But she persevered and is now carrying an impressive 3.8 grade point average.

Judging by her achievements on the mat, Betts' wresting has never been better, even though the effects of her injury still linger. Her vertebrae shifts when she wrestles, knocking her ribs out of place. So once a week, Betts has a physical therapist at U-M manipulate her ribs into the correct position.

Last season, her first following the accident, she went 21-10 for the Big Reds. This year, wrestling at 112 pounds, Betts has beaten 18-of-24 opponents, with 11 pins.

Four years after breaking onto the high school scene, she still contends with discrimination.

In an Internet chat room, someone posted a message earlier this season saying that Betts would "wish she'd asked for an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas instead of a pair of wrestling shoes," after facing a particular wrestler.

At a tournament at Monroe Jefferson High - where she finished second - Betts drew criticism when she beat a higher-seeded wrestler from Temperance Bedford.

"I'd say the parents are the worst," Betts said. "Actually I think the mothers are a lot worse than the fathers. I don't think they like it when a girl beats their sons.

"But I guess I've gotten used to it. I don't really care what they think."

Betts said she wants to continue her wrestling career in college, where there are a handful of varsity women's programs, and - if women's wrestling is accepted as an Olympic sport -move into that arena, as well.

For this season, the focus is on earning an elusive berth in the individual state meet, and continuing to provide up-and-coming female wrestlers with a positive role model. Three other girls, including Betts' younger sister Leanna, also compete for the Big Reds.

"I think the accident taught me a lot," Betts said. "I'm not so worried about winning or losing any more. It's more about just being able to walk. I know I'm extremely lucky."