rise to Division I status<\/a> while balancing a double major in economics and cognitive science.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I first toured (Lehigh), I met one of the women who started the club six months before I got to the school,\u201d Futch said. \u201cI sort of came into college expecting to be committed to wrestling. I was ready to go in and put the work in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she arrived on campus in the fall 2022, the program was still taking shape. Practices were held every other week, and competition opportunities were limited because the club was new.<\/p>\n
The slow start didn\u2019t deter her.<\/p>\n
Futch said she increased practices to three times a week, and on the weekends, drove to Connecticut and New York to train with her club coach, seeking out any competition she could find.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would do any sort of competition we could get our hands on,\u201d she said. \u201cYou kind of had to search out all the opportunities yourself when I was first here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior teammate Leila Sidhu said Futch\u2019s efforts to grow the club didn\u2019t go unnoticed. The foundation she helped build was still searching for its footing.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe really broadcasted the idea of supporting women\u2019s wrestling, and she was able to form bonds and network, and I guess that\u2019s really a big part of all this,\u201d Sidhu said. \u201cShe threw out the name and got people to be open to the idea that Lehigh women\u2019s wrestling could have a team and go Division I.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the university moved toward Division I status, Futch wasn\u2019t simply watching from the sidelines. She and her father, Curt Futch, were part of the process.<\/p>\n
A former collegiate wrestler, Curt Futch said he worked to expand the program so his daughter could pursue her dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided that if that was her goal, I was going to help her achieve it,\u201d he said. \u201cI did the networking that I needed to do, built relationships, tried to really help where I could be supportive, not just to her, but to the entire program.\u201d<\/p>\n
In May, Lehigh officially announced the addition of women\u2019s wrestling as a varsity sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt (was an) amazing feeling, honestly, like it\u2019s absolutely out of this world,\u201d Anni Futch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she first arrived the team roster had three names. She drove herself to practices and accepted donations for her program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As her senior year comes to a close, Futch leaves behind a team with its own facility, athletic trainer and the support of the athletic department.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although her passion for wrestling runs deep, her athletic career began elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Futch started competitive figure skating at age 4 and became nationally ranked in 2017 and 2019. In eighth grade, her father\u2019s love for wrestling began to rub off on her as they watched the national championships together.<\/p>\n
Curt Futch said he looked up Cael Sanderson, the wrestling coach at Penn State, and learned he would be at a camp in Utah run by his brother. He said Sanderson suggested that Anni Futch try wrestling.<\/p>\n
Throughout high school, her father served as her coach and added extra practice time to prepare her for the collegiate level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That support system shaped not only the wrestler Anni Futch has become, but also the teammate her coaches and teammates rely on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s just an interesting person overall,\u201d Sidhu said. \u201cShe\u2019s super smart, really sweet and she\u2019s always ready to give a helping hand whenever anybody needs it. She\u2019s always there, always prepared to be there for another person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Off the mat, Anni Futch said she\u2019s passionate about fashion and reading. She said she has an endless supply of clothes and books.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of the many books she\u2019s read, three hold a special place: Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like how these are all fictional stories, but they have a much larger implication,\u201d Anni Futch said. \u201cIt really makes you think about your place in society and what exactly is going to happen in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she believes fiction holds a distinct kind of power \u2014 a belief that feels fitting as one of the most defining chapters of her own story comes to an end.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere definitely were a lot of big feelings before I competed for the last time,\u201d she said. \u201cI can look back and say I did what I came here to do and feel happy with how it went.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If life were bound between hardcovers, senior women\u2019s wrestler Anni Futch already knows what her book would say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5451,153,155,154,1197,295,55698],"class_list":{"0":"post-117321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-5-minute-read","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-feature","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-womens-wrestling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}