Warren’s Kylee Tait to wrestle at Campbellsville
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VINCENT -- Warren's Kylee Tait, a two-time Ohio state wrestling champion at 155 pounds, had her signing ceremony on Tuesday inside the Warrior Coliseum to announce she'll continue her career on the mat for Campbellsville University head coach Lee Miracle, whose Tigers compete in the NAIA Mid-South Conference.
Tait won her final 15 matches during her junior campaign en route to topping the field at the state tournament in the 155-pound weight class.
The Warrior proceeded to not only defend her title this past winter, but she went 55-0 and finished with a career record of 124-47, which included wrestling against boys.
"I just finished my 12th year," Tait admitted of wrestling. "I got into it whenever I was really young. I'd have to say about 5 years old-ish, 4 or 5.
"That was because my older brothers did it and I would always be going to their practices and then one day I decided I really wanted to do that. I had to beg and beg and beg my dad and finally he let me, and here we are today."
Tait, who carries a 3.3 GPA and plans to major "between criminal justice and social work, something in the criminal justice aspect," said the vast majority of her schooling will be paid for.
"Actually, they were at the end of my visiting list and I really enjoyed a lot of the schools I visited prior to this, but then I decided I should probably go one more," she said. "I visited Campbellsville. Initially it wasn't on top because of the distance.
"It's about five hours away from here, but then I went there and I absolutely fell in love with it. I felt at home there. I visited Tiffin, visited with Mount Union and Baldwin Wallace. I really enjoyed Tiffin and Campbellsville, so it was truly between those two, but I really, really liked Campbellsville probably the best."
Despite being a two-time state champion and four-time All-Ohioan as well as being a member of team Ohio, a Women of Ironman champion and a Fargo qualifier, Tait knows she can't rest on her laurels.
"I need to open up on my offense," admitted the Warrior. "I'm a very defensive wrestler, but I need to open up on my offense and I need to work on my, I don't want to say coach-ability because I like to pride myself that I'm very coachable.
"I want to work on my ability to like listen when I have to listen and take things serious when I have to take them serious, and just keep on keeping on."
Taking the next step in college will be a challenge, but Tait is ready to tackle the next chapter in her life.
"I feel prepared because in my past two, three years I have worked on like doing college classes," she said.
"I try to get the most out of each class and I feel like Warren has definitely prepared me for college."
Tait said she played softball growing up and competed two years at Warren, but decided to fully concentrate on wrestling.
"I am happy because I really helped grow the program here and then it's a little heartbreaking that I have to leave it behind, but I believe that I will be coming back and helping out with our girls program in the near future. It's a love-hate. I'm happy to be out, but I'm really going to miss it.
"Probably the most that I'm going to remember is watching this program go from there being just me to now we have a full fledged girl team and not only do we just have a girl team, but our girls team was undefeated this year. That's just something that I like to pride myself in because I helped grow that and I helped bring us to all those victories."
With less than two weeks of school remaining, Tait is just taking things one day at a time.
"I'm a little worried about it, but I'm also very excited because yes I am going to be one of the smaller people on the team, less important, but then again I get to build that name," she added. "I get to rebuild my name all over again, so it's really exciting."
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com