Wrestling: Porter's vacation lacking leisure time

PHOTOGRAPHER: Bill Palmer

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Remember how you spent the summer after your high school graduation?

There’s a good chance Alexis Porter will never forget.

Porter, who graduated from Shenendehowa last month, will spend the summer competing for wrestling championships, at both the world and national levels.

“I got the packets [from USA Wrestling] and said, ‘There goes my summer,’ ” said Porter, who will cap her summer by competing in the Junior World Championships next month in Croatia. “But I’m not regretful. I’m very fortunate just to have these opportunities and to have these doors opened for me in wrestling.”

Porter’s summer began earlier this week, when she and younger brother, Jesse, began a three-day camp at SUNY-Brockport to prepare for the Junior Nationals, which begin Sunday in Fargo, N.D.

She is scheduled to compete next Monday through Thursday, then report to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., to join her teammates as they prepare for the Junior Worlds.

“This is going to be go, go go,” said Porter. “It’s a month of wrestling.”

She rattled off the intinery.

“Monday, leave for Brockport and three days of practice with the guys’ team out there, then drive to Fargo, wrestle there, then do the [junior women’s] Duals, fly from Fargo to Colorado Springs to the OTC to join the rest of the world team. We’ll probably have a week and a half there, then straight to Croatia.

“Then I have about a week off before school [McKendree University in Lebanon, Ill.] starts.”

The trip from Brockport to Fargo gives the Porters some rare family time.

“It’s about 21 hours, I think,” Porter said. “It’s good bonding time for my family [Jesse, dad Jesse Sr. and mom Melove]. We have so little time together these days.

“My whole family sacrifices so much more than I do. Seldom do people have more than one child wrestle at the level where Jesse and I are.”

Despite it making for a full summer, Porter did not want to skip the national tournament.

“I love Fargo. There’s not any bigger stage for women’s wrestling,” she said. “The women’s collegiate nationals, the venue for it, it’s so inferior to what you have it at Fargo, because you have it with the guys.”

Porter is also hoping to join Nicole Woody of Maryland and California’s Tatiana Padilla as a four-time female champion at Fargo..

After finishing third in the Cadet divion and fourth in the Junior age group in 2011, Porter has gone 3-for-3 the past two years, winning both age divisions in 2012, and another Junior title last summer.

Porter stressed that the World Championships have top billing.

“I am putting a priority on the World Championships,” she said. “If I thought there was a chance I could get injured, I would opt out. But I don’t anticipate that.”

Porter also wants to make amends for her first competition as a U.S. team member.

“I want to medal. I feel I should have medaled at the Cadet [World] Championships last year,” she said. “I have something to prove.

“I don’t think I was prepared last year, I hadn’t had any international experience. That was my first time out of the country all together. Now, having taken two trips abroad, I know things, like what foods to eat.”

Porter has the blessing of her college coach, Sam Schmitz.

“My coach is totally on board with what I’m doing,” Porter said. “He works with USA Wrestling, so he understands.”

Porter’s long range goals include winning a national collegiate championship and medaling at the Olympic Games.

“It all comes down to perspective,” she said. “I look at it like I’m giving up my entire summer, but thinking what I could get out of it. It’s worth it.”