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by Jackie Christensen, 12/26/2006

Eureka High graduate Kaci Lyle shoots for a takedown in the 2005 National Championship at Las Vegas. Submitted photo

Traveling the globe, competing in world championships and qualifiers on the dime of Sunkist and Asics, going to school and finishing her bachelor’s degree in psychology, it’s all not enough for Eureka High graduate and world renowned wrestler Kaci Lyle — she wants more.

Lyle, who graduated from EHS in 2000, currently lives at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., where she’s training to earn a spot on the 2008 Olympic team that will be competing in 2008 at Beijing, China.

“It’s been kind of a crazy, up and down journey,” Lyle said. “It seems like things go really well for a while, and then they go not so well, but right now I’m finally getting back on the right path to where I want to be.”

In high school, Lyle was a two-time women’s national champion in the 145- and 152-pound weight classes her junior and senior years.

After high school, she accepted a wrestling scholarship to Missouri Valley College where she wrestled for the women’s team, and after advancing to the National Championship her first year and placing third, she qualified for the World Team Trials.

Although she didn’t make the world team her first try, Lyle’s determination never wavered, and after becoming unhappy with her situation in Missouri, she transferred to Pacific University in Oregon.

“I just felt like I just wasn’t improving and I wasn’t happy,” she said.

At Pacific, Lyle’s life took an unexpected turn in 2002, when the Olympic Committee announced that women’s wrestling was going to be an official sport in the 2004 Olympic Games.

Lyle immediately applied to live at the Olympic Training Center and was one of 10 wrestlers in the country selected to move to Colorado and train for the 2004 Olympics full time.

She made the decision to stop going to school and devoted her entire life to making the Olympic team, but there was just one small catch.

Lyle wrestled in 149s in college, and the Olympic team only had four weight classes (105s, 121s, 138s and 158s), which meant she was going to have to go either up or down roughly10 pounds to make a spot.

After trying to go up to 158, she decided it would be best to drop down to 138, and after she made weight, she qualified for the national team. After that, she was picked up by the Sunkist Kids Wrestling Club — one of the most prestigious sponsorships available to wrestlers — and Asics, which pays for her gear and wrestling trips all over the world.

At the National Championship in 2004, which was the qualifier for the Olympic Trials, Lyle placed fifth and made the Olympic Trial team.

But in the Olympic Trials, she lost in the championship round and missed the Olympic team by one wrestler (only the four weight-class champions advance to the Olympic Games).

And although she experienced tremendous success wrestling at 138 pounds, all of Lyle’s rapid weight loss and intense competition didn’t come free of charge.

One day, while training at practice, she started feeling short of breath and her leg began to swell.

At the hospital, doctors found a blood clot in her stomach, which had broken and traveled to her lung.

After being rushed to Intensive Care, where she remained for three weeks, doctors told her she would have to take blood thinners for the rest of her life, and would never be able to wrestle again.

“(The doctors) thought the clot was formed by me dehydrating myself trying to cut so much weight,” Lyle said. “I’m pretty lucky to be alive. After they told me I wasn’t going to be able to wrestle again, I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

Fast forward 10 months later, while still training at the Olympic center (lifting weights and doing cardio) and injecting blood thinners three times a day, Lyle’s doctors gave her the option to stop taking the blood thinners to wrestle again at her own risk.

It didn’t take her long to make a decision.

“I wasn’t going to just quit,” she said. “It took a while to heal from all that, I was in the hospital for a long time, but then they gave me a choice and I wanted to keep wrestling.”

Since her return to wrestling in July of this year, Lyle has traveled to China as a training partner in the World Championships, she has won the Canada Clansman Tournament in Vancouver and she has won an international tournament in France.

Currently, Lyle is home for the holidays, but returns to Colorado Jan. 2 to train for big tournaments in Canada and at the Olympic Training Center.

After those tournaments, she will travel to international tournaments in France, Ukraine and Sweden, beginning on the second week in February.

Since living at the Olympic Training Center, Lyle has traveled and competed in numerous other countries, including Germany, Belarus, Bulgaria and Norway.

And just in case that wasn’t enough, Lyle completes her bachelor’s degree in psychology this semester at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (which is paid in full because she is an Olympic athlete), and afterwards, is interested in pursuing her doctorate or master’s degree in clinical psychology.

“I know that I’m not going to be able to wrestle forever,” Lyle said. “I’m just enjoying it while it lasts.”