By Joe Mehling
USA Wrestling
Three-time World Team member Alli Ragan has had the sport of wrestling running through her veins since birth.

The Carbondale, Illinois native first walked onto the mat when she was just five years old, and with her dad Dennis in her corner, Ragan has made her way to the doorstep of her dreams.

In Iowa City, Iowa on April 9-10 at the U.S. Olympic Team Trails, she will step onto the mat once again, the same way she did when she was five years old, only this time it will be for a shot to represent her country at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

"It would mean everything,” Ragan said. “It is my life's work. It’s my family…it’s just everything.”

The Ragan family has always been a wrestling family. Dennis, a 2011 inductee of the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame, has been a coach for over 30 years. At first, it was just her brother Jared on the mat, but it didn’t take long for Alli to get off the sidelines and into the action.

“My wife would bring our son to wrestling practice and when they would come so would our daughter,” Dennis said. “I think she just got tired of watching us so she gave it a shot. There really never was a push, which I believe is the best way to do it.”

Ragan was a quick learner when it came to technique but her dad saw something inside of her that made him take a step back and realize that she could be special.

“That first year was just practice, practice, practice,” Dennis said. “We put her in one tournament where she could be competitive and I was really shocked. I watched her grow up but I never really saw that side of her. You can develop certain things but you are also born with certain things and I could tell right then that she had a desire to win. She just went out there and competed."

From there, it was just a matter of time before she developed a reputation as not only one of the best female wrestlers in town but just one of the best wrestlers, period, male or female.

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