Let’s hear it for the girls! These days, wrestling isn’t just for, or about, the boys anymore and Maci Bookout’s daughter is proving just that.
Girls wrestling is growing in popularity throughout our nation, with middle schools and high schools adding girls wrestling to their athletic schedules, as well as clubs coming in hot with girls’ programs as well.
We are even seeing more and more colleges adding girls wrestling to their repertoires. Cue Maci Bookout and Taylor McKinney’s, six-year-old daughter, Jayde.
Jayde is a beast on the mat
At six years old, Maci and Taylor’s daughter, Jayde, is adorable…and she’s also tough as nails!
When Jayde trains and steps onto that wrestling mat to compete, she is in complete beast mode! The girl’s got her game face on and has no problem taking down her opponents.
Whether it’s working out and getting stronger during, or warming up with drills and moves before the competition, Jayde proves that girls can do anything that boys do.
TNAAU Top 100 at Chattanooga
Maci took not only Jayde, but she and Taylor’s other child, Maverick, 5, as well as Maci and Ryan’s son, Bentley, 13, to compete in the Top 100 AAU wrestling meet in Chattanooga, Tennessee on January 8.
In her almost five-minute video she posted on Instagram, Maci documents her time at the TNAAU Top 100 meet.
She starts the video with clips of all three kids doing warm-ups at a team practice. Then she moves over to the kids practicing and training in their garage gym, as she posts on her Instagram, complete with Bentley wrestling and working with her brother, who she comments, “was a collegiate wrestler.”
Jayde is shown doing push-ups on two medicine balls, and Maci is shown braiding lookalike daughter Jayde’s hair before heading to the meet. The video then transitions to Chattanooga at 6:54 am on the day of the competition and finishes with clips of all three kids wrestling.
This girl is on fire
Jayde’s fierceness is evident in Maci’s photos of her warming up and competing. The girl never gives in and shows grit, athleticism, and perseverance in all of the photos and the video.
As girls’ wrestling continues to gain speed and become a sought-after sport for young girls and teen girls, Jayde is the face of many of the girls who are becoming more and more involved in this sport.
So give some R-E-S-P-E-C-T to this up-and-coming sport, and encourage girls that they can be tough and inspiring wrestlers too!
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