SENIOR SERIES: A profile look at triumphs and struggles experienced by some Aurora senior prep athletes in the time of the coronavirus pandemic:
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
One of the best moments of Salem Scobee’s life so far happened around an empty dining room table with her dog as a witness.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way for Scobee, who earned a rare college scholarship as a female wrestler and couldn’t wait to celebrate her National Letter of Intent signing day with her friends at the Lotus School For Excellence, a charter school of less than 1,000 students in grades K-12 in Aurora.
The threat of the coronavirus closed her school and took that golden moment away from her — at least how she envisioned it — and left Scobee as stunned as any takedown dished out by an opponent in her three years of competition on the wrestling mat.
“The one thing I was really looking forward to was a signing ceremony at school with my friends,” Scobee told the Sentinel. “It hurt me so bad not to have that ceremony, but I don’t want to crybaby about it.”
A ceremony would have been particularly special in a close-knit school of just 916 students (between kindergarten and 12th grade) — a far cry from the much larger public schools Scobee had been in before like Littleton High School — where news of her feats on the wrestling mat spread quickly after every tournament.
“If I had a good weekend wrestling, everybody at school would come up to me and say they heard how I did and congratulated me and it worked the other way as well,” Scobee said. “Having that support system was big for me.”
That she got a chance to wrestle at the next level at Midland University — a small private school in Fremont, Nebraska — is a big deal, especially considering she’s really only had a couple of seasons in the sport, which is in the midst of an explosion for girls in Colorado.
Scobee loved playing volleyball in middle school and was a solid libero, but realistically knew she didn’t have a future in it for obvious reasons — “I’m 4-foot-10, 105 pounds; I love volleyball, but that’s not going to happen” she said wryly — in favor of wrestling. Her family never protested when she told them of her interest and her dad, a social studies teacher at Lotus, went and bought her wrestling shoes right away.
“They were all in,” Scobee said of her family. “They’ve been at every tournament, wiped my tears and been super, super supportive.”
The family got to see Scobee stick with the sport after she took her lumps wrestling boys during her sophomore year, then place fifth in the girls state tournament as a junior and make it again to the big stage in February at Thornton High School as a senior.
In her final state tournament, Scobee lost to the eventual state champion Kiona Conner of Denver East in her first match in the 105-pound bracket and then dropped a decision to fourth-place finisher Kelly Clingan of Loveland in the consolation round to finish with a 19-8 record.
Scobee said her heart breaks for her friends who are seniors (in a small class of just 45 at Lotus) who don’t have their futures set yet and a lot of questions remaining during an uncertain time.
“There are a lot of kids at my school that are in track and soccer and they are heartbroken,” she said. “They are like ‘My career just ended.’ It hurts for me to watch them go through that, so I’m happy I got to complete my senior season in its entirety.”
It has made her even more grateful for a future at Midland, which she fell in love with after taking a visit last summer. She met the coaching staff and practiced with the team, which gave her the clear feeling “this is where I should be.”
Scobee believes she will be able to wrestle right away as the Warriors have several returning wrestlers in the heavier weights, but few in the lower weights like herself. Midland competes at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and was ranked No. 12 in the final 2019-20 NAIA Wrestling Coaches Poll.
Best of all, Scobee gets to live with her grandma and will be surrounded by a large group of extended family that live in the Omaha area.
Off the mat, Scobee — who works with kids at a daycare center — has a goal of becoming a secondary social studies teacher. She is particularly fond of United States history.
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