Marietta Wrestler Wraps Up Career

Akeia Miles remembers her first week wrestling.

She was a sophomore at , having deciding to try out for the wrestling team. To see if she was serious, the coaches paired her with classmate Ardon Smith, one of the tougher wrestlers on the Blue Devils’ team.

“I remember pain,” she said. “Ardon was tough.”

But Miles stuck with it. It wasn’t like this was new to her. She grew up scrapping with her male cousins close to her age. When the week-long test was over, Marietta coach Tommy Carthers wondered if Miles would continue to wrestle.

She did. And she brought a new pair of wrestling shoes to that Monday practice to prove it.

“It was then we knew she was going to stick around,” Carthers said.

It was a challenge at first for Miles, who decided to wrestle after a friend on the team “pretty much forced” her to attend a match freshman year.

Her interest was piqued, and with a hungry work ethic Miles improved over time. She finished her junior season 19-22. This past year, her senior season, Miles finished 30-17. She finished fourth in area in her 103-pound weight class, which was leaps and bounds ahead of where she started.

But Miles, acknowledging she put in a solid season, was a tad disappointed she didn’t qualify for the state tournament.

“I did pretty good, but the only thing is I didn’t make it to state,” Miles said. “That was probably the only bad part for it.”

In addition to her 30-17 record, Miles posted 12 pins and 35 takedowns. She finished third at the Brookwood Invitational, second at the War Eagle Classic and fifth at the Cobb County Tournament. She boasts a 3.5 grade point average and will attend Georgia Southern this fall.

“She took to it pretty good, but she’s gotten a whole lot better,” Carthers said. “You could see there was some talent there from the beginning.”

From the beginning, it was never an issue on that a female would wrestle with the Blue Devils for what is believed to be the first time in school history. Only once did an opposing wrestler refuse to compete against Miles, and that was during a summer match.

Miles said the wrestler’s father, who doubled as his coach, didn’t want him to wrestle her, which resulted in him forfeiting.

It’s not something that particularly bothers her, as she was asked about the incident in Iowa, where high school wrestler Joel Northrup refused to wrestle Cassy Herkelman. Northrup said it was against his religious beliefs to compete against a girl in what he believes to be a combat sport.

“If it was for religious beliefs, you can’t really do anything about it,” Miles said.

Marietta sent five wrestlers to the state tournament this year, but none placed. Smith, who gave Miles her first taste of wrestling, was just one match away from placing.

Over the past three years, Carthers saw Miles evolve from a young sophomore willing to learn into a much improved, hard-working veteran.

“There’s no quit in her,” Carthers said. “She would not stop, she went after everybody. She didn’t expect any special treatment and didn’t get any. She wasn’t looking for it.”