Profile: Yasmin Gonzalez Ramos

By Bailey Mknelly,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Junior Yasmin Gonzalez moved to Davis High this year from River City High School in Sacramento. She decided to join the wrestling team because she wanted to participate in a sport and came from a wrestling background.

Gonzalez is one of only four girls on the Blue Devil wrestling team. However, this has never deterred her from doing what she loves.

“I’m honestly around guys so much. Most of my friends are guys so […], its more of a normal thing than being with a bunch of girls honestly,” Gonzalez said.

She has been fighting since she was seven years old. She has participated in jiu jitsu, boxing, kickboxing, MMA and tiquando. This year she plans to go to the taekwondo World Championships in Little Rock, Arkansa, which is run by the American Taekwondo Association.

“My dad was in martial arts when he was in high school so I basically grew up in that kind of environment. So it was really cool and I wanted to be exactly like my dad, you know, with all the martial arts and all the cool pressure points and stuff,” she said.

Additionally, she wanted to learn how to defend herself. “I figure that you’re never too safe and the more you know the better,” she said.

Wrestling coach Ty Brown believes that being a female wrestler may have even greater benefits.

“Wrestling is that next sport that is going to accelerate and get girls into school because what it is now is that there are so many schools opening up these programs so if we have 100 wrestling teams we only have 25 girls wrestlers to fill these teams,” Brown said. “And in California, every college that has a girls team is figuring out how to get to the West Coast because that’s where most of the talented girls are.”

Brown is adamant in his philosophy that all of his wrestlers should be treated equally.

“Everyone meets the same standard. We’re expecting people to condition, we’re expecting them to be at practice, we’re expecting them to give their best effort and that doesn’t change whether I’m coaching my girls or I’m coaching my boys,” Brown said.

Gonzalez appreciates Brown’s commitment to the women’s team.

“The coach treats everyone the same, he’s an amazing coach, Coach Brown, he’s the best. He’s very supportive towards girls. He says that girls are like ‘the best’ and that we never lose.”

However, Gonzalez isn’t interested in the sport as a future. She aspires to go into the medical profession.

“I’m pretty interested in [anatomy]. I’m actually interested in any health classes. The body is a pretty mysterious thing” Gonzalez said.