Spc. Adaugo Nwachukwu didn’t start wrestling until her sophomore year of high school, but that hasn’t stopped her from securing a spot at the United World Wrestling U23 Pan-American Championships.
Nwachukwu, who currently serves in the Iowa National Guard, won a best-of-three series against Marisol Nugent in April to earn her spot on Team USA at the June event in Columbia, South America.
The victory furthered Nwachukwu’s undefeated streak and put her one step closer to the U.S. Olympic Team.
“It was intended,” she said of her undefeated streak. “I went into every match with the mindset that I’m not going to lose, I’m out there to win … I go into matches with the mindset of, ‘I’ve been working hard for days, and I’m going to go get it.’”
And get it she has. USA Wrestling named her 2024’s Women’s College Wrestler of the Year, citing the following accolades:
- 2024 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) champion (136 pounds), finishing with a 21-0 record.
- Heart of America Conference champion
- Three-time NAIA champion.
- 2022 U2 World bronze medalist.
- USA Wrestling National titles at senior, U23 and U20 levels.
William Penn University Head Coach Jake Kadel said in a news release that Nwachukwu is one of the “most exciting” athletes to watch in women’s college wrestling.
“She has an unbelievable dynamic that not many wrestlers have. People in the arena turn their heads to her, because they know a big move will happen,” Kadel said. “Her results show that she is deserving of this [women’s wrestler of the year] award, especially with her bonus points rate, with technical falls and pins in all of her matches.”
World Class Athlete Program
Nwachukwu currently resides in Colorado and trains under the Army’s World Class Athlete Program (WCAP). She was in-processed to the team in December, and moved to Fort Carson, Colorado, in March following college nationals.
“It’s been awesome. We train two times a day … [and to] just get to experience what it is, what it feels like training with these athletes, on a level I want to be on,” Nwachukwu said.
Coach Bruce Robinson, WCAP’s assistant women’s wrestling coach, has known Nwachukwu for about a year and began coaching her in December. He told Reserve + National Guard Magazine that he first became aware of her a couple of years ago when she was in the Army Reserve.
He said he’s always looking for people to recruit and knew that as a freshman she had won college nationals. So he looked her up – noticing her Army fatigues in Instagram photos – and reached out to her.
“It’s very rare that somebody comes on to a college team who barely wrestled in high school,” Robinson said.
Coming to the US
Nwachukwu and her family emigrated to the states in 2018, rejoining her father, who had already been in the U.S. for more than two decades.
Nwachukwu ran track and was on the soccer team at California’s Silver Creek High School but wanted to try something new. So when the school’s wrestling coach started recruiting athletes, she joined the team.
“I think it was just the competitive spirit,” she said of what drew her interest to the grappling sport. “When I first started wrestling, I wasn’t winning everything. I wasn’t losing a lot, but I was losing more than I wanted to.”
But she practiced every day for about two hours and her win-loss record changed with her coach’s introduction of the blast double maneuver.
Joining the military
Nwachukwu joined the Guard after speaking with recruiters in high school, but her military career began with an Army Reserve unit in California. She transferred to the National Guard during her sophomore year of college.
Nwachukwu didn’t know the Army had a wrestling team at all until boot camp when her drill sergeant told her about the WCAP.
“This is actually a good deal, to get to train with Olympic and world-level athletes,” Nwachukwu said.
Robinson curates his coaching style to each athlete’s needs, and he said that Nwachukwu’s biggest learning point is technique.
“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Robinson said. “She’s so athletically gifted that she gets away with maybe getting stuff wrong … [She] outpowers everybody and is faster than everybody.”
But Nwachukwu has the potential to be one of the best female wrestlers ever to be actively serving, according to Robinson.
Nwachukwu currently is enrolled at William Penn but said she doesn’t know yet if she’ll return next year.
“I think right now, I’m more focused on training … about going there and winning. So just training right now,” she said.
