Murata had a superb career on the mat, and she captured a World silver medal for the United States. Larry Slater photo. Continued from page 18 In 2001, on her fifth World Team,
Murata broke through with her first World medal, taking a silver in Sofia, Bulgaria at 51 kg. She had been very close before, but this time was a bit different. “That year, both Tricia and Townsend (Saunders) came to the World Championships. I also had another new coach, who really helped me. We were more aggressive with our technique and training. On a daily basis, training was more physical. Some of the mental aspects also take time to develop. I was starting to control it. I was used to com- peting by then,” she said.
Although the Olympics were not a reali- ty in the 1990s, the women had high hopes that the sport would be added to the 2000 Olympics. When that didn’t hap- pen, some of Murata’s teammates and peers retired from the sport and moved on with their lives. Stephanie was still young enough and motivated enough to continue, but she also had some changes in her life.
She first moved from Arizona to Florida, to spend more time with her father who was ill at the time. After that, Murata had an opportunity to coach the women’s wrestling team at the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky for a year, an experience which made her understand her deep commitment to her own athletic career.
“I had helped coach at some high
schools and colleges in Arizona and Florida. I was really excited about coach- ing a women’s college program. I coached there and tried to compete at the same time. I felt like my training suf- fered because I wasn’t able to do both. I felt like I was cheating the girls when I tried to continue. I couldn’t put my full attention to them, nor my full attention to me. I wasn’t finished with what I felt I could accomplish with wrestling. The idea of women’s wrestling in the Olympics was still out there,” she said.
In 2002, the International Olympic Committee officially added women’s wrestling to the 2004 Games in Athens, Greece. For Murata, who had made the decision to stay with the sport, the jour- ney to that historic moment had tremen- dous meaning.
“It justified some of the resources and time I was devoting to wrestling. Everybody always see the Olympics. They don’t always see the World Championships and the other stuff. It was kind of like the overnight successes, where they don’t talk about the 10 years they put in before being an overnight suc- cess. A lot of the women had made huge sacrifices in our program,” she said. With women’s wrestling in the Games, the U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Wrestling were able to start a women’s resident program at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. In addition, Terry Steiner was hired as the
first full-time Women’s National Coach for USA Wrestling. Murata made the move to the OTC shortly after the program was formed, a resource which was never available earlier in her career. “It was amazing the amount of support which was given to women’s wrestling and all of the resources that were right there. It made a big impact on our pro- gram, and allowed us to excel even more. Whenever you have a group of people who all have the same goal and are headed in the same direction, it becomes an unstoppable force. It raises everybody’s expectations, performance and practice. Everybody is putting every- thing into it,” she said. Murata had a chance to try out for two Olympic teams, first at the Olympic Trials in 2004 in Indianapolis and then at the Olympic Trials in 2008 in Las Vegas. She had wrestled in one of the non-Olympic weight classes most of her career, and had to make a choice for the Olympic quest. In 2004, she tried out at 55 kg. “After the first Olympic Trials, there was a lot of soul searching. I felt 51 kg was where I wrestled best. My choice was 48 kg or 55 kg. That was a big decision. I ended up for that cycle up at 55 kg, because I didn’t think I could make 48 kg. It was difficult. I felt I wrestled well in some of the matches. Against Tela (O’Donnell), instead of just relaxing, I was almost spastic, and gave up a ton of
Continued on page 20 19 USA Wrestler
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