PELLA—The fact that Esther Belzer (junior, Kalona, Hillcrest Academy) came to Central College to play women's soccer and women's basketball yet was named the Most Valuable Performer for the Dutch women's wrestling squad less than two years later comes as a surprise only to those who don't know the competition-hungry athlete.
           
Belzer, who married Central men's wrestler Elijah Belzer (junior, Wapello) last June, is wired for athletics. Her father, Noah Hughes, wrestled at Iowa State University, often pairing off with Olympic gold medalist Cael Sanderson in workouts. And her late mother Anna's family tree includes University of Iowa standouts George Kittle, now a star tight end with the San Francisco 49ers, Henry Krieger-Coble, also a former NFL player, All-Big 10 basketball player Jess Settles and baseball all-American Brad Carlson. They're Belzer second cousins who she often saw at Krieger family reunions. She last saw Kittle when she attended a 49ers game at Minnesota Sept. 15, joining her family in visiting with the colorful figure before and afterwards.
           
"He's such a nice guy," Belzer said. "People see him online and think he's putting on an act. But he's genuinely like that. He's a pretty fun guy."
           
Belzer is open to trying just about any sport. She's on record proclaiming she'd play football like her relatives if they'd let her. The only option she'd decline is sitting idle. She competed in soccer, basketball, softball and volleyball throughout her Hillcrest Academy career, and was passionate about each.
           
"Wrestling's something I've always been intrigued with and thought I could have fun competing in, but I just never had the opportunity," she said. "Our high school didn't have a wrestling team and I never considered it a possibility."
           
Soccer became her favorite. Hillcrest combined with Mid-Prairie High School for soccer and Belzer rained in a team-high 21 goals in her senior season. She lettered as a freshman at Central, appearing in 15 games and scoring two goals.
           
"It was probably the sport I was best at in high school and I've been playing it the longest," she said.  
           
Belzer was also coaxed into competing in basketball by then-coach Moran Lonning,
           
"They were super-good about getting me caught up coming out of soccer, working with me one-on-one," Belzer said. "It was pretty awesome and I made some good friends."
           
But just a few days before the start of August drills for her sophomore campaign, she broke her foot playing pick-up soccer, ending her season on the field. Meanwhile, Central was set to launch its first season of women's wrestling.
           
"When I heard about it my freshman year, it was kind of in the back of my mind," Belzer said. "It wasn't an easy decision. A lot of thought went into it."
           
The clincher was that Belzer reasoned wrestling would be easier on her still-recovering foot than the cutting and pounding basketball demands.
           
But while collegiate wrestling was in her genes, Belzer had never even worn a singlet.
           
"She was pretty raw," coach Paige Baynes said. "I think she had a general idea of what wrestling was but, putting two and two together, like actually stepping on the mat and shooting a double or something, that was new to her."
           
The initial workouts were a bit rocky.
           
"I remember the first day we were doing stance in motion," Belzer said. "My back hurt so bad because it's a muscle I'd never worked before. There's definitely a learning curve but Paige worked with me one-on-one a lot."
           
Belzer also got some instruction at home.
           
"Once she joined the team, that's when she and her dad were able to connect with it and he could give her advice," Baynes said.
           
Did he ever. Hughes was an eager instructor, shoving the coffee table out of the way as the family living room quickly transformed into a training facility.
           
"Whenever I go home, we're working on something," Belzer said. "I remember one time, it might have been over winter break, we worked on the assassin move on our carpet for 45 minutes straight until we got it perfect. I had rug burns. But I went on to the next tournament and pinned two girls with that move. Every time I go home, he shows me something. And he's always sending me videos of different wrestling moves."
           
Belzer finished third at 143 pounds at the inaugural American Rivers tourney and received Central's Hardest Worker Award as well as MVP honors in her first season.
           
"She's just a natural athlete," Baynes said. "She's so coachable. She wants to grow and learn. She's always asking, 'What can I do to be better?'"
           
Belzer quickly determined wrestling was a good fit.

"I like the physical and mental challenge of it," she said. "It's a very demanding sport, and I like that. Those go hand in hand. The higher the challenge, the more rewarding. And I love the team. It's super tight-knit. Everyone gets along super well and we have a lot of fun together."
           
Yet once again, Belzer finds herself on the sidelines. In the season-opening Luther Hill Open at Indianola Nov. 2, she scored a first-period takedown, but her hand landed awkwardly on the mat.
           
"It broke and I immediately knew it," Belzer said.
           
She refused to stop the match, even after getting taken to her back.
           
"It wasn't much wrestling," Belzer said with a smile. "It was a second period of mostly me trying to breathe."
           
Yet the effort showed Baynes why she named Belzer a team captain.
           
"She held off that pin for two-and-a-half minutes," Baynes said. "She did not give up. She was on her head fighting off that pin until time ran out. That's a go-getter. That's someone who we need to lead our team."
           
The injury was an emotional dagger.
           
"I was more angry than anything else," Belzer said. "I was just feeling really confident going into the season and so to have that come crashing down at the first tournament was definitely frustrating, more than anything. But things happen and you've got to roll with the punches."
           
Belzer hopes to return to the mat sometime in January and she won't let her injury history temper her return to anything less than full throttle.
           
"Not at all," she said. "Maybe it should. That's probably why I've been hurt."
           
Baynes remains hopeful about Belzer's ceiling.

"If we wouldn't have lost her, she would have placed at every single tournament," Baynes said. "I still believe we'll get her to (the NCWWC Regional VII tourney Feb. 22-23). I still get a little nervous with how much time she's been off the mat, but knowing who she is as an athlete, she wants to get better, she wants to compete. I think she's got all-American potential. We don't know exactly what we've got because she's never competed in wrestling full time."
           
Belzer is predictably impatient.
           
""Every time we're in practice, she's on the treadmill," Baynes said. "She'll come in and move in her stance. When the others are doing push-ups as a team, she's in a plank position on her forearm. She's at the entire practice, she's running, walking, moving the entire time."
           
She remains engaged, even on the sidelines.

"I listen in when they're explaining moves and try to kind of air wrestle in my head," Belzer said. "Just think about it and watch."
           
Yet Belzer's world extends far beyond P.H. Kuyper Gymnasium.
"
She's not letting that (injury) consume her," Baynes said. "She said it perfectly to me. She said, 'Wrestling doesn't identify me as a person.' That's huge. She's able to separate herself and her identity from her sport."

She's changed majors less frequently than sports, quickly zeroing in on information systems after Professor of Mathetimatics Stephen Fyfe told her about the major which incorporates classes in business management and computer science.
           
"Once I heard about that, I thought, 'Yep, that's what I'm doing,'" Belzer said.
           
She was named to the NWCA Scholar All-American team last year and is a student worker in Central's IT department, while eyeing a future off-campus internship possibility.
           
Belzer is grateful for the opportunities that Division III schools like Central offer.
           
"I think a really cool aspect of Division III is that everyone recognizes that it's not your whole life," she said. "You're a person outside of sports. I went to a couple of soccer camps in high school and I remember going to one at a (Division I school) and hearing their schedules and how much it revolved around soccer. Like, you cannot have a life outside of soccer. At the D3 level, that's not the case. You're developing other parts of your life and you do have time to be able to invest in people outside of teammates."
           
And while Belzer is playing catch-up on the mat due to her lack of wrestling experience, Baynes sees qualities she's gained from her ability to thrive in other sports.

"It's helped shape the athlete she wants to be and the kind of person she wants to be," Baynes said. "Had she stayed with basketball, she would eventually excel in basketball. And the same with soccer."
           
Belzer is glad she's getting to experience them all.

"Continuing to play sports is kind of what led me here," she said. "I'm so glad that it did because I've made such good friends here. It's definitely a very unique experience in that sense that I get to compete in all these sports, which is insane at the college level, right? Like, who gets to do that? It's pretty awesome that I've had that opportunity."