Breaking News
Local Sports

Estrella to wrestle for Olympian Chun at Iowa

By Robert Collias 5 min read

Nanea Estrella has always been a big-time wrestler.

Now, the four-time state champion from Lahainaluna High School is making another huge leap -- she is the first transfer for University of Iowa head coach Clarissa Chun's brand-new women's program.

Chun, a Roosevelt High School graduate, won bronze for the United States in the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Estrella will finish her sophomore academic year at Menlo (Calif.) College, where she was an NAIA national runner-up last month.

"Oh my gosh, I am so excited," Estrella said in a phone interview Tuesday. "Obviously it's a big deal in the wrestling community, but also I think in the Hawaii wrestling community specifically it's a very big deal because of Clarissa even being a head coach and being the head coach of the first Power Five (program) and her being from Hawaii. She has always been a role model for young Hawaii girls in wrestling, even males in wrestling or just wrestlers in general."

Estrella will redshirt next season while the Iowa women's program transitions into becoming a varsity sport -- Estrella will compete in open tournaments unattached in the 2022-23 academic year and will have three seasons of college eligibility available when she dons a Hawkeye uniform in 2023-24.

Iowa is the first women's wrestling program from an NCAA Power Five conference. Out of seven recruits in Chun's first recruiting class, Estrella is the first from Hawaii.

Estrella has always looked up to Chun.

"For somebody who grew up watching her and grew up hearing about her and hearing stories and having her name brought up in every single wrestling room that I've ever been in in Hawaii," Estrella said. "Now, I'm following her to be an athlete under her, I'm just so ecstatic."

Estrella is no stranger to excellence -- she took third at the UWW U23 national championships in 2021, won the UWW Junior national title in 2020, and took second at both the 2019 Junior national championships and the 2018 Cadet national championships and third at the Cadet world team trials in 2019.

Shortly before graduating from Lahainaluna, she was named the 2020 Tricia Saunders High School Excellence Award winner by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, making her the No. 1 recruit in the nation.

The process of the decision to transfer came about quickly. Menlo College has been very understanding and supportive of the whole process, Estrella said.

"My interest was peaked when they did announce that Clarissa was going to be the head coach," Estrella said. "I definitely saw similarities between us because she is from Hawaii and I saw that, 'Oh, maybe I have a chance to go (NCAA) Division I' because I saw somebody that was like me out there coaching.

"So, I got clearance from my school and I reached out, just had a good conversation. We both wanted to be respectful of my team now and my coaches now and my season. So we waited until my first college season was done and then we got back into contact, scheduled a visit -- I actually just went on my visit last week."

Estrella said the decision was quite easy, especially once she saw the campus and wrestling facilities in Iowa City.

"I loved the place, I loved the school and I decided to just take a leap of faith and sign with Iowa," she said.

Estrella will be on a partial scholarship for the Hawkeyes, but hopes to make up any cost difference with name, image and likeness opportunities.

"Absolutely yes," she said. "I do have to do more of my research and make a couple of phone calls just to find out more information, and what I can and cannot do.

"There's a lot more regulations coming out from the NCAA for the NIL because once they announced it it was just kind of free reign for everybody. As more information comes, it's definitely something that I'm going to look into because, of course, anything to help out me and my family."

Estrella said her next meet will be the USA world team trials in May and she plans to stay busy through the summer. She will be working camps in Iowa, but also plans to give back to the island that built her into a wrestling standout with her own camp here this summer or next.

"I've always been a part of this wrestling community, especially because, of course, I wish there was a little more opportunity," Estrella said. "I do want to be a role model one day to a bunch of little girls who want to wrestle or maybe want to start a sport that is perhaps a male-dominated sport or maybe just a sport that's not popular yet just like I was when I was little.

"I just want to have someone out there that girls can look at and say, 'I was once like her.' "

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

Starting at /week.