Lisa Ellis still gets the same fire from coaching young wrestlers on the mat as she did before a big fight in her more than 15 years as a mixed martial artist.
Ellis, who was announced the new head coach of Yelm High School girls wrestling team on July 19, said the hunger to defeat her opponent in the cage will never quite match the joy she receives when she helps an athlete overcome adversity, however.
“My favorite thing about coaching is seeing the kids get through hurdles that maybe they thought they couldn’t do, and them finally believing in you and trusting you to help them achieve their goals,” Ellis said. “And when they start reaching those goals, that starts bringing tears in my eyes.”
Prior to this career move, Ellis spent the last two seasons as an assistant girls wrestling coach at Yelm Middle School, so the Yelm community has served as a home for Ellis, her husband, Eddy, and their three young children.
“I’ve always enjoyed Yelm,” she said. “It’s kind of a big community because you have so many different transplants with the military community out there, but it also seems like a very small community, which is neat, and I always really liked. We like the small-town feel even though it’s blowing up.”
Ellis has eyed this opportunity for years but never felt it was the right time amid her professional MMA career and having three children in the last 10 years, including most recently in November of 2022.
“I know that through a lot of my experiences, I think I can really help them and guide them and show them the things that I’ve learned,” she said. “The stars have aligned.”
Ellis’s mixed martial arts journey began when she was 12 years old, watching her younger brother wrestle and begging her father to let her wrestle. Her father told her that “girls don’t wrestle,” but Ellis started wrestling in seventh grade and was a varsity wrestler by eighth grade.
She earned a scholarship to Missouri Valley College and began her professional career in 2004. From 2004-16, she won 15 matches and lost 11, earning a gold medal at the 2007 World Grappling Championships and claiming two Fatal Femmes Fighting Flyweight Championships. She was also named the captain of the United States women’s grappling team, and she was a contestant on the 20th installment of “The Ultimate Fighter,” a reality television show produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
At Yelm, Ellis inherits a team that placed third at the Mat Classic state tournament this past season and returns a state champion in Madisyn Erickson, who took the top honors in the 120-pound bracket, and a runner-up in Samantha Blank, who earned second place in the 135-pound bracket. With an experienced roster, the new head coach is aiming for hardware in her first campaign.
“I want to go out the first year with a big bang,” she said. “I want to make these girls state champs. I know that’s a huge, huge goal, but I just feel like we have such a good roster coming into the season. With some of my coaching and my experience and maybe a good hard push, I think that these girls can really realize what they’re capable of. I think that we could win state.”
Coaching comes naturally for Ellis, who owns the United Training Center, an MMA facility in Olympia, with her husband, who was also a professional MMA fighter. They teach specific techniques in boxing, kickboxing, MMA and more to athletes ages 5 and up. She helps her 10-year-old daughter, Elenor, in jiu-jitsu and even competed alongside her at a grappling tournament. Ellis also teaches a boxing class for seniors with Parkinson’s disease every Tuesday and Thursday.
Now, she will have a chance to lead the YHS girls wrestling team to its first state championship since winning two consecutive titles in 2017 and 2018.
“Coaching is what I think I was born to do,” Ellis said.
