photo by: David Rodish/Journal-World

Lawrence assistant coach Jordan Dempsey yells in celebration during a match at the RavenMania wrestling tournament on Dec. 13, 2025, in Olathe.

Jordan Dempsey always hovers above the coaches seats next to the wrestling mats at tournaments, never sitting down. She screams until her voice is gone, usually needing two days for it to come back.

Dempsey’s coaching style is reminiscent of her wrestling, and also of the fiery spirit of her former coach and current boss, Carl Springer. In a short amount of time, Dempsey has become a beating heart for the Lawrence girls wrestling program just a few months into her first season as an assistant.

“I definitely say my voice takes, like, two to three days to come back,” Dempsey said. “I’m going to have to train it for sure. It’s not used to me yelling so much.”

Dempsey and Springer go back many years when Dempsey wrestled for his kids club. She had a strong wrestling career at Eudora before signing to wrestle with Ottawa, where she spent the 2024-25 school year.

But Dempsey decided to give up wrestling to focus on academics. She transferred to Kansas to get a pre-law major so she can eventually get to law school. Making that decision was difficult, as it put a sport she loved and grew up with on the sidelines.

Luckily, Springer found out and gave her a call to come try her hand at coaching. For Dempsey, it was an easy decision to say yes.

“First off, letting wrestling go was hard,” Dempsey said. “To be able to not only give back to the sport itself, and to be able to do it with somebody that helped me so much is incredibly inspiring.”

Dempsey and the team immediately hit it off. Her age is a huge help, as she was just competing in these tournaments a couple of years ago. She relates to them as people and understands what they’re going through.

“I think she’s just so positive and a very energetic person,” Lawrence senior Goldy Stephens said. “I think it just rubs off on the people around her.”

Positivity means a lot in wrestling, a competitive and violent sport where new wrestlers often have to take their lumps before figuring things out and getting wins.

That is what Springer enjoys most about having Dempsey on the coaching staff. She never sits down, she’s always showing her passion for the team and it shows up when wrestlers need it most.

“Now I’m watching her yell the same stuff at these girls that I used to yell at her until she has no voice left,” Springer said. “I love watching her coach, seeing the way these girls respond and then the way she gives them the comfort I used to give her after a tough loss.”

The energy is intentional. Sure, it’s natural — as a recently former wrestler it’s easy to get passionate about the sport — but she knows how much it helps to have a coach in your corner being vocal.

“I look over sometimes in other corners and you’ll just see coaches cross their legs and sit there,” Dempsey said “And it’s like, that’s no fun. Your girl wants something from you.”

Through the first month of the season, the experience has been incredibly rewarding. It’s time consuming between a regular job, college classes and now wrestling practice and tournaments, but it’s worth the time commitment tenfold.

“Being able to give back to the sport and the younger girls that are still in high school, it’s so rewarding,” Dempsey said. “Seeing their smiles on their faces really does make my day, and working slowly but surely to reach our goals and them being able to see the small progress really is fulfilling.”