Cody Thorn
Hadyn Stine’s trajectory to becoming a state champion — the first ever for Prosper Rock Hill — isn’t like most.
The junior won the 6A 145-pound championship with a 40-2 record this season. She was a sixth-place finisher the year prior.
That is a big progression for someone who started wrestling in eighth grade. However, her being able to wrestle — even walk without help — is perhaps the biggest storyline in Stine’s career.
As a first grader she started experiencing pain and finally, after a litany of doctor visits her family learned the diagnosis — chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis.
Essentially, it was a bone disease that led to multiple surges and she went between using crutches and being in a wheelchair.
“It went on forever,” she said. “It took about two years because it was kind of a rare disease. My immune system was attacking my bones. I thought I was going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. All of the surgeries and it was such a painful disease.”
Chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis — or CRMO — is a rare disease. The American College of Rheumatology estimated about 0.4 out of 100,000 people per year are diagnosed with CRMO.
Finally, treatments — an infusion of medicine — helped Stine after about six years.
She found wrestling in junior high after going into remission and it clicked.
“I’ve been in a wheelchair for so long and had so many surgeries,” she said. “I hadn’t been like this physical and it’s aggressive and it was like an outlet for me. So that was like it was it was like really into it and I became my passion.”
Stine was 34-12 as a sophomore and won a district title.
Stine did band, football and wrestled as a freshman but turned her attention to wrestling last year.
She started out the 2023-24 season with a first-place showing at the Arlington Invitational in November, pinning Azle’s Alicen Dillard — a Class 5A finalist — in the championship match.
“I knew that she’s fully capable of doing whatever she puts her mind to, but after our first tournament when she beat one of the Dillard sisters from Azle, who has beaten her previously, that was when I was like, ‘Okay, it’s looking good,’ Rock Hill coach Kortney Livingston said.
A few weeks later, she beat Burleson Centennial’s Brigitte Garcia — a state champion…
