When classes begin Monday at Eastwood High School, junior Hailey Delgado will be balancing more than homework, practices and football games.
The 16-year-old wrestler will spend one week each month of the 2026-27 academic year training at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as part of USA Wrestling’s Elite Accelerator Program, all while continuing to compete for Eastwood in wrestling and girls flag football and keeping up with her coursework.
The opportunity comes after a whirlwind summer that included competing in the inaugural Texas girls flag football state championship tournament, training with USA Wrestling’s national team coaches and placing second at the 2026 U.S. Marine Corps Junior Nationals in Fargo, North Dakota, one of the nation’s premier high school wrestling tournaments.
For Delgado, who won a national title in Fargo last year and now finds herself balancing elite competition with the demands of high school, the next challenge is no longer earning opportunities. It’s making the most of them.
Balancing school, training
Delgado’s training schedule won’t pause once the school year begins.
Rather than relocating to Colorado Springs full-time, Delgado chose the Elite Accelerator Program’s monthly training option, which allows her to remain enrolled at Eastwood while traveling to the training center for one week each month.
The program is designed to develop some of the nation’s top young wrestlers by allowing them to train alongside senior-level athletes under USA Wrestling’s National Team coaches while continuing their academic and personal development.
Before accepting the opportunity, Delgado and her parents met with Eastwood administrators to discuss how she could balance training with her coursework.
An Ysleta ISD spokesperson said that each month, Delgado must submit a parent request application to be absent for non-illness, or a PRQ form, before traveling. The process allows her to receive permission for the absence and collect assignments from teachers before leaving campus.
Delgado has already begun training this summer and is scheduled to return to Colorado during the first week of the new school year, which begins Monday.
A passion takes hold
Delgado’s path to elite wrestling began long before she won state championships or national titles.
Around age 4, she became interested in wrestling while watching her older brother compete and taking in WWE matches with her family. Inspired by former WWE stars such as Ronda Rousey, Delgado wanted to try the sport herself.
Her father, Anthony Delgado, introduced her to wrestling gradually. Having seen young athletes burn out, he limited her to one practice each week before increasing her workload as her interest in the sport grew. Although she also tried dance, track and soccer, wrestling was always the sport she returned to.
“She was kind of a natural, and did very well from a very young age,” Anthony Delgado said. “The higher level she got she just had more opportunities.”
Today, Hailey Delgado trains under Eastwood wrestling coach Devin Vasquez, a longtime family friend who has watched her develop from a young wrestler into one of the nation’s best.
“She’s a prodigy,” Vasquez said. “She was good as soon as she started and just got progressively better.”
Those early practices eventually led to back-to-back UIL state championships, a national title at the 2025 U.S. Marine Corps Junior Nationals and, this summer, an invitation to the wrestling program.
More than a wrestler
Even with her wrestling schedule growing more demanding, Delgado has no plans to step away from flag football.
She helped Eastwood win the Region 19 championship and advance to the inaugural Texas girls flag football state tournament this summer, where the Lady Troopers finished as state runner-up. For Delgado, the experience offered something wrestling cannot.
“Flag football is honestly one of my favorite things to do since I’ve joined the team,” Delgado said. “I just find a lot of joy in it.”
Eastwood girls flag football coach Jaime Hernandez said Delgado’s athleticism stood out from the moment she arrived at tryouts.
“I knew she would be great,” Hernandez said.
Her competitiveness became even more apparent during the second week of the season, when she suffered a gash above her right eye after colliding with an opposing quarterback. As Hernandez and Delgado’s parents checked on her from the sideline, he recalled that Delgado was already thinking about returning to the game.
“Don’t worry, coach,” Hernandez recalled Delgado telling him. “I’m used to this. I’m a bleeder. I’ll be back the next day.”
After a trip to the emergency room and several stitches, Delgado returned to the field two days later.
“I deal with pain pretty well, so I wasn’t scared or anything,” Delgado said. “It was more of an inconvenience to me just because I knew I was going to have to sit out for a couple of days.”
Looking ahead
Although Delgado is only entering her junior year, colleges have already begun to take notice. She said the University of Iowa and King University in Tennessee have expressed interest, and she plans to keep her options open while looking for a school with a strong biology program.
For now, though, Delgado’s focus remains on the year immediately ahead.
She plans to continue competing for Eastwood in both wrestling and girls flag football while traveling to Colorado Springs each month for training with the nation’s best.
The schedule will mean missed class time, frequent travel and little downtime. But it’s a challenge Delgado has willingly accepted as she pursues opportunities that few high school athletes ever receive.
Michelle James Thorpe, a senior journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin, is a contributing writer for El Paso Matters as part of a writing course this semester.
The post Eastwood’s Hailey Delgado joins USA Wrestling elite program while balancing high school appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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