History Major is Wrestling All-American

Mckinley Jovanovic UMD's First Female Wrestling All-American

Mckinley Jovanovic is currently a freshman at the University of Maryland, where she is a History, Secondary Education, and Public Policy triple major. She was also recently named UMD's first Women's Regional Conference Champion and first Female Wrestling All-American at the NCWA tournament, where she placed fifth. Mckinley attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD where she began wrestling in her sophomore year. She was subsequently a men's varsity starter and team captain as well as two-time Women's County Champion, three-time Women's Region Champion, three-time State placer, and 2024 Women's State Champion and an All-American, the first All-American at her high school. 

At UMD, Mckinley also wrestles with the men's club team. She is thrilled to be wrestling at UMD, although unfortunately, UMD does not yet have a varsity D1 Women's Wrestling Program; only five D1 schools and only one Big Ten school have women's varsity wrestling programs. Mckinley hopes to see a women's varsity program soon at UMD and is very involved in the effort to make that happen. 

Mckinley says of her triple major: "I am very passionate about education and come from a long line of educators on my mother's side [she has a parent teaching in UMD's School of Education]. I love history and I think that it is so vital that we understand our past in order to connect it to modern day or future issues. History is so much more than just memorizing dates and names which is why I want to teach social studies. I want to help students engage with the material and truly understand how history currently affects us. After college I am planning on being a History secondary ed teacher (I am currently thinking of high school) and then potentially going on to pursue a career in educational policy."

Photo courtesy of Tino Pham.