Stefenie Shaw started going to the gym to wrestle when she was 6, accompanying her dad who was a youth coach in Waterford.

Shaw wrestled as a way to spend time with her dad and her brother, Ryan. She did it for fun. She still had time to spend around the horses she so loved. She had no notion of what was to come: the camaraderie and acceptance from the boys with whom she competed; the resentment, even anger, from adults who saw her treading into what was perceived to be a sport for males only; a highly decorated international career.

Now this:

On Saturday, Shaw, a 2005 graduate of Waterford High School, bronze medal-winner for the United States at the 2004 Pan American Championships in Guatemala, and former collegiate national champion, will be inducted into the inaugural class of the Connecticut Wrestling Hall of Fame.

She joins four-time high school State Open champions T.J. MarcAurele of Ledyard and Brendan Harris of Somers and two-time New England champion Tony Gizio of Norwich Free Academy in receiving that distinguished honor, among others.

“I'm very fortunate for them to think I need to be in the inaugural class,” said Shaw, now 29 and living in Salem with her 3-year-old son Ryder, as well as parents Roger and Marjorie. “I told all my friends, 'I don't think it's a big deal (what I did); I loved doing it. It's strange to me. I don't feel like I was looking for an award.”

Shaw said this week that her first Olympic Trials in 2004 in Indianapolis, one of two times she would finish fourth in the trials, was perhaps her most memorable competition. Women's wrestling made its debut at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and has continued. It will be contested this year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“I was 17,” she said. “I made it literally out of nowhere. I literally had done nothing. I was some nowhere kid out of Connecticut that nobody ever heard of. It was like the big thing. My grandmother passed away recently and she had it published in her local paper, too. I think that meant a lot to me."

Shaw said she had no fear growing up. Between wrestling and horses, she could throw another human being across the room and handle a 1,000-pound animal.

But as she got older and better at wrestling, the criticism got worse, mainly from parents and coaches of her out-of-town peers.

“It sucked at first,” Shaw said. “I was a kid. It was really hard to be a little girl and be cornered by full-grown adult men. In middle school, sometimes when I beat people, they would react violently. When I look back on it now, I don't think it was that bad. My father was never two feet from my side.

“… What prejudice did I face? The older I got, the more I faced people lashing out at me. I was cornered a few times. They were screaming at me and telling me I didn't deserve to be there. I spent days throwing up.”

What Shaw had going for her, however, aside from talent, was a wall of defenders that started with her dad, coach John Knapp of KT Kidz in Rocky Hill and later Waterford High coach Chris Gamble. There was also a community of boys she grew up wrestling along side, among them her brother Ryan, Adam and Shawn Karasevicz, Ken Fratus, Zeth Nolda, Shane Duplice … and the list goes on.

Once, when Shaw was barred from attending a middle school tournament because of her gender, her teammates went ahead and wrestled. They gave Shaw all their medals.

“They said, 'you would have won this.' We were eighth-graders. Every kid on my team did that for me,” Shaw said. “My team grew up with me and supported me. Every single one of those guys never let me down.”

Shaw wrestled throughout high school, competing in some varsity matches. It was also during that time she began competing at the national level, and she apologizes now for any difficulties she may have caused Gamble — “he was an excellent coach,” she said.

“I think, first and foremost, she really fit in there,” Gamble said of Shaw's time as a Lancer. “A big part of that was her. She grew up wrestling with them and they respected her from that. Her parents were instrumental in the youth wrestling in town, we had her brother on the team, as well, who was a very good wrestler. We were very lucky to have the Shaw family involved in wrestling in town."

Shaw won the 2008 U.S Women's National Championship in Las Vegas at 67 kilograms (147.5 pounds). She was again a champion in 2009, this time for Oklahoma City University. The Stars won the Women's College Wrestling Association team title, contested in Marshall, Mo., with Shaw capturing the 67 kg championship in overtime.

Shaw retired from wrestling at the age of 24. She calls her upbringing in the sport “exceptional” and said she still enjoys wrestling and coaching occasionally at the Whaling City Wrestling Club in New London, a symbol to other young girls who want to pursue the sport.

“My biggest and best pitch is my presence,” she said of encouraging girls who are now in the spot where she once was. “It's not about what I saw. My biggest thing, the biggest overcoming factor is me just standing there. I don't have to say anything. They don't need somebody to tell them something. They just need to know it happened and it's OK."

Shaw will attend the hall of fame ceremony with her parents, who have always given their support. She said, if anything, she hopes it's a night Roger and Marjorie Shaw will enjoy.

“If anyone deserves a high-five it was my dad,” Shaw said. “My father wrestled and trained with me until I was 22. It's going to be great.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com