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Fyren Gassman (Blue) wins freestyle match at Fargo

GASSMAN TAKES TWO
Virginia has a young group of cadets this year, but some wrestlers have been seeing some success in the Cadet Greco-Roman Nationals here in Fargo. At 98 pounds, the only two girls in the tournament met in the third round, where Virginia’s Fyren Gassman (Southern Maryland WC/Herndon H.S.) edged Oklahoma’s Joey Miller 5-4. Miller wrestled in the event last year and is a second-year cadet. Neither girl is old enough to enter the junior level women’s freestyle tournament in Fargo.

Miller is one of the top ranked girls wrestlers in the nation and has won a slew of national girls championships and several state boys championships at the youth level. She's even run the website WrestleGirl (www.wrestlegirl.com) for several years.

Gassman won her first match by injury default, the fell to Michigan's John Gluckert.

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Olympic women wrestle against gender prejudice

By MIKE DEARMOND
Kansas City Star 8/11/04

ATHENS - There are people, even apparently one or two on the men's U.S.
Olympic wrestling team, that figure women's wrestling doesn't belong at
the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Sara McMann, one of four U.S. women who will take part in the
first-ever modern Games version of the age-old endeavor, knows who they are. She
won't name names.

"No comment, no comment, no comment," McMann said.

But McMann admitted she had personally called out at least a couple of
them.

"Definitely," said McMann, who will lift in the 63 kg. (or 138.75
pound) division Aug. 22-23 of the Athens Games. "I'm not going to eat their
words. They may not realize that the things they say, especially if they're a
top-level wrestler, has impact on a lot of young boys.

"Don't pretend like you're my friend and that you respect what I do, if
you don't."

There has been no public criticism from within the American men's
Greco-Roman or freestyle wrestling teams of women's wrestling in the
Games of Athens. In fact, several men have gone out of their way to boost the
women's game.

"If there are issues with some of the men concerning women's
wrestling," said Gary Abbott, media coordinator for USA Wrestling, "I think they
either keep it to themselves or they deal with the women directly."

Or, as McMann said Wednesday, they are found out by a broken link in
the good ol' boys club.

But if there are members of that politically incorrect posse among 2004
U.S. Olympians, they are doing nothing more than McMann and Patricia Miranda
and Tela O'Donnell and Toccara Montgomery have faced all their lives in
wrestling.

"Everyone will act normal to your face," McMann said. "If they're going
to say anything, they'll say it amongst guys when girls aren't there.
They'll just kind of like elbow nudge. Ha-ha-ha. Girl wrestling. What a joke."

Heck, McMann doesn't even seem to feel as deeply about that slight as
does Miranda, who on Wednesday pointedly pointed out that what she does is
not mud wrestling for the enjoyment of some sexist group of fouls.

"It's a one-on-one combat sport," Miranda said.

For men or women, boys or girls.

"Everything you do is your responsibility. If you lose, you can't blame
anybody else. If you win, by the same token, you own that for the rest
of your life."

Montgomery said that aspect of wrestling has kept her in the sport as
well, although initially she wasn't drawn to it.

"I was basically trying to be most athletic in my school," Montgomery
said of that typical high school honor, "and I needed another sport."

Once Montgomery tried wrestling, she was hooked by the element of
individual responsibility.

"I went wow! You know?" she said.

"I used to blame the point guard for not passing the ball, or the
catcher for missing the throw, when it was my fault.

"It really taught me a lot about myself, things I probably never would
have acquired so early on in life."

The drive to see women's wrestling included in the Summer Olympics
program has come almost too late for Tricia Saunders, who at least gets the
honor of serving as an assistant coach after a lifelong dream of competing as a
wrestler in the Olympics.

Saunders recalls pre-1992, and 1996, and even 2000.

"Let's get us in the Olympics," she remembers chanting. "Let's get us
in the Olympics.

"It didn't happen."

Not until 2001, when the International Olympic Committee decided to
open the door of inclusion in Athens.

For so long, feet were dragged. For too long, some of those feet wore
American shoes.

That is why Townsend Saunders, Tricia's husband and another assistant
coach on the women's Olympic team, equates the debut of women's wrestling
here with another landmark of societal change.

"I equate it to Jackie Robinson," Townsend Saunders said, of the first
black player allowed into major league baseball.

Really?

"Really," Townsend said, looking toward his wife.

"I lived with her for 15 years," Townsend said. "I would be there when
she would come home crying because some athletic director, some of the
coaches, wouldn't let her in.

"There's still some of that going on. We're here at the Olympics. On
the international stage. But back home, there's some conversation.

"People are saying this is wrong. Morally wrong. I think some people
really do feel that way."

Tricia Townsend knows they do. She has run into them her entire life.
Still does.

"It's really hard, because sometimes they're really good people in a
lot of other avenues," Tricia said. "Sometimes they're teachers that spent all
day teaching, hopefully to boys and girls, encouraging girls to get
scholarships. And then they cross over and they're the wrestling coach
in the afternoon.

" "I will teach you people and I will not teach you.'

"You have no right. I see that sometimes, and I still don't get it."

Every one of the American women who will wrestle here in Athens tells a
tale with similar twists and turns.

Sara McMann just seems to tell it best.

She remembers, for instance, when she was in high school and her mom,
Paula, was checking out the chances for Sara to wrestle at various schools.

Some coaches, and Sara was quick to point out it was not the coach at
alma mater McDowell High in Marion, N.C., were honest. Brutally so.

"Coaches of a different team literally told my mom ... it would be a
cold day in hell before any girl wrestled on that team," McMann said.

That didn't sit well at all with Paul McMann, the man whose daughter is
proud to say was the first professional crane operator in America.

"There was nothing that her kids couldn't do," Sarah said of her mom.

And then, she actually laughed.

"Thank God for that guy being a chauvinist pig, because now, I have my
mom backing me even more," McMann said.

Tricia Saunders had the last word on the subject, hoping to point the
spotlight on the competition and not any controversy.

"It's not about girls and wrestling," Tricia Saunders said. "It's about
a country, and it's about kids and it's about giving them the
opportunity.

"It's not about them being an Olympian, but maybe only a two-year
junior high wrestler. Girls get the exact same thing out of wrestling that
boys do."

When anyone says otherwise?

"Where's Candid Camera?" Tricia Saunders responded. "Do you guys hear
what he's saying, or what she's saying?

"But you know, 50 years ago they thought if women ran more than half a
mile they'd never be able to have children."

----------------------------------------------------

McMann finds solace in wrestling

ESPN.com
8/11/04

ATHENS, Greece -- Sara McMann didn't really have a choice but to start wrestling. Three years older, her brother, Jason, needed a practice partner, and who better a candidate than his little sister?

After her brother's murder, Sara McMann diverted all of her attention to wrestling. Five years later, she's an Olympian.
A childhood of serving as a wrestling dummy during the week and attending her brother's tournaments on the weekends led McMann down the same path. Those paths diverted when she was 9. Her brother was hit by a car, breaking both of his legs and crushing his hips. He learned to walk again, she said, but he was never the same wrestler.

Then, once again tragedy struck the McMann family. On Jan. 22, 1999, Jason McMann disappeared. He was 21 years old and would never be seen alive again.

"It was probably a good three years before I came to terms with it," said McMann, who'll represent the United States in the 63 kg (139 pounds) division. "My older brother was everything to me."

It took nearly three months before the family knew what had happened. They moved from North Carolina to Lock Haven, Penn., where they had once lived, to be closer to family and pursue the case. It wasn't until their father, Thomas McMann, had a chance meeting with a man who worked on "America's Most Wanted" that any progress was made.

A witness came forward and Fabian Smart, 24, a former Lock Haven University football player, was charged with McMann's murder. According to The Associated Press, the witness testified last month that Jason McMann was knocked unconscious by Smart during a fight at a party and was later put in the trunk of Smart's car. The witness accompanied Smart to a secluded area, 20 miles south of Lock Haven, where Smart allegedly beat Jason McMann several times in the head and left him to die. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, claiming the death occurred while Smart committed another felony -- kidnapping -- and that the death was related to the drug trade.

At the time of her brother's death, Sara was 18 and a freshman on the men's wrestling team at the University of Minnesota-Morris. With her resolve already hardened by the criticism and name calling while growing up a wrestler, McMann kept the news to herself. Her coach didn't know until just prior to the national tournament when she told him she had to go home for her brother's funeral.

Instead, McMann diverted all of her attention to wrestling.

"For me, it's easier to be a workaholic; I just throw myself into work," she said. "Everyone deals with things differently. I wasn't going to crumble and sit around and feel sorry for myself, so I just started overworking. "My grades dipped because of a lack of focus, but I worked really hard in wrestling just to exhaust myself and run myself ragged to the point I couldn't think."

In the process, McMann has found a positive focus. When she was growing up, McMann's biggest goal was to wrestle in high school. Now, she's a role model for other young girls.

"I didn't look too far ahead because it wasn't in the Olympics then," she said. "I'm more a person who sets a goal, focuses on that and as soon as I reach it, I immediately reset it. As soon as I won nationals, I was like I've got to make the world team; as soon as I made the world team, gotta win world championships. So as soon as it was added, gotta win the Olympics. It was just me resetting myself for the highest possible goal each time."

McMann very well might reach that goal. She has defeated most of the top athletes in her weight class, including Kaori Icho of Japan, whom she lost to at the 2003 World Championships. Though it was the third straight match she dropped to Icho, Mann said she dominated parts of all three matches, can pinpoint her mistakes and is confident she won't be repeating them.

Plus, she'll be using her role as a pioneer as motivation, as will the rest of the U.S. women's wrestling team.

"We all are unique in the fact that we had to struggle. We were not wanted in a lot of wrestling rooms, couldn't find partners, so we had to fight just to become good wrestlers," McMann said. "So that same fight is what's going to make us gold medalists, that grit, that determination, that 'you will not stop me. I did not have an easy road and I'm not going to let you be any kind of obstacle to me. I will go right through you if I have to.'

"I'd rather be the one who has that, it just gives us a little bit more of a fight."

She'll be fighting for her family, as well, because what was partly born from pain and grief provides her family the most happiness.

"I think it will be a lot more wonderful for all of us to finish our grieving, whenever the process is all over with. But my parents, the way it was put to me, is that the things that I'm doing is giving them a ray of hope," McMann said. "I've helped my family carry through this by having so much positive to bring back to this. It's given them a different focus and something positive in light of the tragedy."

A childhood of serving as a wrestling dummy during the week and attending her brother's tournaments on the weekends led McMann down the same path. Those paths diverted when she was 9. Her brother was hit by a car, breaking both of his legs and crushing his hips. He learned to walk again, she said, but he was never the same wrestler.

Then, once again tragedy struck the McMann family. On Jan. 22, 1999, Jason McMann disappeared. He was 21 years old and would never be seen alive again.

"It was probably a good three years before I came to terms with it," said McMann, who'll represent the United States in the 63 kg (139 pounds) division. "My older brother was everything to me."

Instead, McMann diverted all of her attention to wrestling.

In the process, McMann has found a positive focus. When she was growing up, McMann's biggest goal was to wrestle in high school. Now, she's a role model for other young girls.

Plus, she'll be using her role as a pioneer as motivation, as will the rest of the U.S. women's wrestling team.

"I'd rather be the one who has that, it just gives us a little bit more of a fight."

She'll be fighting for her family, as well, because what was partly born from pain and grief provides her family the most happiness.

======================================

Women wrestlers bristle at sexy sideshow slights

Wed Aug 11,12:03 PM ET

ATHENS (AFP) - Olympic acceptance gives women wrestlers the opportunity to show that they are not 'toothless ogres' or Baywatch wannabes.

A quartet of bright-eyed, educated American grapplers talked on Wednesday about their struggle for acceptance, even among family members and male wrestlers, and the racy jokes they have endured throughout their careers.

Women's wrestling will be contested for the first time at the Athens Olympics with four medals up for grabs.

"When you tell guys that you wrestle they expect you to be bigger, with just two-teeth, an ogre with a hunchback," said Sara McMann, a silver medallist at the 2003 world championships.

"We can help change that. I won a gold medal at an Olympic test event here in Athens earlier this year. I got a little teary when they raised the American flag - it made me want to win again (at the Olympics)."

Patricia Miranda, who delayed entry to Yale Law School for a year to prepare for the Athens Games, added that the Olympics was an opportunity to silence the doubters and inspire a new generation of women wrestlers.

"This is our stage - we can show that women's wrestling is not a side joke or something that makes people think about mud wrestling," she said.

"They will see our sweat, tears and triumphs and that it is as intense as any male sport.

"People can turn on the television back home and see our pain and happiness. And other girls will say to themselves 'why can't women wrestle'?

"If men think it is sexy to watch girls wrestling, fine. I do not hold that against them. We realize there is a long way to go, even within the sport, for us to gain respect."

Miranda added that she was sensitive to the resistance that still existed within the sport.

"There is a bit of resistance from male wrestlers," added the feisty 25-year-old, who was forced to join the men's team at school as there was no women's squad.

"Some of them do not want things to change. They ask 'why do women want to wrestle."

Baby-faced Tela O'Donnell, who will be making her international debut in Athens, has heard all the jokes about women wrestlers.

"Sometimes people are not too classy with their comments," she said. "Somebody recently said some pretty unnecessary things and I thought 'Why would you say that'?"

Twenty-one-year Toccara Montgomery, who has a realistic chance of a gold medal in the 72kg division, has risen to the top despite a huge upheaval in her personal life when father Paul was jailed for double murder.

In 1998 when she was just 15, and before she turned to the sport, her dad was sent to prison for 30 years.

"I talked to him four days before I flew to Athens," she said. "He was very positive and supportive. He told me to 'do what you can' and reminded me that I still could not beat him at wrestling.

"I talk to him as much as possible - I was always a daddy's girl and still am. Him being in prison has not changed things a lot. He is as involved in my life as some people who see their dad every day.

"He did not tell me not to wrestle - just said 'if you are going to do it, do it hard.' He has never seen me wrestle before - I think he will get a chance to see me on television (in the prison). That makes me happy."

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Japan's 4 women grapplers aim for golden sweep

Ken Marantz / Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter 8/12/04

Whipping all comers as a member of a kids wrestling club in Aomori Prefecture, Chiharu Icho harbored the usual dreams of someday competing in the Olympics.

Of course, in Icho's case, such visions would have been more realistic had women's wrestling been on the Olympic program--a little fact she was unaware of at the time.

"Nobody told me it wasn't in the Olympics," Icho said in a recent interview, adding it wasn't such a shock when she finally found out in her teens. "I thought that someday it would be added."

It certainly was, and just in time for Icho to be part of the inaugural Olympic competition at the upcoming Athens Games.

The International Olympic Committee, looking to even up the gender gap, added women's wrestling to the agenda in 2001, although the seven weight classes used for the world championships were pared down to four.

For a country concerned with raising its medal count, the addition of the mat maids couldn't have come at a better time for Japan.

All four of Japan's entries--Icho (48 kilograms), younger sister Kaori (63 kg), Saori Yoshida (55 kg) and Kyoko Hamaguchi (72 kg)--are current world champions, making a golden sweep possible.

"I don't know what's going to happen at the Olympics," said Japan coach Kazuhito Sakae. "But if you win gold at the world championships, you can also win gold at the Olympics, or at least a medal."

Sakae, who also coaches the Ichos and Yoshida at powerhouse Chukyo Women's University in Nagoya, acknowledges he's as antsy as anyone else over the results.

"I'm really excited to see how they do," he said.

While all four have a shot at gold, Yoshida is considered the strongest of the group, having muscled together a winning streak of 15 straight international tournaments without a loss.

In fact, Yoshida's toughest matches may already be behind her. She had to twice beat fellow world champion Seiko Yamamoto to secure her spot on the Olympic squad.

Yoshida has been particularly preparing to counter a special technique of the Russians. "They like to rub oil on their legs," Yoshida said. "So I have to work on tackling lower."

The 21-year-old Yoshida, who won her third straight world title last year in New York, has already gone one step farther in her career than her father. Eikatsu Yoshida was the Japanese national champion at 57 kg in 1973, but failed to make the 1976 Olympic team.

As with Yoshida, paternal influence has been a factor in Hamaguchi's ascension.

Her father performed as "Animal" Hamaguchi during his days as a popular pro wrestler, and now runs a gym in Asakusa, Tokyo, where Kyoko has been developed into a five-time world champion.

While Hamaguchi's father will surely be bellowing away in her corner in the manner that has made him a media favorite, her main rival will have to do without paternal support.

American Toccara Montgomery's father Paul is serving time in an Ohio prison for double murder.

Hamaguchi and Montgomery have split three matches in the past year. Hamaguchi came out on top in the final at the world championships in New York last September, only to fall at the World Cup in Tokyo when the U.S. edged Japan for the team title.

Hamaguchi rebounded to take their third meeting, winning their semifinal encounter en route to the title at a pre-Olympic tournament in Athens.

Chiharu Icho also triumphed in January event at the Ano Liossia Olympic Hall.

But her place on the squad to Athens was not secured until she beat Makiko Sakamoto in a playoff after the two split their previous qualifying matches.

Icho's main challenge will come from world 48-kg champion Irini Merlini of Ukraine and American Patricia Miranda, the world silver medalist who has been accepted to Yale Law School.

The 63-kg class will also likely feature a Japan-U.S. rivalry, with Kaori Icho expected to battle for the gold with Sara McCann, who she beat in overtime to win the world title.

Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat has become Icho's trademark. "I'm laid back," she said. "But when a point is scored on me, I get fired up."

Icho said she followed Chiharu and their older brother into wrestling "from the time I got out of diapers."

As women's wrestling makes its baby steps into Olympic history in the competition on Aug. 22-23, look for a quartet of Japanese to lead the way.

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U.S. Olympic women's wrestlers overcome hostility, deal with tragedy

8/11/04

ATHENS, Greece -- America's first four female wrestlers at the Olympics are linked by a shared resiliency and a stubborn commitment to compete in a sport that hasn't exactly welcomed them.

They are painfully familiar with discrimination, hostility and, for two of them, brutal violence that has saddened but also hardened them.

Toccara Montgomery, a senior at Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., took up wrestling partly as an outlet to deal with the emotions that overwhelmed her when her father was imprisoned for a 1998 double murder. Sara McMann began wrestling to emulate her older brother, whom she idolized, only to lose him five years ago in a beating death for which a suspect is awaiting trial.

Tela O'Donnell petitioned her school board just for the chance to practice against male wrestlers. Patricia Miranda was opposed by her father, who once threatened to take her school system to court for allowing her to wrestle boys.

No wonder this determined group of first-time Olympians disputes any notion that it is a pampered byproduct of a sports-friendly system that coddles its top stars.

"They've all come through a sport that hasn't given them much and they've made it happen," U.S. national coach Terry Steiner said Wednesday. "But I think that once people see them here ... they will say, `Hey, this is OK, let them go.'"

Women have wrestled worldwide for decades, but they weren't welcomed into the Olympics until now. As a result, the U.S. women are dealing with tepid support from the U.S. men's program.

The combined 20 weight classes in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics have shrunk to 14 _ seven in each discipline _ partly to accommodate the women. Not surprisingly, some in the predominantly male U.S. wrestling community are resentful that a women's sport sponsored by only six U.S. colleges is costing them possible medals.

"We still have a long way to go to gain respect, but this is how it starts," Miranda said. "This is our stage to say, `Hey, look at us.'

"When they see the sweat, the tears, the triumphs, they'll see that we're the same as any other sport."

Miranda is something of a pioneer, having overcome her father's opposition to her career to make the Stanford men's team and wrestle in a few varsity matches. A Phi Beta Kappa student who earned two degrees, she begins Yale Law School a week after the Olympics.

"What I like about wrestling is that, if you lose, you can't blame anybody else. But if you win, you own that for the rest of your life," Miranda said. "It's really an addictive thing."

But while Miranda, McMann and Montgomery were second in the world last year, and O'Donnell knocked off world silver medalist Tina George to make the Olympic team, none of the four has an easy route to a medal once they start wrestling Aug. 22.

Montgomery, whose father is in prison, might have to beat world champion Kyoko Hamaguchi _ the daughter of a former Japanese pro wrestler known as The Animal. Kyoko already has predicted, "I will definitely win the gold medal."

Montgomery isn't deterred, saying, "I feel confident, I feel strong, I feel good. My money's on me."

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Quartet of women grapplers could become fan favorites in U.S.

Posted: Wednesday August 11, 2004

Sara McMann will try to dish out some pain at the Olympics.
Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

The early line from Athens says that America's four women wrestlers will be our new darlings of these Games.

"Darling" is an unfamiliar term for Patricia Miranda (48 kilograms or 105.5 pounds), Tela O'Donnell (55 kg, 121), Sara McMann (63kg, 138.75) and Toccara Montgomery (72kg, 158.5), who over the years have been called "insane," "attention-grabbing," "boy-crazy," and, the ever-popular "dyke."

What the people who really didn't like them said was worse. But now women's wrestling is a recognized Olympic sport for the first time, and years of battling males, school boards, league rules, arrogance, ignorance and even resistance from within their own wrestling hierarchy will be forgotten when they compete under the Olympic banner on Aug. 22 and 23rd.

The massive amount of attention the quartet received on Tuesday at their group press conference was analogous to that accorded the women weightlifters four years ago in Sydney when that sport was new to the Games. They weightlifters haven't exactly been forgotten, but they have been pushed to the side by these four arm-barrers and ankle-lifters.

See, we in the media are consistent in this regard: We ignore something as it grows, then we suddenly discover it en masse and proclaim it the story of the day, then we ignore it again when something else comes along. These four women are smart enough to know that, of course -- Miranda, for example, put off entry to Yale Law School to go for Olympic gold -- but they also know that the middle phase is infinitely preferable to the other two.

On Wednesday they displayed candor, charm, humor, intelligence and passion, words that I don't remember using too frequently of late when describing, say, the U.S. men's basketball team. And it wasn't always easy. Within the sporting press there is a legitimate ignorance about women's wrestling and a morbid curiosity about what it was like to have wrestled against males, which is how all of these women started.

"Did you ever date somebody you beat?" O'Donnell was asked. Can you imagine the stupidity of that question? Well, I can because I asked it.

I couldn't help it. I'm a fan of wrestling, understand it and covered it extensively years ago, but one thinks about these things because the sport, as woman-against-woman competition, is in its relative infancy. The best women's basketball players, for example, usually get better because they work out against men, but their primary competition, from, say, junior high on, was woman-against-woman. In all cases, these four competed against men throughout high school and often into college. It's still that way in most states.

It's not only the gender questions that dog them. There is also what Miranda calls "the sideshow-mud wrestling" curiosity from people who don't even acknowledge that wrestling exists beyond the sphere of Vince McMahon.

Male wrestlers face that, too, and they're competing in the oldest Olympic sport. But America's new Fab Four knows it has a real chance to alter perceptions. McMann says that when she tells people she's a wrestler she can see the surprise in their eyes because they're expecting "an ogre-looking, hunchbacked thing."

Their time is now, and they know it, not just because they are charmers in a cauliflower-ear sport but also because they all have a chance to medal. None would be called a gold-medal favorite, but Montgomery, McMann and Miranda (in that order) have a chance, and O'Donnell, an unpredictable scrambler, can't be counted out.

Oh, O'Donnell's answer to the question I mentioned earlier? "No, I never did. But that's not to say I wouldn't."

Still, not many would have wagered even a few years ago that women, as McMann said with some measure of disgust, would wrestle before paying spectators in anything but mud piles or Jell-O pits.

"Some people expect you to be bigger, to just have two teeth and to be an ogre," McMann said. "I'm not what they imagined me to be."