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McKay's Julie Kirk is wrestling against boys ... that is unless they forfeit
BILL POEHLER 1/11/05
Statesman Journal
LORI CAIN | STATESMAN JOURNAL McKay High School sophomore Julie Kirk is a rare breed as one of the few female varsity wrestlers on an Oregon team. Boys often forfeit against Kirk, which frustrates her. "I like to think that they forfeited because they're scared," she said. |
Julie Kirk stands out at McKay High School wrestling practices.
Her red ponytail among a sea of closely cropped haircuts makes her stand out as the only girl on mats full of boys. But her effort on those mats is nothing short of what the boys give.
"I think that the girls that are doing this sport and are putting up the effort like Julie puts out are winning people over," McKay's fiery wrestling coach Rick Herrin said. "It's the girls that come out and do this sport who are changing people's minds."
Consider Herrin won over.
In 1999, Chrissy Fruck -- who had never before wrestled -- fought successfully to be a member of McKay's wrestling team. She quit a week into practice without having wrestled a match.
"I don't think girls wrestling is going anywhere in this state as long as girls have to compete against boys," Herrin said at the time.
When Kirk was a seventh- grader, she came to a McKay wrestling camp and was sped away by Herrin.
"I think the first time she started was at our camp ... you came to our camp and there was a volleyball camp going on downstairs," Herrin says to Kirk. "I couldn't get any of the boys to wrestle her.
"I took her downstairs to the volleyball camp because I knew the volleyball coach, thinking 'Well, I got rid of her.' She was back up here like probably 10 minutes later and she's been with us ever since."
If it wasn't for Kirk, a sophomore, being on the this year's team, McKay wouldn't have a varsity-level 103-pound wrestler.
What should make the Valley League take notice is that Kirk is undefeated (4-0) in league matches this season.
Three of those victories -- against South Salem, West Salem and McNary -- came when the boys she was supposed to wrestle forfeited, something Kirk describes as a "hollow victory."
"I'm more mad when they forfeit," Kirk said. "Everybody's like, 'Oh, you won. It's a forfeit.' They see that you're a girl and so they forfeited.
"I like to think that they forfeited because they're scared. They don't want to give me the advantage of knowing their little moves before district."
She has been given a number of excuses why the teams are forfeiting, including that her opponent had a dentist appointment and that the boys don't want to face her.
The one team that put a wrestler up against Kirk, North Salem, saw 92-pound freshman Jacob Clifton get pinned by Kirk in 57 seconds.
"I think she's got a lot of tenacity," North Salem coach Brad Edmunds said. "She has the right work ethic to be a successful wrestler.
"I think any coach kind of just looks beyond that she's a girl. When she steps into the ring or into the practice room, she is a wrestler and they wrestle her like a wrestler. I think once they're in the ring, if they're there to win, they go in to wrestle her."
Because of the physical nature of the sport, boys are naturally apprehensive about wrestling a girl.
There also is the old-school train of thought that no matter how the boy does against the girl, the boy has lost.
"It is a tough situation in high school for guys to have to wrestle a girl," South Salem coach Wes Hughes said. "If you win, you beat a girl and if you lose, you lose to a girl.
"In some ways it's more acceptable, but it's still really tough in the sport when guys end up wrestling girls."
States such as Texas and Hawaii have rules prohibiting boys from wrestling against girls -- unlike Oregon -- but they also have separate sanctioned state tournaments for girls.
At tournaments, such as last year's Valley League tournament, opponents rarely forfeit against Kirk.
She lost both of her matches at the district meet as a freshman, one by a 5-2 decision and the other by pinfall.
"We talk a lot about how when she wrestles, she generally faces that boy's best effort," Herrin said. "She's not going to get them on a down day or when they're not at their best.
"The intensity of the boys I see her wrestle is pretty high."
There have been a number of girls who have wrestled in Oregon in recent years, and they all owe a debt of gratitude to Lebanon's Shoni Plagmann.
In 2001, Plagmann took third place in the Valley League district meet at 112 pounds and became the first girl to qualify for the state tournament.
Since that time, there have been a number of girls who have wrestled, the majority on high school teams that before were all boys.
Pacific University, which has a women's wrestling program, puts on an unofficial girls state wrestling tournament each year, and girls tournaments are sprouting up all around the country.
The Oregon School Activities Association will only sponsor a sport like girls wrestling if half of the schools in a classification have teams.
In the offseason, Kirk wrestles for USA Cobra Wrestling team of Portland, where she almost exclusively wrestles against other girls.
She has twice advanced to the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association national tournament and placed second nationally in her weight class.
Wrestling against boys has helped her improve for when she resumes competing against girls.
"It's a good challenge, and it gets me better, then I can go down to the girls and beat them," Kirk said.
"(Some girls are) pretty hard (to wrestle). A lot of the girls are really just out there. They get stronger. They're getting bigger, better, (and) they get harder every year."
Kirk played football for Waldo Middle School in junior high and remains the only girl to score a touchdown in Salem-Keizer middle school football.
She also plays softball and soccer at McKay, but wrestling is her focus and passion.
"This is my main sport and maybe in the future I can go to college," she said.
The Valley League is not as strong at 103 pounds as it has been in recent years.
Two years ago, all three of the league's placers placed in the top eight in state and last year McNary's Kacey McCallister placed second in state at the weight.
Kirk may not win the district title, but she stands a legitimate chance of advancing to the state tournament with a first-, second- or third-place finish in the district meet.
"I would say from what I've seen of the 103-pounders, it's likely that she'll make it to state," said West Salem coach John O'Dell, who coached three girls when he was at Estacada. "I haven't seen anybody who's really strong."
The wrestlers who have forfeited to Kirk this season will not have the advanced scouting on her they would on any other wrestler, which may work in Kirk's favor.
"At the district tournament, nobody is going to forfeit to her," Hughes said. "It will be interesting to see then what happens."
Kirk has lofty goals, including making the state tournament. If she does make it, there is another barrier to break. Of the girls who have competed in Oregon high school state tournaments, none has won a match.
"It's something that Julie's thought about as a goal, another barrier to bust down," Herrin said.
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Skinner's pin propels Lady Sandies to state
By Jeremy Heath
jeremy.heath@amarillo.com
Amarillo Globe-News
Publication Date: 01/11/05
Taking Hold: Caprock's Krista Guzman and Amarillo High's Kayla |
Hannah Skinner had to get the pin.
And she did.
With 4.8 second left in the match, the Amarillo High senior flipped
Caprock sophomore Laci Alvarado and plastered her shoulders to the canvas to
advance the Lady Sandies to the state dual meet with a 30-28 win.
The Lady Sandies, who were ranked second in the region behind Caprock
coming in, will wrestle in the program's first state dual meet Jan. 21 at
Grapevine High School. One school from each UIL district can advance to the state
meet, making Monday night' dual an all-or-nothing meet for both teams.
In the late meet, the Caprock boys staved off a late Sandie charge to
hold on for a 39-37 dual win.
Caprock's Amenda Howland pinned Lilli Cortez at the 4:27 mark to give
the Lady Longhorns a 28-24 lead heading into the final match, meaning
Skinner needed at least a technical fall to give the Lady Sandies the win.
It was apparent early that Alvarado was not going to surrender a
technical fall, keeping the score within 2-1 after the first period and 5-3 after
the second. Skinner gained control with 1:25 left to take a 7-3 lead, and
knew she would need the pin to give her team a trip to Grapevine.
"Honestly, I didn't think I had it in me," Skinner said. "I'm doing
this for God, and he gave me the strength to finish it off."
She finished it off by gaining control of Alvarado's inside arm on the
flip and taking her shoulders straight to the mat, improving her record to
21-0 on the season.
Skinner said she was inspired by the performance of Cortez, who held
off the pin until the third period despite wrestling with an injured shoulder.
"Lilli Cortez, that girl has heart," Skinner said. "She was my
inspiration. I just wanted to go out and wrestle for her and my team."
AHS girls coach Charlie Rose said he wouldn't have wanted anyone else
on the mat with the win on the line.
"That was the most exciting dual I've ever seen," Rose said. "Hannah's
been my toughest wrestler all year. That's only the second time this year
she's been scored on."
Amarillo High started with a 6-0 advantage as Marchay Coffey received
the match's only forfeit in the 215-pound weight division, but Caprock tied
it 6-6 when AHS's Kayla Reed couldn't answer the call with 1:47 left in
the second after injuring her shoulder against Krista Guzman in the
148-pound division.
In 165, AHS's Clarissa Dalke pinned Christina Rodriguez at the 1:10
mark to give AHS a 12-6 lead.
Caprock stormed back to an 18-12 lead with pins from Erika Martinez and
Erin Ramon in the 185 and 95 divisions respectively.
AHS tied it back up when Erika Stewart rallied from a 5-0 deficit to
pin Crystal Valdez with 13.3 seconds left in the first period. Caprock then
took a 22-18 lead on Lisa Martinez's 15-1 major decision over Beth Courkamp.
AHS grabbed a 24-22 lead when Whitney White pinned Jenna Wright at the
2:22 mark in the 119 class before Howlend's pin gave Caprock it's final
lead.
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In brief: Eastwood girls wrestler wins tournament again
Times staff, wire reports1/11/05
Eastwood wrestler Tressa Yocum finished first in the 165-pound weight class of the Caprock Tournament on Saturday for the second consecutive season.
Yocum, a senior and the defending state champ, pinned all nine of her opponents in 32 seconds or less and was named Most Outstanding Girl Wrestler.
She improved her record to 24-0 this year and is 54-0 the past two seasons.
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Grapplin’ gal
Puyallup wrestler Whitney Conder qualifies for U.S. National team, may compete in Austria
by Shawn Skager of The Herald
 |
At first, Sharon Conder thought her youngest daughter’s obsession was a passing thing.
When her daughter Whitney was just 8 years old, she decided to take the lead of her father, Monte, and older brothers Nathan and Dustin, all high school wrestlers, and take to the mat.
“I watched them and liked the sport so I wanted to try it,” Whitney said. “It was just fun watching and I would wrestle my brothers all the time.”
So, Whitney and her parents signed her up for wrestling.
“There was a little league, the Sumner Panthers,” Whitney said. “I wrestled there for two years and switched to the Puyallup Falcons for my last two years of elementary.”
“I wasn’t real excited about it,” Sharon said. “But I decided that I would let her try it while she was little.”
“When she was 8, she thought that was something that she would like,” Monte Conder, Whitney’s father said. “I said I would support her, not thinking that she would do it very long.”
That was eight years ago.
Sharon said she knew she was in for the long haul as a wrestling mom when Whitney tried out for her junior high wrestling squad.
“She went to introduce herself to her coach and I told him not to let her wrestle,” Sharon said. “He said not to worry, that he hadn’t had a girl last past two weeks.”
Whitney said most people were accepting of a female wrestling in a predominately male sport.
In fact, she said, it was not until she began wrestling in junior high that she ran into any kind of discrimination.
A wrestler from another team refused to take to the mat to face her. Whitney said it did not faze her, however.
“They have to forfeit,” she said. “I didn’t really think much of it. I didn’t really care. I was just, ‘oh well.’”
In eighth and ninth grade, Whitney captured the Puyallup School District conference title for her weight class.
Whitney calls her second title the high point of her career, so far. However, there should be many more in front of her.
Whitney, now 15, is a member of the Puyallup High School varsity wrestling team, wrestling co-ed against boys in the 103-pound weight class.
Whitney finished up her season with a third place finish at the sub-regionals and advanced to the regional competition. Although she did not move on to the regular brackets at the Mat Classic state championships, Whitney got a chance to taste wrestling in the Tacoma Dome in a girls exhibition competition.
In addition, she competes in the United States Girls Wrestling Association in both freestyle and folkstyle.
Whitney recently took home first place in the 107-pound class at the second annual USGWA Washington Girls Wrestling State Championships, March 7 at Oscosta High School in Westport.
On March 13, Whitney competed at the Fila Women’s Cadet, Junior and University Nationals in St. Joseph, Minn.
She placed first in the high school folkstyle 43-kilogram division and second in the Fila Cadet freestlye competition.
The wins qualified Whitney for the U.S. National Team that will compete internationally in Austria in June.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it,” Whitney said. “But it makes me feel good to be able to wrestle at the international level.”
This week, Whitney will travel to Lake Orin, Mich., for the United States Girls Wrestling National Tournament, March 26 and 27.
It will be the second year she has attended the event.
“Last year there was 650 girls,” Whitney said. “I took 11th out of 30.” This year, she is currently ranked sixth in the USGWA among high school girl wrestlers in her weight class.
No matter how she does at her freestyle and folkstyle career, Whitney has her mind set on a goal for her high school career.
“I want to be the first girl to place at state,” she said.
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Tell us what you think about GIRL WRESTLER. 4 pages
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Tomahawk Hatchets wrestling preview
/www.wausaudailyherald.com 12/28/04
Coach: Bob Skubal and Bob Garrou, first season.
2003-04 record: 3-2 Lumberjack Conference.
Last men standing: Josh Chelf (171 pounds) Division 2 state champion; Alyssa Lampe (103) won opening match at state meet.
Conference champions: Chelf (215); Anthony Lampe (112); Chad VanStrydonk (119); Jason Schiltz (275).
Key losses: Chelf; Schiltz; VanStrydonk; Matt Paultz; Travis Silvernale.
Key returnees: Anthony Lampe, Jr.; Alyssa Lampe, Jr.
Others to watch: Jeremiah Moran, Jr.; Jesse Hanneman, Sr.; Glenn Schultz, Sr.; Dan Silvernale, Jr.
Overview: With the meat of the team that took third at the Lumberjack Conference meet and boasted four conference champions gone to graduation, the Hatchets are in a transition year. There are only nine returning athletes, and of the 24 total team members, 15 are in their first year of high school wrestling. In addition, former coach Kurt Weyers is gone and Tomahawk has appointed the duo of Skubal and Garrou as his replacement.
"We're going to have some growing pains," Skubal said. "But that also means, if we can survive the growing pains, we lose three seniors and bring up 20-25 eighth-graders. That stabilizes us real fast for next year.
"We'll take our lumps for a year or so, but we won't be doing that for very long."
Skubal is confident the coaching staff will turn this year's inexperienced wrestlers into dominant wrestlers of the future. Skubal is the District 2 representative for the Wisconsin Wrestling Coaches Association, has 28 years of coaching experience, and says that, "It's not like I'm a spring chick anymore." Garrou has 16 years of coaching under his belt and, with the help of assistant John Arnott (10 years), the trio is looking to return to the glory days of Tomahawk wrestling. The three have worked together in the past and have produced eight state champions together.
"We're bringing back members of the wrestling club that had kids wrestle 20, 30 years ago," Skubal said. "We're bringing the past and the present together to create our future."
Skubal believes that the team's strength lies in the experience of the coaching staff and the work ethic of the wrestlers. He says even though the Hatchets have not had a lot of mat time, they are not making excuses.
As the season progress, the staff would like to solidify the middle weights and gain more match experience. That includes sectional experience and handling pressure dual meets. But the lower weights are solid with the Lampes, and there are a lot of quality athletes from 140 on up.
"Our intent is not how we start the race, it's how you finish that people remember," Skubal said. "We have some pleasant surprises with some of the first-year wrestlers, and anything you get out of a first-year wrestler on the varsity is a bonus.
"Right now, they might be in the headlights but they accept the challenges."
Top dogs: Alyssa Lampe made history last season as the first female to win a match at the state tournament. She has logged countless hours in the weight room and the quiet junior is extremely intense, quick and explosive at 103 or 112 pounds.
"She is the ultimate athlete, she is truly what wrestling is all about," Skubal said. "She is not there to impress anyone. There are a lot of good athletes out there and she is just on a different level.
"She has the ability, in our mind, to be an Olympic female wrestler some day. I have never said that about all of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of athletes I've coached over the years."
Anthony Lampe also is very intense and relishes the challenges of facing those who are supposedly better than he is. He is a wiry wrestler who can work moves on both the right or left side. Anthony is wrestling anywhere between 112 and 125 pounds.
"A lot of athletes, they can work it one way, but if somebody blocks they don't have the ability to come back another way," Skubal said.
Dan Silvernale is a 171-pounder with a tall, lean body. He can get in tight and drive through an opponent. Silvernale has exceptional mat savvy, has good upper body strength and hates to lose.
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ATHLETES OF THE YEAR: Huron Park Huskies
The London Free Press
2004-06-24
SEREN MARTIN
Born: Feb. 11, 1986
Grade: 12
Year in review: Captain and MVP of girls' wrestling team, TVRAA East champion, WOSSAA champion and OFSAA silver medallist at 67.5 kilograms, outstanding female wrestler at TVRAA East and WOSSAA; co-president of student athletic council; D.F. Jackson Memorial Award winner for leadership, sportsmanship, citizenship and scholarship at Huron Park; Jack Ross Memorial Award winner as top female athlete in Woodstock; No. 8 and lock on boys' rugby team, only female player in TVRAA.
Favourite memory: "The feeling before and after my gold-medal match at OFSAA wrestling this year. It was a tough match, emotionally and physically. I lost, but that didn't matter because it was a tremendous sense of pride for getting that far."
Looking ahead: Studying kinesiology at Western and wrestling for the Mustangs.
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Turning the Mats
It can help with Title IX compliance, is inexpensive, and reaches a population not often involved in other sports. Ready or not, women’s wrestling is turning heads and making its move.
By Laura Smith
Laura Smith is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.
Athletic Management, 16.6, October/November 2004, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1606/turningmats.htm
Last summer, Terry Steiner coached the United States Olympic Women’s Wrestling Team to bronze and silver medals in the sport’s first female Olympic competition. However, when Steiner was initially offered the opportunity to take a team to Athens, he had to think twice before answering. "I thought, women’s wrestling? I just don’t know about that," Steiner says.
When Donna Welch was given the chance to coach a handful of eager teenage female wrestlers at Tascosa (Texas) High School, she felt the same way. For several years, she’d been the passionate sponsor of a group of girls who served as a pep squad for the boys’ wrestling team, but the concept of girls grappling took her aback.
"I’ve been a tomboy all my life and I love boys’ wrestling," she says. "But when they first asked me to help start a girls’ team, I said, ‘Oh, my. I’m just not sure.’"
Steiner rethought his position, and so did Welch. "I asked myself why I coach wrestling, and the answer is because I believe in the sport and what it teaches," Steiner says. "I believe the characteristics wrestling builds in young people prepare them to succeed in their lives. And if that’s good for young men, why isn’t it good for young women?"
Steiner’s attitude is slowly catching on. During the 2003-04 season, 4,008 high school girls from 808 schools nationwide participated in wrestling, doubling the totals from five years before. Growth at the college level has been slower, but six NAIA schools currently field varsity teams offering scholarships, while several more are looking closely at the possibility. And with Steiner’s Olympic team bringing home two medals, interest in women’s wrestling is likely to surge.
Making the decision to sponsor a team in a nontraditional sport still undergoing growing pains offers unique challenges for high school and college administrators alike. However, those who’ve made the leap say the opportunities and rewards—both for their institutions and their student-athletes—are well worth the risks.
A SPORT IN TRANSITION
Women’s wrestling has a very short history, dating back only about 15 years. "I’ve refereed since 1968, and the first time I started seeing girls at high school matches was around 1989," says Kent Bailo, Founder and Director of the United States Girls’ Wrestling Association, an organization that holds girls’ wrestling tournaments in 35 states by contacting high schools and inviting them to participate. The girls Bailo saw in 1989 were members of high school boys’ teams, and they were there to wrestle primarily against boys. A decade and a half later, that’s still the most common scenario.
Bailo credits mixed-gender wrestling at the high school level with getting the sport off the ground for girls. "It had to start somewhere, and something is better than nothing," he says.
But the practice has pitfalls, and it has led to some difficult situations. Many people within the sport believe that mixing the genders doesn’t produce ideal results for either boys or girls.
To start, a high school boy can feel like he’s being put in an awkward spot when he faces a girl on the mat. "In my experience," Bailo says, "there are a lot of teenage boys who just don’t feel comfortable being in front of a crowd and being in close physical contact with a girl."
Plus, losing to a girl in a sport that they perceive as such a direct measure of their masculinity can be tough, and they can face some ridicule from their peers if it happens. "So when they face a girl, their awkwardness combined with fear of losing can either make boys reluctant to wrestle up to their potential, or it can make them overly aggressive," Bailo says.
Being tacked on to otherwise male teams can be challenging for girls as well. "It’s a rare girl who can win matches consistently wrestling against boys, even if their weights are the same," Bailo says. "In mixed-gender matches I’ve refereed, I would say the girl loses 95 percent of the time. There’s not a whole lot good about that."
Carl Murphree, Head Women’s Coach at Missouri Valley College, one of the six NAIA colleges to offer women’s wrestling as a varsity sport, adds that girls often bring different skills to the mat, so mixed-gender wrestling can result in a contest that simply isn’t a good comparison. "Women’s flexibility plays a much bigger part in wrestling, while with men, strength plays a bigger role," Murphree explains. "Women can’t do some of the things in wrestling that men can do, and men can’t do some of the things that women can do."
Social issues and won-loss records aside, Murphree has a broader objection to mixed-gender wrestling. "It’s simply not the best way to grow the sport," he says. "Young girls can compete with young boys, but as soon as they start to get older, girls’ participation drops dramatically because only the best older girls can compete with the older boys. For the sport to be successful, we need to make opportunities not only for elite athletes, but for average athletes. And that means girls at all levels need opportunities to wrestle other girls."
STATES OF INNOVATION
At the high school level, two state associations are creating competitive opportunities for girls to wrestle girls. Texas and Hawaii sanction girls’ wrestling, holding girls’ state championships at the same times and venues as the boys’ events. A third state, Washington, added a girls-only invitational tournament last year, held during the boys’ state championships.
In Texas, the University Interscholastic League began sanctioning girls’ wrestling in 1998, the same year it began sanctioning the boys, and according to Assistant Executive Director Mark Cousins, girls’ participation has tripled since then. Fifty schools offered girls’ teams the first year, and for 2004-05, there will be 160 schools with girls’ wrestling teams.
"At first, athletic directors at some of our schools told us they were concerned that if they fielded girls’ teams, they wouldn’t see a very high skill level, since many of the girls would be new to wrestling," Cousins says. "But the numbers keep increasing on the girls’ side as more and more athletic directors realize that this can be a viable program."
Having a separate, state-sanctioned girls’ program in Texas has been a huge benefit, according to Welch, now the Assistant Coach for Girls’ Wrestling at Tascosa, where the head coach oversees both the boys’ and girls’ teams. "Girls who may have been interested before but who would never have gone out for the boys’ team now have an opportunity," she says.
Bailo agrees. "This is one case where it’s appropriate to put the cart before the horse—provide the opportunities, and then you’ll see the interest," he says. "An athletic director might believe that girls aren’t interested in wrestling because only two have ever come out for the team, but that’s because they have to wrestle on boys’ teams. Texas is a model of what happens when you ask: ‘If we gave you your own program and your own competition schedule, would you want to wrestle?’"
For Dave Kuykendall, Athletic Director for the Frisco (Texas) Independent School District, having girls’ wrestling as a state sanctioned sport has been nothing but positive. It has given his two schools excellent shots at state-level success in an additional sport, and he was able to add the teams using resources already in place. At each school, the same head coach handles both the boys’ and girls’ teams. Each head coach has two assistants. The girls’ team practices before school and during first period, and the boys’ team practices last period and after school. UIL rules state that girls and boys can’t wrestle against each other, but the teams do come together for some technical skills work and conditioning, and they travel to meets on the same bus. "The teams work together wonderfully and it really is seen as one overall wrestling program," Kuykendall says.
In Washington, the state association has thus far stopped short of sanctioning girls’ wrestling, but it is taking steps in that direction. In 2003-04, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) invited all girls who compete on a high school wrestling team to attend a separate girls’ tournament during the boys’ state championships, and sixty-eight girls signed up.
The association placed the 68 entrants into four groups based on weight, and each athlete wrestled three matches. A special awards ceremony followed the competition. "Our wrestling tournament is held in the Tacoma Dome, and with 28 mats on the floor, it’s one of the largest venues in the nation," says Jim Meyerhoff, WIAA Assistant Executive Director. "The girls told us it was great to be able to compete there and to be a part of the state tournament. They also appreciated the chance to wrestle against other girls, because especially for girls who are at the size extremes, their chances of wrestling other girls during the regular season are slim to none."
The WIAA will offer the girls’ invitational again during the 2004-05 state meet. "We’re hoping to turn 68 participants into 140," Meyerhoff says. "Then our plan is to identify some weight classes for girls. After about two more years, we hope to begin sanctioning a separate girls’ tournament."
One of the reasons Meyerhoff is confident girls’ wrestling in Washington will continue to grow is that it can be a very cost-effective way for schools to provide opportunities for girls. "For most of our schools, there would be no added expense to having a separate girls’ team," he says. "If two schools wrestle each other and each has enough girls for a team, you separate it and score it separately. They could still practice together, use the same facilities, travel on the same bus, and compete on the same night in the same gym."
AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL
Cumberland College, a 1,700-student NAIA school in Kentucky, isn’t generally thought of as a hub of Olympic training activity. However, that changed five years ago, when it decided to offer women’s wrestling as a varsity sport. This year, Cumberland senior Toccara Montgomery competed in Athens in the 72-kg weight class at the first Olympic competition in women’s wrestling. "For us, adding women’s wrestling has been great because it’s given us a chance to be successful on a very high level," says Randy Vernon, Athletic Director. "Having an Olympic athlete is extremely exciting, and we’re proud of her."
According to Vernon, the school had one major incentive for adding women’s wrestling. "We wanted to increase enrollment," he says. "Since few colleges offer women’s wrestling, we suspected it would help us recruit some students who wouldn’t otherwise be interested in Cumberland College."
The hunch was correct. Cumberland was able to draw 10 women the first year it offered the sport, and the roster is up to 40 for 2004-05. Vernon feels those 40 students probably wouldn’t be at Cumberland otherwise.
Cumberland also found that adding women’s wrestling was a relatively easy way to boost Title IX compliance. "We had added men’s wrestling already, so we needed another women’s sport," Vernon says. "Women’s wrestling was the sport that made the most sense."
The Cumberland women’s squad has its own coaching staff and generally practices separately from the men’s team. However, the squads and coaches do learn from each other and there’s a feeling of unity among male and female wrestlers, Vernon says.
With only six other women’s teams in the country, putting together a schedule is the most challenging aspect of managing the sport. "Like most other college teams, we compete primarily in open invitational tournaments sanctioned by USA Wrestling [the sport’s national governing body]," Vernon says. "The team goes to about 10 meets a year, about half of which they fly to. For the other half, they’re driving pretty long distances."
Cumberland’s closest competition, Missouri Valley College, also travels extensively, adding Canada to its itinerary several times a season. "Women’s collegiate wrestling in Canada is quite a few years ahead of ours in development," Murphree explains. "They have 22 college programs. We went there three times last season, as well as to San Francisco, Portland, Minnesota, and Michigan." Missouri Valley also hosted the first fully collegiate women’s wrestling nationals last season.
Steiner hopes the NAIA schools’ success with the sport will cause NCAA schools to sit up and take notice. "At the college level, what we need are athletic directors who are willing to take a chance," he says. "We need one NCAA Division I university to step up and say, ‘We’ll offer women’s wrestling. We’re willing to be the first.’ Once that happens, I believe we’ll begin to see very rapid growth at the college level."
STARTING A TEAM
Athletic directors who want to start a women’s or girls’ wrestling team at their school may find that the idea generates some resistance. Female student-athletes may be ready, but support from coaches, the community, and even parents can be slow to arrive. Here are some tips from others who have successfully weathered the tough first steps:
Support your coach. The boys’ wrestling coach may be the most natural person to mentor a new girls’ team, but how do you get him enthused about the idea? First, make sure to provide enough support, in the form of assistant coaches and additional resources. "Our coaches were excited about the prospect of adding a girls’ team," says Kuykendall, "and I think that’s because we made sure that it hasn’t taken anything away from what they are able to do with the boys’ team. We make sure they have the extra help they need."
Your approach can make a difference as well. "I told our coach, ‘You’ve been so successful with the boys, and we want that kind of experience for the girls too,’" Kuykendall says. "We let him know that we weren’t just tacking this onto his workload because it was the most convenient thing to do, but that we valued his expertise."
Have a female assistant. When the Amarillo (Texas) Independent School District decided to add girls’ wrestling at its four high schools, one of which is Tacosa, the district’s athletic director stipulated that each team had to have a female assistant coach, at least for the first year. "I think requiring female assistants was a very smart move," Welch says. "Everyone was a little bit nervous about having our male head coach demonstrate moves with the girls. This covers us, because there is always a female in the room, and there’s a female to cover any issues that come up."
While she didn’t know a lot about wrestling, Welch was experienced in strength and conditioning, which helped a lot. "As long as you have a head coach who can teach the technical skills, the female assistant doesn’t have to know how to wrestle, and chances are she won’t," Welch says. "But look for someone enthusiastic, willing to learn, and knowledgeable about athletics in general."
Actively recruit. Filling the roster may be your biggest challenge the first year, since girls have not traditionally thought of wrestling as an option. "In the beginning of the year, our coaches and I are in the lunch room recruiting girls for the team," Kuykendall says. "We get names of possible candidates from other coaches at our school. And we look for girls who tried out for other sports and were cut—we get about a third of our female wrestlers that way, because the skills they need for wrestling are so different from most other sports.
"For the first few years, you can’t assume they’re going to line up to participate," he adds. "You may have to do some work, but then it will start to grow on its own."
Get parents involved. Female student-athletes who want to wrestle may encounter disapproval from parents who aren’t comfortable with the idea. "To people in my generation, women’s wrestling meant mud wrestling or something on Friday night TV that they wouldn’t want their daughters associated with," Kuykendall says. "It can be hard to overcome that image."
Welch has won over reluctant parents by having an open-door policy for all practices and encouraging parents of prospective wrestlers to attend. She also sets up special opportunities for parents of younger girls to meet current wrestlers and see what they have achieved. "Have a welcoming attitude and be patient," she says. "Attitudes change slowly, and you can’t force anything."
THE FUTURE
Where is the sport of female wrestling headed? According to Steiner, that will depend on one factor: how much the men’s wrestling world embraces the women’s sport. "The strangest thing about women’s wrestling," he says, "is that it’s not even accepted within its own sport. Ninety percent of men’s wrestling coaches don’t want anything to do with it. And women’s wrestling is not going to grow until men’s coaches start being more open to it."
Administrators often understand that adding women’s wrestling programs can be a way for schools to comply with Title IX and can help to stem the current tide of cuts to men’s wrestling programs and other Olympic sports. But, Steiner says, it can be difficult to get men’s coaches to see that logic. "With so many high school and college wrestling programs being cut, some men’s coaches are blaming Title IX," he says. "Instead of encouraging women’s programs as a potential solution, they see it as feeding the alligator that’s biting them."
Educating coaches and administrators about the benefits of women’s wrestling is the next item on Steiner’s agenda, now that the 2004 Olympics are over. "For the next two years, until I start really focusing on training the next Olympic team, that’s where my energy is going to go," he says. He’ll take his message on the road, attempting to speak at coaches’ clinics in every state.
"I’m going to ask them the same question I asked myself: Why do they coach wrestling?" he says. "If it’s a great sport for the boys they coach, why not for girls? I believe that if coaches start talking positively about girls’ wrestling, administrators will see that it can be a very viable program for their departments. Women’s wrestling is not going away. It may not happen as soon as I had once hoped, but it will be successful."
Sidebar: A NEW SET OF ATHLETES
Is wrestling really a good sport for girls? According to coaches and athletic directors whose schools have teams, it’s a great sport—particularly for girls who wouldn’t otherwise participate in athletics.
"There are few sports where if you can’t run fast or throw a ball, you can be successful. Wrestling is one of those sports," says Carl Murphree, Head Women’s Coach at Missouri Valley College. "Offering wrestling is a huge opportunity to increase female participation, because it draws a whole new set of athletes."
Dave Kuykendall, Athletic Director at Frisco (Texas) Independent School District, agrees. "When you look at the 30 girls who wrestle at our two high schools, very few of them play another sport," he says. "For us, it’s been a way to get 30 students involved who would otherwise have just gone home after school."
Wrestling also provides an alternative for girls who have trouble fitting in socially or are headed down the road to behavioral problems. "Around here, we seek out the girls who get involved in confrontations and ask them to join the team," says Donna Welch, Assistant Wrestling Coach for Girls at Tascosa (Texas) High School. "It’s a way for them to channel their aggression positively."
In a neighboring district, she adds, a freshman girl was sent to the principal’s office after a cafeteria fight. "The principal told her, ‘I’m not going to punish you. I’m going to send you to wrestling practice,’" Welch says. "She ended up being one of the most successful wrestlers in the area and it turned her attitude around."
Girls whose body type keep them from trying out for other sports can also find a place in wrestling, according to Welch. "We have had several girls compete successfully at the 215-pound weight class," she says. "They’re not going to be on the basketball court or the soccer field. Yet wrestling gives them an opportunity. We are able to say to them, ‘We need you precisely because you weigh 215 pounds.’ And once they start lifting and running and wrestling and learning, they are going to become fit and start feeling good about themselves. Because we offer wrestling, we’re able to give them a chance to build the self-esteem that can change their lives."
Sidebar: MIXED GENDER TEAMS
Separate wrestling teams for boys and girls is the ideal scenario. But at schools without enough girls to field a separate team, administrators can take steps to support girls who want to wrestle.
"If a girl comes out for the team, the first thing I have her do is talk a friend into coming out with her," says Carl Murphree, who coached high school teams, often mixed gender, for 22 years before taking over as Head Women’s Wrestling Coach at Missouri Valley College. "They will both do much better with each other’s support, and it’s a better workout situation."
Administrators should also encourage coaches to talk with their teams about some ground rules. "It shouldn’t be, ‘Look, we have a girl on this team now, so we need to act in a certain way,’" Murphree says. "Don’t put the focus on the girl. Simply tell the team, ‘Everyone in this room is an athlete and is going to be treated with respect and as an equal.’ Then make sure the coach is keeping an eye out for any negative situations and letting you know about them as soon as they develop, no matter how small they seem."
Carefully managed, mixed gender teams can be very successful. "If a girl turns out and hangs in there for a couple of weeks, very often she becomes the rallying point for the entire team," says Jim Meyerhoff, Assistant Executive Director at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. "Getting past the first few weeks can be tough, but in most cases, the girls end up working harder than the boys, and often they push the boys to succeed in ways they wouldn’t have otherwise."
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Sep 2, 2004
By Jay Heater
Wrestlers changing attitudes
Casey Rhyan, the former Deer Valley High School wrestling coach, thought he was just being a good guy by allowing freshman Malinda Ripley to be part of his 1998 wrestling team, figuring she would go through the motions, take a beating and fade away.
Rhyan had no idea that Ripley would forever change his way of thinking about women in wrestling. She eventually rose to the top of her sport in America, winning a pair of 51 kilogram national freestyle titles.
Unfortunately for Ripley, she suffered a dislocated right elbow just before the U.S. Olympic Trials in May and had to watch on television the Olympic women's wrestling competition that concluded Monday in Athens, Greece.
Rhyan also was watching, which wouldn't have been the case before Ripley came along.
"I didn't agree with girls wrestling," Rhyan said. "When I wrestled, I always felt that I might refuse to wrestle a girl. As I got older, I carried that feeling with me.
"Malinda changed me. She was, hands down, one of the toughest wrestlers I've coached or coached against."
He learned that toughness, work ethic and aggressiveness aren't limited to one gender.
"She wanted to win and she was fiercely competitive," Rhyan said. "I was expecting problems, such as harassment, but it didn't turn out that way at all. I learned that you can't generalize and that every person is different. I always had made the general judgment that girls should not wrestle. But I saw what it did for her in terms of self-confidence and self-esteem. She was looking for a chance."
Whether the American public will give women's wrestling a chance might have been determined this week with the sport being included in the Olympics for the first time.
"The American public will learn about women's wrestling," said Sara McMann, who won the silver medal at 63 kilograms. "They are going to see that wrestling makes your identity stronger."
Nobody on the U.S. team has a stronger identity than Patricia Miranda, the Stanford grad who will be headed to Yale's law school to pursue a career in politics. Miranda, who won the bronze medal on Monday, admitted that competing in a man's world was tough when she first began wrestling in eighth grade.
"The first time I went to practice, it really scared me," she said. "It was way too violent. But maybe that's why I went back."
As an eighth-grader, Miranda was just another kid wrestling. In the ninth grade, when she joined the high school team, she became the only girl on the team.
"I had them take down the mirrors," she said. "I never thought of myself as the female."
Ripley said she never had any problem with her identity as a female even though she would routinely beat the boys in high school.
"I had self-confidence and I knew what I was doing," she said. "I didn't have to explain myself to anyone. But there were some tough times. When I started, I was really petite. My body gained muscle mass like crazy and I became very defined. I had a hard time, but I was OK with myself."
Although many people in the U.S. were exposed to women's wrestling this week for the first time, it's not like women haven't been wrestling for quite some time. In the early 1980s, Albany High coach Kermit Bankson allowed girls to wrestle on his team with the boys.
"They were kids and they wanted to do kid things," said Bankson, who said he never minded mixing genders on the wrestling mat. "Title IX had come along and it said that girls had to have opportunities. The girls who got involved with us were unique kids and we treated them normal. Actually, I think it was harder on the guys because they always were afraid they would lose to one of them."
Going into his 35th season, Bankson will have girls on his team again. Last season, three girls competed for Albany. All three return.
Rhyan now coaches at El Dorado High in Placerville. He didn't have any girls try out for his team.
"It's a little different world up here," Rhyan said. "But you never know. Female wrestling is just getting going, and like I told Malinda, you might end up on a cereal box. That's the kind of thing people dream about."
