News Page

Athletes of the Week

4/20/06

Jenna Howard

Howard, 16, from Chelmsford Valley District Composite School is this week’s Female Athlete of the Week. She’s is in her third year of high school wrestling. As one of the smallest female wrestlers in the Sudbury area, she often had to wrestle up one or two weight categories. This was tough, but helped her become the SDSSAA champion in her own weight category.

She went on to earn a silver medal at NOSSA and placed sixth at OFSAA. Howard recently returned from competing at the Canadian National Wrestling Meet in Edmonton where she, once again, won gold. As an added bonus she also competed for a spot on Team Canada, placing first and earning a place on the Team Canada roster.

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Going to the mat

By Katy Murphy, STAFF WRITER 4/21/06

SAN LEANDRO — Two years ago, when Susan So told her parents she wanted to give wrestling a try, they were hesitant at first. Cross-country was one thing, but wrestling?

"I was like, `Please, I really want to try it,"' Susan recalled. "Then they said, `OK, but if you get hurt...."

Susan, a quick and deceptively powerful eighth-grader at San Leandro's Bancroft Middle School, won the state championship in her weight class last season. When she defends her title Saturday at the Second Annual California Girls Middle School State Championship Wrestling Tournament in Vallejo, her father will be there, she said.

It will be the first time he has seen her wrestle.

In the past decade, girls have increasingly embraced the highly physical sport, which was — and still is, in some circles — considered a male realm.

Robert Redman, president of the California Women's Wrestling Association, says almost every middle school program has at least one girl, and that about 1,800 high school girls statewide competed in at least one tournament during the season.

Just 10 years ago, before a national girls tournament shattered Redman's assumptions about girls in wrestling and converted him into an advocate, he said he embraced an "old school philosophy" still held by some coaches:

"Girls are not supposed to be in the mat room."

Bancroft Middle School teammates Claudia Villalobos and Alyssa Hopper wrestle at a recent match. (Aric Crabb)

This year, a girl from Alaska upended that philosophy by winning the state title, making United States history.

But Michaela Hutchison's victory didn't come as a surprise to those who have watched the sport evolve over the past decade, including Dave D'Antonio, who has coached Bancroft Middle School teams for 15 years.

D'Antonio has witnessed a gradual demographic shift in his program since 1993, when Yumi Onda became the first girl to join. But he also has seen notions of gender change, along with the team's make-up.

Losing to a girl could have been enough to make a boy cry even five years ago, D'Antonio said, but that is no longer the case. In practice, he said, "They wrestle hard and they push each other."

Mason Kendall, a sixth-grade wrestler at Bancroft, said he doesn't buy into the idea that girls aren't as strong as boys or that they can't participate in the sport. "I mean, I've been taken down by a girl a couple of times, and I've taken her down a couple of times," he said during a recent match.

To D'Antonio, such progressive attitudes don't simply reflect a changing society; they make it easier for girls and boys to navigate the difficult years of adolescence with confidence.

At an all-girls practice this week, D'Antonio looked on as about 15 athletes dragged themselves across the mat in a series of "Army crawls" and "bear crawls."

"Move, Evelyn, move," he called to eighth-grader Evelyn Perez, before privately praising her progress.

"I think, overall, we still live in a society where girls are taught not to be as physical as boys," D'Antonio said, between whistle blows. "Now these girls are in one of the ultimate physical contact situations, and it's inevitable, I think, that there will be an outgrowth of confidence and self-esteem."

Claudia Villalobos, an 11-year-old who stands at 4-foot-2, said her brother and father encouraged her to join the team, a decision she is happy she made. "It's been making me look forward to school," she said.

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Multimedia presentation: Girls pin stereotypes to the mat

This year, a girl won Alaska's wrestling title, out-pinning every girl and boy who took her on.

Michaela Hutchinson's victory made U.S. history. But it wasn't a surprise to Dave D'Antonio, wrestling coach at Bancroft Middle School in San Leandro.

It's been 13 years since the first girl joined Bancroft's wrestling team.

Now, says D'Antonio, boys no longer cry when they lose to a girl.

Launch the presentation. (13MB Flash)

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Prep Report

4/21/06

Girls wrestling becoming official

With participation rising and greater interest in the state invitational in recent years, the WIAA passed on first reading a proposal to stage a sanctioned all-classification girls wrestling state tournament during Mat Classic next year.

The proposal cites eight entries per weight class with regional qualifying events. Details of the qualifying process would be determined later.

The WIAA indicated that 200 girls representing 100 schools participated in wrestling last season. That's up from 152 girls from 80 schools in 2004-05.

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