News Page

7/25/2000 Peter Anderson
Kansas State Collegian

MICHAEL YOUNG/Collegian Jenny Schridde, 14, attended the Kansas Kids Wrestling Camp last week for the third time, and was the only girl in attendance. Schridde will wrestle as an eighth grader in Great Bend, Kan., this year

For 14-year-old Jenny Schridde, wrestling against boys has never been a big deal -- she has six brothers. But her goal to become the first girl to place in the Kansas State High School Wrestling Tournament is a big deal.

"There is nothing more hurtful to a guy than losing to a girl for the first time," said Ned Price, state wrestling competition director for Kansas Wrestling Kids Club.

Schridde, of Great Bend, Kan., has already put together quite a resume going into eighth grade. She has one children's state wrestling title, two second-place finishes and a third-place finish. This past year, she passed up the opportunity to compete in the children's state wrestling meet to go to girls' nationals, where she finished second.

Schridde has been wrestling in the Great Bend children's wrestling program for the past nine years and just finished attending the Kansas Wrestling Kids Club camp in Manhattan for the third time. Three of her brothers were also in attendance at the camp, but there weren't any other girls.

The guys don't treat her any different, and the way they act doesn't bother her, Schridde said.

"I have six brothers -- I am used to boys," Schridde said while laughing.

Price said it is no surprise that Schridde is as good as she is.

"Her willingness to compete and work make her great," Price said. "I've watched her this week -- she is always paying attention. If you look around at the other groups, half of the kids would be off in la-la land. She is not afraid."

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

Preece’s Pontifications-JV or No JV–That is the Question

Brian E. Preece

Head Coach–Provo HS

The inclusion of JV wrestlers in Region and State meets has raised controversy from the onset. With the format being used by the 1A, 2A and 3A this past year, the controversy took on a new twist.

The point of this editorial is to give some critical analysis to the question. And I can’t help it–I will offer a final opinion.

Many coaches, especially at the 1A, 2A and 3A levels feel that JV wrestlers effect the team race too drastically. The general excitement of including JV wrestlers has seemed to wane in the smaller classifications. The feeling at the 4-A and 5-A is generally favorable to continuing the inclusion of JV wrestlers, and they were, in fact, the first classifications to allow their participation.

After Travis Jasper upset Mark Blain in the 1997 4-A finals, the inclusion of JV wrestlers seemed to be vindicated. A JV wrestler won the State title against his varsity counterpart.

As a coach I had two wrestlers "wrestle-off" for the State crown. In fact it was the match just prior to the Jasper-Blain final and my varsity wrestler prevailed 6-4. This year Delta JV wrestler Chris Abbot beat Luke Beckstrom for the 112 pound title and there has been at least ten instances of JV wrestlers making the State finals.

Here are the arguments for including JV wrestlers:

1) Those previous mentioned matches perhaps provide the best argument–before including JV wrestlers, quality wrestlers like those noted would have never had the chance to compete at State and win a title. These are inspirational true stories that even I have used to keep a quality JV wrestler motivated. And keeping wrestlers wrestling is paramount to our sport’s survival.

2) The inclusion of JV wrestlers has helped reduce weight cutting and helped athletes wrestle in their optimum weight.

My JV wrestler that placed second at State had a hard time sucking down to the weight below. In many cases, wrestlers won’t have to cut as much weight to make the varsity line-up (a primary reason many wrestlers choose to lose excessive weight).

3) The inclusion of JV wrestlers improves the overall quality of the State meet. They are obviously better wrestlers than the varsity wrestlers they beat to get there.

4) Since their inclusion in Region and State meets, participation in wrestling has steadily increased indicating that there is a strong correlation between JV inclusion and overall participation. Obviously, more participation should be welcomed.

The arguments against JV inclusion:

1) JV wrestlers help the strong programs get stronger while the weak programs get weaker. The strong programs will qualify wrestlers for the State tournament at the expense of the weaker programs.

2) A strong program in a less competitive region may have the advantage of qualifying many more JV wrestlers than strong programs in more competitive regions. This can cause an unfair situation by skewing the advantage to the program from the weaker region (as was claimed by Uintah and Wasatch about Delta) at the State meet.

3) The inclusion of wrestlers has caused much controversy at the Region meets. Regions struggle with the issues of how to seed (or not seed by just "throwing" them on the other side of the bracket) JV wrestlers. Should Regions use JV qualifying tournaments to fill out the varsity Region bracket or should teams be allowed to enter two wrestlers at the Region tournament? These are the issues that Regions grapple with constantly and not including JV wrestlers simplifies these issues.

4) The inclusion of JV wrestlers wasn’t done in the past and is not done in most states. The "old school" attitude on this issue should pervade.

So what is the true impact of JV wrestlers?

Generally, they do have an impact on the outcome of both Region and State meets. But there are some interesting trends that I noted when truly analyzing the data.

They have much less of an impact at the State meet than at the Region meets. And they have much less of an impact at the 4-A and 5-A level than at the lower classifications.

Let’s look at the first issue. JV wrestlers are still JV wrestlers for a reason. They are still less likely to place at State than at Region. In Region VI for example, they undoubtedly helped Spanish Fork take that tournament with a 100 point advantage over Springville. At State however, Springville beat Spanish Fork by 19 points.

Also, 4-A and 5-A have more depth in general than the smaller classifications. They will tend to have less JV wrestlers qualify for State, and even a lower percentage place at State. In 4-A this past year, only four JV wrestlers placed in the entire field. And certainly they didn’t deliver the team trophy to Box Elder.

But at the 1-A, 2-A and 3-A level, JV wrestlers had a huge impact. A host of JV wrestlers placed at State for both Panguitch and Wayne in 1-A and for Juab and Millard in 2-A. And in 3-A there were many JV wrestlers that placed and one took State.

Even though Delta did not overtake Wasatch for the team title, the team race for second place would have been much closer if JV wrestlers weren’t included. Indeed, it seemed that Uintah and Wasatch had valid concerns about the strength of Delta’s Region.

Many ideas have been suggested about the inclusion of JV wrestlers. Some include:

1) Don’t include JV wrestlers at all.

2) Include JV wrestlers but don’t score their points at Region and State meets.

3) Each team is allowed two wrestlers per weight at the Region meet and at State if they qualify, but only count the wrestler that scores the most points.

4) Let each classification decide how to handle this issue by the vote of the Head Coaches only (keep the administrators out of this one please!).

5) Let each Head Coach designate up to 14 wrestlers at both the Region and State meet that would score points. They could be 14 separate varsity wrestlers or two wrestlers in the same weight.

6) Host a separate State Tournament for JV wrestlers.

7) Keep the present system as is.

The issue of including JV wrestlers has become emotional with advocates on both sides of the issue having strong arguments. The impact of their inclusion is much less at the 4-A and 5-A level and the UHSAA might have to recognize these facts and adjust their policies to accommodate the concerns of the smaller classifications. A uniform policy for all the classifications may not be in the best interest of the sport.

My opinion is this: I love the concept of giving JV wrestlers the opportunity to compete at Region and State. And I believe they should score points for your program. After all, they attend your school and you coached them! You have also "doubled" the amount of wrestlers that have the "dream" to be a State Champion.

Maybe 1-A, 2-A and 3-A do have serious issues with their inclusion, and maybe they should do their own thing. But as for me, please don’t change a thing in 4-A!

Wrestling Girls Against the Boys

by Dan Potts

Assistant Coach

West HS

By and large Utah’s high school wrestling coaches do not want girls on their teams. Many say that they still have problems with the genders not being comfortable wrestling each other. Others are mad because of Title IX issues. Some don’t see the point, because they believe it is a waste of their valuable time and simply more hassle than it is worth.

By now many high school coaches have had at least one girl wrestler.

As an assistant coach at Utah’s oldest active high school, West High in Salt Lake City, I have coached four girls over the last six years. None of them lasted more than a single season, in fact, most have not lasted half way through a season. None of them won a single match, in fact, most of them never wrestled a single match.

So, I did a little research to try and answer some of the following common questions about girls wrestling on what have been traditionally all boy’s wrestling teams.

"What kind of girl would wrestle on a boy’s team anyway?" Many believe "tom boy" types–girls that want to be boys. That is generally not what I found.

For instance, Lia Berger was Miss Maui Teen and first runner-up to Miss Hawaii Teen while sporting 20 varsity wins against boys for Baldwin HS at the 140 pound class. Ultimately, she was prevented from competing in Maui’s wrestling championships because of her sex and sexuality.

"Girls that wrestle can’t excel in any other areas." But Lia Berger, just previously mentioned, was also a straight A student. Rare? I don’t think so.

Patrice Crenshaw of Tri-Cities HS was not only a straight A student, but sported a 25-12 record with most of her wins by pin.

She says, "Being part of the wrestling team has been, and will continue to be a major key to my success. It gives us (wrestlers) a better perspective of how the real world will be."

Jennifer Taggart, one of my own wrestlers, only scored one point (an escape) in her entire wrestling career. However, she maintains that her participation helped her life greatly. She won the largest single financial aid awarded by West High’s boosters that year, a $5,000 music scholarship to BYU.

"Girls simply cannot compete with the ‘testosterone’ induced upper body strength of boys." But don’t tell that to 112 pound Amy Perlmutter of New Jersey who can do 20 chin-ups. My own varsity team has only two boy wrestlers that can do that! She won an 8 team tournament where she was awarded the tournament’s outstanding wrestler.

Beth Wetherby of Colorado has a 17-10 varsity record with 14 pins. But, not only has she never been pinned, she has never been on her back for more than one second in all those matches! I wish anyone of my wrestlers could say that!

"Girl’s just can’t go the distance, they do it for a year then drop out." This is what I thought. However, Lauren Wolf wrestled 100 varsity matches with 37 wins, 15 by pin. Casey Baranoksi won over 100 high school matches. She was 30-12 as a freshman and a conference champion as a sophomore.

"Good girl wrestlers are extremely rare." But I found that the only thing rare thing was girl wrestlers, and they are not nearly as rare as they once were.

Now, there are approximately 2300 girls presently wrestling the "uphill road" all across the U.S. 1 out of every 1000 wrestlers nationwide are girls.

Besides the fact that few teammates are initially willing to work out with "the girl," even referees have been known to score against them.

At West HS, we usually lose about half of our wrestlers through the season every year. Of the wrestlers that stay on, only half of them end up with winning records. When you do the math, and correct for the challenges facing female wrestlers in a male dominated sport, girls don’t look so bad, especially when few coaches are capable of coaching to the strengths of their female students.

Well, girls might be able to compete at some level, but they will never win the whole thing against boys." And so far, I was unable to find a single female state champion at the high school level. The best girl wrestler by far was Miyuu Yamamoto of Arizona, who placed 6th in her state championships.

She took first place in her region with a 7-1 record and beat the number one seed at state before losing in the quarter-finals in overtime to a wrestler that became one of the state’s best wrestlers of recent years. She later captured the Women’s World Greco-Roman Championship.

Other top girl wrestlers include Lisa Berube of Michigan who had a 16-5 varsity record, and Arielle Bradbury of Alaska who placed third in the State 2-A meet and never finished lower than fourth in any tournament.

Bottom line, guys, the girls may be coming from behind, but they are coming.

The most asked question, however, is, How can girls and boys grab each other without embarrassment to society?" I for one, have never observed this problem to persist in the face of competition between girls and boys. It certainly is a problem at first, but no one wants to lose!

When a female wrestler does a high crotch takedown maneuver on a male contestant, he defends the move exactly the same in the heat of the moment.

When a male wrestler goes "chest to chest" on a half nelson pin with a female opponent, neither of them just gives up because of the situation, in fact, competition between the sexes can be quite intense. What boy wants to be beat by a girl in a sport perceived as macho as wrestling is? And this seems to be the real root behind why males defend "their" sport in the face of direct female competition.

"Girls are in a win-win situation when they wrestle boys," is another common statement. If a girls loses to a boy, as expected, the crowd says, "she tried" and often supports her anyway. If she wins, the embarrassment for the boy and his machismo is perceived as great. What most fail to take into account is the fact that being a female wrestler in a mostly male world is far more challenging than any boy’s embarrassment in losing to a girl.

First, girls have to deal with peers just to tryout for a "boy’s" wrestling team. Girls usually struggle to get adequate practice since few boys will wrestle them in workouts because of what their male peers might think or say.

Few coaches will really work with their female athletes, hoping that they will simply go away. And many do.

If a girl makes it through this obstacle course, she finds it difficult to get a match. Boys (and their coaches) from other schools will often not accept a match for a variety of excuses. And, as noted, even referees can become a challenge.

So without much practice, coaching, competition, and ultimately, the support that most male wrestlers get, female wrestlers have a much lower chance of succeeding. Those who suggest that girls will never be competitive in a boy’s world are either ignorant or insensitive to their plight.

Oh sure, we are all ticked off at what Title IX has done to the sport of wrestling at the college level. Our more gifted wrestlers have nowhere to go.

But I figure that what goes around comes around. Most of America’s successful women wrestlers in women’s leagues all openly admit that if it had not been for their experience on high school wrestling teams, they would not be nearly as competitive as they are.

Casey Baranoski states, "that having a separate girl’s wrestling league is not a good idea." Her reasons are obviously selfish.

In my opinion, the sooner we promote girl’s wrestling at the high school level, the sooner girls will have their own wrestling teams. This is exactly what has happened in Texas. And when those girls try to move on to the next level in search of wrestling scholarships, there won’t be any. Without a men’s wrestling program in college, it simply won’t happen.

I will give you only one guess what will be required to establish a women’s wrestling team at the University of Utah? You guessed it!

So I suspect that many readers may be confused about what I am trying to say. "Is he for or against wrestling girls against the boys?" And quite frankly I don’t care. But, I do care that a failure to resolve this 15 year-old issue will only result in more pain for both male and females alike at all levels.

Collegiate wrestling needs to take up a position, one way or the other. Not at the local level, but at the national level. Once that takes place, American society can start to resolve the rest of the issues at the local level, so that high school coaches such as myself can finally know what we have to do–and what we don’t.

Editor’s Note: Dan Potts has coached under Don Holtry for over 20 years at West HS. He wrestled at West HS for Fred Rowland on the 1969 State Championship team and later at Utah State University. He has published a number of articles on fishing and other outdoor topics in various magazines and newsletters. He and his wife Karen live in Salt Lake City.