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Female advances to Alaska state wrestling tourney

Feb. 15, 2000 6:02 p.m. ET
By Charles Bingham
Alaska Sports Online

Skyview High junior Melina Hutchison had an unlucky early draw in her attempt to become the first female wrestler to win a medal at Alaska's state tournament.
Hutchison did win her first-round match with a 15-0 technical fall. But she drew eventual 112-pound state champion Junior Valladolid of Kodiak in the second round and was dropped to the consolation bracket by a 10-1 major decision. Hutchison, whose older brother Zeb won two state titles, was eliminated in the consolation bracket to finish her second state tournament with her second straight 1-2 record.

"I might as well face him [Valladolid] early, if I have to face him at all," Hutchison told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Hutchison is the only female wrestler to qualify for a state tournament, but she's not the only female wrestler in Alaska. Juneau-Douglas High sophomore Amanda Krafft and Homer High wrestler Tela O'Donnell both represented their schools in their respective region tournaments, even though neither made the Class 4A state tournament. Several other females wrestle at the Class 1A-2A-3A level, but no female has ever qualified for that state tourney.

With eight siblings all involved in wrestling, Hutchison had to be tough just to get through the family bouts in the living room. Hutchison, whose father Mike coaches the state's female wrestling team, is a two-time women's national champion and a two-time winner at the World Championships team tryouts. She also took second place last summer at the World Championships in Lodz, Poland.

"I wish there was [a few more female wrestlers at state]," Hutchison said. "And there will be when my sister [Michaela] gets old enough."

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Salutes: Honoring Young Athletes

Detroit News 7/15/2000

Brandy Rosenbrock
East Detroit
Sport: Wrestling.
Year / GPA: Fr. / 2.63.
Favorite class: English.
Favorite movie: The Wizard of Oz.
Sports hero: Tricia Saunders, a five-time USA Wrestling gold medalist in freestyle.
Role model: Parents, Kim and Tom Miller.
Recreation: Rollerskating.
Goal: Make the first U.S. women's wrestling team for 2004 Olympics.
Achievement: Rosenbrock, who wrestles at 123 pounds, won her weight class June 3 at Battle Creek in the Cadet World Team Trials, making the team for the Pan American Championships from July 16-24 in Lima, Peru. She was freshman wrestler of the year at East Detroit with a 15-11 record. Her team was 12-1 and won the Macomb Area Conference White Division.

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Beth-Center female makes history by qualifying for WPIAL tournament
Malissa Mort wrestles Dustin Markovich from Avella High School at
Bethlehem-Center on Senior Night.

By Leann Junker
TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Randy and Connie Mort figured if their sons could wrestle, so could their
daughter.

As coaches of the midget wrestling squad, the couple took all three of their
children to the practices and meets and weren't surprised when they noticed
their 4-year-old daughter Malissa taking an interest in the sport.

"It really didn't bother us at all," said Randy Mort.

The youngster's interest turned into more than just a passing fancy.

"She was always given a choice every year," said Connie Mort, remembering
her daughter favored cheerleading over wrestling in fifth and sixth grades.

"When she hit varsity, I was real nervous. I was afraid she was going to get
hurt," said Connie Mort. "There have been times when I've given out screams
at matches. The boys basically wrestle her just like another wrestler and
we've lucked out - no injuries with her like her older brother."

Aside from an injured ankle, Malissa Mort has experienced a very rewarding
wrestling career at Bethlehem-Center High School.

The 16-year-old of Fredericktown enjoys wrestling because "you can't blame
anyone else for what you do wrong."

Some might say she's competing in a boy's sport, but Malissa Mort doesn't
feel that way.

"I'm used to it," she said. "I don't see any difference in wrestling with a
guy because that's what I grew up with."

She feels her community, school and coach Joe Kuhns have supported her
decision to be a part of the team. Occasionally she'll experience some
animosity from a competitor, but not as a matter of course.

Malissa Mort began her wrestling career at age 4.
"Some of the guys don't appreciate girls being there," she said. "I get some
looks sometimes."

"The acceptance in this area for her on the mat has been outstanding," said
Randy Mort. "There's never been a kid who took a fit because he had to
wrestle her or refused to wrestle or anything else."

Anyone who doubted Malissa Mort's ability was proven wrong last month when
the 5-foot, 120-pound junior became the first girl to make it to the WPIAL
wrestling championships.

She advanced by defeating Brian Gildea of Brownsville in the consolation
finals. Mort trailed 6-4 when she used a power-half and exposed Gildea's
back to the mat for a 3-point nearfall and a 7-6 victory.

Her advancement to the championships ended in bittersweet feelings when she
lost to two wrestlers.

"I was disappointed," said Malissa Mort.

"I could understand how she felt," said her mom. "She felt she made it that
far, then let everybody down. I kept telling her, `No you didn't.' I said
nobody can ever take away what you've accomplished so far."

An honor roll student, Mort has quite a competitive spirit.

"I don't like losing," says Mort who won freestyle states for girls a few
years ago.

"We've been proud of everything she's done," said Randy Mort, adding his
daughter has also done well in volleyball and track.

Athletes themselves in high school, Randy and Connie Mort encouraged their
children to be active in sports.

"Every kid in town came here," said Connie Mort, remembering her back yard
became a football or baseball field from time to time. "We wanted to be
there for our kids."

The living room carpet in their home is more commonly known as the wrestling
mat when the kids begin to roughhouse, added Connie Mort.

Citing a decline in participants in the sport of wrestling, Randy Mort says
he feels there's "too much Nintendo."

"In my opinion, kids are lazier now. It's a very, very hard sport, and the
kids just don't seem to want to do it," he said.

Malissa Mort can attest to the challenges she's faced as a wrestler.

Her next obstacle will be to get her weight down to 103.

Unlike most of her male counterparts, Mort has dropped a weight class each
year in the past few seasons.

She stresses sensible weight loss over a period of time rather than taking
extreme measures to cut weight. She believes in exercising and eating right
to achieve her goals.

In addition to reaching her ideal weight class, Mort will work on
strengthening her ankle. Matt Vogel, the trainer for sports at her school,
has helped her progress, but she hurt her ankle again at sections.

The season is winding down for most high school wrestlers, but Mort will be
competing next Sunday at the girls state tournament.

She hopes to make it to the WPIAL competition next year and she looks
forward to a day when there will be separate wrestling teams for boys and
girls.

If that happens, Mort says, "More girls will come out and do it, I think."

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Girl feels dismissal from wrestling team was bias

Teri Vance 1/15/2000

Girls in wrestling is nothing new. They have been competing in the sport for years now. But coaches are still struggling to pin down the most effective way to integrate them into the sport.

Suzanne Kivi, sophomore and varsity wrestler at Reno High School, said she believes the coach and other wrestlers have accepted her as a wrestler.

However, Trista Harker, sophomore, and Shayleena Olson, freshman, of Dayton High School said they felt they were discriminated against and were kicked off of the wrestling team because they were girls.

"The coach has given them nothing but grief," said Terri Schlidt, Harker's mother.

Jeff Tomac, a guidance counselor and Kivi's coach at Reno High School, said he has coached a girl on his team five out of his six years.

He said it can be difficult to coach a girl if she's not serious about the sport.

"I've had girls in there for all the wrong reasons," he said. "They just want to be around the boys."

However, he said that Kivi, who so far is undefeated in conference matches, is a serious wrestler.

"She's a wrestler and acts like a wrestler," he said. "She's not a girl when she's out there wrestling."

Harker said she is also serious about the sport.

She began wrestling at 9 years old, while living in Colorado, and wrestled through junior high where she competed on a state level.

Her family moved to Stagecoach when she was in eighth grade and, as a freshman, she decided to take a break and did not join the wrestling team.

This year, she decided to wrestle again but said she was told by the coach that she would need to find a girl to practice with because she could not wrestle against the boys in practice.

Her mother thought that was not appropriate.

"She's a team member," Schlidt said. "She should be able to practice with the guys."

However, Harker recruited her friend, Olson, to join the team to practice with her.

Olson said she was wary at first but grew to enjoy the sport.

"I started to really like it," Olson said. "I even picked up my grades so I could stay on the team."

After Christmas break, however, Olson said the coach told her she could no longer be on the team because she had missed too many practices - a reason she thought was invalid.

This month, Harker was also removed from the team for an altercation between two team members who she was dating.

She had received one warning in December to keep her social life away from the team.

Dayton County School District officials said they did not want to discuss individual disciplinary actions against students, but Jim Bennet, Dayton High School wrestling coach, said proper protocol was followed.

"It's two strikes and you're out on my team," he said.

Tomac said he will not tolerate dating among members of the team.

"I have enough to deal with in my room," he said. "I guarantee you they wouldn't be dating on my team."

However, it is not always easy to determine when behavior crosses the line.

Tomac said that on occasion, he has had to discuss with Kivi what behavior is acceptable at the meets.

"She's lost focus a couple of times," he said.

Kivi sees it differently.

"Everybody tells me I'm a big flirt," she said. "I see it as joking around."

She added that when she wrestles, she does not see her opponent as a boy.

"When I'm sent to a tournament, I'm sent to do a job," she said. "That job is to wrestle, not check out guys."

Harker said she also focuses on the sport and not on the boys.

"It is not a sexual thing," she said.

Harker's mother said that even if Harker were guilty of crossing the line, so were the two boys and they should have been reprimanded as well.

"That's not my daughter's fault that these boys can't get their heads together," she said. "When you've got a team, you've got to control it."

Aside from the romantic aspect, Tomac said that boys and girls also have fundamental differences in the way they communicate.

He said that as a coach, he is used to shouting orders from the side of the mat and the wrestlers just do as he says.

"When you yell from the edge of the mat, you expect an immediate response," he said.

However, he said that girls will look back at him to ask questions or to get an explanation.

"They want to discuss it instead of just hear it," he said.

He said that Kivi is not so much like the other girls.

"She's as close to being coached like a guy like I've ever had," he said. "I enjoy having her around."

Harker said that her coach did not coach her from the side of the mat but walked away during her matches.

Despite the obstacles, girls said they enjoy wrestling as a sport.

"Sometimes I stop and ask myself why I do it," Kivi said. "I don't know, it's just part of my life."

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Women with a will

by Brenda Webb/Tribune Staff Writer

ONAWAY - Faces taut with effort, two wrestling opponents of equal weight struggle to maintain or escape holds as their teammates shout encouragement.

Finally, the buzzer sounds the end of the six-minute match, and the Onaway wrestler has lost on points, 8-4.

Although it is not a victory, first-year wrestler Elyssa Hughes has heeded her coach's strategy of going for points and not a pin.

Adjusting her style to make up for any strength disadvantages is the idea, because Hughes and teammate Helana Rhein are the first girls to wrestle for Onaway High School, and their opponents are usually boys.

"We try to get them to be more of a technician to wrestle for points, rather than trying for pins all the time," said long-time Cardinals head coach Dick Dunn.

Pinning opponents requires more strength, he said.

However, it's not until wrestlers get up to about the 145-pound weight classes that boys are noticeably stronger, Dunn said. For example, a girl at another school made it to the state finals last year in a lower weight class.

"Strength-wise, a lot of times in the lower weights, some of the girls have been able to compete pretty good," he said.

Rhein wrestles at 112 pounds, and last week Hughes wrestled in the 103-pound weight class.

Rhein feels one either has to be more knowledgable and able to anticipate opponents' moves, or one has to be stronger than them to be successful in wrestling, she said.

"If you're not stronger than them, then you've just gotta be faster than them, I guess," said Rhein. "The flexibility is a big thing, because I've had a lot of guys, after I wrestle, say I'm really flexible."

She is sometimes able to get out of holds they didn't expect because of flexibility, she said.

"When me and Helana go against another person or even against each other, if she shoots on me (goes for a take-down) before I anticipate it, then I'm down on my back before I know it," said Hughes.

Other than about a month last year in which Hughes tried wrestling, this is the first year both girls have been involved in the sport. Rhein dabbled in it in the sixth grade.

Hughes, who is a senior, also runs track, and Rhein, a junior, runs track and cross-country.

Rhein has two brothers on the wrestling team, and both girls have friends who wrestle.

"It's all around us," Hughes said.

Rhein decided to try wrestling to experience a different sport, and to challenge herself, she said. She didn't realize how hard a sport wrestling is.

"It requires a lot of dedication, getting into shape," Hughes said. "Wrestling is the toughest."

To wrestle, one has to be in much better shape than in the other sports Hughes has participated in, she said.

"First of all, you wrestle against guys, and a lot of it is nobody expects you to do well and you have to go out there and do better than everyone expects," she said.

Another challenge is making weight, said Hughes, who has a record of 9-19. It seems to be easier for guys to lose weight than girls.

"A guy can lose five pounds in one day, and me and Helana, it takes us like five days to lose five pounds," she said.

It's gotten easier as the season has progressed, Rhein said. Wearing sweat belts and lots of clothing, and running and jumping rope are the traditional weight-loss methods of wrestlers.

"It's like a constant challenge; it's like a battle," Hughes said.

Rhein and Hughes have an excellent work ethic, said Dunn.

"They have good attitudes," he said. "They've won a few matches. They've taken their lumps, too. But they've taken them well. They're right back there every practice and they work hard every night. They're real coachable, really."

Both Hughes and Rhein have had family members who weren't supportive early on, they said. Their teammates now are all supportive.

"Most of the guys were okay with it," said Rhein, who has a record of 11-22, including some victories by pins.

Boys on the team don't seem to be bothered by the presence of Rhein and Hughes, Dunn said.

"They razz them a little bit at practice, but when they're wrestling against somebody else, they're behind them 100 percent," he said.

Most of their opponents are pretty good about having to wrestle girls, said Hughes.

"Mostly they say it's like bad either way, because if you wrestle a girl and you lose, it's bad, they get teased," she said.

And if the boy wins, then it's diminished because he only beat a girl, Hughes said.

"I think guys are nervous to wrestle girls because we're shaped different," she said.

Some of them might be worried about hurting them because they're girls, said Rhein.

When girls first started wrestling around the state at the high school level, some people were leery, said Dunn. That's changed.

"There've been so many (girls), the boys, they just go wrestle them," he said. "I'm sure there are some that are a little shaky about going after them."

Having girls on the team is definitely different, Dunn said. At meets, they have to be in another lockerroom than the rest of the team, but most schools are good about having a separate space for them.

Rhein has wrestled against one girl in a meet, an experienced wrestler on Grayling's team, she said. She lost that match, and would prefer wrestling guys.

"Some people look down at us," said Hughes. "They say we want to go out on the mat for other stupid reasons. It gets irritating sometimes."

Wrestlers are too busy trying to win their match to think about anything else, she said.

"People say a guy's going to grab you, but you don't have time," Hughes said. "If they go to grab you, they're going to get pinned, and a guy doesn't want to get pinned."

Dunn has heard some comments from parents that girls shouldn't be wrestling, he said. And he has had concerns of his own about girls and boys wrestling one another.

"You cannot avoid getting in compromising positions sometimes - it's impossible - maybe even embarrassing positions as they get put on their backs," said Dunn.

Also, the Cardinals have been to a couple tournaments in which matches were so competitive he was really worried that Hughes and Rhein might get hurt, he said.

"I think they do, over the long haul of the season, get more beat up than the boys do, because of mismatches," Dunn said. "They never complain about it. It's a tough sport."

But both Hughes and Rhein say wrestling is their favorite sport.

"It's different, every time," said Hughes. "It's one-on-one, so you have to anticipate the whole individual's technique. And everybody's technique is different."

"The best thing about it is when you pin the guy and you hear the whistle blow," Rhein said. "The season's almost over, and I wish it had just begun."

Wrestling is a great sport for building self-esteem and confidence, because of the one-on-one competition, said Dunn.

The Cardinals, who were 11-7-1 going into last week's meet with Tawas and Mio, will participate in the Division IV Team District Tournament Wednesday and Thursday in Rogers City, and individual districts on Feb. 19.

Hughes and Rhein will compete in those events, and they will also compete in the girls districts, an event not sanctioned by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.

Prequalifying for the girls districts is not required, because there aren't enough girls who wrestle to make it a necessity, said Hughes.

"I guess I'd like to see more girls do it," she said.

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Female Athletes Race Forward

By Rachel Alexander and Liz Clarke
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 29, 2000; Page A01

SYDNEY, Sept. 28 –– Tara Nott tried to be one of those little girls in ponytails, tumbling around the gymnastics floor. She tried to be a soccer player, racing across the field until her knees were checkered with bruises and grass stains.

Tara Nott wanted to be an Olympian, so as she grew up in Kansas in the late 1970s and early '80s, she tried to play the sports they told her girls were supposed to play. But her 5-foot-1 frame wasn't nimble enough for the uneven bars or commanding enough for cleats, and after years of hearing how close she had been to making whatever team she tried out for, she gave up and took a desk job at the 1996 Atlanta Games. She figured it was the closest she'd ever come to wearing an Olympic uniform.

Four years older, a bit wiser and a little heavier now that she has a gold medal for weightlifting dangling from her neck, Nott is one of a wave of women at the Sydney Olympics showing how conventional definitions of female athletes have expanded as women excel in traditional sports while also testing themselves in 23 events added this year.

"Before now, the opportunity wasn't there, so I didn't think any of this was possible," Nott said, squeezing her medal with red-lacquered fingernails until her biceps bulged. "I didn't know what I could do."

There seemingly are few limits remaining for women in the Olympics. They have defied age--Dara Torres, 33, retired from swimming for seven years, came back and won five medals as part of the United States' barrage in the pool, and Maureen O'Toole, 39, led the women's water polo team to a surprising silver medal.

Stereotypes regarding strength and build have been put to rest. Stacey Dragila won the first gold medal awarded a woman in pole vaulting, a sport that used to be considered too difficult for women because of their weaker upper bodies. Weightlifting in particular has been a study in contrasts, as the 105-pound, 26-year-old Nott skipped her medal ceremony in order to watch her 307-pound teammate, Cheryl Haworth, a 17-year-old high school junior, win a bronze medal.

According to sports sociologist Richard Lapchick, the range of sports on display at this Olympics, and the body sizes of the athletes involved, is particularly important to young girls.

"That has not only caught the imagination of people you would expect, but those you wouldn't--little girls all across the country are seeing a body type that usually our culture says they shouldn't aspire to but now is being held up as that of a role model," said Lapchick, director of the Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sports in Society.

"This is a reflection of the way the women's sports movement has cut a wide path for things that the general sports culture wouldn't have dreamed about even five or 10 years ago. All the people who reacted with horror when Title IX was passed 29 years ago and thought it was going to be horrible for women's bodies--well, look how strong these women are. It's been quite the opposite."

Women's team sports were the major success story of the Atlanta Games and continued to make progress in Sydney as the rest of the world began to catch up. The U.S. soccer team, Women's World Cup winner a year ago, settled for the silver medal today after a 3-2 loss to Norway. The vaunted softball team, winner of 112 straight games, lost three in a row--then turned around and beat all three of those teams to win the gold again. The women's basketball team has advanced to the medal round in Sydney, but not by blowout scores. And at this Games, the women's teams in water polo (silver medal) and volleyball (playing for the bronze) have joined in.

But there has been more emphasis at these Games on individual athletes, none moreso than Marion Jones, whose boldly stated quest for five gold medals has been the most dramatic continual storyline of the Games. Jones won her second gold Thursday night (Thursday morning EDT) in the 200 meters, with the long jump--her weakest event--and two relays to go.

From the magazine covers and Nike commercials littered with images of Jones and Australia's Cathy Freeman, the Aborigine who won gold in the 400 meters and inspired and unified a nation, it is hard sometimes to remember how slow the Olympic movement has been to embrace women's sports. Women were banned from the first modern Games in 1896, and even once that prohibition was lifted in 1900, women competed only in tennis and golf.

The first women's Olympic basketball game wasn't played until 1976, the first women's marathon wasn't run until 1984 and women didn't send the first softball and soccer balls flying until 1996. In these Games, less than 40 percent of the athletes are women.

Still, the 2000 Olympics has emphasized women more genuinely than even the Atlanta Games, starting with a parade of Australian female athletes carrying the torch around the Olympic Stadium before Freeman lighted the giant cauldron during the Opening Ceremonies. Women are competing in new events such as trampolining and duet synchronized swimming that continue to emphasize artistry, but they are also matching raw strength and stamina in sports such as triathlon, taekwondo, water polo and weightlifting.

Only two sports, boxing and wrestling, do not offer a parallel competition for women, and from now on, under a mandate from the International Olympic Committee, new sports seeking admission to the Olympics must include women's events. The edict represents a major shift from just three years ago, when Australia's female water polo players dressed in their headgear and swimsuits to lead a picket line at the Sydney airport as Olympic officials arrived, hoping to spur their inclusion here.

Those women knew exactly how crucial it was to get into the Games--being named to the Olympics can completely change the texture of a sport, giving it the kind of credibility it could never achieve otherwise.

"When we won the gold medal in 1996, people were so captivated, and it was amazing how all of a sudden we were recognized by corporate America with endorsements, speeches," said Dot Richardson, the 39-year-old second baseman on the U.S. women's softball team. "They had tried to do a professional league before, but it never really worked until after softball was in the Olympics. The growth of the sport in the last four years has been incredible."

Seeing certain sports in the Olympics also shakes up the public perception of what women can do. Richardson, who is a surgeon, likes to tell the story of her own march through high school athletics, when she regularly heard "you're not supposed to be good, and if you are, you must not really be a girl or you must not like boys." She compares her experiences to that of her teenage niece, who is both a weightlifting champion and a prom queen.

Sometimes, though, it is women themselves who have to be shown exactly how capable they are. Women used to stay away from the pole vault, feeling they didn't have the upper body strength to get over the bar, and even when Dragila took up the sport seven years ago, she didn't think women would ever be able to jump over 13 feet. Now, standard jumps are 15 feet and climbing, and Dragila believes that the sport's popularity at these Games will likely inspire young girls to ask for a turn at the pole vault in their high school gym classes.

"The dream becomes realistic," soccer player Julie Foudy said. "For a lot of us who grew up watching different sports on television, there was never women's soccer in the Olympics. [But now] that dream becomes something very tangible, and they're watching women like themselves do things that they can do. So I think that gives them great hope."

Foudy and Dragila are among those who have taken on the delivery of this kind of hope as a personal mission, perhaps recognizing the profound effect sports can have on the development of young girls. Studies have shown that American female high school athletes are less likely to get pregnant, less likely to smoke and less likely to commit suicide than their more stagnant counterparts, and 80 percent of women leaders in Fortune 500 companies say they played sports as children.

In the U.S., the driving force behind the changing landscape of women's sports has indeed been Title IX, a 1972 decree that put legal force behind the doctrine of equal opportunity on the playing field for boys and girls. In other countries, the Olympics continues to be one of the sole sources of inspiration for women, especially in places where the political and social culture is dominated by men.

"Women's soccer has always been an anomaly," Foudy said. "In other countries, it's always been a man's sport, dominated by a male culture. And so I think it's great for other countries to see us playing, that it's entertaining and that other women can actually play.

"You come over here and you're educating people. . . . Every corner of the world is watching women's soccer. In a lot of different places, it's almost taboo that women are playing, but I hope this changes some attitudes. The Olympics are the perfect environment for that to happen."

Perfect may be a bit of a stretch--even in these enlightened Olympics, men still compete in more events, and in many countries, they still dominate media coverage even when out-performed by their female counterparts. To tennis legend Billie Jean King, who is coaching the U.S. women's tennis team here, the Olympic movement hasn't come nearly far enough in its treatment of women, although she recognizes that the opportunities doled out at these Games will likely spur unprecedented growth.

"Women's sport is in its infancy, absolutely in its infancy," King said. "Do you know how funny it's going to look 20 years from now when you look at women's basketball? It's going to look absolutely antiquated, just like tennis in my era does now. We look hysterical compared to the way they play today.

"Whenever we get to 50-50, we will be in the right place. It's a no-brainer, really. People always say, well, the women are not as good. That's true, but we are very young in our history. Men have had opportunities for so many more years. This is just the start of ours."