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Joey Miller: Not Your Ordinary 12-Year-Old

Colleen Bittner 1/9/2001
is BellaOnline's WOMEN ATHLETES Host

Joey Miller had undoubtedly received countless Christmas presents before. But none that changed her life so much as the one her older brother gave her when she was five years old. That Christmas morning several years ago Joey unwrapped a pair of wrestling shoes. She wore those shoes throughout the early stages of her wrestling career, including the Oklahoma Kids State Championship.
Joey was the first girl to ever win the Oklahoma Kids State Championship. This captured the attention of a reporter, and eventually earned her a spot on Inside Edition. Joey lists this as her favorite wrestling moment.

Now 12 years old, Miller only practices one and a half hours a day, three days a week. This is considerably less than most children serious about sports practice, but it seems to be working. She is a happy, confident young woman with hobbies outside of sports. "I like to hangout with my friends," Joey told me. "I like football, and I play with my animals.” Joey has a dog and a cat. She wishes she could practice more, though. "I usually practice on my own at my house when I can."

Many parents biggest worry about putting their child in sports is that it will hurt them emotionally. But it has done the opposite for Joey. She thinks that wrestling has been good for her. "My parents said I was a crybaby before I started wrestling. Now I am more confident. I now know that you have to pass to play (Wrestle) so I work hard to make good grades in school."

Joey knows loosing is hard, but over time she has come to handle it better. She says she now handles loosing, "Sometimes good and sometimes bad. I know when I don't do my best...its my fault when I loose and it makes me cry." But she says that the loss only makes her work harder the next time.

Joey's older brother and sister are proud of their sibling's success, as are her parents. "As a parent she makes me proud at the commitment she shows toward wrestling." Her father told me. "She likes to practice, and sets goals for herself that a lot of kids wouldn't have the heart for."

Being one of few girls in a sport can be challenging, but Joey welcomes the challenge with open arms. She wrestles both girls and boys, and isn't afraid to beat either. Her advice for a girl wanting to wrestle?

"Don't wrestle because you are a girl, do it because you want to wrestle. Practice hard and learn technique. You don't have to be the strongest if you have good technique. Plus if you want to wrestle in the World arena... freestyle."

You can check out Joey Miller's web page at www.wrestlegirl.com

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Just 1 of the guys’: Tricia Alsager is changing the look of high school wrestling

December 30, 2000

BY TREVOR FREEZE
STAFF WRITER

You got beat by a girl?

The words cut straight to the bone of any male ego.

Forget all the mama jokes. Name calling. Heritage bashing. Take any cheapshot you want at a wrestler’s form, his skill, his desire to win and you will never, ever come close to insulting him by using these six simple words.

It may look like a question. But there’s certainly no answer.

You got beat by a girl!

Tricia Alsager has heard it before.

After all, she is a girl. She’s a wrestler. And she puts boys in their place on a regular basis, leaving them speechless, embarrassed, looking for somewhere to hide.

She oftentimes pins them in less than a minute.

"They can’t look her in the eye (after the match)," said Todd Hibbard, Tricia’s coach at St. Lucie West Centennial. "It’s tough to shake hands with her.

"She’ll take off her headgear and her hair falls down and they realize they just got beat by a girl. Reality sets in."

And it sets in hard. Reality in wrestling has always included some of the most bizarre methods in all of athletics: Spitting in a can to cut that last pound; stripping down naked to make weight; chowing down minutes later to build lost energy.

But nothing compares, and nothing prepares a high school boy for this. And perhaps nothing ever will.

You got beat by a girl ...

"They get mad when they lose," Tricia said. "They just look down at the mat and walk away."

And there’s nothing left to say. Not to their teammates, not to their coach.

Just to themself: I can’t believe I just got beat by a girl.

But wait.

This isn’t just any girl. Short of Xena and maybe a few of her cousins, it takes something extraordinary in a woman to conquer a man in a sport where brute strength is so viable.

It takes power from within.

This is what separates Tricia from so many girls who try out for the boys wrestling team and break a nail. If a coach could package what’s inside this unique Port St. Lucie 15-year-old, they would do so in liquid form, and make all the boys drink it daily like a glass of Ovaltine.

Some would call it an inner fortitude. Others see it as inner strength.

But there has to be some explanation how this 103-pound, 5-foot-1 sophomore has started off 9-4 against all-male competition.

There has to be some way to justify her three pins within 33 seconds.

Or is there?

"INNER TOUGHNESS’

Those who know Tricia best, have a theory on her unusual success.

All it takes is a quick stroll down memory lane to realize that beating a boy on a mat is not all that much of a challenge in her grand scheme.

At least in this game, there’s a referee.

Tricia hasn’t been so fortunate.

She won’t complain or use it as a crutch, but the odds have been against her from day one.

Born into a household of drugs, Tricia, her three older sisters and three younger brothers split their childhood being raised by their grandmother Betty Motes in White City, before being placed into a foster home six years ago.

But at Christmas of 1998, everything changed when Gretchen and John Alsager entered the picture.

Two years ago, the Alsagers adopted Tricia and Sylvia, now 16, and have since adopted all three younger brothers: Brian, 14, Jason, 13 and Austin, 11, making it a happy family of nine. The Alsagers already had two children, their biological daughter, Amber, 15, and Jessica, 6, adopted when she was 2 days old.

"I feel like it’s my real family," Tricia said. "It was nice knowing where you were going to be when you woke up."

Although everyone still calls her Tricia, she changed her official name at the adoption to Aidan McKalay-Marie Alsager.

What hasn’t changed is her inner strength.

"She has an inner toughness being through the foster care system," her mom, Gretchen Alsager, said. "She has an inner strength that’s tough to get without being through what she’s been through.

"No one’s going to mess with her. I wouldn’t mess with her. She’s going to take care of herself."

"ONE OF THE GUYS’ Þ

The question seemed simple enough, but in one answer Tricia revealed her true identity.

If Centennial had a girls’ wrestling team, would you join it?

"I’d rather wrestle with the guys," she said, trying hard not to apologize for her answer. "I think I learn better techniques working against guys."

And there you have it. End of story.

This is the exact mentality that makes her as much part of the team as any person with testosterone.

"She’s just one of the guys," said sophomore, 119-pounder Beau Pearson, who wrestles against Tricia in practice. "She’s tough. She’s confident."

But stacked up against the average guy, she loses the muscle war.

"Wrestling’s really not strength, but if you know technique," said another practice partner, 112-pound senior Bryan Hirsch. "She’s pretty strong for a girl."

All it takes is one hand shake to realize Tricia does not belong to the Dead Fish Handshake Society. But still, most guys will walk away with a bench press contest with a female equal.

"Nine times out of 10, she’s outmuscled," Hibbard said. "But it doesn’t matter if you wait for the right opportunity.

"She has excellent technique. She’s very patient. It’s amazing to watch her. They generally score first and then she waits for the right opportunity. She lies in wait like a vulture."

And in practice, Tricia doesn’t get any royal treatment.

"She’s very strong, does all the pushups, all the workouts, she cuts weight," Hibbard said. "It’s great, because she’s like one of the guys in practice and on the bus."

"ALL EYES ARE ON HER’ Þ

They all line up to watch.

They’ve heard about her before, but never witnessed it.

A girl beating a boy?

Something like this must be seen with your own eyes.

"They all line up at the edge of the mat to watch her beat boys," Hibbard said.

Almost as if it’s the middle of a three-ring circus, or at the very least, the guy swallowing fire.

"All eyes are on her," Hirsch said. "She surprises everybody at the tournaments."

But the name Tricia Alsager is starting to catch on throughout the state, certainly in this wrestling region. The word is out.

She doesn’t wrestle like a girl.

"I heard one guy from Vero say "I told you she was a lot tougher than she looks,’ " her mom said. "She did get punched in the mouth and scratched in the eye (two weeks ago), but she never whines."

Tricia knows that there cannot be two sets of rules when it comes to this sport. She wouldn’t want it that way.

"I think I’ve gotten a lot of respect from the guys, just from the effort I’ve put in," she said. "I don’t want them to treat me different than anyone else."

Sometimes, she can feel them go easy.

"They think they’re going to win so they get sloppy," she said. "I think, they get nervous when the wrestle a girl."

"SEX IS IRRELEVANT’ Þ

Tricia’s story would qualify as unusual in most any sport. But in wrestling, where grabbing and rubbing, sweating and tugging happen as nothing more than an afterthought, this clash of the sexes would seem to create some awkward moments.

Surprisingly, no.

"It happens," Tricia admits. "They’ll touch whatever, but they’re not doing it on purpose.

"When I’m on the mat, the guys consider me one of the guys. You don’t think about anything except going out there and winning."

Even from a boy’s perspective, it’s remarkably true. The topic, of course, cannot be broached without a few suppressed smiles and embarrassing laughs, but mixing genders on the mat, doesn’t lead to mischief.

"Sex is irrelevant on the mat," Pearson said. "You’re just out there trying to win."

Regardless, the possibility of an unwelcome hand here or there, from either side, is said to keep many girls away from the sport. "A lot of girls don’t want to (wrestle boys)," Vero Beach boys and girls wrestling coach Wayne Ivey said. "But a lot of girls don’t have a problem with it. It’s usually the boys that have a problem with it."

Even a mother can attest to an absence of foul play.

"I think anymore, once you get started, they don’t look at her as a girl anymore," Gretchen said. "She’s a wrestler."

"IT’S GETTING MORE PROMINENT’ Þ

Girls’ wrestling.

Try saying it to yourself a few times. Doesn’t exactly flow off the tongue.

But it may soon.

In fact, there’s been quite a push for the sport in Florida and just a few miles up the Treasure Coast, Vero Beach High School has started a girls wrestling team, which practices separate from the boys, and competes strictly with their own kind.

"Most coaches don’t like girls wrestling against boys," Ivey said. "It’s not so much that they don’t like it, but generally the girl doesn’t."

The evolution of girls wrestling at Vero Beach started, essentially, with a freshman named Kimberly Davidson, who competed with the boys team from 1995-99.

Lori Bowers was actually the first girl wrestler at Vero, but Davidson started the revolution. Davidson never earned a varsity letter, but is now helping girls at Vero earn one as the assistant girls’ wrestling coach.

"What was a big push with me is that I had one girl who was putting everything she had into it," Ivey said of his inaugural girls team that started with 15 girls and now has 11. "It’s gives girls another program to participate in. All girls are at the varsity level.

"And it’s getting more prominent at the national level. A lot of colleges have all-girls teams."

According to a 2000 survey done by the National Federation of State High School Associations, 734 high schools fielded a girls wrestling team, compared to 9,046 guys. On a head count, girls make up roughly one-tenth (2,474) of the guys competing (239,105) in the contact sport.

And in Florida, an unofficial state championship has been held the past two years as an "invitational" in the Orlando area, where girls wrestling started a big push.

Still, girls’ wrestling is far from being sanctioned by the Florida High School Athletics Association.

"We don’t have a state series," said Gary Pigott of the FHSAA. "You have to show a natural progression. You don’t all of a sudden have a state championship out of the blue.

While girls wrestling is popular in certain pockets of the state, it takes a minimum of 48 participating high schools (9 percent) representing a blanket interest for the FHSAA to even consider it.

Schools that offer girls wrestling can still take advantage of it in the Title IX gender-equity count.

"It takes establishing the sport not only on a regional level, but on a state-wide level," Pigott said, noting water polo is the next sport on the horizon to be sanctioned. "Basically, you have to go through two-to-three years for the sanctioning process."

"THE HEART OF THE TEAM’ Þ

Tricia will be the first to admit, girls wrestling with a boys team isn’t for everyone.

Somehow, she finds a way to do it, on top of cheerleading for football, basketball, and yes, her own wrestling team. A quick change of clothes has her back on the edge of the mat shortly after her 103 match.

Even someone with the grit of Tricia has been tempted to give it up. Sure, she has an unthinkable goal of reaching the boys’ state tournament, just as Gainesville High School’s Miriam Jenkins did two years ago with a 31-9 record.

But, honestly, there are other things a teenage girl can do with her time. Homework. Movies. Boyfriends ...

Quitting the sport would mean, well, quitting on her Centennial teammates. And Tricia’s not about to give up on anyone. She knows that feeling all too well.

"I was going to quit," she said. "But everyone came up and said "You can’t quit. You’re the heart of this team."

The heart and soul.