Oregon

Posted: Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
BY: Kathleen Carter


Waldport Chapter AARP President Chuck Johnston awards Waldport High School senior Misty Corwin the Citizen of the Month Award.

Last Thursday, May 15, the Waldport chapter of AARP had its luncheon, when they habitually award a deserving resident with the Citizen of the Month Award.

This month’s recipient was a little different than those to whom the award is usually given; the winner of the award for May is a local high school student.

“Not often does this award get bestowed on a student,” said Chuck Johnston, president of the Waldport Chapter AARP. “This is quite a rare occurrence, but then Misty Corwin is an unusual person.”

Corwin had been summoned from Waldport High School to report to the Senior Center, unaware of why her presence was being requested. When she walked into the community room, not only were the AARP members present, but her parents were also in attendance.

Corwin was called to the podium, where Johnston spoke of her accomplishments and gave her the award.

“She’s an amazing young woman,” concluded Johnston at the end of his speech. “And what’s truly unbelievable is that she has done so much, while carrying a 4.0 grade average.”

Some of Corwin’s academic achievements include her 4.0 GPA, passing AP exams in English and history, and achieving a score of 1800 of her SAT. A few of her extracurricular activities have been four years in the Key Club, including serving as president and vice president, four years in Student Council, also serving as president, Young Life, the Recycling Club, Honor Society and the Tsunami Committee.

Corwin is best-known locally in the sports arena. The talented athlete has worked four years in track and field, four years in cross country, and two years in both basketball and wrestling, winning numerous awards in track and wrestling.

Corwin’s wrestling statistics are especially impressive: she was the first female ever to place in wrestling in the state of Oregon. She recently competed in the USGWA Women’s Wrestling Nationals and won both first- and third-place titles. In USA Wrestling she won another first, in free style.

Corwin is a senior this year and will graduate from WHS in a few weeks. She has many fans in Waldport who are eager to see this local superstar continue to make history as she pursues her studies and athletics through her college years.

Women's wrestling on rise

Growth has come among smaller colleges

By KATIE THOMAS
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Women's wrestling teams are sprouting in the most unlikely places.

Missouri Baptist University, a small Christian liberal arts institution, is starting a team this fall. Oklahoma City University, the alma mater of three Miss Americas, began a program in 2007. And Menlo College in San Francisco, which specializes in business management and where nearly two-thirds of the students are men, has had a women's team since 2001.

The growth of such an unconventional women's sport at these small, private institutions has little to do with the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX and everything to do with their bottom line. Officials at tuition-hungry colleges say women's wrestling is an untapped market of prospective students, one that has curiously been all but ignored by bigger universities.

The inclusion of women's wrestling in the Olympics in 2004 provided a huge boost to the sport's popularity and credibility. Five thousand girls nationwide wrestled in high school in the 2006-07 academic year, yet only eight colleges offer it as a varsity sport. Three of those eight programs are starting this fall.

Rosters fill up nearly as quickly as colleges create teams.

"When we can get so many girls to come here for a first-year program, that's 20 to 25 extra students who normally wouldn't have looked at Jamestown College," said Cisco Cole, the women's wrestling coach there.

Jamestown, a 1,000-student private liberal arts college in North Dakota, has one of the three new women's wrestling programs. Seventeen wrestlers, including four from Hawaii, have enrolled. Tani Ader, a three-time state champion from Honolulu, said the chance to continue wrestling propelled her across the Pacific.

"I really want to wrestle, and wrestling in college is like the first step in going to the Olympics," said Ader, who received partial athletic and academic scholarships.

Despite wrestling's growth among small colleges, there is concern over why larger institutions have not followed suit. More obscure sports like squash, synchronized swimming and archery have been officially recognized as "emerging sports" for women by the NCAA, but wrestling has not made the seven-sport list.

Pacific University in Oregon is the only NCAA member that offers varsity women's wrestling. The other varsity programs belong to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which oversees smaller colleges.

Counterintuitive as it may sound, one of the major impediments to the growth of women's wrestling at larger universities, some argue, is Title IX. Colleges have struggled for decades to ensure that female athletic participation is proportional to women's enrollment. But some critics say that the law hurts women's wrestling because it tempts colleges to bypass sports with small rosters -- wrestling typically fields about 20 to 30 women -- in favor of such sports as rowing, with teams of up to 60 members.

"The college-level development is our missing link," said Patricia Miranda, 28, who won a bronze medal in wrestling at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and hopes to compete in Beijing this summer. She competed on the men's team at Stanford. "I'm not saying it's a weak link, it's a missing link."

High school participation has increased more than threefold from a decade ago, when 1,600 girls wrestled during the 1996-97 school year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. The sport has grown fastest in Hawaii, Texas and Washington -- states that created separate state championships for girls, according to USA Wrestling, the national governing body.

Terry Steiner, USA Wrestling's women's national coach, said the prospect of the Olympics was one of the main reasons more girls were competing. "I think there's a future now," Steiner said.

Starting a new team "can bring you great, talented, hard-working kids that you wouldn't have otherwise had," said Jim Abbott, Oklahoma City University's athletic director.

Missouri Baptist hopes to attract extra attention for starting a program. "It's not like Missouri Baptist is constantly throwing out Olympic-level athletes," said Brian Jackson, the women's wrestling coach. But he recently signed Stephany Lee, who qualified for the Olympic wrestling trials in June at 158 1/2 pounds.

More high school girls participate in wrestling than in archery or equestrian, which have been officially recognized as "emerging sports" by the NCAA. At least 10 NCAA members must express interest in a program, and at least 20 must offer it as a varsity or competitive club team before a sport can be classified as emerging.

"Sometimes being on the emerging-sport list can provide momentum in and of itself," said Karen Morrison, director of gender initiatives for the NCAA. But to be considered, she added, "you really need to show us that you're on a path of steady progress."

Dale Neuberger, a consultant hired by the U.S. Olympic Committee to help persuade the NCAA to add women's wrestling to the list, said it was difficult to talk larger institutions into adding any new sport.

"It's an addition to an athletic program that is already making hard decisions as to the allocation of resources," he said.

Many in the wrestling community are all too familiar with these hard decisions. Dozens of men's teams have been eliminated over the past three decades, a phenomenon many coaches attribute to Title IX.

A handful of NCAA Division I members offer coed wrestling clubs. Women's wrestling is also available at Division II Northern Michigan, where it is not a varsity sport but is part of an Olympic training program overseen by the USOC.

Still, many wrestling coaches say they do not get enough credit for championing women. "There are groups out there trying to paint us as being an anti-woman organization," said Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association and a critic of Title IX. "Yet we're doing everything we can to promote opportunities for women."

Not everyone agrees. Michael Burch, an assistant men's coach at Brown, said many college administrators and the NCAA remain uncomfortable with having women compete in contact sports, even when they spar against each other.

"In general, there's this resistance to the personification of women as aggressive," Burch said.

Burch said he was fired by UC Davis in 2001, soon after he protested the elimination of women from the men's wrestling team. He sued the university, and the case was later settled.

"We're OK with women who can work hard and hustle out on the field," Burch said. Wrestling, he added, is "another step in the evolution of egalitarian thinking."

USA

May 28: Four Points about Newspaper Coverage

Jump to Comments

The weather’s nice and the gas prices still stink. I think I did something to my Achilles, so I’m limping around. Today’s Four Points is about media coverage …

Right now, I’m listening into Kyle Tucker and Paul White of The Virginian-Pilot are arguing Title IX with John Castleberry on 102.1 FM The Game out of Hampton Roads, Va. I’ve worked with all three on various levels. I used to call in John’s show on another radio station and Kyle and Paul are good people. Kyle’s using some stats I threw at him and he’s really doing well in winning the argument.

Gas: $3.89
Weather: 64 and nice.

Now, we’re talking about media coverage and we’ve touched on television and those contracts, but now, let’s talk about wrestling coverage as a whole.

New York Times: Women’s Wrestling coverage
I thought yesterday’s story in the New York Times was good exposure for the sport. The discussion centered on the increase in women’s participation in wrestling, but the lack of college programs nationwide. We’re looking to get the NCAA to recognize the women’s part of the sport as “emerging” so the possibility of growing the sport and solidifying the sport as a whole.

Well, Billy Baldwin, actor and former Binghamton wrestler, sent a note along and initially, I wasn’t in agreement 100 percent, but then I re-read it, and re-read it, and re-read it again.

I think pointing out women’s wrestling is indeed a factor was great for the sport and something I whole-heartedly support. As I said yesterday, I’ve been lobbying to get women’s wrestling as an emerging sport. Others are with me. I’ve queried the NCAA about it several times, but as it relates to overall coverage … Billy does have a point.

To the Editor,
Re “Women Want to Wrestle; Small Colleges Oblige” by Katie Thomas (front page May 27th)

I found your front page article on female wrestling to be insulting. I am a wrestling enthusiast and find it disrespectful that men leave their blood, sweat, and tears on the wrestling mat for decades only to be continuously ignored by the New York Times. (And the rest of the mainstream media for that matter!)

I have attended the Olympic, World, and NCAA Championships and often times cannot even find the results of these prestigious tournaments posted in the New York Times.

What I find particularly irritating and ironic is the fact that Title IX has unfairly and disproportionately decimated the ranks of NCAA wrestling from 330 Division 1 programs prior to Title IX to below 90 programs today - thus reducing your front page feature on female wrestling to a slap in the face to the men that have wrestled and fought for decades to save this great sport only to be continuously ignored.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Title IX. I am a supporter. There have been great results. Mia Hamm, Lisa Leslie, Jenny Finch and thousands of others like them. My problem is with the New York Times and how they continue to disrespect the great sport of wrestling through their lack of coverage.

What’s it gonna take to get a little ink, fellas? Perhaps if the men wrestled the women naked, that might capture your attention? C’mon, this isn’t the New York Post!!! Wake up and give the oldest and greatest sport the respect and attention that it deserves.

In the spirit of the sport,
William Baldwin
Actor
Wrestling Enthusiast

Well, Billy makes a great point. Here’s why.

I did a search for “wrestling” in the New York Times. I started August 19, 2007 … about nine or so months ago. I found a story about Guy Sako and Defense Soap on that day, but it wasn’t in the Sports section. Then I counted seven other “wrestling” stories.

There was the story from yesterday; there were two about Dustin Carter, the kid from Ohio who qualified for the state tournament without arms or legs. There was a story about Sumo wrestling and two from the WWE - one on the death of the Fabulous Moolah and another on the company suspending 10 “wrestlers.”

Oh, there was a story on Scott Winston going to Rutgers last week, but a search for “Beat the Streets” and wrestling did not return any results, even though there was a huge gala last week which raised half a million dollars at the Bowery Hotel in Manhattan.

For the New York Times, it’s great to focus on certain things, and while the women don’t get much coverage in comparison to the men within our own wrestling media, two stories about a remarkable high school kid from Ohio and New Jersey’s best wrestler hardly constitute “coverage.”

The women’s story was good and great exposure, but where’s the wrestling been all year long?

Dropping the ball on the Beat the Streets … tisk tisk.

USA Today: Another disappointment
Another recent story came on the heels of Mother’s Day. Kristie Marano’s 10-year-old daughter Kayla once received an hour piggy-back ride from yours truly. Kristie’s a gamer, a real chill individual and definitely someone who knows how to fight. Two weeks ago, this ran.

The story of the woman fighting to wrestle towards Olympic glory all the while having a 10-year-old daughter is a great human interest story. It’s story that should have been written. While Kristie’s story was again, putting wrestling on display on more doorsteps than any other publication, where was the coverage before?

Gary Mihoces has covered wrestling for USA Today for a long time. He’s a good man and a sound writer. He’ll get wrestling in as a pitch when he can, but as Mike Chapman wrote in his column in W.I.N. Magazine, USA Today missed the boat on the NCAA Division I Championships.

Chapman detailed how many editorial “inches” were given to basketball and in comparison the two inches of content given to wrestling the day after. Inches in terms of how long a story is. A 12-inch story in your local rag would be anywhere from 350-400 words - not really long at all.

Kristie’s story was the most ink wrestling has received in USA Today all year - and while I don’t have the back issues in front of me, it might be safe to assume her story was the most ink wrestling has received in USA Today all year COMBINED.

While my own dissatisfaction with Gannett News Service aside, the only thing USA Today has going for it is the rankings, which the paper lends its name to and does run on Wednesdays - depending on space. The USA Today/InterMat/NWCA Division I Coaches Poll is the only thing USA Today consistency does for wrestling, except when Mihoces gets a feature on Josh Glenn or Mark Cody through.

ESPN: The Leader in …
Unlike the USA Today, I will say ESPN has been consistent with its level of wrestling involvement, however, that involvement is actually better than it once was, but at least it’s steady.

We had the ESPNU Invitational, with its split-screen and increased live coverage of the NCAA Championships. The last two years have seen weekly features on wrestling on the (dot)com side of ESPN by Mike Rand and Andy Hamilton.

ESPNews running the rankings on the “Bottom Line” each Tuesday and Wednesday. But that’s the network and (dot)com side. We don’t see any wrestling highlights, maybe a clip of something on Top Plays once in a blue moon on SportsCenter. The only wrestling story was on Sara McMann from their magazine, a heart-tugging story, but couldn’t that have also been something Outside The Lines could have picked up on. There was Roller Derby featured last week, something I’m involved in, but there are plenty of stories about wrestling OTL could use.

ESPN’s probably been the most welcoming in terms of overall wrestling coverage. I did watch the 2007 World Series of Poker last night at 2 a.m. … which again, is part of the problem.

What can we do to get more local press?
This is the part that gets me the most. In all the cases above, the coverage has been largely disappointing compared to any other sport battling for headline space, but the two sides to every story still remain.

In the case with the stories on women’s wrestling, Marano and McMann - all great reads, all high exposure, but all met with complaints from the wrestling community. Are we doing our part in sending notes along to the editors, not just one of you or two of you, but if it doesn’t affect a specific fan, you’re not going to get the national response. I think Baldwin’s points are valid, but we also need to let those editors know EVERY time a story is written you would like to read more about wrestling in this publication.

The bottom line for the papers is dollars. Is it going to sell papers? MLB Box Scores sell papers, lottery numbers sell papers, Dilbert sells papers.

How many of you followed Chapman’s advice? Did you even read Chapman’s column? Fan apathy and laziness still continue to be our worst enemy. When there’s a story about wrestling, do you take it for granted? I need to do my part as a fan, we all do.

It’s a tough pill to swallow, but again (beating the dead horse), we need to continue to be proactive in getting editors to hear (educated) voices on the sport.

We just had two newspaper reporters and a talk show host discussing wrestling and Title IX for 35 minutes during drive-time in an area with two million people.

What else can you do? Don’t be guarded about wrestling stories. If someone in your area is a great human interest story, call the paper, talk to a writer. They got numbers and e-mails listed at either the top or bottom of nearly every story. Contact them about a kid at your church, school or neighborhood doing something good.

Papers are trimming budgets left and right, the less work someone’s gotta do for a solid lead, the better off it might get printed. More wrestling was in the paper because someone who knew about wrestling kept pitching idea after idea.

Start pitching those ideas and stop assuming Sports Editors know enough about wrestling to recognize a story. They need to fill pages. Make that job easier by doing your job for the sport.

May 27: Four Points

Intermat wrestling 5/27/08

Glorious day outside but a strained Achilles is hampering my mobility this Tuesday. The holiday weekend was good. My mom and aunt drove up from Virginia, did some sightseeing and shopping and checked out the train museum down in Strasburg.

The interior of my place now actually looks like someone lives there, which is a plus. I’ve got some plumbing issues and I’ve mapped out a design for my small backyard. Oh yeah, the grill will be fired up soon. My SaveOregonWrestling tie-dyed t-shirt also came in the mail on Friday. Waiting for the right day to pimp that thing … it’s pretty slick. And FYI, I’m paying for it as part of my monthly donation to the Save Oregon Wrestling fund. You, right there, reading this … donate.

My Saturday morning wake-up call was from Dan Gable. After working through the night making phone calls to folks up and down the left coast, I crashed out in the wee hours of the morning. My slumber was shattered by my ringtone “Shipping up to Boston” blaring in my ears on Saturday AM.

“Who the … ,” I thought. I was all set to hit the ignore button and with blurred vision and no glasses, I see the name. Yeah, I don’t care who you are, in this sport, when Gable calls, you answer. “Thanks for the wake-up call, coach,” I said. Seriously.

Gas: $3.89
Weather: 78 and sunny.

Wrestling in the New York Times
There’s been some sizeable news lately about women’s wrestling. First, there’s the ESPN spread on Olympian Sara McMann, then comes the USA Today story on Kristie Marano, and today, the New York Times had a large story on the women’s wrestling as a whole.

One of the initiatives we’re working on here at the NWCA isn’t just adding more women’s programs, but working with other people within the sport, trying to get women’s wrestling recognized as what is deemed an “emerging sport.”

Basically, emerging sports can be added to athletic departments with the intent these sports will eventually be NCAA-sanctioned championship events. Women’s wrestling has one NCAA school sanctioning it - Pacific University up in Oregon, who actually just hired a new head coach, Severin Walsh.

Hall of Fame weekend
The National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla., is having its annual honors weekend May 30-31. Entering the Hall this year as Distinguished Members are Bobby Weaver, Ricky Bonomo, Wayne Martin and Mike Houck. All greats, all deserving.

The Hall also has specific awards, as Richard Small will be inducted under the Order of Merit, Jerry Wager will go in for his Lifetime Achievement for Officials; the Medal of Courage will be presented to Dr. James V. Mastro and Chick-Fil-A executive Dan Cathy will be inducted as an Outstanding American.

Should be a great event. If you haven’t been to Stillwater or the Hall, I’d suggest it at least once or twice in your life. I need to get back to see the Dellinger Award list … and one more thing. Chick-Fil-A RULES. That McDonald’s Southern Style sandwich doesn’t hold a candle to the good stuff at Chick-Fil-A. They need one around here.

More on ASU
The Save ASU Wrestling group is well over 3,000 members. Awesome. Honestly, I never thought I’d see the turnaround with reinstatement of a program happen so fast. Oregon’s efforts have been year-long, while Arizona State’s lasted a week and a half. I honestly didn’t know how much time I’d be able to dedicate to the website’s upkeep. Jacob Schlottke, the guy who whipped up the domain www.saveasuwrestling.com later the same day the announcement was made, will be handing it off to the ASU folks to further the program’s fundraising efforts. Crazy part about it was the news broke at 6 p.m. on Friday here on the east coast. A nothing day in the office became a crazy night at home. One thing that did come out of all this was the respect these folks had for the Vice President of Athletics, Lisa Love. There were some unkind things said, as Art Martori pointed out, but at least she had the gusto to give wrestling (and hopefully swimming and tennis) a fighting chance and was honest about the situation. She was a coach in her day and has a college degree and a semblance of ethics. All three things are sorely lacking in one such job description within the Pac-10.

Rankings
The junior class rankings will be coming out shortly, but that’s not going to stop the steady stream of comments pointing to bias one way or the other. Bias, by definition, explains tendency or preference. I don’t feel any different about one kid or another, it’s all in the research, the commonality involved with opponents, state titles, head to head wins, all that jazz. I’ve mentioned this countless times, rankings aren’t personal, they’re not used to inflate someone’s status, etc. They are what they are and none of them, NONE, are perfect. Also, as I posted over on themat.com’s message board the other day - the best way to get someone’s name in front of those that do rankings is tell them about it. Don’t run to the message board, e-mail whomever it might be and give them the good, bad and the ugly. No better way than to actually tell someone yourself. Cryptic messages do no one any good.

USA

Is Title IX hurting women's wrestling?

Salon.com 5/28/08

Today, the New York Times takes a look at women's wrestling and comes up with a somewhat counterintuitive theory about the effect of Title IX, the federal sex-equality law, on the sport. On the one hand, the Times reports that the explosion at small colleges of rising women's sports like wrestling has "little to do with ... Title IX and everything to do with their bottom line." By offering women's wrestling, smaller schools can easily lure first-year students away from larger universities that have ignored the rising popularity of the sport. Cisco Cole, the women's wrestling coach at Jamestown College, told the Times, "When we can get so many girls to come here for a first-year program, that's 20 to 25 extra students who normally wouldn't have looked at Jamestown College."

On the other hand, the Times reports that women's wrestling is largely invisible at larger schools because Title IX has administrators in a headlock. As colleges try to strike a proportional balance in female athletic participation, in accordance with Title IX, some say schools are scrapping small-draw sports like women's wrestling in favor of hugely popular sports like rowing. But as women's wrestling gains cred, it's likely to become more appealing to larger universities interested in pulling women into athletic programs. One hurdle to broader recognition is getting the sport officially listed as one of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's "emerging sports." (Much to my delight, team handball is included in the list. If only I'd continued honing my impressive grade school handball skillz!)

To review: Not only has Title IX done nothing to facilitate the emergence of women's wrestling at small schools (because administrators are most concerned with meeting their bottom line), but it has also excluded the sport from large universities (because administrators are most concerned with meeting Title IX's bottom line). At least, that's according to the law's critics. Others suspect it isn't all that simple and that college administrators, coaches and the NCAA also play a critical role. "In general, there's this resistance to the personification of women as aggressive," said Michael Burch, an assistant men's wrestling coach at Brown. He added that the acceptance of women's wrestling is "another step in the evolution of egalitarian thinking."