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HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING: In her element on the mat
Jenn Hildreth - Staff
Friday, March 23, 2001
Some girls, when they're 8, wish for dresses, ballet slippers or Barbie dolls.
Patrice Crenshaw wanted muscles.
Crenshaw used to follow her mother, Sylvia, along to the gym. So Sylvia Crenshaw wasn't surprised when she heard her 8-year-old daughter huffing in her room while lifting weights.
"You know how you kind of want (your daughter) to be a feminine-type person," Sylvia said, "But because I was like a tomboy growing up, I could see that in her, too, when she started lifting weights. So I said, 'Go for it.' "
Sylvia Crenshaw's response was the same six years later when Patrice, a freshman at Tri-Cities High, came home and declared that she wanted to try wrestling.
Now a senior at Tri-Cities, Patrice recently completed her fourth season of wrestling, in which she won more than 30 matches in the boys 112-pound class and placed third at the Area 7-AAAAA tournament. The top-four finish earned Patrice a berth to last month's state meet, and she is believed to be the only female in Georgia to have qualified for state in boys wrestling.
While she has wrestled against boys for most of her career, Patrice gets a chance to compete against all girls at this weekend's United States Girls' Wrestling Association national tournament in Auburn Hills, Mich.
"Last year, I made it as far as the finals and lost in the finals to the girl who placed first the year before," said Patrice, who will compete at 115 pounds, a weight class found only in female wrestling. "This year, yeah, I'm taking it all."
Patrice's confidence is something that immediately impressed Tri-Cities wrestling coach Doug Hutsell. He admits he wasn't too keen on Patrice's decision to wrestle, but he quickly saw that she was determined to compete.
"After that first day, we saw how hard she worked," Hutsell said. "She was able to take that physical punishment and not come back and whine like a lot of people do --- males or females. We were sold on her."
Patrice's reasoning for wanting to try wrestling was simple --- she wanted to do something athletic after volleyball season. At 4 feet 11, she quickly ruled basketball out, but she was taking a weight training class and could already bench press more than her body weight (approximately 100 pounds). The challenge of wrestling, especially since it was a sport normally reserved for males, caught Patrice's attention.
"I saw these signs posted up around the building and they said, 'Six minutes of hell, are you man enough to handle it?' " Patrice said. "I don't consider myself a feminist, but I do believe that women can do anything men can do, and sometimes better. When I saw that I was like, 'Are you person enough to handle it?' That's what I was thinking it should have been. It didn't make me mad, but I just felt like, you know, I'll show them."
In the beginning, some wrestlers refused to compete against Patrice, either due to concerns from their parents or coaches, or, as Hutsell suggests, because they were worried about what would happen if they lost to a girl.
Patrice had to endure the strict demands of a sport many athletes call the most trying, struggling to keep her weight down while working hard to retain her strength. It was all Patrice's father, Patrick, could do to let his daughter keep competing.
"The first couple of times I came home with some black eyes, he was telling me, 'No more, no more,' " Patrice said.
But Patrice was unwilling to quit, no matter how much she struggled or how hard it was to keep going. She said it wasn't until this year that she realized how much she enjoyed the sport. Next year, she'll attend the University of Minnesota at Morris, one of the few colleges in the nation to offer female wrestling. She also has her sights set on the 2004 Olympics, when female wrestling could make its debut.
"Not being able to eat, no social life, those are the only two sacrifices I've had to make," Patrice said with a laugh. "I'm doing what I love. I love to wrestle."
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Sports help give young women an edge
ADN.com
(Published March 25, 2001)
In watching and talking to female high school athletes for a few years now, I've noticed something. Girls who play sports have a lot going on. A lot more so, it seems, than girls who don't play sports.
A high percentage seem to be Superwomen good grades, active in school clubs and student government, involved in the community. They do not act like giggly, teenage girls, but young women with goals and the determination to reach them.
Studies back this up. According to the Women's Sports Foundation, girls who play sports are less likely to get pregnant and more likely to earn better grades and graduate than girls who don't play sports.
The foundation asserts that girls who play sports have more confidence and self-esteem, lower levels of depression and a more positive body image than girls who don't play sports.
As if those weren't reasons enough to play sports, the exercise from sports is believed to reduce the risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis.
None of this should be surprising. Men and boys have enjoyed the benefits of playing sports since practically the dawn of time. But women and girls didn't really compete in sports until LF this century and didn't seriously compete in team sports until the passage of Title IX in 1972.
Since that landmark decision, which gave women and girls equal rights to participate in sports at federally funded schools, perceptions have changed about what women are capable of.
Just a few years ago, debates raged whether or not the public would want to watch women's sports other than figure skating or gymnastics. The World Cup triumph of the U.S. women's soccer team and the success of the WNBA put those arguments to rest, and it's trickled down to high school.
"Back in the day, the girls game was seen as sort of a sideshow," said Colony senior basketball player Samantha Gatto. "It was a warmup to the boys game. Now, it's just as competitive."
Now, a girl who dives for a loose ball on the hardwood, or who slides hard into home plate on the diamond is no longer an aberration. It's expected. And girls who compete in sports such as wrestling and hockey are no longer a big deal.
Competition helped change these perceptions.
"Competition is everywhere in life," said Wasilla coach Jeannie Hebert, a former three-time Alaska Player of the Year at Monroe and standout at the University of Miami. "Sports helps them deal with that."
Colony's Don Witzel has a long history coaching both boys and girls basketball teams. He coached the Colony boys from 1991-94 before taking over the girls team and before that coached at Palmer Middle School from 1982-91. Witzel said being an athlete can cut into social life, but it gives girls more assertiveness in dealing with boys.
"I tell the girls, as an athlete, you're going to intimidate the heck out of the guys," Witzel said. "High school boys like to think they're kings."
Some of Witzel's players agreed, saying boys respect their ability and knowledge of sports.
"It used to be seen as unattractive, but not anymore," said Gatto, a senior. "Now, guys respect girls who play sports."
"It gives you a toughness," added junior Kelly Quinn. "And guys notice that."
Witzel thinks that sports gives girls a unique opportunity to handle adversity.
"With so many kids at school, a minor problem becomes a major crisis," Witzel said. "Sports teaches kids that they can avert a crisis. It teaches you that you have to be able to handle your emotions."
Palmer volleyball coach Steve Reynolds said athletes relate better to adults than nonathletes. Reynolds said he's seen girls who don't play sports with everything going for them that still act shy and unsure of themselves around adults.
"Confidence, poise, self-esteem. Sports gives you more and more opportunities to speed those processes up," he said.
Palmer senior Lisa Thomas excels in both volleyball and basketball. She said sports has helped her learn how to deal with people, and how to deal with losing.
"I've found my identity through sports," Thomas said. "It's where I learned how to define the person that I am."
One last tidbit about girls and sports: in a 1989 study of female executives in Fortune 500 companies, 80 percent described themselves as "tomboys." The dictionary defines a tomboy as "a girl who behaves in a traditionally boyish way." That used to mean girls who liked sports. Who liked competition. Now, women who enjoy sports and competition are called something else.
Reporter Ron Wilmot can be reached at rwilmot@adn.com.