Womens wrestling news

BRIAN GERMAIN and his daughters Kelly, left, and Katie keep a busy schedule with competitions. They compete today and Sunday in the judo competition of the Sunshine State Games at The Lakeland Center. Events are held all across Polk County today and Sunday.
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LISA COFFEY | THE LEDGER

It's a lesson that Chris and Brian teach their children, Katie, 14, and Kelly, 12, through sports, mostly Judo.

Brian, Katie and Kelly Germain of South Lakeland compete in Judo, while Chris manages cheers and lends support.

The family is all about time management, dedication, practice and setting goals through sports while learning about life.

"Whatever their sport or activity is, we want to put your best into that," Brian said.

Brian excelled in Judo through his teenage and adult years, traveling around the world as a fourth degree black belt and now as an international coach and instructor with Summerlin Academy.

Chris swam competitively as a child and young adult.

Today Brian, Katie and Kelly are competing in the Sunshine State Games at The Lakeland Center. It's the 10th year in a row for Brian.

The event was a chance for the Germains to gauge where they are in their training as they gear up for a Jujitsu tournament July 4, the USA Judo Junior Nationals for the girls in July and the Judo World Masters event for Brian in August.

The Sunshine State Games are just another day for a family that enjoys practicing and traveling to competitions together.

Brian gave up competing in Judo when the children were born, until Katie called him a wimp one day.

Since then, he is right there on the mat with Katie and Kelly, or driving them to practice, giving them advice or working on a training schedule.

"They wanted to do it," Brian said of athletics. "As parents, we wanted to make it happen for them. We have fun doing what we're doing."

That includes driving the two girls from volleyball practice (for Kelly), freestyle wrestling (for Katie) and track (for both) to Judo practice (sometimes in Tampa) and sometimes eating dinner in a parking lot.

When getting ready for an event, sometimes they trains five or six days a week for five to six weeks at a time.

"It puts some stress on Chris and I," Brian said. "But as parents, that's what they do."

Both girls, who used to perfect their Judo moves on the living room floor with Brian, are strong students in accelerated classes.

Katie and Kelly have been to the USA Judo nationals more than a handful of times. Both have been nationally ranked in USA Judo.

"Judo is my life," Katie said. "If I didn't compete, I wouldn't know what to do with my life. Sometimes it can be too much, but it's all worth it."

"All my friends think Dad is cool," Kelly said. "It's fun to compete."

Brian and Chris temper their enthusiasm, but don't let the girls slide either.

"It's never 'win at all costs,' but 'try your best,'" Brian said. "Then you get to the point where you realize what their best is. You have to be able to feel that pressure.

Katie and Kelly don't want to be scrambled eggs.

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Interesting read and I don't agree with all the points here but some are well taken and food for thought.

Quote:

By Cassandra Gelvin

The first modern Olympics were held in 1896, in Athens, Greece. Despite the views of their founder, Pierre de Coubertin (who once said, “when it comes to public sports competitions, women's participation should be absolutely prohibited”), the second Olympics in 1900 allowed the participation of women in three of the eighteen sports: Tennis, Golf, and Croquet. Gradually, over the following Olympiads, women’s competitions were added in Figure Skating, Archery, Aquatics, Fencing, Gymnastics, and all of the other sports we now include in the Games except for Boxing.

The most difficult sports for women to break into were those in Track and Field. This is due to the extreme and sustained physical exertion required of athletes in many of these events, shown by long distance runners who collapse at the end of a competition. What in men is perceived as evidence of health, strength, and power is seen in women as disturbing and unnatural. This is of course related to the prevalent culture of the founders, who were mostly from Western European countries and the United States. At the turn of the century, it was still unusual for women to wear pants or hold jobs, let alone run marathons.

In the recent Olympics, you can see this by looking at the countries that did not include women in their Olympic Teams. All of the major western and eastern European countries, as well as the countries in North and South America, and nearly all of the African countries had mixed-gender teams in the 2000 Olympics. The few male-only teams were mostly from countries located in the Middle East, where Islam is the prevailing religion and the culture is heavily religious in a very traditional sense. It may be that Islam will evolve into a very accepting, tolerant religion, but currently countries that are very heavily Muslim tend to legally or culturally deny women opportunity in exchange for ensuring their safety.

This is not to single out Islamic countries as being the only ones practicing gender discrimination. Mainstream acceptance of women’s Olympic sports has come a long way, yet things still have a long way to go before we reach true gender equality in the Games. Boxing is cited as the single sport where women are not allowed, but it is merely the only discipline. For example, women have participated in the Track and Field discipline since 1924, but Women’s Pole Vaulting was not an event until 2000 in Sydney. Though some male sports, such as baseball, have a female counterpart (softball in this case), there are many events women simply do not participate in. These include the Rings in Gymnastics, all Canoe events (both genders participate in the related Kayak events), the Running Target event in Shooting, the Steeplechase event in Track and Field, and several others. There are also many disparities in events with counterparts, or even events with the same name. Olympic Tennis, like most international tennis, is played to the best 3 out of 5 sets in a match for men, but only the best 2 out of 3 for women. In Women’s Singles Badminton, games are won in 11 points instead of 15 for Women’s Doubles, Men’s Singles and Doubles, and Mixed Doubles. The longest-distance Freestyle Swimming event is 1500m for men, and the female counterpart is only 800m. Men have a 20k and 50k Race Walk event, whereas women only have the 20k event. Women’s shorter Hurdles distance is 100m, and men’s is an inexplicable 110m. Men have a 10-event Decathlon (100m, 400m, 1500m, 110m Hurdles, Long Jump, High Jump, Pole Vault, Shot Put, Discus, and Javelin) compared to the women’s 7-event Heptathlon (200m, 800m, 100m Hurdles, Long Jump, High Jump, Shot Put and Javelin). Overall, long distances in running, rowing, cycling, and other disciplines are longer for men and shorter for women. Men’s Shooting has more targets and more shots than women’s. Men’s Wrestling includes 14 (reduced from 16) weight categories in each of two styles, Freestyle and Greco-Roman (a stricter style involving only waist-up holds), whereas the new discipline this year of Women’s Wrestling includes only 4 weight categories in Freestyle and no Greco-Roman Wrestling.

This could just be attributed to a broad Western European/American sexism, thinking that men are better or more desirable to watch, therefore they have longer events and more of them, but this issue has to be looked at from the opposite angle. Women, too, have sports and events specific to their gender men do not participate in. People seldom ask why there are no men in Synchronized Swimming, or Rhythmic Gymnastics, but this issue is very interrelated with the lack of women in Boxing events.

Synchronized Swimming is viewed as a very feminine event, and Boxing as a masculine event. Any gender crossover between the two is viewed as strange and abnormal. There is obviously no inherent femininity in a pair or team of people moving in a set pattern relative to one another, nor in treading water or breath holding. It is not even difficult to envision a non-effeminate male version of the sport. However, the evolution of the event in our culture has brought it to a state where the participants are not only female but must accentuate this to almost extreme levels. Swimmers wear makeup and hair gelatin especially made to remain in place underwater, and often their hair is longer than shoulder-length (it is usually pulled back into a bun for competition) and they wear nail polish and French-cut bathing suits (i.e., most of the hip is left bare). Ugly or plain-looking women are rarely (if ever) seen, and all of the swimmers have ample chests and are fairly thin (with the notable exception of the Padded Lilies).

Although in general men have more testosterone and tend to have more aggression, there is nothing fundamentally manly about Boxing. Historically, Boxing has been more about agility in avoidance of blows than about strength in landing them. In many situations (although not usually the Olympic Games) boxers’ uniforms consist of shorts without a shirt. This may be utilitarian in that they are less likely to catch extra cloth on things, or it might be a symbol of strength and bravery, since they have no protection for their torsos, but it serves to draw attention to their gender. Women boxers cannot fight without some sort of torso protection in this society in public without risking arrest, due to the sexual implications of shirtless women. More importantly to this sport, there is a cultural avoidance of violence towards women in any sense. Women are not eligible for military draft in the United States, not because it is believed they would be unable to handle it, but more due to the perception that women are delicate and should not be harmed. Boxers of either gender are likely to end up with bruises, welts, cuts, and black eyes on their torsos and faces, but in our culture, we avoid seeing those things on women. So, like the people in predominately Muslim countries, we protect our women by avoiding or hiding their vulnerabilities.

It is interesting to consider that our culture protects women from these vulnerabilities, whereas our men are expected to withstand them and in fact are thought of as more powerful for enduring them. It would be rather fascinating to have a mixed-gender biathlon consisting of the events of Boxing and Synchronized Swimming. Of course, it would be fairer to hold the Swimming first, but I feel it would be a much richer experience to hold Swimming after Boxing. Then again, makeup artists being what they are these days, we probably wouldn’t notice a difference.

OCU names Delk assistant wrestling coach

Mikel Delk

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6/12/2009 10:00:04 AM

OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma City University has hired Mikel Delk as an assistant wrestling coach.

Delk brings experience coaching on the college, high school and youth levels. Delk earned all-American honors and won state championships as a wrestler.

“He will be a great addition to our staff,” OCU coach Archie Randall said. “He has extensive experience as a competitor. He is young and full of energy and wants to establish himself as a college coach.”

The past two seasons Delk coached at Catoosa High School (Okla.) as an assistant. He also guided the Catoosa Freestyle Club.

Prior to that, Delk was a student assistant with Fort Hays State (Kan.). He also coached with the Kansas USA Schoolboy National Team and Kansas USA Kids Wrestling.

Delk became a two-time NCAA Division II all-American and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference champion with Fort Hays State. Delk also won two NJCAA West Region titles and became an all-American competing for Labette (Kan.).

In high school, Delk became a two-time Class 3A state champion with Skiatook (Okla.).

The Stars begin the 2009-10 season with the Black-Blue Ranking Matches on Oct. 22, then open the regular season with the Lindenwood Open on Oct. 30. OCU’s first home duals will be against Bacone and Missouri Baptist on Nov. 7.

OCU hosts the NAIA Championships on March 3-6, 2010 at Abe Lemons Arena.

Germain Family Ready to Go to the Mat for One Another