Women's Wrestling Blog

• Kevin Black Discusses Women's Junior Nationals
  

  Tuesday, July 28, 2009

  Another great summer wrestling season came to a conclusion last week in the FargoDome on the campus of North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND.  The ASICS Junior/Cadet National Championships is the highlight of the summer for many wrestlers, coaches and wrestling fans.  This summer, the women’s division was the best that it has ever been.

  Individuals who have experienced success at the senior level internationally showcased their talent at the junior level here in the United States.  Adeline Gray, a 2009 Senior World Team Member, US National Champion and 2008 Junior World champion won another Junior National title.  She moved up to 165 pounds this year and went untested, as many expected.  Other athletes who have had tremendous success at senior-level events and were crowned Junior National Champions were Victoria Anthony, CC Weber and Veronica Carlson.  Similar to Gray, these fine young ladies were head-and-shoulders above the rest of the competition at their respective weight classes.  Anthony, a native of Huntington Beach, California, was named Outstanding Wrestler and was a member of Team California who also won the dual meet championships.  Anthony was also named themat.com wrestler of the week, gaining positive media coverage for women’s wrestling.

  A lot of thankless hours and tireless efforts go into making the Junior National Championships the premier event in our sport.  Coaches from across the country spend time training athletes, state directors put in many hours registering teams and making sure that everything runs smoothly for their state, and USA Wrestling employees spend ten days in Fargo working behind the scenes so everyone can have a positive experience.  Year in and year out, we are fortunate to see many of our top athletes giving back to the sport by serving as coaches for various states.  Team California was graced with the presence of Olympian Marcie Van Dusen and former National Team Member Emily Rinehart, among others.  The team runner-up Texas, had Olympic Bronze Medalist Randi Miller on their coaching staff.  Other current and former national team members that were seen in the corners were Alaina Berube, Sharon Jacobson, Leigh Jaynes, Jenna Pavlik and other great senior-level competitors. 

  Also, some of our top collegiate coaches were on the floor recruiting or coaching their home state.  Kip Flanik and Carl Murphree have spent many consecutive years coaching Ohio and Missouri, respectively.  Cisco Cole, Link Davis, Tony DeAnda, Shannyn Gillespie, Brian Jackson and Archie Randall were also in attendance.  Similar to the path of success and opportunity for our country’s male wrestlers, the route to collegiate opportunities runs through Fargo and these coaches understand the importance of competing in the summer at freestyle events.

  Next summer will be a terrific year to get involved at the Junior National tournament.  Many of this year’s champions were high school graduates and multiple-time winners of the event.  Next year we will look forward to new superstars rising to the top and taking advantage of opportunities to win a Junior National Championship.  Contact your USA Wrestling state director or state coach to inquire about how to get involved in the biggest wrestling tournament in the world!

  Kevin Black Discusses Women's Wrestling
  

• Tuesday, June 23, 2009

  This is the first entry of my bi-monthly blog on my role as a women’s representative with the National Wrestling Coaches Association.  I am very proud to be associated with the NWCA and to have the honor to serve as a board member.  The NWCA has been a part of many great moments and created a lot of tremendous opportunities in wrestling.  Now, it once again has an opportunity to provide new opportunities in the avenue of women’s wrestling.

  As the women’s representative for the NWCA, I believe one of my central roles is to unify our efforts with other great organizations such as USA Wrestling and the Women’s College Wrestling Association (WCWA). 

  USA Wrestling took an initiative in 2002 to make women’s wrestling in our country an international power when the hired Terry Steiner as the USA Women’s Coach.  Terry was previously an assistant coach at various prominent NCAA Division 1 wrestling programs, but moved his family to Colorado Springs in hopes of building Olympic Champions and World Champions.  Terry and the women’s wrestling team had their “coming out” party at the 2003 World Championships in New York as many American wrestling fans saw their women achieve much success on the international stage.  One year later, Patricia Miranda and Sara McMann became the first women in the United States to win Olympic medals in wrestling.

  Overall, the United States is viewed as an international power in women’s wrestling circles and the women have benefitted greatly from the support of USA Wrestling, but there were many other players behind the scenes building women’s wrestling at the collegiate and grassroots programs prior to USA Wrestling’s involvement.  Kent Bailo and the United States Girl’s Wrestling Association is the largest women’s wrestling organization in the United States and has held a national championship for all ages for twelve years.  Kent started from scratch and built his organization like many other wrestling programs and organizations, with a lot of family involvement and support.  The USGWA became extremely relevant when college programs used the USGWA National Championships as their number one recruiting avenue.  Most recently, USA Wrestling has added national championships in freestyle (Fargo, ND) and Folkstyle wrestling (Oklahoma City, OK).

  Current collegiate coaches Kip Flanik (University of the Cumberlands, Kentucky) and Carl Murphree (Missouri Valley College) have been recruiting top high school athletes from USGWA tournaments for years.  Along with Lee Allen (Menlo College), Kip and Carl were very instrumental in bringing established varsity women’s programs into the Women’s College Wrestling Association, established in 2007.  The University of the Cumberlands was the first WCWA team champions after winning multiple collegiate titles before the development of a collegiate governing body.

  The main role of the WCWA is to serve college programs with established rules and guidelines for an official collegiate season.  The objective of the WCWA is to have a product in place that can easily be adapted by the NCAA or NAIA in the near future as they seek “emerging sport” status.

  I am fortunate, as a member of the NWCA, to be deeply involved in both USA Wrestling and the WCWA.  This year, I will serve as a World Team coach in Herning, Denmark.  I was a World Team coach in 2007 in Baku, Azerbaijan.  I am also the current President of the WCWA.  Together with my responsibilities with the NWCA, I hope to help unite the efforts between all three organizations to see women’s wrestling grow at the grassroots and collegiate levels while seeing the United States become the number one women’s wrestling country in the world!

WEEKEND REVIEW

 “The entire episode has been a big embarrassment. We have formed a committee to make a detailed enquiry of the entire issue and those who are guilty will be punished,” Kim said.

Vinesh was asked to play her gold medal bout again after winning it in the afternoon, as all the finals were supposed to be played in the evening.