News Page
7/24/2002
Gary Abbott/USA Wrestling
The greatest women's wrestler in the world is in Fargo, N.D. this weekend at the ASICS-Vaughan Junior and Cadet Nationals. She's not here as a coach, or as a spectator. In fact, she will be out on the mats for the rest of the week.
Toccara Montgomery is here as one of the hundreds of volunteer officials who are working the tournament. Toccara Montgomery is wearing "the whites" as a mat official.
Most athletes wait until their careers are over before they get involved in wrestling as an official or a coach. Montgomery, who just completed her freshman year at Cumberland College, however, is really just getting her competitive career going.
She won a silver medal at the 2001 World Championships, and has qualified to compete at the 2002 World Championships in Greece in November. Last year, Montgomery became the first U.S. wrestler named as the International Women's Wrestler of the Year by FILA.
"We have an active world class athlete, who is training for the World Championships, and she is taking time of from her training to keep her officiating responsibilities and attend this tournament," said Rick Tucci, president of the U.S. Wrestling Officials Association. "It shows that she is an all-around person. She's FILA's Women's Wrestler of the Year, and is a darn good official., too."
Montgomery has been an official for almost two years, working many kids tournaments in the past. However, this year, she received her national officials certification, and became eligible to work the big national events.
"I enjoy being a referee," said Montgomery. "It helps my wrestling. You can look at things two ways. You know what you are looking for as an athlete, and you also know what the referees are looking for. You can see things from both sides. It's very helpful."
Earlier this year, Montgomery entered the FILA Junior National Championships in Tennessee, and won her weight class uncontested. Instead of putting on a singlet, she switched to the referee's uniform, and worked the rest of the tournament. "I got one exhibition match to wrestle, then I reffed the rest of the day," she said.
When Montgomery is competing at a major event, all the eyes are on her. However, the job of a referee is not to be the center of attention, just to make the right calls and make sure the bouts are fair.
This is especially true at the Junior and Cadet Nationals, which features 23 mats on the floor of an indoor football stadium, with over 3,500 participants. Unless you knew in advance that she was officiating, you really wouldn't know she was here. Montgomery was with the team of officials working on Mat 14, and will help officiate literally hundreds of bouts before the week has ended.
Montgomery had never been to the Cadet/Junior Nationals, and was amazed by the size of the event.
"I came out and said, 'Wow! Look at all the mats," said Montgomery. "Sometimes, I get more nervous being a referee than when I wrestle my own matches."
On Friday, the first Junior Nationals for girls will be held. Had the girls event been held last year, Montgomery would have been competing as a graduating high school senior. This year, she may be officiating girls matches, which could include some athletes she has competed against and trained with.
"It's a huge step to help girls wrestling grow in the United States," said Montgomery. "It was a good move. "
Montgomery has been training at home in Cleveland, Ohio, and at a number of summer wrestling camps where she has worked. Her focus is now on the World Championships, which will be in Greece in November.
"I took a few weeks off to keep my mind from exploding," said Montgomery. "I'm getting ready. I definitely want to win the Worlds this year. That is my goal this year."
Most college kids take their summer off, work a job and take a rest, getting ready for the next school year. Montgomery spent her summer winning the World Team Trials, working as a clinician at a number of summer wrestling camps, and now working in Fargo as a mat referee.
"I enjoy doing this," she said. "It's not like I am not enjoying my summer. This is fun."
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Former coaches: Title IX didn't ax men's sports
LSU's wrestling, men's gymnastics were disbanded for other reasons
By WILLIAM WEATHERS
wweathers@theadvocate.com
Advocate sportswriter 7/14/02
It was a day Larry Schiaccatano couldn't wait for. Just weeks before, he and then LSU Athletic Director Bob Brodhead had talked in glowing terms of the school's nationally ranked wrestling program.
Schiaccatano, the school's wrestling coach of 10 years, said Brodhead intended to give him a pay raise and a courtesy car and a raise for his assistant.
An hour before a scheduled July 11, 1985 meeting with Brodhead to secure the deal, Schiaccatano received a letter from Brodhead saying the program had been dropped.
"I was dumbfounded," Schiaccatano said. "Bob had been so good to the program. He loved wrestling. And then it was dropped."
The reason? Economics.
Although LSU had turned a profit in its athletics budget, Brodhead felt the school's wrestling program was expendable.
LSU was not alone. From 1984-88 53 wrestling team across the country were dropped.
"I don't think it was because of Title IX," Schiaccatano said. "At that time wrestling was not that popular. It is now. You see kids from Louisiana wrestling all over the country.
"But also the Southeastern Conference was dropping the sport," Schiaccatano said. "Bob said if we could have gotten into the Big Eight for wrestling, we would have kept it. But we were always pretty good and they didn't want us."
For 15 years Armando Vega poured his heart and soul into the men's gymnastics program at LSU.
He built the Tigers into a perennial power from 1972 to 1984, finishing as the national runner-up in 1976 and 1977.
Then Vega -- a two-time Olympic gymnastics performer and NCAA All-Around champion in 1957 and 1959 at Penn State -- began to slow down. The hectic pace of coaching, recruiting and promoting without an assistant took its toll.
"I was burned out," Vega said.
So Vega approached Brodhead about stepping down. He wanted to become an assistant coach and had a commitment from Navy's Pete Korman, a former Olympian and coach of the United States Olympic team, to be his successor.
Together, Vega thought LSU's program would continue to flourish with he and Korman at the controls.
Brodhead, who died of cancer in 1996, had other ideas.
"Three months after I announced my retirement, he dropped the sport," said Vega, who was also on the school's faculty as a gymnastics instructor. "I asked him why and he said it would be too difficult to replace me.
"It was a good excuse at the time."
Vega said he believed the availability of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and transportation costs for the program played a role in Brodhead's final analysis.
"But I believe if I had decided to stay," Vega said, "it would not have been dropped. But I don't believe it was dropped because of Title IX."
While both former LSU coaches, who continue to reside and work in Baton Rouge, agree Title IX didn't influence the abolition of their sports at LSU, they've witnessed the effects nationwide of the landmark decision to prohibit gender discrimination in federally funded education programs.
"It's killed men's sports, not just wrestling," Schiaccatano said of Title IX. "It didn't have the intended effect in some aspects it was supposed to. It was to create opportunities for women, but it's decreased them for men."
Critics of Title IX said a total of 335 men's teams and 22,000 spots have been eliminated over the past decade.
Schiaccatano, who coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1996 in Atlanta and a first-place finish in the 1994 World Championships, drew from a 2001 General Accounting Office study to drive home his point.
During a 17-year span (1982-99) a total of 171 wrestling programs were dropped. The study went on to show that other men's sports dropped in that time were tennis (84), gymnastics (56), outdoor track (27), swimming and diving (25) and football (37).
A total of 3,600 women's sports teams were added during that same time. But according to the NCAA, male collegiate athletes still outnumber females by 50,000.
"I'm not sure how it's going to get resolved," said Schiaccatano, who noted that the 2004 Olympics will feature the debut of women's wrestling. "But if it doesn't, you're going to have fewer and fewer programs out there. And it's important to the Olympic effort because the universities are the training grounds for future Olympians."
Schiaccatano said the easiest method to devise gender equality, or proportionality, is removing football from the equation.
He also talked of a study at Nebraska, which carries 202 football players and an $8 million budget. He said the revenues generated from the school's football program funded 13 non-revenue sports that netted $500,000.
"There's no female equivalent to football, so remove it," Schiaccatano said. "(Division I) Football has 85 scholarships. There's no women's equivalent to that. It makes sense not to count football. Then you go head to head with the others and you wouldn't have a problem with compliance."
Vega observed similar declines for gymnastics. Today there are just 30 teams still standing.
"It's a real shame," Vega said. "This is an Olympic sport. It's very tough because tradition is being lost.
"I was always treated well at LSU ... I had no complaints at all," Vega said. "The program was great. It was just one of those things."