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First I just want to wish everyone a safe and blessed New Year. I also want to give everyone a heads up regarding a Special Feature I produced for High School Sports Focus.
I was fortunate enough to cover the San Mateo High School LADY Bearcat tournament last Saturday and just to let you all know, I was very impressed. The Excitement, The Enthusiasm, The Positive Attitude on both the wrestlers and coaches were awesome. I think the future of Women's Wrestling is going to be GREAT. I'm hoping that the producers of Sports Focus will give me more opportunity to cover both the Boys and Girls Wrestling tournaments.
The Women's Wrestling Special Feature will air this Friday, 1/3/01 at 11pm LIVE on Action 36 / Cable 6 on High School Sports Focus. It will re-broadcast the next day, Saturday at 1pm same station. So get your TIVO and VCR's ready you don't want to miss this one.
And if you want to email the show for feedback, commments on why we should cover more of wrestling go to:
www.kicu.com
OR Email us ALL or one of us:
HOST mike.sklut@kicu.com
PRODUCER mike.delfino@kicu.com
REPORTER brodie@kicu.com
PHOTOGRAPHER: alf.joaquin@kicu.com
The more we hear from you the better.
thank you and Have a Best of Luck to everyone!!!
ALF
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Local gains huge from Title IX
After winning early 'battles', Muskingum was a pioneer for women's sports progress
By JOHN KERR 1/2/03
TR Sports Writer
Title IX has left its mark on collegiate and high school athletics in the United States the past 30 years.
It has also left a dramatic impact on area athletics.
When Donna Newberry began coaching at Muskingum College in the fall of 1974, women's athletics were not even close to being on equal footing with men's programs.
Muskingum's volleyball, women's basketball and softball teams all shared the same uniforms, used for home and away games. Women could not use the training room since it was in the football locker room, off limits to females.
"It took most schools well into the 1980s to comply with some of the standards," said Newberry, who noted Muskingum progressed faster with Title IX than most colleges.
Title IX opened the door to athletics for many girls and young women.
"The greatest impact of Title IX was to hasten a shift in society that had already begun toward acceptance of gender equality," stated Jane Sikes, former River View High School teacher and coach and current principal at Ridgewood High School. "There were many who questioned the need for Title IX ... because things were already beginning to change. Title IX helped bring down some roadblocks and helped establish more opportunities.
Prior to Title IX, a school district might (or might not) offer interscholastic basketball or volleyball ... especially in some of the larger communities. Title IX opened more doors. Today we see many female students involved in activities ... they might not have had the opportunity in the early '70s."
"I think it's a fantastic thing to do," Muskingum men's basketball coach Jim Burson said of Tixle IX. "I have a daughter (Jamie) that played sports, and I have granddaughters."
Newberry recalled one incident at Glenville State, where she played basketball and bowled while attending college, which summed up problems female athletes encountered before Title IX.
"I remember one day before we started our basketball practice, we were standing in the hallway by the gym. We had a rack of basketballs with six on a row," Newberry recalled. "When the men's team finished, there were 12 of them, as they came out they each took out a ball and spit on it. We kind of bit our tongues and dealt with it."
Newberry has spoken her mind at Muskingum.
After she interviewed for a job at Muskingum, she returned to see what kind of program she was inheriting.
"The women's game was in "The Pit"," Newberry recalled of the downstairs court in John Glenn Gymnasium. "There was no seating and the score was kept on flip cards."
During the game the lights went out three times, while the school's intramural teams were playing in the main gym.
There were basically four locker rooms for the men, while women's physical education and home and visiting teams shared the same locker room.
In her first year at Muskingum, in addition to teaching, Newberry coached four teams "just to keep the women's program afloat."
She coached volleyball and field hockey, each in the fall, women's basketball and softball.
"In some respects, I think Muskingum progressed faster," said Newberry, who won more than 400 games as Muskingum women's basketball coach and guided the school's softball team to the 2001 national championship. "I think a lot of it had to do with my willing to fight the battles."
Women Athletes at Muskingum (WAM) formed at Muskingum in the late 1970s to help Newberry, the women's athletic director, fight those battles. The formation of WAM led to Newberry debating with Burson on campus, with all male athletes on one side of a room and female athletes on the other.
Newberry compared the athletics situation to a family.
"A family has one child and they can get it whatever it wants," Newberry said. "Then another child is born, whether planned or not. Instead of having streak, you now have to have a hamburger, so your new child can also have hamburger."
Newberry said the men's athletics premise was that in order for women's programs to grow it had to take away from the men.
"If it steps directly on your toes, it's difficult," Burson said. "They took money from my budget. If they took money from you, wouldn't you squak?
"My toes were stepped on by Title IX. But, I think it's the right thing to do," Burson continued. "Donna and (longtime Muskingum volleyball coach) Bea (Zicha) have worked hard and certainly have my respect. If you work hard, you gain respect around you."
"I don't think the authors of Title IX ever foresaw the negative impact it has had recently," Sikes stated. "No one ever wanted to take something away from the male athletes. Our political leadership needs to find an answer to current concerns. Opportunities should be available for men and women to compete in their chosen sport.
"No one should have to give up their sport in the name of "equality". I've always said the way to get to the top of a mountain is through hard work and dedication ... not by pulling someone who is already on the mountain off of it," continued Sikes, who played basketball at Wilmington College in the 1960s. "Surely this society has evolved to where we can make program decisions based upon interest and commitment rather than gender."
Girls and young women today may not realize the early struggles and battles that made today's athletics what it has become.
"No, not really." Sikes stated of today's female athletes understanding the past. "I know I've shared many "tales" of "remember when" with some of today's athletes. It is very, very difficult for them to relate. However, if I remember correctly, it was always difficult for me to relate to my father when he used to tell me stories about delivering newspapers in the late thirties ... walking five miles through the foot deep snow ... uphill, no less. I guess it's just not possible for one generation to fully comprehend the "struggles" of its predecessor."
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Vietnamese women wrestlers rise from outcasts to champions
channelnewsasia.com 12/30/02
Vietnam's women wrestlers, once shut out by prejudice and tradition, have gone from outcasts to champions in just over a decade.
Winning three golds and two silvers at the regional SEA Games a little over a year ago in Malaysia, the women are already the best in Southeast Asia.
And they have their sights set on powerhouses Japan and China.
For years, wrestling in Vietnam had traditionally been the domain of men.
"I faced some problems with my family because my parents did not want me to learn a men's game. They thought I would not be allowed to learn it because I am a girl," said wrestler Nguyen Thi Cai.
But her parents eventually relented, and now their daughter is one of many Vietnamese women who are finding success in wrestling.
In fact in the 2001 Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Vietnam's women outclassed their men, bringing home three gold medals and two silvers to top the female wrestling medal table.
Recently a year-end tournament was held in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi to determine the country's 2003 SEA Games squad.
They will host the Games next December.
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journalnow.com 12/29/02
In the debate surrounding Title IX and women in sports in the year of its 30th anniversary, the effect that requiring equal treatment of female athletes in school has had upon the relationship between sports and education is too often overlooked.
Thanks to Title IX, the importance of athletics in the educational process has been recognized as more than the financial rewards of winning football and basketball programs, both to a school's athletics programs and to its alumni fund-raising efforts.
As the Journal's Page One package on the subject last Sunday described in detail, there has been considerable whining about the overemphasis on enforcement of equal opportunity for women in school sports programs. The complaint is that such overemphasis places hardships on minor sports such as wrestling and gymnastics in the men's athletics programs.
Fairness does suggest that men's programs should not be penalized by a lack of interest from women who choose not to participate in school sports. Rigid quota systems are unhelpful, both to men's programs and to women's; they give opponents of Title IX ammunition for argument that those arguments don't deserve.
But sports provide the same valuable educational lessons - the value of sportsmanship, teamwork, sacrifice and self-discipline - to women as well as men. The argument that women's sports don't generate the revenue that men's football and basketball programs do is irrelevant to the central issue in this debate. This should not be about where the money comes from or goes to, but the value of sports to the educational process of forming value systems and becoming productive, thinking individuals.
If, in that process, men's basketball and football programs attract money enough to pay for a substantial portion of a school's budget for athletics, so much the better.
But when money becomes more important to such programs than educating student athletes, schools start sending the wrong message about what matters. For schools, Grantland Rice was closer to the truth than was Vince Lombardi. How you play the game is more important than winning. Certainly winning is not everything, as Lombardi would have it.
Title IX is no panacea, but its concept is unassailable, the legislation has done far more good than harm and if overzealous administration has led to cause for criticism, the fix needed is to that administration, not to Title IX.
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Individual accomplishments highlight this year's South Dakota Sportswriters...
ROGER TOLAND
Associated Press 12/30/02
RAPID CITY, S.D. - Individual accomplishments highlight this year's South Dakota Sportswriters Association's Rare Moments in Sports. A sampling of the individual accomplishments:
_ Rapid City's Adam Vinatieri booted a 48-yard field goal as time expired to give the New England Patriots a 20-17 victory over the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl.
_ Custer's Tyg Long dominated the shot put and discus in the state. He established an all-time state high school record in the shot put with a heave of 65 feet, six and one-half inches, one of 45 times he exceeded the 60-foot barrier. He was unbeaten in both the shot put and discus in his final high school season.
_ Miller's Kelly Haberling graduated from high school having earned 22 athletic letters - four in football, cross country and track and field, three times in basketball and golf and four as a student manager when he wasn't competing on a varsity team.
"That was never a plan or a goal or anything like that," Haberline said of his accomplishment. "I really didn't keep track. This last year, when I looked at all of it, it was like, wow, I did a lot."
_ Nov. 24 was a great day for NBA players from South Dakota, as Rapid City's Eric Piatkowski put up a running 14-footer with 1.4 seconds left to give the Clippers a 90-89 victory over the Rockets and Mitchell's Mike Miller had 31 points, including the game-winner with one second left, to push the Magic past the Heat 77-75.
_ Rapid City's Debby Slusser rolled an 835 series, the highest ever by a state bowler in Women's International Bowling competition.
_ Custer's Larry Luitjens, who established a state record for all-time boys high school coaching victories with 590, capped off the season with a state Class A championship. Heading into 2003, Luitjens has coached boys' teams to 596 victories and five state championships at Custer.
_ Northern State's Jason Carson had a pair of back-to-back defensive touchdowns - a 46-yard fumble return and a 21-yard interception - to seal the Wolves' 28-20 victory over Wayne, Neb., State.
_ The gender barrier in wrestling was broken when 14-year-old Erin McKeown of Sioux Falls Lincoln was allowed to wrestle against boys.
_ Menno's Vanessa Smidt tied a state high school girls record with nine three-pointers in a 65-41 girls basketball victory over Irene.
Other sports rarities deemed noteworthy by the state's sportswriters:
_ Spearfish went wire-to-wire during the season as the state's No. 1 team in the Class AA ranks, then finished the season with the school's first state basketball title.
_ Spearfish had an unprecedented three players - Deming Haugland, Aaron Croff and Matt Martin - named to the all-state basketball team.
_ The University of South Dakota had back-to-back overtime football victories.
_ The South Dakota Rushmores won the National Adult Baseball Association Over-50 baseball title in Las Vegas for the second straight year.
_ In a major change this year, South Dakota switched its volleyball and girls basketball seasons, volleyball going to the fall and basketball to the winter.
_ With the change in seasons, the Harding County volleyball teams captured two state titles in 2002.
_ Two of the state's top high school volleyball players - Aberdeen Central's Hillary White and Brookings' Stacy White - are cousins. Both are middle hitters and both wear uniform No. 12. They were also both named to the all-ESD, all-tournament and all-state teams.
_ Two brothers, Chris and Sean Mason and a sister, Katrina, bowled an 835 mixed team game, the second highest score in the nation this year and No. 15 on the American Bowling Congress list.
_ Sioux Falls Roosevelt's 111-games winning streak was snapped by Sioux Falls Lincoln.