News Page
By JANET PASKIN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: June 19, 2003)
CROTON-ON-HUDSON — As Cheryl Wong watched a Hackley wrestler flip his opponent onto his back, her life began to change.
"I thought, 'I can't believe they're teaching this in school. This is the most beautiful, perfect sport in the whole world. I have to do this,' " Wong said.
The Croton-on-Hudson native joined the team at Hackley the next season. She wanted to learn to tough it out on the mat; in the following seven years, she survived parental disapproval, a hostile collegiate coach, and a near-fatal trolley accident.
Her reward? A national ranking in the top 10 and a trip to Indianapolis for the U.S. National Team trials, which start tomorrow. The winner will compete at the World Championships in France this fall. And for the first time, women will wrestle at the Olympics in Athens.
Such high-level events reflect the fact that women's wrestling is no longer a novelty. The progress, however, has been top-down — competing on national and international levels is often easier than competing or practicing locally.
"Even though women's wrestling has seen a lot of growth, the numbers aren't there to start a regular high school women's wrestling team," USA Wrestling spokesman John Fuller said. "Obviously that's the goal, but right now it's not a realistic option."
A handful of states, including Maryland, Texas and Michigan, host a women's high school wrestling championship. Everywhere else in the country, the tri-county area included, women who want to wrestle have to depend on the kindness of the men who run wrestling programs. And sometimes, as Wong found out when she left the supportive Hackley environment for Boston University, that's not enough.
Wong, now 21, said her parents never understood her desire to wrestle, that they yelled and yelled, but she never stopped, even though she didn't win a single high school match. When she enrolled at Boston University on an academic scholarship, she walked on to the wrestling team as a non-starter and endured harassment that dwarfed her fights with her parents.
"They made fun of me every day," Wong said. "They called me a dyke, a man, a machine. No one spoke to me unless they were throwing things at me. They threw things at me. They moved practice, cancelled practice, and didn't tell me."
But Wong stuck it out, for the coaching she occasionally did get and the little bit of time she had on the mat. She added practices with Danielle Hobeika, a wrestler at Harvard. She practiced at high schools, wherever there was a mat, whenever coaches said OK. She travelled to competitions by herself and never had anyone in her corner during a match.
In spite of it all, she found success at national competitions.
"I didn't have a partner, a coach, a mat, every practice I had was a practice I put together myself or Danielle organized," Wong said. "I had no one to show me techniques or give motivational or emotional support. Seventh or eighth (place) is still pretty low, but I was pretty psyched, because I had nothing to work with."
By the time she was a junior, her academic load was too much to support a high-transit wrestling schedule. She tried to start a women's wrestling club at BU, but, she said, the head wrestling coach would not give permission. Wong said he told her he was worried about increased risk of skin disease to his varsity wrestlers. School officials told the Boston Globe that there was not enough interest.
On Jan. 13, 2002, Wong walked away from the BU wrestling program. Her practice partner had quit, and the head coach told Wong he wouldn't allow her to practice with the remaining un-paired wrestler, a 170-pounder.
She ran, teary, all the way to Harvard, straight to the mat room. She told the coach she couldn't wrestle at BU anymore. He welcomed her to finish the season with them.
The next fall, she practiced with the team at MIT. That January — a year to the day after she quit BU wrestling — she was hit by a trolley car and spent two weeks in the hospital with a punctured lung.
By May, she was well enough to compete at the National Championships in Las Vegas. She won three matches and lost two to finish seventh out of the 14 wrestlers entered in her weight class.
Wong graduated two weeks later, and she can't imagine a world without wrestling. She looks for a job, "a good nine-to-fiver," and mimics her Boston-era practice schedule. She runs every day and schleps from Croton to Princeton, N.J., to Mahopac to Greeley High School for practices.
"She's doing all right," said John Degel, at whose Mahopac practice facility Wong practices. "She could use a little more work on her feet, but she's very good on the mat. It's too bad, I don't have anyone at 112 pounds who could possibly compete with her. It's not an ideal situation for her, but it's better than nothing."
Eleven wrestlers in each weight class will compete this weekend for a single spot on the national team and a September trip to Madison Square Garden for the World Wrestling Championships. Former world team member Jenny Wong (no relation) will compete, as will Melinda Ripley, who defeated Wong to win the National Championships. Cheryl Wong's chances are outside, at best.
After all she's been through, winning hardly seems the point.
"In every aspect of life, there's ways to cut corners," she said. "But in wrestling, when you get on the mat, if you haven't been practicing hard, you're going to lose. Wrestling is honesty, and I'm going to stay true, as long as I can."
Reach Janet Paskin at jpaskin@thejournalnews.com or 914-696-8531.Reach Janet Paskin at jpaskin@thejournalnews.com or 914-696-8531.
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Downing returns as champ
Former Pendleton Heights wrestler has become nation's top female at her weight.
By Michael Pointer
michael.pointer@indystar.com
June 20, 2003
Katie Downing wasn't quite ready when she attended her first practice as a freshman with the Pendleton Heights High School wrestling team nine years ago.
"I think I hated it," she said. "I threw up. I had orange juice for breakfast and you just don't do that."
Consider it a lesson learned. Downing cut the juice out of her diet. Now she's back in the Indianapolis area as one of the best female wrestlers in the country.
Downing won her first national title last month and gets a bye into the championship round at 147.5 pounds of the U.S. World Team Trials, which begin this morning at the Indiana Convention Center.
"My first year, I was just trying to make it through each practice and survive," she said. "Now, the Olympics are my goal. It's amazing where just being stubborn enough not to quit will take you."
Downing took up wrestling to help with judo. She had participated in that sport since the third grade and has a black belt. But judo is not what made her a conversation piece.
She attracted extra attention because she was one of the few female prep wrestlers in the state. Pendleton Heights coach Dave Cloud remembers opponents declining to wrestle against her.
"During that first year, there were a couple of times she got thrown on her head and got up with tears in her eyes, like any kid," Cloud said. "But she never seemed intimidated."
U.S. women's national coach Terry Steiner said Downing learned lessons during that period that serve her well today.
"Like a lot of girls that have gotten to this level so far, they're survivors in a sport dominated by men," Steiner said. "They've had to fight for everything they have just because of where the sport is in this country."
Cloud said Downing's talent became apparent during her senior year. She finished third in her weight class at the Sunkist Open in Tempe, Ariz., a top national meet.
"We thought, 'Wow, she could be really good,' " Cloud said. "She was a high school kid and she was competing against women in their early 20s."
Downing graduated from Pendleton Heights in 1998 and turned down offers to play college softball so she could attend Minnesota-Morris, which has one of the nation's few female wrestling programs.
Her progress has been steady. She finished fourth in her first national appearance in 1998 and has improved since, capped by the national title last month in Las Vegas.
She's been training at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs since it began its women's program last year. She said that experience has been critical in her recent improvement.
"When you've got your No. 2 girl right there, after awhile she stops my best stuff," Downing said. "I've got to develop something new or take it up to another level."
A championship this weekend would put her on the U.S. team for the Pan American Games in August and the World Championships in September in New York.
Whether it would be a prelude to an appearance in the 2004 Olympics -- which will include women's wrestling for the first time -- is far from certain.
There will be only four weight classes at the Olympics, unlike the seven used for the World Championships, so Downing will have to move up to the 158.5-pound class. She'll likely have to beat Toccara Montgomery, perhaps the United States' top female wrestler, at the Olympic Trials to make the team.
"I'm at my ideal weight," Downing said. "It's going to be really hard. I'm going to have to adjust to wrestling girls bigger than me."
Downing has a bachelor's degree in history and social science from Minnesota-Morris. She hopes to eventually earn a doctorate degree and become a professor and college wrestling coach, with plans to compete through the 2008 Olympics.
Those hard times in the Pendleton Heights wrestling room now seem like a distant memory.
"It's definitely the sport for me," said Downing, who won't have to wrestle in the Trials until Sunday's championship round because of her national title. "It's total contact. Everything that I put in, I'm totally responsible for myself."
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Let's have a little equality in sports
Date published: 6/24/2003
I'm writing to you on the sub- ject of school sports. Boys have five sports: football, wrestling, soccer, track, and basketball. Girls have seven sports: basketball, soccer, football, track, wrestling, volleyball, and softball.
Now, since boys can't have a baseball team, I think Spotsylvania County schools should have coed softball teams.
I mean, girls can play two boys sports (I am not trying to be sexist, but wrestling a girl doesn't exactly make you feel right. When I lost to a girl in wrestling, I felt horrible to have to go home and tell my dad.)
In wrestling there is too much physical contact for girls. Most boys feel very uncomfortable touching girls, and I don't like beating up girls.
So, I think we boys should either get our own wrestling team or a coed softball team.
Travis Cox
Spotsylvania
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Local wrestlers earn spots on U.S. freestyle team
06/24/03 Pat Galbincea
Plain Dealer Reporter
Cleveland area wrestlers Tina George and Toccara Montgomery earned starting berths on the U.S. women's freestyle team after winning challenge matches Sunday at the USA Wrestling World Team Trials in Indianapolis.
Despite 14 wrestlers with Ohio roots who competed in the men's freestyle and Greco Roman divisions, none advanced to the final round except Joe Heskett, a three-time state champion from Walsh Jesuit and NCAA champion at Iowa State.
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Winners in freestyle qualified for the Pan American Games and the 2003 World Wrestling Freestyle Championships slated Sept. 12-14 in New York City. The World Greco-Roman Championships are scheduled Oct. 2-5 in Cretiel, France.
George, a graduate of Cleveland Heights High School, needed three matches to beat out Tela O'Donnell of Colorado Springs, Colo., for the right to start at 121 pounds. George, a past world silver medalist, beat O'Donnell in their first round match, 5-2, but was pinned in 4:38 in the second round.
In the rubber match, George won a 5-2 decision.
Montgomery, an East Tech graduate now attending Cumberland College, came from behind twice to beat Samantha Lang of Tualatin, Ore., to win the 158.5-pound weight class.
Montgomery, also a past world silver medalist, trailed Lang, 5-0, in their opening match but scored five points in the final 35 seconds to win, 8-5. In the second match of their best-of-three series, Montgomery scored in overtime to earn an 8-7 decision.
Keystone junior Heather Martin, a junior national champion, competed at 147.5 pounds.
Heskett reached the freestyle finals at 163 pounds but lost two straight matches, 3-0 and 6-1, to ex-Iowa national champion Joe Williams.
CSU Recruits:
Cleveland State wrestling coach Jack Effner released his list of 12 recruits that include Kevin Linich, a transfer from Kent State and two-time state place winner at University School. Linich will compete at 125 pounds.
Effner needs help at 125 since three-time NCAA qualifier Rocco Mansueto has graduated. Besides Linich, he recruited Nathan Browning, a four-time state qualifier from Bellbrook, and DeAngelo Penn, who has not competed in the past two years after graduating as a two-time state place winner at Solon.
Those three wrestlers will compete at 125 with two of Effner's earlier signees, Ryan Riggs of Massillon Perry and two-time state place winner Joe Wornoff of Garfield Heights.
Effner's two biggest names are Ohio State transfer Matt Kallai (174/184), a state champ from Wadsworth, and brothers Mike and Ryan Hurley from St. Vincent-St. Mary. Mike Hurley (141) was signed a year ago, but did not enter school until he could wrestle all four years with Ryan (149).
Rounding out the Vikings list is Alec Bottomlee (141/149), a state qualifier from Elyria; two-time state qualifier Nathan Hough-Snee (197) from Mentor; William Seng (174), state qualifier from Findlay; and Sengbe Kemokai (197), a state qualifier from Wadsworth.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
pgalbincea@plaind.com, 216-999-4677