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Prep girls rankings include area wrestlers

, December 18, 2003

Renne Moreland and Stacy Troxel of Roseville and Margarita Rios of Kennedy are among the state's top-ranked girl wrestlers.Troxel is third at 138 pounds behind Ashley Evans of Ukiah and Kim Mansfield of Wilcox. Rios is fourth at 160 pounds and Moreland fifth at 108 pounds.

San Leandro is the state's top girls team. Vintage of Napa is second and Hogan of Vallejo is third.

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Lathrop wrestlers pin down victory

By DANNY MARTIN, 12/21/03

Familiarity equaled first-place finishes for many high school wrestlers Saturday in the final matches of the West Valley Wolfpack Red and Gold Tournament.

All but four weight classes in Friday's opening action were contested in a round-robin format, where every wrestler faced one another. The round-robin format also was the result of Wasilla withdrawing, reducing the field to six teams.

The wrestlers competed again Saturday in a straight-bracket format.

"When you beat them on the first day, you know you have their number," said North Pole's Justin Ballek, who defeated Lathrop's Tom Doyle for the 189-pound title one day after pinning the Malemutes wrestler. "You know you have a little bit of extra (motivation) in you to beat them just because you beat them the day before.''

But the familiarity factor also helped Lathrop capture six individual titles and the team championship on Saturday.

The Malemutes, who also had five second-place finishers and two third-place finishers, registered 211 points. The host Wolfpack, with three individual titlists, took second with 163, followed by the North Pole Patriots, whose 112 points included three first-place finishes.

"We're getting better at staying together and helping each other,'' said Lathrop head coach Tom Ritchie. "The kids who won titles did it for the team rather than for themselves.''

The Sitka Wolves, with one titlist, placed fourth with 93 points, followed by the Colony Knights with 82 points and one champion, and the Palmer Moose rounded out the field with 59 points.

Lathrop's individual titlists consisted of Leah Bachert (103), Justin Beyer (112), Zach Gonzalez (125), Jeff Bailey (130), James Mills (145) and Dustin Borland (152).

Bachert, a freshman and one of the few female entries, was named the tournament's most outstanding wrestler.

"It's awesome; I didn't think I was going to get it,'' Bachert said. "I just wanted to come in here and do my best and help my team.''

Bachert said she credits her success to her brother, Jeremiah, and sister, Rachel, who, respectively, graduated from Lathrop in 2001 and 2003, and were Malemutes wrestlers.

"They got me into wrestling,'' said Bachert, who entered the sport six years ago.

Pinfalls got her a first-place medal on Saturday.

Bachert, after going 3-0 in round-robin competition, got byes in the first two rounds Saturday of the 103 division, which featured only four wrestlers. She pinned Malemutes teammate Chris Zenger in 38 seconds of their semifinal to earn a berth in the final, where she pinned North Pole's David Vanvliet in 3:21, aided by a head-and-arm combination.

She also pinned Vanvliet in 4:26 on Friday.

"I just changed the moves I used and how I wrestled him all together,'' Bachert said of the final.

Though Ballek captured the 189 title, he noticed a changed Doyle from the wrestler whom Ballek pinned in 3:42 of their round-robin match.

Ballek won 6-4 in overtime in one of the most exciting finals. Doyle forced the extra period by rallying for a 4-4 tie with a lift takedown with 30 seconds left in the third period. Doyle tried to score near-fall points in the waning seconds but time ran out.

Ballek had led 4-0 early in the match after scoring with a takedown and a reversal.

"He came a lot harder today, he had a lot more energy,'' Ballek said of Doyle, "and I was starting to get sloppy. If I hadn't got sloppy, I could have scored more (in regulation) and not have to had to score in overtime.''

Ballek lifted Doyle's leg and drove him for a takedown in overtime for the victory.

"Coach (Rob) Ott pushes us every day in practice about having an overtime period,'' Ballek said. "He just tells us you to have to push every single second in order to win. If you want to win, you've got to go all out.''

Team totals and results of the finals and third-place matches are listed on the Scoreboard page.

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Judy Williams is more than just another girl in a boys' sport; she also wins

Sunday, December 21, 2003

By Mike White, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Oliver High School wrestler Judy Williams -- "When I wrestling, I'm just one of the boys."

A girl competing on a boys' high school wrestling team certainly isn't news any more. Since the mid 1980s, numerous girls in Western Pennsylvania have tangled with boys on the mats, but the girls never enjoy much success.

Judy Williams is different. She isn't just a workout partner who gets thrown around at Oliver High School. She isn't someone who just competes on the boys' team.

Williams actually wins. And with regularity. That's what makes her unique.

Williams, an Oliver senior, has a 2-1 record this season and both of her wins have been by pin. She had an 8-10 record a year ago and finished third at the City League championships. No girl in the WPIAL has ever finished in the top three of their section championships.

City League wrestling isn't on par with the WPIAL. Still, but what Williams has done is impressive. She is one of Oliver's team captains.

"I've seen her wrestle some kids who were really good and who beat her," said Oliver coach Lester Campbell.

"They come off the mat and say, 'Man, she's really tough.' She has garnered so much respect from people and coaches all over. People see her and go, 'Wow, this little girl is a wrestler.' "

Oliver's school nickname is the Bears -- and Williams looks more like a cub. She is only 5 feet tall and wrestles in the 112-pound division.

"When I'm wrestling, I'm just one of the boys," Williams said. "It's a respect thing. I'm a female, but I've earned my place."

Williams' wrestling career started two years ago in her sophomore year when she came home one day and asked her mother if she could try the sport. Williams, a North Side resident, was intrigued by the sport since one of her cousins, Anthony Sanders, wrestled for Perry a few years ago. The only other sport Williams had played was middle school basketball.

Oliver High School wrestler Judy Williams.

At first I was a little stunned," said Williams' mother, Rochelle Stewart.

"Wrestling is not a sport girls usually attempt. But I told her she had my support and her coach encouraged her by giving her some videotapes so she could practice her technique."

Williams asked her mother to help her practice. Stewart flipped out -- literally.

"She would watch these tapes," Stewart said, "and after the third time of flipping me in our living room, I said 'OK, you do all your practicing at school from now on.'"

When Williams first joined the team, she could feel a lack of respect from the boys. But that changed quickly.

"At first, everybody didn't take me too seriously. They thought I was just another girl," Williams said. "Coach tried to make sure I was getting respect. But it's something you still have to earn on your own."

"When she started running longer than everyone in endurance runs, they started to respect her," Campbell said. "Then if she got slammed on the mat, she would get up and want more. She didn't cry or get upset. She had to prove herself, but it was not a long proving process."

It helped make Campbell marvel at her work ethic and her endurance level.

"She lives on the North Side and had a job this summer in East Liberty," Campbell said. "Sometimes, she would run to work.

"Her other asset is her learning curve is just off the charts. You literally see her development with each and every match and each and every practice."

One of Williams' goals is to qualify for the PIAA Class AAA regional. To do that, she must finish first or second at the City League championships. She has better than a 3.0 grade-point average in the classroom and hopes to attend college and study psychology. Her wrestling career will probably be over after high school.

"She's the type of kid you want to have in your program," Campbell said. "Her success and her character are contagious."

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Wrestling is still in her blood

By PAUL BETIT 12/21/ 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

BATH — In 1996, when she was a freshman at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham, Lisa Nowak went before the Maine Human Rights Commission and won the right to wrestle against boys in high school competition. Seven years later, Nowak is a Spanish teacher at the Hyde School in Bath. And, following a love for wrestling that developed years earlier, Nowak has become the first woman to coach wrestling at a Class A school in the New England Prep League.
Quite a pioneer, huh?

Nowak doesn`t see it that way.

``I`ve always had trouble with that word,`` said Nowak, who is serving as an assistant coach for the Phoenix. ``People have called me that all the way. But I`m just doing what I want to do.``

All Nowak wanted to do after college was find a way to get involved in wrestling again.

``I always knew I would get back into wrestling,`` said Nowak, who earned all-American status by finishing fifth in the 125-pound division at the girls` high school national tournament in 1999. ``I was really bummed I was away from it while I was in college.``

Nowak didn`t wrestle while earning a degree in Spanish at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass.

``I got offers to wrestle in college,`` she said, ``but I ended up going to Wheaton. It was a better academic school for me.``

While she didn`t wrestle, Nowak remained physically active at Wheaton. She played four seasons on the school`s rugby team.

``I loved rugby,`` she said. ``It was a good continuation of wrestling. It was very physical and hard.``

While rugby allowed Nowak to stay competitive, wrestling remained her first love.

Following her graduation from Wheaton last spring, Nowak joined the faculty at Hyde. When an assistant coaching position on the Bath school`s wrestling team became available, she jumped at the opportunity.

``She brings an awful lot to our program, her enthusiasm, her commitment to the sport and her desire,`` said Logan Kidwell, Hyde`s head coach. ``She is responsible for the number of women we have out for the sport.``

This season, five girls are wrestling for Hyde. It`s the first time girls have been on the squad.

``We`ve never had the ability to do it right, so with her involvement, it makes it easier,`` Hyde Athletic Director Brian Mulligan said.

Wrestling has been part of Nowak`s life for quite some time. Her father, Mark, wrestled in high school in Indiana and while he was in the Navy. He taught the sport to Lisa and her brother, Toby, a former Eastern Class A 152-pound champion at Mt. Ararat.

``Wrestling`s in her blood,`` said her father.

Lisa, now 23, started to wrestle competitively in 1994 as a seventh grader. But with an older brother in the house, her introduction to wrestling came long before that.

``My brother is 17 months older than me,`` she said. ``He had been wrestling since he was in the sixth grade, so he`d been teaching me at home the whole time.``

Now Nowak is the teacher, a role that seems to suit her well.

``She`s got such a knowledge of the sport and all this great stuff that works for her,`` Kidwell said. ``She`s just a valuable resource to work with kids, one on one.``

Nowak works with all of Hyde`s wrestlers - male and female. Hyde`s younger wrestlers say they especially like her approach.

``She goes around and tells you what you`ve done wrong,`` said Patrick McGough, a first-year wrestler from Fairfax, Va. ``She`ll show you what you did wrong instead of just telling you. It`s better than having a coach yelling at you.``

Nowak also provides help beyond the technical side of the sport.

``Not only does she teach us how to wrestle, but she talks about our attitudes, which is something that might hold us back from wrestling our best,`` said Jesse Wolstein, a senior from White Plains, N.Y. ``She helps us put our full effort forward.``

Nowak`s interest in Hyde`s wrestlers extends beyond the mat.

``She makes an effort to really be a friend to the people she`s coaching,`` said Carolyn Vagjian, a first-year wrestler from Pittsburgh, Pa. ``It`s not that we only see her at practice. We see her all the time.``

While Nowak doesn`t see herself as a wrestling pioneer, she is glad that more girls are taking up the sport she loves.

``It always makes me feel very excited that other people are taking that opportunity,`` she said. ``I do kind of feel like I accomplished something. It does make me feel excited about all the girls who are getting into it, because I know how much it improved my character.

``It made me who I am.``

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STATE RIGHTS PANEL CLEARS WAY FOR GIRL TO
WRESTLE BOYS;THE COMMISSION VOTES TO AMEND A CLAUSE IN THE EQUAL
EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY; ACT.

Portland Press Herald May 21, 1996,

A female freshman at Mount Ararat School won the right
Monday to wrestle against the boys.

The change, adopted unanimously by the Maine Human
Rights Commission, pleased Lisa Nowak. But she doesn't expect it to
cause a significant increase in the number of girls involved in
high school wrestling.

''There actually were other girls in junior high, but
they all quit when they got to high school,'' said Nowak, who lives in
Topsham. ''It's alot harder in high school. The practices are about five
times harder. It's not fun at all.''

Fun or not, the Human Rights Commission decided Nowak
and other girls have every right to take part. The panel cleared the
way by amending a clause in the state's Equal Education
Opportunity Act that allowed high schools to prohibit girls from
wrestling on boys teams.

''If a boy refuses to wrestle a girl, it's the boy who
will forfeit,'' said Patricia Ryan, the commission's executive
director.

Until Monday, the opposite occurred. A girl's team could
be penalized if a boy refused to wrestle her and her team didn't put a
boy out on the mat to wrestle in her place.

From now on, the boy's team will lose points if he
refuses to wrestle a girl in a high school meet.

''It was a pretty long process, but I think they made
the right decision,'' said Mark Nowak, Lisa's father.

The Nowaks petitioned the Human Rights Commission to
make the change after their daughter was prevented from wrestling in a
Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference junior varsity meet
at Oxford Hills High School in January.

A 1984 amendment to the state's 24-year-old human rights
law had listed wrestling as one of two sports for which schools may
sponsor single-sex teams. Boxing is the other sport.

Guidelines for the Maine Principals' Association, which
are based on that law, allowed boys to refuse to wrestle girls in high
school meets without penalty. However, MPA officials told the
commission last month the statewide sanctioning organization would
amend its guidelines to adhere to changes made by the commission.

With Monday's ruling, Maine became the 20th state to
approve wrestling as a coed sport. All of the other New England states
allow girls to compete for positions on boys teams if separate girls
teams are not available.

Michael Feldman, an attorney representing the Nowaks,
had asked the commission to adopt a rule prohibiting schools from
setting out separate wrestling teams for girls unless there was
meaningful competition. The commission took no action on that issue.

''Right now, you can put up a sign that says, 'Girls who
want to wrestle sign here,' '' he said. ''Nobody signs and they can
say, 'We gave them the opportunity, but no one signed up, so now we
can (form) a single-sex team.' ''

Feldman said it is unlikely Nowak will have difficulty
finding someone to wrestle.

''All along, it's not been the kids who have been the
problem, anyhow,'' he said. ''The kids have always been willing to
wrestle with Lisa. It's always been some adult who has taken wrestling and
made it into a sexual act rather than a sport.''

Nowak attended the commission meeting with her parents
and brother, a sophomore who also is on the Mount Ararat wrestling
team. She intends to wrestle for the Mount Ararat varsity team in
the 112-pound weight class next season.

The new rule, Nowak said, changes the atmosphere.

''Now,'' she said, ''everybody knows there's a girl
wrestler out there and she's pretty good. . . . I really feel a lot of
pressure.''

This past season, Nowak lost all three of her matches
against boys while wrestling in junior varsity exhibitions. The
outcomes of junior varsity matches do not count toward a high school
varsity team's score, so forfeits don't mean anything.

Nowak said wrestling against boys will help prepare her
to wrestle in college.

''The girls I wrestled with last year (in junior high
school) weren't serious about it,'' she said. ''Wrestling guys is a lot
different. Their body weight is more muscle than the girls, and I found boys
have longer arms.''

No one spoke in opposition to amending the law at last
month's public hearing. However, the commission did receive three
letters opposing such a change.

One of the letter writers, Marty Ryan, athletic director
at Wells High School, said he opposes allowing girls to wrestle against
boys, but that he will abide by any change in the guidelines.

''We will follow the recommendations'' of the MPA, he
said. ''We have no choice.''

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UCD is named in bias lawsuit
Four women say UC Davis violated Title IX by cutting women from wrestling.

By Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writer
December 20, 2003

By "eliminating women's participation and scholarship opportunities in wrestling," UC Davis is guilty of gender discrimination in violation of the landmark 1972 federal legislation guaranteeing equal access to college sports, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
"You don't drop an opportunity for women unless you're going to replace it with another opportunity, and they haven't done that," attorney Kristen Galles said Friday by telephone.

Galles filed the suit Thursday in Sacramento federal court on behalf of four women; three wrestled for the varsity squad before women were eliminated from the team in 2001, and the other woman went to Davis expecting to be on the team.

"More than 25 years later, UC Davis still does not fully comply with Title IX, and instead went backward with the issuance of its no-females-in-wrestling directive in 2001," Galles said.

UC Davis spokeswoman Julia Ann Easley said Friday the university has not received a copy of the suit and will have no comment until it has been reviewed.

The suit filed on behalf of current students and former wrestlers Arezou Mansourian and Lauren Mancuso seeks to be certified as a class action, allowing them to represent all current and future female students who would like to participate in the wrestling program.

Christine Wing-Si Ng lives in Berkeley. Nancy Nien-Li Chiang, a Sacramento resident, does not attend UCD now but plans to return next fall.

Mancuso, a graduate of the all-girls St. Francis High School in Sacramento and its only wrestler, enrolled at UCD in fall 2001. She was recruited and awarded financial assistance, then the university cut women from the program and "reneged on Ms. Mancuso's athletic scholarship," the suit charges.

In addition to the university and the UC Board of Regents, the suit names as defendants UCD Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, athletic director Greg Warzecka, associate athletic directors Pam Gill-Fisher and Larry Swanson and associate vice chancellor Bob Franks.

Galles, a sole practitioner in Alexandria, Va., is a self-described "big-firm dropout" and former softball "scrub" at Creighton. She represents female athletes seeking to enforce their rights under Title IX of the amendments to federal civil-rights law barring sex discrimination in education.

Passed by Congress in 1972, the statute's regulations took effect July 21, 1975. Sponsors of intercollegiate athletics were required to comply within three years of the effective date.

The suit against UC Davis is an outgrowth of a broader national controversy over the impact of Title IX on college athletics. The law's detractors insist that it imposes quotas detrimental to all sports.

Universities across the country continue to cap or cut men's teams, citing a desire not to run afoul of parts of the statute that focus on gender discrimination.

Schools can demonstrate compliance in this area by one of three methods:

* Providing opportunities substantially proportionate to each gender's undergraduates.

* Showing a history and continuing practice of expanding opportunities for the under-represented sex.

* Fully and effectively accommodating the existing athletic interests and abilities of the under-represented sex.

The suit declares that UC Davis sports fall short on all three counts. That is, the ratio of female to male athletes is not commensurate with the enrollment ratio, the school does not have a history of expanding opportunities for female athletes, and it does not fully accommodate the athletic interests and abilities of its female students, according to the suit.

It is a companion suit to one filed in September by Galles on behalf of Michael Burch, UCD's former wrestling coach who claims he was fired for supporting the women on his team whose complaints about their fate drew a federal investigation, heat from a California assemblywoman and publicity that was not welcomed by school officials.

Burch's suit is primarily based on the anti-retaliation provisions of Title IX. It was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Sacramento because Burch sought financial protection there after losing his job June 30, 2001.

He had been UCD's wrestling coach since September 1995 and had made the lagging program competitive in the Division I Pacific-10 Conference.

He was named UC Davis Coach of the Year in 1997 and 2001.

Throughout Burch's six years there -- and for at least two years before that -- UCD accepted male and female wrestlers on its varsity team.

During his final year, the suit says, Warzecka and Gill-Fisher told him the women's program was being cut.

"Mr. Burch complained that the no-female directive was unfair and constituted sex discrimination against the female wrestlers, and asked that it be rescinded," the suit says. "Defendants refused."

In March 2001, it says, Swanson wrote Burch "to congratulate him on his successful wrestling season and to discuss continuing his employment as head wrestling coach."

The following month, female wrestlers filed a gender discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. The complaint prompted media attention, a threat by then-Assemblywoman Helen Thomson, D-Davis, to withhold state-controlled funds from the school and an investigation by federal education authorities.

The suit alleges Burch was then terminated for advocating the position taken by the female members of his team, and for cooperating with the federal investigators, in violation of the anti-retaliation provisions of Title IX and the First Amendment's free-speech guarantee.

In their suit, the women seek an injunction barring sex discrimination in UCD athletics, reinstating women to the wrestling program to full varsity status and mandating an increase in athletic scholarships for women. They also ask for an unspecified amount of monetary damages.

Burch seeks an injunction reinstating him as wrestling coach and a lecturer at UCD and an unspecified amount of monetary damages.

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Ladies Classic is a hit
Frisco coach wants to move event to January, attract more wrestlers

December 19, 2003 CHASE WOFFORD , The Dallas Morning News

FRISCO – The Texas Ladies Classic at Centennial on Dec. 12-13 was a
monumental event for wrestling in Frisco.

Frisco wrestling coach Chuck Brown is already thinking about how to
make the event even bigger in January 2005.

"That was the first time girls wrestling in Texas has been on this
stage," Brown said. "That was an incredible thing for our girls to witness."

A total of 160 wrestlers on the high school, college and international
level participated in the tournament, which was co-hosted by Frisco and
Centennial.

Cumberland College, which is one of seven colleges with a women's
wrestling team, participated. All of Cumberland's wrestlers are from North Texas,
including 2003 Frisco graduate Allison Hooper.

Brown would like to bring all seven women's wrestling programs to the
next Texas Ladies Classic, and he plans to move the tournament from December
to January in hopes of drawing a larger crowd.

"You had a good turnout from the kids' families and friends, but you
didn't have necessarily the wrestling fan out there and I think that will
change after the Olympics," Brown said.

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The girls are back in town

By JUDI BOWERS 12/18/03

Girl power. That's what the Big Bear High School female athletes have, even when they are competing in a traditionally male sport. The ladies proved they are to be reckoned with at the Big Bear High School all girls wrestling tournament Dec. 13.

Female wrestlers from Hesperia, West Covina, Eisenhower, Cypress, Santa Fe and Big Bear high schools competed. Big Bear coach Martin Bumstead said the weather kept five other teams from traveling, having committed to the event previously.

The Big Bear grapplers had a fine showing, Bumstead said. "I'm real pleased for the first time out," he said.

Ginny Jimenez at 114 pounds finished fourth. She was 1-3 on the day.
At 126 pounds, Kristy Bishop finished second. Bumstead said the junior lost only to the wrestler from Santa Fe, finishing at 3-1.

Shaina Blundt and Jackie Newsome both competed in the 144-pound class, against three other wrestlers. Blundt finished second, Newsome fifth.

Bishop, Jimenez and Blundt are all three returning wrestlers. This is Newsome's first year. "She's just learning," Bumstead said of Newsome. He said he is very pleased with her effort for a first-year wrestler. Newsome went the full six minutes in one of her matches, the coach said.

"There is quite a movement for girls in wrestling," Bumstead said. There is a separate division for females at the state level in the finals. Bumstead said he expects that with the Olympics having a women's only class that possibly CIF will follow suit sometime in the future.

Bumstead said the Big Bear female wrestlers work hard and are every bit as conditioned as the males on the team.

The males and females will be in action on Saturday, Dec. 20, when Big Bear hosts the Big Bear varsity tournament. In its 35th year, the tournament started as a five-way and has grown to a full bracketed tournament. Bumstead said that 19 schools are expected to send wrestlers. Schools will come from all over Southern California, from as far north as Bishop and possibly even Nevada.

Weigh-ins begin at 7 a.m. and the wrestling action gets underway around 9:30 a.m. This will be the final event for the Bears until after the holiday break.