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Pine View girl fights for chance to wrestle
Mother says 10-year-old denied place with boys

By JANE ZHANG 12/26/03
jzhang@thespectrum.com

Alysia Lambros, 10, is upended by Zach Prince, 8, as they practice wrestling techniques last month in Hurricane. Some coaches are not allowing Lambros to wrestle in the league because she is a girl.

HURRICANE -- "Oh, sweetie, don't kill your brother!" Charise Lambros called out gently as her daughter bent to throw her oldest son to the ground.

It was a crisp Tuesday night in November, and the wrestling group had ended their evening practice at the Hurricane High School gymnasium. But the 4-foot-4, 54-pound girl wrestler Alysia, 10, continued to dominate the mat and grapple with boys -- now her two brothers, Truman, 6 and Alexander, 3.

"She loves to compete," said Charise, remembering how, at age 6, Alysia rode a bicycle to her and announced with a flyer in hand: "I have to wrestle."

Wrestle she did, winning four bronze medals, three silvers and four golds in kindergarten, first and fourth grades. But with only a few girl wrestlers in Southern Utah schools, Alysia's participation in a boy-dominated sport has raised some hackles among coaches and parents who consider it improper to have girls and boys hit and slam each other on the mat.

On Nov. 14, Alysia was denied entrance to the Pine View High School's wrestling tournament sponsored by the city's Community Education Program. As Charise recalled, Vance Casperson, the school's wrestling coach, said "it's a sport for young men."

Charise said she was shocked. In 2000, she said, Alysia became the Southern Utah Little League wrestling champion representing Pine View High School. Charise said she demanded to see the district's policy or a written explanation, but that was denied, too.

Casperson didn't returned The Spectrum's repeated requests for comments, which were left both on his office phone and through his colleagues.

Marshall Topham, assistant superintendent for secondary education in the Washington County School District, said the district has no policy to either prohibit or encourage girls to wrestle against boys. Casperson's decision to deny Alysia's entrance to a private club, he said, was entirely "personal."

To be sure, girls are rare in wrestling. Only Hawaii and California have girls' wrestling teams, said Evan Excell, executive director of Utah High School Activities Association. But based on Title IX, he said, most states allow girls to wrestle on boys' teams "until those opportunities are equal."

With short blond hair and wearing black tights, Alysia mingled into the boys' group seamlessly the other night at Hurricane High School's gym. Her body still not fully grown, the slim girl stood at the same height as most of her wrestling partners.

In one period, she looked firmly into 9-year-old Britton Hausman's eyes, clenched her teeth and clutched his neck with her arms. The boy stood his ground, grabbed her waist and five seconds later, both lay on the scarlet mat with legs thrown up in the air.

Coach Kerry Prince said, Alysia joined the team in October as the only girl wrestler in a group of 49 boys between 3 and 12. She is a formidable young athlete, he said, and he hasn't heard any complaints.

His 8-year-old son, Zach Prince, for one, said he sees no difference in wrestling against a boy or a girl.

"It's kind of fun," he said Prince. "It's just like wrestling with a boy. They are good."

On the sidelines, however, parents differ on letting girls wrestle against boys.

Jane Scott, who has sent four of her seven children to the mat, said she doesn't want her son Brian, 10, to wrestle with Alysia. Boys, she said, may be embarrassed.

"Some of the moves are too personal," she said. "(You) teach the boys to respect girls and treat them like ladies. If you go on the wrestling mat, that goes against what's being taught."

Hausman's mother, Meshell Hausman, disagreed. The stigma against girl wrestlers, she said, has kept her daughter, Kaneesha, now 14, out of the sport she loves.

"I just felt that all children should be able to pursue the dreams they have," Meshell Hausman said. "If she wants to wrestle, I think she should be allowed to do that. It shouldn't matter what her sex is."

As a tomboy, Charise said, Alysia has always shunned dolls, flowers and butterflies. She stays outdoors until dark, digging dirt and playing with boys.

Her most prized possessions, Alysia said, are those wrestling medals. She said she doesn't mind the beating or choking, because "they get medals."

Wrestling between sexes is one of the oldest sports in the ancient Greek life. Still, does the co-ed sport become too sexual and violent when fully grown teenagers compete?

Charise paused, looking at her daughter sweating in a black T-shirt printed with "I'm Proud to be a Tiger."

"This is a sport," the mother said. "If she doesn't have a problem with it, if she wants to, I will support her."

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For first time, girls take to the mat at Amador Valley

By Bill Kruissink 12.26.03
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

EBAL notebook

Right from the start, Amador Valley wrestling coach Joe Rose wanted things clear: "This is not social club. It's hard work," he told those trying out for the sport.

Soon after, Rose saw the 15 girls who'd shown up for Amador Valley High School's inaugural girls wrestling program shrink to four.

"But we got girls who wanted to wrestle," he said.

They also got a team. In previous years, girls have wrestled, but always as part of the boys' program.

Times have changed. This winter, the North Coast Section will hold the first girls wrestling championships.

The road is not without bumps. For one thing, Amador Valley's team is the only girls-only program in the EBAL. To compensate for the lack of local competition, the girls are on the road almost every weekend attending girls meets.

"There's a tournament every weekend," Rose said. "After the holidays we're going to wrestle in a mixed tournament at St. Patrick's (High School in Vallejo)"

"It's really fun," junior Stefanie Rhodes said. "Its fun seeing how far girls have come in a rough sport."

At Amador Valley, the boys' and girls' programs practice together.

"I like (working) with the boys, because in the girls' brackets, you're stronger than other girls," freshman Lauren Neves said. "You're not stronger than the guys, but you still have an advantage against the girls."

Neves, who is in her fourth year in the sport, began competing against boys at Harvest Middle School in Pleasanton. Wrestling 114s at a recent girls' high school tourney, she went 4-1, winning four matches by pin.

Rhodes took another route to the sport.

"I wanted to get in shape," she admitted. "My dad said, 'Yeah, you'll get in shape.' And I wanted to do a sport that doesn't do cuts."

She said everything was going well until the coaches turned the heat up in the wrestling room -- the norm during workouts.

"I started sweating -- I was sweating so much it was like it was raining," Rhodes said. "But I started working out and getting in shape."

Not only that, but wrestling satisfied a need for action. "I'm very competitive," said Rhodes, who wrestles 120s.

A competitive nature is one thing the Dons have in common. Amador Valley is at St. Patrick's Jan. 3.

Also wrestling for Amador Valley are freshman Jenna Boyovich at 132 pounds and junior Lauren Rivera at 235. All four are eligible to return next winter.

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And Now, Wrestling for Girls

Welcome to the Main Event

By Ben Shlesinger Staff Writer 12/26/03

"I got this done for a Bat Mitzvah and as soon as I got them done I was like 'Oh gosh, I still have to wrestle.' "Emily Dillon, a bubbly Eastern Middle School 8th grader, is talking about her bright-red nails. A new layer of polish is not standard for wrestlers, but maybe Emily thought she was part of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Dillon, sporting ginger-hair complemented by red and green Christmas-colored braces, did participate, however, in The Main Event: that's the name for the wrestling competition for middle school kids in which she competed on Thursday.

Jerry Seidman, Dillon's P.E. teacher, makes sure that everybody knows the difference between The Main Event and professional wrestling. "In a combative sport like wrestling, you can go after each other and still respect one another," Seidman says.

Seidman, a physical education teacher at Eastern and director of the this event with an 18-year history has a lot of experience coaching wrestlers. He is currently the assistant coach at Walter Johnson High School and he tutored his son Adam through a collegiate career at the University of Maryland.

It was Seidman's long experience with wrestling that led him to start The Main Event. Back in 1986, however, The Main Event wasn't really an 'event' at all. It was just a small P.E. tournament , just like the ping-pong tournament a school might hold after all the classes have finished that unit.

Over the years , though, more and more students have become interested in wrestling and they are the ones who have turned The Main Event into the phenomenon it is today.

One group of interested studentsgirls were not, at first, allowed to compete in the wrestling tourney. And Coach Seidman himself was not so open to the idea of female wrestlers. "In the first 10 years there were no girls. I told them I was strictly against it. I thought they'd take it as a joke or it would water down the competition."

But a group of girls kept begging Seidman to let them participate and he finally gave in. His little wrestling tournament has never been the same.

A few years ago, Mary Alice Salinas from NBC4 came over to Eastern when she heard about the girl wrestlers. She did a piece on the program and ran with it on the air that night. Ever since that story aired, girls have come out in droves to wrestle. This year, 105 girls came out for a shot at competing in The Main Event.

A little exposure from Channel 4 also brought Seidman some popularity. "Every time I go out in the Silver Spring area people always say 'You're the guy that runs the girls wrestling program at Eastern.'"

Even though Salinas brought some exposure to girls wrestling at Eastern, Seidman puts on a show worthy of the name "The Main Event." Recently, the tournament has become so large that it had to be moved to the gym at Montgomery Blair High School. In 2001, the Main Event's first year at Blair, Seidman installed a patriotic theme because of September 11th. That year, 50 firemen and policemen marched in carrying American flags .

This year's offering started off with a little help from area schools. The Blair Pep Band, Cheerleaders and Pom Squad did their routines followed by the Eastern Step Team. A "Parade of Nations" came next with 6th graders carrying flags from countries all over the world.

Seidman is especially proud of this aspect of the pre-match pomp and circumstance. "We have families from all over the world. Eastern has students from 78 different countries. The Parade of Nations teaches students to respect their heritage and culture. And since 6th graders can't wrestle, it gives them an opportunity to be involved."

Such involvement got Doug Jimenez interested in this year's tournament. "I just tried out this year because it looked interesting last year when I saw The Main Event. It looked fun." Jimenez almost small enough to be vacuumed up if he wasn't looking, but he wanted to wrestle regardless.

As for the actual wrestling at The Main Event, there are 13 boys' matches and 13 girls' matches (boys only wrestle boys and girls only wrestle girls). Each match is determined, as is the tradition, by weight-class. Jimenez wrestled against Keith Busey in the boys lowest weight-class and they looked as if the two of them together wouldn't top 100 pounds. Both were flying around the mat taking each other down, escaping and then taking each other down all over again. Jimenez ended up losing, but he enjoyed his time on the mat. "It was fun," he said.

In the most entertaining girls match of the day, Emily Dillon was on her back, about to be pinned, but fought back for a pin of her own. After her win, Dillon admitted to not believing in herself during her match. "I guess you can say I had my doubts , but you always have to think it can be better because in wrestling it can always turn around."

And why would your typical girly-girl 8th grader wrestle? "It is something else besides soccer and basketball," Dillon says.

To be sure. But in those sports you don't have to worry about messing up your new coat of nail polish.

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Sanchez takes second in all-girl tourney

By TIM YANNI, Sports Writer

Tuesday, December 23, 2003 4:45 PM PST

Raven Sanchez, a 14-year-old freshman wrestler at Holtville High, went 2-1 last weekend to take second place in the statewide Ramona High girls wrestling tournament's 120-pound category.

"It's kind of cool," Sanchez said. "It was real fun and I enjoyed it."

Sanchez wrestled when she was in third grade but took a break before trying it again her freshman season.

"I don't know why I stopped," Sanchez said. "I kind of wanted to start again because it's kind of fun."

Sanchez said competing in a sport dominated by boys is difficult, but she makes a challenge out of being the only girl on Holtville High's team.

"It makes it more challenging," Sanchez said of wrestling boys. "A lot of guys don't think I can wrestle and sometimes I prove them wrong."

Sanchez said she doesn't think she's at a disadvantage when she competes with boys because she has what it takes to be good in her sport.

"It takes a lot of skill and a lot of intelligence and a lot of strength," Sanchez said.

She added it is a bit more difficult when she wrestles because the boys are determined to not let her beat them.

"I think they're probably a lot more aggressive when it comes to girls because they don't want their teammates to see them lose to a girl," Sanchez said.

"But I do the same, too, so it's kind of even."

Sanchez said she has yet to beat her teammates in her weight category but she's working on it.

"In my weight division, they're pretty tough," Sanchez said.

"A lot of my teammates and classmates ask why I wanted to go wrestle," Sanchez said. "And my answer is I wanted to join it because it's an individual sport.

"You feel like it's all on you," she added. "You can take it on all by yourself."

Sanchez played junior varsity volleyball for the Vikings and she wants to try out for softball, but she said wrestling is the toughest of the three.

"(In volleyball,) you have your team to help you out and it's not as hard," Sanchez said. "In wrestling, you have to make your weight and you have to be in shape."

She said she encourages other girls to try out for wrestling.

"You don't have to worry about what other people think," Sanchez said. "You just have to go out there and try your hardest and see what comes."

Honorable mention

>> Sara Mendoza, Brawley Union High soccer, scored six goals and led her team to win the Lady Shamrock Shoot Out on Saturday in Yuma. Mendoza was also named all-tournament.

>> Lizeth Lopez, Imperial Valley College basketball, led the Arabs to win the consolation championship at the Holiday Tournament hosted by Antelope Valley College last week in Antelope Valley. Lopez was named all-tournament.

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