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Former mid-Michigan wrestler targets Olympic gold

March 11, 2004, 12:06 AM

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- A former Okemos High School wrestler hopes to become one of the first Olympic gold medalists for women's wrestling.

Women's freestyle wrestling is the only new sport added to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

"It's a lot of pressure," Lauren Lamb, 26, told the Lansing State Journal for a Wednesday story. "Everyone wants to see me go. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to it. I spent a lot of years training for this."

Lamb, who attended high school in the Lansing suburb, now lives in Farmington, N.Y.

When Lamb was 13 years old, she beat women in their 20s to become the youngest 97-pound USA Wrestling Women's National champion.

Nationwide, the sport has grown from about 600 women 10 years ago to about 6,000 this year, said Gary Abbott, spokesman for USA Wrestling, which runs the women's team.

At the high school level, 132 girls competed in the sport in 1991, while some 3,700 participated last year, he said. Most of the girls, like Lamb, wrestle against boys on boys teams.

Lamb's biggest fan, her mother, Gail Wolfe of Okemos, said she and her husband, Alan, didn't mind their daughter wrestling boys. She said it made her daughter tough and taught her valuable lessons in life.

"She certainly is independent," said Wolfe, whose two sons also wrestled at Okemos High School. "She's capable of doing whatever she wants to do. And she's persistent. We're very proud of her."

Aside from wrestling, Lamb, a 1995 Okemos High School graduate, earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Cornell University in 2000. She's now a scientist for Johnson & Johnson.

The full-time scientist, wife and mother of an 8-year-old stepson said it's challenging balancing family, work and her Olympic goal.

"It's difficult," Lamb said. "I don't sleep. It does put a lot of stress on my family because I'm not home a lot. They're great. They're supportive.

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Girls Wrestling
Beatty, Ramirez place in USGWA state meet

JEFF HUNT 3/11/04
ThisWeek Staff Writer

The Ohio High School Athletic Association showcased its wrestling tournament in front of boisterous crowds Feb. 26-28 at Ohio State's Schottenstein Center.

Last Saturday, it was the girls turn, but not at such a lucrative venue as Ohio State.

Female wrestlers in three age divisions -- high school, middle school and elementary school -- from across the state packed the Pleasant Street Elementary School in Mount Vernon to partake in the sixth-annual United States Girls Wrestling Association Ohio State Championships.

Central Ohio was well represented, as Mifflin's Effau Ampu won the heavyweight (at least 165 pounds) state title, defeating West's Sarah Varney, who didn't compete for the Cowboys' boys team this season.

The tournament requires wrestlers to have no affiliation with their school since it's an open event. The wrestlers also couldn't wear uniforms with school colors or mascots.

Catey Beatty and Clara Ramirez,who did suit up for West this past season, both placed in their respective weight class last Saturday.

Beatty (114, 2-2) was leading her third-place match 12-4 against Mount Vernon's Brianna Oswalt, but was pinned, finishing fourth.

Ramirez (1-2) finished third at 105, while Lacey Ball took fifth at 130. Ball didn't wrestle for the Cowboys this past season.

"Beatty wrestled extremely well in a loaded weight class," West coach Brian Nicola said of Beatty, who became the first female wrestler to place at the City League tournament, finishing sixth at 112 as the Cowboys (154) placed third behind Marion-Franklin (289) Feb. 7. "Earning two pins (last Saturday), she fell to the eventual champ and nationally-ranked Sara Reeves (Cuyahoga Falls) by pin, and in her (third-place) match against Oswalt (Mt. Vernon), Catey made a match-ending error. She worked very well from her feet, which has been an area of concern for her. I think it was a positive experience, even though she didn't meet her personal goal.

"Clara opened with a pin off of a nice leg attack followed by a step-over," Nicola added. "Clara's footwork is outstanding. She is turning into a pretty good scrambler. I like where she's at technique-wise."

Beatty finished the high school varsity regular-season at 9-17 with five pins, while Ramirez went 1-7 (9-11 j.v.). A year ago, Beatty finished fourth at 117 and Ramirez was fourth at 105 at the USGWA state tournament.

SHOULD IT BE SANCTIONED? -- Nicola has no problems with girls competing in a sport dominated by males and said the OHSAA should look into sanctioning girls wrestling.
"I'm a firm believer that girls should be able to compete on boys teams until girls wrestling is an OHSAA sponsored sport," he said. "There really is no reason it should not be. It just makes good sense to make a girls division."

"I think if they want to wrestle, let them wrestle, honestly," said Pickerington North coach Brad Harris, who wrestled in high school and college and has never faced nor coached a female. "You have a question of the nature of the sport as far as male vs. female, but they need to get women's wrestling going. You need to start somewhere. I'm all for a girls league and state (tournament) to get going. The (USGWA) is the prime thing (girls) want. It would be more optimal to be girl vs. girl."

Ramirez agrees with Harris.

"It's good because it makes the girls feel better that we have a girls tournament," she said. "When it comes down to it, I'm just happy to be out there. I don't care if it's boys or girls."

Gahanna coach Justin Hammond said an all-girls tournament is the right way to go.

"If the (OHSAA) wants to start it up, I think it should be girls vs. girls," said Hammond, who has never wrestled against or coached or a female. "I don't think girls should be wrestling guys. (All other sports) are separated now, why should we be competing together now? I mean, look at basketball, track and tennis. They're all separate and for a reason.

"I know they have to wrestle now because they have nowhere else to go," he added. "But I don't agree with guys wrestling girls."

Five states -- Alaska, California, Hawaii, Michigan and Texas -- sponsor girls wrestling by their respective high school governing body equivalent to the OHSAA. There are 23 states that have had or are scheduled to have a USGWA state championship tournament this season -- including all five of Ohio's bordering states.

The seventh-annual national championship will be March 27-28 at Lake Orion (Mich.), 30 miles northwest of Detroit. The tournament is open to any wrestler willing to compete, no qualification is necessary.

The high school weights in the USGWA include 100, 105, 110, 114, 118, 122, 126, 130, 134, 138, 144, 152, 165 and unlimited (165 and up).

A BRIEF HISTORY -- Girls high-school wrestling soared in the 1990s. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the number of girls wrestlers swelled from 112 in 1990 to 2,361 in 1999.
The first female to earn a pin at the varsity level, according to the Female High School Wrestler Web site (www.fhsw.com), was America Morris from San Diego Clairemont High School on Dec. 30, 1985. Morris pinned Russell Cain of Madison (Calif.) in the second period while leading the 107-pound match 9-4.

Sarah Van Skaik, a senior at St. Bernard-Elmwood Place High School, became the first female wrestler in Ohio to advance to a OHSAA-sanctioned district tournament when she pinned Clinton-Massie's Bobby McCall in 2 minutes, 30 seconds in a 160-pound consolation semifinal of the Division III Lakota Sectional in February 1999.

Van Skaik went on to wrestle for an all-girls wrestling team at Cumberland (Ky.) College.

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Girls take their turn on mat
County's eight female wrestlers face challenges that aren't merely physical

By JAMES D. HORNE
The Leaf-Chronicle 1/29/04

More than any participants in high school sports, girls who wrestle embody the truest form of the catch phrase "Girl Power!"

The Clarksville area has eight young women this year -- it has been as many as 13 -- who are bucking the trend and trying to make their way in one of the most testosterone-driven prep sports.

In wrestling, a match's outcome is determined largely by the grit and desire the individual puts forth on the mat. It's physically demanding and mentally draining.

A participant who doesn't have it that day can expect his shoulders to be pinned down to the mat. And everything a wrestler achieves primarily comes from the individual's physical strength and knowledge of different holds, moves and throws.

And it's a close contact, hand-to-hand, body-upon-body competition.

So, why would a girl want to wrestle?

"I think it's fun," said Montgomery Central senior Mona Leach, who wrestles in the 112-pound weight class on the junior varsity level. "I think it's a good thing for girls to do. Everyone says that girls shouldn't wrestle. I'm really a feminist, so I wanted to try to do it."

"It's fun for me but it's also a lot of hard work," said Northeast sophomore Laura Brant, who wrestles in the 215-pound weight class and is the county's lone female varsity wrestler. "You have to keep up your conditioning. You have to have stamina. You have to have endurance, the muscles and the moves to back up other moves."

Added Northwest freshman Liz Natal, a 112-pounder: "It's a fun sport. It's not what everyone does. It's something different."

Girls getting involved in wrestling is not a new phenomenon.

According to the 2002-03 High School Athletics Participation Survey, conducted by the National Federation of State High Schools Associations, 3,769 girls participated in wrestling last year, or 1.5 percent of the 243,614 athletes who wrestled nationwide.

That number is up from the 3,405, or almost 1.4 percent of the 248,042 wrestlers, who were involved during the 2001-02 year.

According to The Female High School Wrestler Home Page (fhsw.com), the first girl to record a pin at the varsity level was America Morris of Clairemont High School in San Diego, Calif., on Dec. 30, 1985. She pinned Russell Cain of Madison High School in the second period while leading the match 9-4 in the 107-pound division.

Trying out for boys' teams is nothing new for Montgomery Central's Jasmin Vaughn. The junior was a backup kicker on Montgomery Central's football team this season.

"I knew the coach (Jason Maples) from football, because I've kicked for the team and he's a nice guy and I don't have anything to do during the winter," said Vaughn, the MVP goalie for the district-winning girls soccer team. "So I was like, I'll go wrestle. So, I start wrestling and then more girls start. It's been fun."

"Jasmin was doing it, so I thought, it can't be that hard," Leach said. "It's harder than it looks, but anybody can do it, if they try."

Others are actually following in the footsteps of family, like Montgomery Central's Megan Shingler and Northwest's Caitlyn McCracken. Shingler's brother Anthony wrestles for the Indians, and McCracken's brother Danny is a member of the Vikings' team.

"I just kind of grew into it," said Shingler, a freshman who wrestles at 125. "I watched (Anthony) wrestle last year and I've helped out at the tournaments."

"(Danny) also ways told me I should be on it, because I'm pretty tough," McCracken, a freshman 112 pounder, said. "Plus my friend Liz (Natal) is on the team, she said she was going to try it if I would. So, we both decided to do that together."

Most of the girls said having another girl on the team made it easier for them to go out for wrestling. All admitted they worried about whether the boys on the team would accept them.

For the most part, they said they didn't have the problems they thought they would.

"Some guys have accepted us and some guys haven't," Vaughn said. "It just depends on who they are and how they feel about it."

"At the beginning they were like, 'Why is she here?'" Natal said. "But now they are used to it."

But they all knew it would take awhile for them to be accepted and understood they would be treated differently, at least at first.

"The hardest thing was getting the boys to respect me and to wrestle me, because I was a girl," Shingler said. "I think they were afraid they would hurt me."

"Yeah, the hardest thing was getting the boys to accept us," Leach said.

"The physical stuff, anyone can work up to that. But the guys are always like 'You're just a girl, so you can't do that.' That's the hardest thing to deal with."

Truly, most of the boys didn't have a problem with girls wrestling on their team and tried their best to treat them like equals.

"It's not that different," said Northwest senior Ryan Rector, a 119-pound varsity wrestler. "They've been doing really good this year, They've been putting a lot of hard work in. I think they are going to come out next year. At least, I hope they do."

Added Northeast senior heavyweight Vance Williams: "Laura is just one of the guys. She's my practice partner and I cut her no slack. We work on moves together and we don't treat her like a girl wrestler. I just treat her like another Northeast wrestler."

The attitudes do change a little when match time comes around and records and reputations are on the line.

But it's not from a chauvinistic side of not wanting to wrestle a girl. It comes from the competitive, and slightly egotistical side of not wanting to lose to anyone-- but especially, not wanting to lose to a girl.

"Any girl that puts herself in that position is a wrestler no matter what," said Rossview C.J. Rouse, who wrestled Brant on Jan. 21 and won by pin in 53 seconds. "But in the back of your mind, you know she's a girl and you don't want to hurt her and be unsportsmanlike to her, so you just try to do what you can. But you don't want to lose to one."

Added Rector: "We know when they come out and wrestle another guy, the other guy is going to try their hardest to win, because no guy wants to get beat by a girl."

But it's not a clear-cut subject for coaches. While most of the teams in Clarksville have had no problems, there are some obvious problems with girls participating on the wrestling team.

Because of Title IX, coaches have to allow girls to join the team if another option is not available for them.

"You're seeing it more often," Clarksville coach Sharrock Cobb said. "It's a real touchy subject with wrestling coaches. With Title IX, you have to allow them to wrestle, but I think we need to go to an all-girls league instead of wrestling guys, because it really puts guys in bad situations."

Cobb went on to say that the sporting world has changed and not everything is cut and dried.

"Then again, you look at what is happening in golf, and they are having the same situation," he said "I don't know what the answer is."

Still, coaches take the stance that, if a girl joins the team, she will be treated fairly.

"I told the girls that I have on the team that I would treat them just like the guys," Northwest coach Tyler Barrett said. "I've been real pleased with how hard they work. They might not be in the starting lineup, but they give 150 percent. I don't look at them as girls -- they are just wrestlers."

Added Northeast coach Chris Turner, who is very happy with how Brant has competed: "She's been one of the more dedicated wrestlers on the team. She's one that stuck with us. She was with us last year, and I don't think she's missed practice at all."

But like any athlete, the goal of most of the female wrestlers is simple -- do the best they can and go as far as they can go.

"I want to wrestle varsity, and my biggest goal is to make it to state," Leach said. "I don't know if that will happen, but I'm definitely going to try."

"I hope to be on varsity next year," Vaughn said. "Our 145 is Luke Sanders (a state qualifier), so there is no chance I'll do it this year. But next year, I want to go to state."

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Women Grapplers Gear-Up for Olympics

LANSING, MI-March 11, 2004 —

Lauren Lamb got a good start toward Olympic gold – by wrestling boys.
At least that's what her mom thinks. Lamb, who's now 26, hopes to become one of the first Olympic gold medalists in women's wrestling.

Women's freestyle is the only new sport added to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Lamb went to high school in a Lansing, Michigan, suburb, where her family still lives. When she started wrestling, there weren't many girls in the sport. Her mother, Gail Wolfe, says wrestling boys made the girl tough.

Today, Lamb tries to balance a career as a scientist, her own family and her Olympic training. She says she's not getting much sleep.

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EASTSIDE BEAT: Newport's Akiyama heads for state girls wrestling tournament

2004-03-06
by Lena Tibbelin
Journal Reporter

The United States Girls Wrestling Association (USGWA) are hosting the second Annual Washington girls wrestling state championships open today at Ocosta High School in Westport.

3A Kingco champion Leilani Akiyama of Newport plans to attend. She's currently one of five girls from Washington who are nationally ranked by the USGWA. Akiyama is ranked second at the 114 pound weight class.

Puyallup's Whitney Conder, who wrestled in the Class 4A Region II tournament at Eastlake High last month, is ranked sixth at 100 pounds, while Elina Morozov of Jefferson is seventh at 138, Lauren Daniels of Vashon Island is second at 134, and Melissa Simmons of Ridgefield is ranked fourth at 144.

The tournament is open for all female wrestlers ages 5 to 18 and wrestlers from other states may attend. All the girls will be divided into three divisions according to grade in school. The girls will then be placed in groups of four and each girl will wrestle three matches.

Weigh-in and registration will be from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and wrestling starts at 10 a.m. The registration fee is $30 at the door. See www.usgwa.com for more information.

Next on Akiyama's schedule will the high school nationals on March 27-28 at Lake Orion High School in Lake Orion, Mich., where she placed fifth last season.

Sammamish rower brings home medal from indoor world championship

Sue Dandridge of Bothell, representing the Sammamish Rowing Association, brought home a silver medal from the World Indoor Rowing Championship in Boston, Mass., last month.

Dandrigde completed the 2000 meter race with a time of 7 minutes and 38.1 seconds in the Women's Veteran `A' (ages 50-59) Lightweight category.

Also representing Sammamish, Nina Jonas of Redmond, placed 13th of 60 competitors in the Junior Women Lightweight class with a time of 7:59.1.

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