Stephanie Vazquez is one of three girls who were on the Murrieta Valley High School wrestling team last winter. The trio is part of a growing number of teenage girls wrestling nationwide.
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Pioneers on the mat: Girls join Murrieta Valley's wrestling team
By: JOANNA CORMAN - Staff Writer 5/18/04
In a sport whose conditioning is often considered more grueling than football, where students subject themselves to daily two-hour workouts and use strategy, strength and skill to pin their opponent, the last thing you might expect to find in a practice room is a team member with a French manicure.
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Stephanie Vazquez is one of three girls who were on the Murrieta Valley High School wrestling team last winter. The trio is part of a growing number of teenage girls wrestling nationwide. |
That's just what Stephanie Vazquez had before getting serious about the sport. Stephanie is one of three girls who were on the Murrieta Valley High School wrestling team last winter. The trio is part of a growing number of teenage girls wrestling nationwide. Their presence shows other girls that the traditionally male sport has room for them, wrestling advocates say. While the girls are breaking gender barriers in Murrieta, this summer for the first time the four-member U.S. Olympics women's wrestling team will compete in Greece.
Joining the team for Stephanie meant forgoing an important part of her identity ---- her acrylic manicure.
"It's, like, not even a habit; it's, like, something I have to have," said Stephanie, who got another manicure after the season ended. "It was a big sacrifice."
The girls on the Murrieta Valley team acknowledge they are pioneers in a sport that has been the domain of teenage boys. They hope their gutsy moves increase opportunities for other girls.
But that wasn't what they were thinking about when they joined the team. Stephanie, a senior, wanted a challenge and to lose weight. Freshman Jessi Patterson tried out after her brother, Justin, a Murrieta Valley wrestler, told her she would be good at it. Sophomore Emily Winovitch wanted to join a team sport and wrestling seemed as good as any.
Many of the guys on the team weren't sure what to think when the girls started showing up for practice. They questioned the girls' motives and wondered whether they'd work as hard or if coach Michael Roberts would give them a break. Once they saw that the girls were willing to sweat and were granted no exceptions during the team's five- and six-day-a-week workouts, the issue died.
"At first, everyone was kind of iffy about it," said senior Trevor Morin, a four-year wrestler. "But everyone has accepted them now. The girls have kind of proven themselves. They can take it just as well as we can."
Growing interest
Nationwide, the number of high school girls who wrestle is "rapidly growing," said John Gillis, assistant director of the Indiana-based National Federation of State High School Associations. The organization surveys its member state sports associations annually for a report on the number of schools and students participating in high school athletics.
In 1992-93, 50 schools nationwide had female wrestlers and 404 girls wrestled. A decade later, those numbers jumped to 805 schools and 3,769 girls, increases of 1,510 percent and an 832 percent increase respectively.
In California, while there was no number showing how many high schools had female wrestlers during the 1992-93 school year, 54 girls wrestled. In 2002-03, the latest numbers available, 957 girls wrestled, a jump of more than 1,670 percent, while 269 schools had girl wrestlers.
By comparison, 22,007 boys wrestled statewide a year ago.
Only two states, Hawaii and Texas, have girls high school wrestling teams sanctioned by an official body, said Kent Bailo, founder of the Michigan-based United States Girls Wrestling Association. To be sanctioned, a governing body such as California Interscholastic Federation regulates practices and competitions.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association hopes to sanction girls wrestling as a varsity sport by 2007, said Jim Meyerhoff, the organization's assistant executive director.
California has some girls teams but most girls wrestle on the boys teams, Bailo said.
Still not the norm
The Murrieta Valley girls say they rarely see other girls at tournaments. In the Southwestern League, which is composed of Murrieta Valley; Temecula Valley and Chaparral, which are both in Temecula; Temescal Canyon in Lake Elsinore and Rancho Verde in Moreno Valley, the only girls are with the Nighthawks, Roberts said.
Rancho Verde Athletic Director Kevin Stipp, said a few girls made the team this school year, but dropped out soon after.
Despite the steady interest, most high schools are not starting girls teams, Bailo said.
"It's kind of slow, because they're not being forced to," he said.
Murrieta Valley's coach imagined a time when the school would have an all-girls team.
"I'd love to see it," Roberts said. "If more girls keep coming out and CIF sanctions a sport, I don't see why not."
More girls don't wrestle because there's still a stigma, he said, but things are changing. California has had state tournaments for girls who join after-school wrestling clubs. And for the first time, there were female exhibition matches at the CIF state tournament last year, he said.
"In all honesty, it is unfair for girls to wrestle guys," Roberts said. "They lack the upper body strength. It takes a pretty special girl to compete on the varsity level with guys."
The first girls
When Emily Winovitch wanted to wrestle last year and became the first girl at Murrieta Valley to do so, Roberts took his team members aside. They were apprehensive at first.
"I just assured them that she's going to do this," Roberts said. "We're not making any exceptions for her."
When girls join the team, he tells them they won't get a break.
"The girls who come out for wrestling agree. They know it's going to be a hard row to hoe," Roberts said.
Stephanie, 18, was inspired to join the team after a girlfriend made it. The friend soon quit for medical reasons. Stephanie was looking for a challenge and another sport to round out her position on the varsity swimming team.
"I like (to break) barriers and that was a barrier to break," said Stephanie, who finished the season with a no-win two-loss record.
People on and off the team questioned her decision to join.
"'You dress too cute to wrestle,'" she said they told her. "It surprised everyone."
Teammates kept asking her why she joined and why she wanted to wrestle with sweaty guys, she said.
The girls' participation on the team changed the minds of many of their teammates who doubted whether they could handle it. It also changed Stephanie, whose chronic lateness and unwillingness to work hard weren't tolerated by her coach. Workouts include 45 minutes of drilling, practicing moves and reviewing strategy, another 45 minutes of wrestling and 35 minutes of conditioning ---- hard running, sprinting, weightlifting and plyometric exercises, which involve using a person's body weight and gravity to increase speed.
"The first three practices, I almost fainted," Stephanie said. "I was eating all this junk food and I didn't think it was going to affect me. I was killing myself."
The sport, according to Roberts, is even more taxing than football.
"It's the hardest sport, because you have to control not only every muscle you have, but every muscle your opponent has and there is no break," he said. "Seven water polo guys came out and after the first practice three of them quit, and water polo is tough."
Jessi Patterson, 15, didn't consider trying out for the wrestling team until her brother, who is on it, brought it up.
"I thought he was kidding," she said.
She knew wrestlers at school and heard them talk about how hard practice was and how sore they got.
"I wanted to see if they were really sissies," she said.
With the season over, which lasts from mid-November to February, Jessi says she knows they aren't. "It's really hard."
The three have since joined the school's off-season wrestling club.
Integrating
It takes a while for Emily, 15, to acknowledge that she's a pioneer.
"My coach says that I'm the trendsetter for it," she said. "I never cared that I was the only girl."
The beginning was rough.
She said she got "girl comments" at tournaments.
"Guys were distant at first, and I expected that," said Emily, whose record this season was four wins and 11 losses. "It was going to be hard work and I knew I would have to try a little harder to prove myself to the guys, and I did and they're fine with me now."
Her girlfriends, into dance and soccer, had a harder time understanding her choice. She said she is no longer close with them.
Emily has pinned guys in practice and twice at matches.
"I got punched in the lip for doing it, too," she added.
While she's not sure if it was on purpose, Emily said she was a better wrestler than her competitor and she suspects he had a problem with it.
She understands the predicament some guys are in when they wrestle a girl.
Trevor, 17, the four-year wrestler, described it as a "lose-lose situation."
"You don't want to hurt them but you don't want to lose," he said.
Senior Jeremy Burkhardt put it this way.
"If you get beat by a girl ---- I'm not trying to be mean ---- but that's the ultimate loss," he said. "All the other guys on the team would give you a hard time."
When Emily first joined, it was awkward, Trevor said, and at tournaments he felt self-conscious when guys from other teams would point her out.
Different, but not awkward
The girls say that for the most part wrestling a guy isn't awkward. They say most of their male opponents treat them respectfully and they don't worry about wayward touching. In turn, the girls say they no longer worry about touching a guy in a compromising place. Though the moves may look indecent, they're not ---- grabs are directed at legs.
While girls may not be able to match a guy's strength, they are lighter, faster and more flexible than male wrestlers; they make up in skill what they lack in strength, junior Casey Bozarth said.
"There are some moves that you get a guy in, they're like, pinned. The girls just keep on going," he said.
Despite her progress, Jessi said wrestling has been frustrating. She would do well in practice, but her opponent's muscular arms would intimidate her during a match and she would freeze. Her record was 3-12: one pin, one forfeit and one decision, a wrestling term for earning more points against an opponent without pinning, and 12 losses.
During one match, Jessi lost to a boy from Chaparral High. When she shook the coach's hand, he practically ignored her, she said, as if he expected her to lose.
A few days later, Jessi and her opponent were matched again. She was determined to beat him and she did, her first and only pin of the season. When she shook the coach's hand, he pumped it, and said, "'That was amazing. That was excellent.'"
"It's great at the end of your match and the ref lifts up your fist and says, 'Green wins,'" Jessi said. "It's the greatest feeling ever and your whole team is cheering you on."
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By BRIAN BENNETT
bbennett@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal 5/18/04
Women's wrestling will make its Olympic debut in Athens, and a Kentucky college student looms as one of the top medal hopes.
Cumberland College wrestler Toccara Montgomery is ranked first in the U.S. in the 158-pound weight class. The U.S. wrestling team trials will be held Friday through Sunday at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.
Montgomery proved herself on the international stage last October when she beat five-time world champion Kyoko Hamaguchi in Japan during the first women's wrestling World Cup. Hamaguchi had beaten Montgomery a month earlier.
"It was a huge step," Montgomery said in a teleconference at the U.S. Olympic team media summit. "A lot of people doubted me, but I knew I could do it."
Cumberland coach Kip Flanik could have two protégées in Athens. Montgomery and Tina George, the top contender in the 121-pound class, each took up the sport at a Cleveland high school where Flanik coached.
"It's no mistake that Kip Flanik coached both of us, although we started at different times," George said. "I attribute our success to him and his commitment to women's wrestling."
"I owe most of my wrestling to Kip Flanik," Montgomery said. "He got me started and gave me all of the opportunities that the guys had."
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BY JUSTIN ARNOLD / THE CHIPPEWA HERALD 5/9/04
Nichole Yarrington is not your typical 13-year-old girl.
Sure, she likes to hang out with her friends and talk on the phone, but there is something different about her.
Nichole is a wrestler, and a rather good one at that.
Since she was in kindergarten, she has wrestled as a member of the Chippewa Valley Youth Wrestling Club. Recently, she competed at the United States Girls Wrestling Association National Championships near Pontiac, Mich.
"I guess there's not too many other sports where you get to hit people as hard as you can without getting in trouble," she said, explaining why she likes to wrestle. "It's also a sport where you can make your own decisions."
Wrestling is also a sport where she can find some level of success.
Although she did not place at the national championships, where there were nearly 750 girls competing in age- and weight-specific divisions, Yarrington did earn a fifth-place finish at the Wisconsin Girls Wrestling Championships held in February at Bradford High School in Kenosha.
"It was like being at men's state or regionals," Nichole said of the experience. "It was pretty exciting."
The seventh-grader said she was inspired when Tomahawk's Alyssa Lampe became the first girl to ever compete in the WIAA state wrestling tournament in March.
Nichole's father, Michael, said Lampe's qualification may be a sign of the times.
"It's really starting to increase in popularity," Michael Yarrington said of girls wrestling. "When I wrestled in high school, there were only a few women across the state who competed. But there were 300 to 400 at this year's (girls) state tournament."
Yarrington added that Lampe, who won her first match at the state tournament, may be more than just a wrestler.
"I think it really did a great thing for other girls," he said of Lampe qualifying for the state tournament. "A lot of your better female wrestlers don't have many role models. And until they get their role models, it won't really jump start the sport all that much."
Yarrington added he could possibly see the WIAA incorporating girls wrestling as a separate sport in the future, but not any time soon.
"We've had a run 'em off mentality in the past," he said. "The skill level wasn't there for the girls to compete. But that's starting to change."
And if things stay the way they are in the Yarrington family, Nichole will likely play a role in the sport's increasing popularity among girls.
"She loves the sport," her father said. "And I encourage her as much as I can."
Reach Justin Arnold at jarnold@chippewa.com.
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Women Wrestlers Are Nothing to Laugh At
Fran Schumer. New York Times.4/25/04
A FEW years back, Olivia Van Osch, the slender, blond daughter of
investment bankers who bike and run on the weekends, decided to join her town's
wrestling team along with three of her brothers.
''Oh, wouldn't that be great if they all did the same sport?'' said
Mrs. Van Osch, the mother of five. ''Just think about the economies of scale in
terms of driving.'''
A month later, the boys quit, leaving only Olivia - and for one main
reason: ''I just really liked it,'' she said. ''You were out there on your own.
You couldn't blame your performance on anyone.''
At 15, Olivia -- a freshman on the high school wrestling team in
Maplewood-South Orange -- defies the image of the female wrestler; 5
feet 2 inches tall, she weighs 114, and except for her occasionally punk hair,
could easily pass for the Abercrombie Girl. Still, neither her looks
nor her experience growing up in a house full of brothers have shielded her
from the ignominy visited upon anyone who tries to go against convention.
In seventh grade, a group of boys chased her into the gym, taunting her
until she cried. ''They weren't wrestlers,'' she consoled herself.
''They didn't understand.''
Also, she added, ''I wasn't going to let them make me quit.''
Then there were the episodes of no-show opponents. On Olivia's
recreational team, her mother said, ''She was their biggest point earner; everyone
forfeited to her.''
If the presence of girl wrestlers on mostly male teams is hard for the
girls, it's hard for guys, too. The general ethos is: if you lose to a
girl, ou lose, and if you win, you lose.
But those attitudes are changing, says John Welch, chairman of the New
Jersey Division of USA Wrestling. In fact, on the eve of opposing one
of the state's leading female wrestlers, Kim Salma of Fair Lawn, her opponent
was quoted as saying: ''I've wrestled a girl before, so it's not the first
time. You have to treat her the same way as anyone else. Once the match
starts, it's not even a factor because you want to win so badly.''
One question commonly posed to high school girls who wrestle: Isn't it
odd rolling around on the floor with a bunch of boys?
''Yeah,'' Olivia answers, ''but it's also odd for guys to roll around
on the floor with other guys.''
And why would you want to?
''Wrestling teaches you not to give up, not to care what other people
say,'' she says. ''You do all this practice - hours and hours. Maybe you get
six minutes on a mat and you could lose.'' The experience makes you
stronger, she added.
In 2003, 52 girls wrestled at the high school level compared with
13,000 boys, said Steven Timko, assistant director in charge of wrestling for
New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Compared with Texas,
California, Hawaii - even Massachusetts - that number is tiny and for a
variety of reasons.
One is affluence. ''Our kids ski; they go to the beach,'' says Mr.
Welch. ''Our athletes, both male and female, have so many choices.'' Another
factor, however, is the absence of all-girls facilities: coaches,
tournaments and even teams, especially at the high school level, when
the differences between male and female athletes become much more critical.
Brandy Price, 15, a freshman at Northern Burlington Regional High
School, began wrestling when she was 9. Other than the usual stares from people
who associated female wrestlers with bulging muscles - at 5 feet 5 inches
tall, Brandy weighs 103 and calls herself skinny - most of her career has
been happy. Then, she got to high school and both she and her father agreed
she could no longer wrestle on a mostly male team.
''We've been looking for help for a long time,'' says David Price, who
drives her an hour and 15 minutes from their home in Columbus to
Pennsylvania, where she trains with a coach and practices with other
women.
Given the news -- women will wrestle at the Olympics in Athens for the
first time this summer - aficionados look to the day when the words ''women''
and ''wrestling'' will summon up more reasonable entries than ''mud'' and
''nude'' (see Google).
''Once people actually start to watch women wrestle, who knows?'' says
Mr. Welch. ''They'll say, 'Hey that girl does moves. She's doing a
fireman's carry just like my son.' And they'll see that the girls don't walk away
bloody.''
Mostly, they walk away like men, exhausted but brave. They also walk in
different directions. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University,
Patricia Miranda, the candidate most likely to represent the United
States in Athens, is planning to enter Yale Law School this fall.