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America's Athletes: Wrestler Patricia Miranda

By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 5/25/04

Name: Patricia Miranda

Sport: Women's wrestling, 105.5 pounds

Birthplace/hometown: Manteca, Calif./Colorado Springs, Colo.

Age: 25

College: Stanford University, where she was a member of the men's varsity wrestling team.

Olympic experience: None because this will be the first Games open to women's wrestling. She qualified for Athens by sweeping through the championship round, beating Clarissa Chun, 6-3 and 10-0, at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials Sunday in Indianapolis. The 10-0 match was ended early because of a 10-point lead, a rarity in an Olympic-qualifying final.

International achievement: Won gold at 2003 Pan American Games, first in women's wrestling history. ... 2003 World Cup gold medalist ... Two-time silver medalist in World Championships (2000, 2003).

Claim to fame: Women's wrestling is so new that it receives little attention, but that could change for Miranda, who will be the Americans' most decorated participant in Athens.

Goal for Athens: After recent international success, Miranda will be considered a gold-medal favorite. She seemed to realize that immediately upon winning Sunday. "My first thought was that this is step one," she said. "There is happiness for winning the tournament, but now I have been given a large responsibility, and I want to carry the weight and represent my country the best I can."

Personal: Has been accepted to Yale Law School. ... Hobbies include river rafting, conflict mediation. ... Is close with family. "Wrestling has brought my family closer together as we cry together and laugh together."

Quotable: "I was not raised as an athlete. I don't know many other Olympic athletes. In fact, the Olympics never entered my mind until I was finishing college."

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Life & Death

By Tom Archdeacon

Dayton Daily News 5/25/04

Some compare sports to a life and death struggle. But there are two
Marines who know different. Sgt. Miriam Jenkins and Sgt. Al Sankey served in
Iraq. Sankey played a role in rescuing Pvt. Jessica Lynch. Now they're
stateside, competing for a place on the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Team. The pair talk
about competition and living on the front lines.

Miriam Jenkins was talking about her toughest wrestling match.

Not the one she'd just finished out there in the middle of the RCA Dome
in Indianapolis. That only was for a chance to make the U. S. Olympic team
headed to Athens this summer. The bout she brought up had had a lot
more on
the line.

"When I go out there, the chance of dying is slim," the 105-pound
wrestler said with a nod toward the mat. "But over there, just as sure as day,
you can been killed . . . Iraq is no joke. Your life is in danger and you
could end up dead. You could be walking to the Porta-John and 'BOOM!' you're
gone. It happened. It's happening now."

As she was talking, a beaten young wrestler walked by weeping. His
Olympic dream had been dashed. His coach tried to console him, but he wouldn't
listen. He was crushed. Plenty of wrestlers — some who have trained
four years for this one moment — see this weekend's U.S. Olympic Wrestling
Trials as a life and death matter.

Jenkins and Al Sankey, a 211-pound Greco-Roman wrestler from Akron,
know better.

Both are U.S. Marines and last May both were serving in Iraq.

Sgt. Jenkins was a bulk fuel specialist.

But Sgt. Sankey, when first asked, hedged on his duties until he caught
the eye of his coach, Major Jay Antonelli.

"Go ahead, you can say you're an intelligence guy," Antonelli
whispered.
"You can tell them you were part of saving Pvt. (Jessica) Lynch."

Sankey nodded: "My intelligence section did a lot of the work
beforehand. I
worked with the Iraqi whose wife was the nurse in the Nasiriya hospital
where Jessica Lynch was lying."

When U.S. special forces burst into the hospital and carried out the
wounded
19-year-old supply clerk — who had been captured nine days earlier when
she
and several of her fellow soldiers from the 507th Maintenance Company
were
ambushed — the rescue was trumpeted across America. While there were
charges
later that the Pentagon unnecessarily dramatized the raid to boost
morale —
that it knew the Iraqi troops already had fled the hospital — there's
no
denying the work Sankey and the others did.

Not only was Lynch brought home safely, but the bodies of nine other
U.S.
soldiers killed in the ambush were recovered.

"We were really excited to find out she was alive," Sankey said before
clamming up. He's not a big talker — especially about Iraq — and when
he saw
his mother approaching, he changed the subject all together.

Celia Griffin, Al's mom, was there with her ex-husband Al Sr., their
son
Chris; a U.S. Air Force sergeant stationed at Wright Patterson AFB, and
Chris' son, Bishop; a Five Points Elementary fifth grader.

When it comes to military service, the Sankeys are a modern day band of
brothers. Along with Al and Chris, who had Middle East assignments in
the
United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, youngest brother Malcom is an
Army
corporal who just returned Sunday from his own tour in Iraq.

When the war began, Celia, fearful for all three of her boys, wept for
days.
"When I got over there, I sent her letters reassuring her everything
was
okay," Al said. "I didn't want her to worry so much."

That didn't always work, Chris admitted: "I was afraid for him. You
never
know what's going to happen. But being military, you know he's pretty
much
trained for it."

Asked if he was scared, Al diverted his glance and mumbled, "No
comment."

Pressed on it, the 32-year-old Marine finally offered: "I'm not
Superman."

He said before he joined the Marines eight years ago, he was something
of an
everyman. He had played football and wrestled at Akron Garfield High,
but
said he "wasn't much." After that, he wrestled at Grand Rapids
Community
College in Michigan and at Cuyahoga C.C. in Cleveland before joining
the
Marines to advance himself and his wrestling career.

Jenkins said she did the same. Growing up in poverty in Gainesville,
Fla. —
the sixth of nine kids raised by her mother and often sleeping four to
a bed
— she joined the high school wrestling team as a freshman. As a senior,
she
became the first girl in the state of Florida to ever reach the state
wrestling tournament and then the first to win a match there.

After going to a tournament and seeing women wrestle for the U.S.
Marines,
she joined the Corps in 1999. Two years later, her military mind-set
changed
and she knew she had a far greater responsibility than she first
imagined.

"America took everything for granted until September 11th," she said.
"After
that, everyone's eyes opened up. We were not untouchable. We were a
beatable
country. Seeing what we saw, hearing what we heard, we knew this was
for
real.

"And it did something to me. I respected life and faith and our
freedom. . .
. And I wouldn't trade anything for serving our country. I saw us doing
some
good and that's why now when I watch the news it (ticks) me off. All
you
hear about is what's going wrong. You never hear about the little
villages
we made free of terrorists. You don't see the kids saying 'Thank you.
Thank
You,' the woman who can now see her father. . . . things like that."

She talked about being awestruck the first time she saw fire fights
lighting
up the night sky. She talked about the always lingering threat of the
fuel
tanker she was loading being blown up. She told how the machine gun she
carried was almost bigger than she was. "There's a big big difference
in
what I did over there and what I'm doing here today."

Sankey said the same thing: "When you don't do a job over there,
someone could get hurt or lose a life. When you lose there, it's for keeps.
Here (wrestling), you can always come back."

And when he returned from Iraq — "my one year anniversary was
yesterday," he said — he was ready to rekindle his wrestling.

"I knew his commanding officer and as soon as Al came back, (the
officer) called me," Antonelli said. "He told me 'This Marine did great things
for us over there. He took charge of things. He was a great leader and he's
asked about coming back to the wrestling team. Can I send him?' "

Antonelli saw a changed man when Sankey returned: "This sport is tough.
Sometimes getting away from it helps you recharge your batteries. It
gets the hunger back. That's happened with Al. He's got a lot of talent, but
sometimes he'd come in and he wouldn't be mentally focused. You never
knew which Sankey would show up. But he seems ready now."

Celia Griffin said Iraq played a part in that: "You've got to grow up
over there. You've got to focus."

Although he'd wrestled poorly at the 2000 Trials — "the lights, the
glitter the cameras and stuff got to me," — Sankey wasted no time in his
opening match Friday. He pinned Ohio State freshman J.D. Bergman in 78 seconds.

Jenkins was just as impressive. After falling behind Kristin Fujioka
7-0, she pinned her Hawaiian opponent in the second period and beamed
afterward: "My Olympic dream is very reachable."

But during Friday night's session, both she and Sankey lost. And with
that dream ended, another reality presented itself. She could end up going
back to Iraq.

"My unit's going back," she said. "They're rotating people and we have
some over there now. If I'd made the (Olympic) team, there's no chance I'd
go back. I'd be a better tool for the Marine Corps in Athens. But I've got
no complaints. When I first signed up (and then re-upped) I knew the
possibilities. I'm serving my country. I'm a Marine first, a wrestler
second and there's a big difference."

One's about life and death.

The other is not.

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Bruises badges of honor for grappler

By Tom Archdeacon

Dayton Daily News 5/25/04

No offense to that moon-pie mug of Rulon Gardner, but American
wrestling just got a new face, a more expressive face and, on Sunday, at least, a
far more colorful face.

As Tela O'Donnell walked off the RCA Dome mat and into the history
books — as the first of four U.S. women wrestlers to ever qualify for an
Olympic Games — she looked like she'd stepped right out of a Rocky movie.

Blood trickled from a gash across the bridge of her nose. A pair of
walnut-like knots rose side-by-side on her right temple. There was a
dark, dime-sized mouse beneath her left eye and a bigger, purplish bruise on
her shoulder.

As the crowd at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials cheered and her
opponent, the heavily-favored Tina George of Cleveland, sat slumped in the middle
of the mat in an overwhelming flood of shock and tears, O'Donnell slowly
made her way from the physical match to the dressing quarters.

She was beauty and the beast all wrapped into one. Along with the
braided hair, dark eyes that flashed unbridled delight and a playful air that
sometimes melted into giggles, there was that gash that soon drew the
attention of a boxing-style cut man who tried staunching the blood flow
with long-tipped cotton swabs and a coagulant.

Asked about the moment — more black, blue and blood red than golden —
the 21-year-old wrestler from Homer, Alaska, simply shrugged:

"Every woman is different. A lot of girls want to keep their girlish
faces. But I don't mind. I wear my (cuts and bruises) with pride. What's
happening here today, I feel this is very special. I'm proud of myself."

She was, quite literally, swelling with pride and that brought over a
trainer with a big ice bag he put on her forehead.

"This is one of my better injuries, but right now I'm too happy to
hurt," O'Donnell beamed. "Anyway, I'm used to it. I've gone to proms, things
like that, and had a black eye, funny looking scratches on my neck, a fat
lip."

Now — along with Patricia Miranda (105 pounds), Sara McMann (138) and
Cleveland's Toccara Montgomery (163) — she was going to Athens, where
women's wrestling makes it's Olympic debut.

"When I was little I wanted to be on the Olympic team," O'Donnell said.
"I think I even dreamt about it. I wanted to be an ice skater." Then with
another giggle, she admitted, "even though I don't skate."

Every Olympics, people look for an athlete they can embrace. Tela
O'Donnell — who said her first name is pronounced like Layla, the song — is one
with which you can't go wrong. She's got a bubbly style and a bountiful
story to match:

"My mom was a mime, but now she does landscaping. Homer's a really good
place to raise kids, but maybe not to have a mime career."

A place of 4,000 on Alaska's Kechemak Bay, Homer thrives as a fishing
town and tourist stop. O'Donnell grew up 10 miles out of town, on a small
farm in the woods. As she has described it, "I live on East End Road . . .
where all the hippies live."

Growing up, she baled hay, carried fire wood, tended the sheep and
later worked on fishing boats, both halibut charters and salmon drift boats.

At Homer High, she played junior varsity football — "safety,
cornerback, a little guard, but I wasn't very good." She said she stunk at volleyball
and has said she hated gym class and hid in the bathroom because she was
"pretty bad."

Then came wrestling and she found something she liked. She practiced by
wrestling her sheep and soon found she wasn't so "baaaa-d."

She wrestled for the boys team at Homer High and then went to Pacific
University for a year before being accepted into the U.S. Olympic
Developmental Program in Colorado Springs. She moved there and now goes
to the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. She's studying biology and
plays the guitar while steadily making her name on the mat.

She came into the trials ranked second in the nation at 121 pounds. The
24-year-old George — a two-time national champ, two-time world silver
medalist and a member of the U.S. Army's World Class Athletic program —
was No. 1.

While George's status gave her a bye until Sunday's championship
matches, O'Donnell had to wrestle through the grueling preliminary tournament
here, Friday and Saturday. Triumphant in that, she and George met for the
Olympic berth in a best-two-out-of-three series.

With 10 seconds left in their first, evenly battled match, O'Donnell —
who had lost six of her previous 10 meetings with George — caught the champ
in a headlock which she turned into a pin. Some five hours later, they met
again and from the onset, George was the aggressor, her charges sometimes
becoming the head butts that battered O'Donnell's face.

George had built a dominating 6-1 lead, when O'Donnell followed the
advice — "Score Now" — she had printed in ink on the inside of her left forearm:
"I put that there as a reminder. It brings a sense of urgency."

Midway through the second period, O'Donnell surprised everyone and
pinned George again.

When the referee signaled her victory, O'Donnell's face became a canvas
of emotion. Later she joked about the mime genes: "I guess maybe I did
inherit a little of the expressiveness and facial gestures."

As she talked, a dozen young boys pressed against the grandstand
railing and clamored for her autograph. Asked if she was now the most famous person
in Homer, O'Donnell shook her head:

"Oh no. There's Jewel, the singer. And that Motel 6 guy, Tom Bodett."

And sure enough, just like he says, Bodett had left the light on.

Shining from Tela O'Donnell's eyes, it gave wrestling a brand new,
bruised and beautiful face.

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O'Donnell an Olympian

Staff report 5/24/04

Next stop: Athens.

Homer's Tela O'Donnell, who wrestles for the Dave Schultz Wrestling Club in Colorado Springs, Colorado, pinned reigning 55-kilogram U.S. freestyle National Champion Tina George twice Sunday to win the U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis.

The 21-year-old Nikiski High School graduate defeated George after fighting her way through the challenge bracket over the weekend. O'Donnell was forced into the challenge bracket after losing to George at Nationals in April.

O'Donnell made sure a repeat of that performance wasn't going to happen Sunday. Leading 4-3 in the first of their best-of-three match, O'Donnell got things off to a good start with a pin.

In the second match, George appeared to be in control of things, leading 6-2 in the second round. However, O'Donnell surprised the U.S. champion with a power half Nelson, converting the move into a pin at the 4:12 mark of the match.

With the win, O'Donnell secured a spot on the 2004 U.S. Summer Olympic Team, which will compete in Greece in July.

O'Donnell grew up in Homer and attended Nikiski High School during her senior year, where she wrestled as a 119-pounder. In 2000, she placed 6th at the state wrestling tournament, joining Skyview's Melinda Hutchison as the first female wrestlers in the nation to place in a high school state tournament.

In other qualifying action Sunday, reigning Olympic champion Rulon Gardner won a pair of tight 2-1 overtime decisions over top-seeded Dremiel Byers to gain the return trip to the Olympics that once seemed a long shot.

''I told myself, 'I'm not putting those shoes out there today,' " said Gardner, the 2000 Greco-Roman super heavyweight gold medalist at the Sydney Games. ''I have more matches to wrestle.''

Like O'Donnell, Gardner also wrestled his way up through the challenge tournament.