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Athletes of the Week: Wrestler targets title

By Jeremy Heath11/30/04

Hanna Skinner

Caprock and Palo Duro have grabbed most of the headlines in girls wrestling since the sport emerged in the late 1990s, but Amarillo High's victory over Palo Duro on Tuesday served notice the Lady Sandies have made strides.
Amarillo High's 36-12 win over Palo Duro marked its first win against the Lady Dons.

And no individual highlighted that conquest more than senior Hanna Skinner with a 38-second pin against Leticia Rodriguez in the 138-pound weight class.

Skinner, the Amarillo National Bank Female Athlete of the Week, is in her fourth season as an AHS wrestler. She won the regional title last year in the 138-pound weight class. Fourth-year head coach Charles Rose has watched her skills and confidence grow during those years.

"When she was a freshman, she went out and got beat up pretty bad," Rose said. "Her dad came over to me and said, 'I thought she was going to come off the mat and say she didn't want to go back out there, but she said it wasn't that bad.'

"That's been the case with this group of seniors. When they lose a match, they come over and ask me how they can get better."

Skinner has not had to ask that question this year. Last year's regional champion is 10-0 on the season.

Skinner, along with Lilli Cortez and Clarissa Dalke, are among Rose's first group of seniors to spend four years in the program. In the five seasons AHS has offered girls wrestling, this is the first season the Lady Sandies have had enough wrestlers to fill every weight class.

Skinner said the first win over Palo Duro was special because it is a milestone for the program. She said the programs at Caprock and Palo Duro serve as models for what the AHS program can become.

"It's so different to look back on what it (the AHS program) was and what it has become," Skinner said. "They (Caprock and Palo Duro) have a tradition of excellence, and that's where we'd really like to be."

Skinner, who lost at the 2004 state tournament to eventual state champion Teri Lopez of Katy, said mental toughness and confidence are two of the most important factors in her on-the-mat success. Skinner said the win over PD could boost the confidence of the entire AHS team, which features five freshmen.

"That was our first win against Palo Duro, and that was a big accomplishment for us," Skinner said. "It's great to be able to say we did that, and it's great for the other girls to see we have a chance. We have a lot of freshmen on the team who are doing an amazing job, and I think it gives them a boost of confidence."

Skinner's goal is to win the state title, but she said no matter what happens, the relationships she has developed with fellow seniors Cortez and Dalke are just as important.

"Not many people understand what it's like to cut weight. It's emotionally and physically straining. I've been in tears so many times, and they've been there," Skinner said. "They know what you're going through, and you know what they are going through.

"There's definitely a closeness that comes from that."

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Fair play for girls?
Supreme Court case spotlights equality in school sports

By Tania deLuzuriaga
Sentinel Staff Writer

December 1, 2004

Female athletes at Seminole High School in Sanford train and compete in
a new, state-of-the-art softball complex that cost more than $130,000. In
Kissimmee, the girls wrestling team at Osceola High has won the state
championship for the past two years.

Throughout Central Florida, girls in sports are gaining ground in their
struggle to find an equal playing field with boys. But a case before
the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday raised questions about progress
elsewhere.

At issue is whether a girls basketball coach in Alabama can sue the
district that fired him after he complained of unequal treatment of his team.
Lower courts have declared that Title IX, the federal law requiring equal
spending on girls and boys sports, has no provision allowing people to sue for
retaliation by school officials.

In Central Florida, coaches and players said Tuesday that they feel
comfortable speaking up and demanding their shares -- without fear of
retaliation.

"All the coaches can speak out," said Jimmy Mincey, who coaches the
girls varsity basketball team at Jones High School in Orlando. "Not that
anything might come of it, but you won't lose your job."

The situation also has improved for female athletes, Mincey said.

"During the '80s, girls had to take what they could get," he said.

Now, Jones' athletic director makes sure that when the boys get new
uniforms, the girls do, too, Mincey said. And when practice schedules
were made up, the teams alternated on who would have night practices.

"Our athletic director tells us, 'If it's good for the boys, it's good
for the girls,' " said Mincey, who has coached for more than 20 years.

But inequalities do exist, Mincey said. For example, some schools feed
their male athletes before every game, he said.

All school districts must file equality reports to the U.S. Department
of Education on a regular basis, documenting that equal funds are spent on
girls and boys sports. If equal spending isn't possible, as often is
the case with football, the schools must show that the program is open to
girls and boys alike.

"It costs $350 to $400 to outfit a football player each year," Osceola
High School Principal Chuck Paradiso said. "No other sport compares to
that."

But girls seem to have embraced the opportunities provided since
Congress passed Title IX in 1972. Schools have complied with the law by adding a
variety of girls sports, including soccer, crew, lacrosse and
wrestling.

When Title IX became law, girls made up less than 1 percent of all
high-school athletes. In 2002, they comprised 41 percent of the same
group.

At Boone High School in Orlando, Athletic Director Mike Dube said that
he tries to ensure as much equality as possible.

"We spend identical money on male and female sports," he said.

Dube also meets with girls and boys coaches to establish fair practice
schedules.

"I know when both coaches are complaining that I've done a good job,"
he said. "You have to find middle ground."

In Seminole County, the school board funds only coaches' pay
supplements, electricity, insurance and maintenance on facilities, but doesn't
directly give money to teams or school athletics.

"Most of the teams at our school fund themselves," said Mike Powers,
athletic director at Seminole High. "Whatever each team makes at their
gate and in fund-raisers, they keep. Our booster clubs kick in some funds,
but many of the boosters for girls teams are better organized and end up
making more than the boys teams."

The business community donated about $100,000 of the cost of the new
softball complex at Seminole High, which opened in April, but the girls
raised the rest of the money. The complex was Seminole's effort to
bring its softball facility in line with its baseball complex, completed in 1993.

Lary Beal, who recently retired as a soccer coach at DeLand High School
in Volusia County, said he doesn't know of any recent allegations of
inequity at DeLand High and would be surprised to hear of any in Central
Florida.

"I would say in the last five years everyone has looked at it more
closely -- not just the school systems but parents in general because they have
input on this stuff," Beal said.

Schools not only have a responsibility to ensure facilities are equal,
but they also want kids to be proud, he said.

"I don't really look at it as the boys' facilities being better than
the girls' or the girls' being better," Beal said. "It's a sense of school
pride, of dignity. We want the kids to represent the school, but they
also want to be proud of what they have."

Robin Bradford, the varsity softball coach at Boone High School in
Orlando, has seen the changes since she played for the Braves more than 20 years
ago. Then, the team had to drive themselves to practice a mile away from
school and play slow-pitch softball on a field built for baseball.

It took a complaint by parents to the U.S. Department of Education's
Office of Civil Rights in 1994 to get the girls a playing field on campus that
had lights. Today, the field still doesn't have a bathroom.

As recently as 2000, a federal judge required two Brevard County high
schools to make changes after finding that girls had to use substandard
fields off campus while the boys played on lighted fields on school
property.

"Things are changing," Bradford said. "It's very equitable."

The issue in the Supreme Court case is whether coaches -- who often are
the most aware of gender inequities in sports -- can complain about it
without fear of losing their jobs. Coach Roderick Jackson lost his job in 2001
after asking the Board of Education in Birmingham, Ala., to provide his team
a regulation-size gym with equipment equal to what the boysteam had.

Title IX has no provision allowing Jackson to sue over his firing. His
lawyer maintains that such protection is needed. But a lawyer for the
school board said that would open school districts to a wave of lawsuits that
lawmakers never intended.

Supreme Court justices appeared divided at Tuesday's hearing in
Washington. Justice Antonin Scalia said the law does not let coaches become
"private attorneys general" who sue school boards in an attempt to make them
change policy.

Justice Stephen Breyer recalled the civil-rights struggles of the
1960s. A white person refused a seat at a lunch counter because he was
accompanying a black friend can sue for discrimination, even though he is not black. A
male coach suing to seek redress for female athletes is no different, he
said.

Back in Orlando, Boone High's Bradford said she still sees problems at
some Orange County schools, despite improvements.

"There's still teams in Orange County without lights," she said. "There
are still teams playing on bad fields."

Emily Badger, Mary Shanklin, Vicki McClure, Shannon Shelton, Joe
Williams and Denise-Marie Balona of the Sentinel staff contributed to this
report. Information from Cox News Service also was used. Tania deLuzuriaga can
be reached at tdeluzuriaga@orlandosentinel.com or 407-931-5934.

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