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Reversal of Fortune: Athlete pins hopes on wrestling, OCU
MATT DOYLE World Sports Writer
2/23/2007
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Tulsa senior first to sign in new program
Cheyenne Stokes' first glimpse of her athletic future came at age 5 at a youth wrestling tournament in New Mexico.
She had gone to watch her male cousin wrestle, but she noticed someone else. A young girl was competing against the boys. Not only was she competing, but she was winning.
Inspired, she saw her future, but there was one problem: Her father, Robert Stokes, didn't like the idea of his little girl on the wrestling mat.
"That's a man's sport," he said.
But the girl didn't let that stop her.
Less than 15 years later, Cheyenne Stokes is one of America's best female wrestlers, and the sport will help pay for her college education.
Stokes, a senior at East Central High School, made history Thursday by becoming the first signee for Oklahoma City University's new women's wrestling program.
"I always planned on taking it to college," she said. "Having the opportunity to still compete is great."
OCU announced last week that it would add women's wrestling as a varsity sport starting in the 2007-08 academic year.
Stokes' path to college wrestling started with persistence. After pleading with her parents,
she finally got her chance in the sport.
"I always thought I could do that," she said.
For the past 11 years, she has been competing with boys and girls and doing more than just holding her own. Stokes ranks as the top 126-pound girl wrestler in America, according to USA Wrestling magazine. She's a high school girls All-American.
"At first, I thought it would just be a couple of practices and maybe a tournament and then it would be over and done with," said Robert Stokes, a proud father who sat beside his daughter Thursday. "Boy, was I wrong."
Female participation in wrestling has increased rapidly over the last decade. Officials at USA Wrestling estimate that about 5,000 girls are participating in varsity high school programs nationally. Women's wrestling was added as an Olympic sport in 2004.
Cheyenne Stokes wrestled with the East Central varsity team her freshman and sophomore years but damaged a knee ligament before her junior year. She has spent the last year participating in freestyle tournaments while playing softball and soccer.
Stokes is proud of the distinction that she's the first signed recruit for OCU's women's program. She does not, however, view herself as a trailblazer for girls' wrestling in Oklahoma.
"I don't feel like I'm the one who started all of this," she said. "But if I can get other young women to wrestle and compete, then I feel like I opened the door for somebody else."
Archie Randall, her future coach at OCU, insists that Stokes already is a trailblazer.
"I've done this for a ton of years, and there are many girls that haven't made it this far in the game," said Randall, who coached at El Reno High School for 13 years and led that program to 11 state championships.
"Cheyenne doesn't wrestle like most girls. She wrestles like a guy and has beaten many guys, including a few on my team. That's her advantage."
OCU JOINS FOUR OTHER SCHOOLS WITH VARSITY
Oklahoma City University announced last week that it is adding women’s wrestling as a varsity sport. OCU is one of only five four-year institutions in the United States that offer women’s wrestling as a varsity sport. The others are:
Menlo College , Atherton, Calif.
Missouri Valley College , Marshall, Mo.
Pacific University , Forest Grove, Ore.
University of the Cumberlands , Williamsburg, Ky.
Canada has about 16 women’s college wrestling programs.
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Pioneer wrestler Woody looks to blaze trail to state title
On High Schools: Milton Kent 2/23/07
typically tend to run from things that make them different from other kids, and being a wrestler, moreover a successful one, certainly sets Woody apart from most girls.
But, as she prepares to make her last push for a state wrestling title with this weekend's 4A-3A East region tournament and the state finals next weekend, Woody, who will take just three years to graduate from Arundel, long ago made peace with being a symbol of what young women can accomplish in sports, if given the opportunity.
"Ever since I started wrestling, Mom told me that I was going to be a role model for women's wrestling," Woody said this week. "I've kind of had that stuck in my head. I've always thought of myself as one since I started wrestling, so it doesn't really bother me."
If the mere act of getting on the mat with boys was all there was to being an iconic figure, Woody would have achieved that when she first started wrestling competitively at 9 years old.
For Woody to become a figure to be emulated, she had to beat boys, and her victory in last weekend's Anne Arundel County championships - a pin of South River's Curtis Taylor in 5 minutes, 42 seconds - is only the latest proof that she can hold her own with boys.
Woody, who is 28-3 this season, is ranked sixth in the 103-pound weight class in the most recent Maryland State Wrestling Association rankings. She became the first girl to qualify for the 4A-3A meet two years ago, and last year she became the first girl to pin a boy at a state meet.
Woody has worked on overcoming whatever strength disadvantages she might have to a given male opponent by being a better technical wrestler.
"I just use whatever move is there," she said. "Purposefully, I've learned a lot of moves, and now I have a lot that I use. Whatever opens up, I go with."
Woody faces a potentially stern test at the regional meet against River Hill's Scott Mantua, a sophomore who is unbeaten this year. He also owns a win over Woody in an earlier match this season.
Since the top four wrestlers in each class advance to next week's state finals at Cole Field House at the University of Maryland, Mantua and Woody likely won't settle matters until then.
Nationally, Woody, the only American - male or female - to win a junior world championship last August, is the top-ranked female wrestler in the 100-pound class, as compiled by the United States Girls' Wrestling Association. She will wrestle in April at the association's girls national event.
Woody will pass up college for a year to seriously train, splitting her time between here and the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. She feels she'll need the time to improve in freestyle wrestling, the style that is used virtually everywhere outside U.S. high school wrestling.
Woody feels she's improving steadily, but not so much that she feels she could land a spot on the national women's wrestling team that will head to Beijing for next year's Olympics.
It's only been recently, Woody said, that she was able to keep from getting turned when she drilled with Patricia Miranda, who won a bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics in the 105.5-pound women's competition.
"I think I'd be further ahead, but I just don't think I'd be mature enough," Woody said.
That may be, but as chapters are added to the history of Maryland high school wrestling, at least one of them will reflect that a girl named Nicole Woody was a pioneer who was comfortable being a role model, but only wanted to be known as "a good wrestler and a real hard worker."
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Wrestling? It's not just for boys
9 girls have signed up for startup team in Mooresville; organizer seeks to change attitudes about the sport
By Jeff Riley 2/22/07
Star correspondent
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MOORESVILLE -- While most wrestling fans view the sport as a male domain, Beth Lybarger sees no reason why girls shouldn't enjoy it, as well.
Lybarger ought to know. Her daughter, Ashleigh, has competed at the national level.
"I think it's a wonderful activity for boys and girls alike, and I think girls would benefit more from the positives of the sport if only they'd participate," said Lybarger, Mooresville. "It teaches discipline and self-confidence. It takes a big person to walk out on that mat, when it's just them against their opponent. Not everybody can do that."
Now, Beth Lybarger is trying to get more girls involved. As secretary of the Indiana State Wrestling Association and a staff member with the women's junior national wrestling team, Lybarger is working to create a women's team with the Mooresville Wrestling Club.
With the first workout set for early March, nine area girls had registered as of last week.
"Of course, I'd like to see 50 or 60," Lybarger said with a chuckle, "but I will be happy with 10 to 15. We're relying a lot on word-of-mouth right now."
Lybarger's goal is to persuade more girls ages 5 to 18 to consider wrestling, a sport known to be as demanding mentally as it is physically. Despite the fact that female wrestlers compete in the Olympics, the sport has not yet overcome its predominantly male roots.
Lybarger and her husband, Joe, raised four wrestlers in three sons (Jason, Eric and Ryan) and daughter Ashleigh. All are Mooresville High graduates.
Eric placed fourth at the IHSAA state meet at 171 pounds as a senior in 2003 and now wrestles for Newport News (Va.) Apprenticeship School, where he entered the week 16-9 as a senior at 174.
Ryan, a 2006 graduate, competed at 160 for Mooresville. Jason wrestled for Paul Hadley Middle School but did not compete in high school.
Ashleigh wrestled at 140 for Mooresville's junior varsity team as a junior last year but did not compete for the high school team this season because of a back injury. She qualified for the junior national championships three times and finished fourth last summer at 148 pounds in the ASICS/Vaughan Cadet & Junior Nationals in Fargo, N.D.
"Girls do martial arts, and that's widely accepted, but girls wrestling isn't as accepted," said Beth Lybarger. "The biggest obstacle is educating parents and coaches. Parents don't understand it's not just a boys sport, and coaches don't know how to coach girls. Girls tend to be more emotional than boys, but they work just as hard. When I was at nationals, the girls worked harder than the boys. Boys tend to take it for granted that they're tough. Girls have to prove they're tough."
Mooresville coach Zach Errett supports Beth Lybarger's cause. He also noted the success of Cloverdale sophomore Brittney Hughes, a 103-pounder, who finished 17-11 and reached the Mooresville Regional this season.
"There's definitely a difference between coaching girls and boys, and Beth is really trying to take steps to help improve the girls program," Errett said. "This is an Olympic sport for women, so anything that's going to help them get more exposure to the sport at a younger age is going to help."
Mooresville sophomore Charly Jones, 15, is among the nine girls who registered for the club. As a statistician for the high school team, Jones became fascinated with the sport.
"It looks interesting, and I like to try new stuff," she said. "It looks hard but fun at the same time, so I want to learn more and be able to do it. Hopefully, I'll be on the Mooresville High team next year."
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The Leader-Post
Published: Thursday, February 22, 2007
University of Regina Cougars wrestler Ali Bernard was named the Canadian Interuniversity Sport female athlete-of-the-week on Wednesday.
Bernard, a third-year kinesiology and health student, was named Canada West's outstanding female wrestler after winning gold in the 72-kilogram class at the conference championship on the weekend.
The 20-year-old from New Ulm, Minn., pinned three of her four opponents at the meet while the other withdrew due to injury.
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2/22/07
Regina Cougars wrestler Ali Bernard and Lakehead Thunderwolves hockey player Mike Wehrstedt were named Canadian Interuniversity Sport athletes of the week yesterday. Bernard won gold in the 72-kg class at Canada West championships last weekend. Wehrstedt had two overtime goals to help Lakehead sweep its OUA first-round playoff series against York.
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individual wrestling titles for Bacon
2/21/07
The first girl to ever medal in an ECC Tournament was Montville's Jessica Bennett (112), who finished sixth.
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Nickerson Prepares For NCAA Title Campaign
By Lance Williams
Sun Staff Writer
Feb 22 2007
When sophomore co-captain No. 2 Troy Nickerson was six-years-old, the aspiring wrestler’s parents made the hour-long drive from their home in Chenango Forks, N.Y., up to East Hill, just so their son could catch his first glimpse of the Cornell wrestling program. The experience must have made quite a first impression, as 14 years later, the former five-time New York State high school champion is leading the Red towards another run at a top-5 finish in this year’s NCAA tournament.
“He came to one of our wrestling camps when he was six,” said head coach Rob Koll. “I signed his wrestling poster he handed me and said, ‘I will see you back here in 12 years.’ I guess I was prophetic.”
Nickerson wasn’t always so dominant on the mat, however, as his wrestling career — which began at the ripe age of five — got off to a rocky start.
“Actually my first match ever I got beat by a girl,” he said. “So I obviously didn’t start off too hot, but I ended up liking the sport and getting pretty good.”
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More Girls Take Part in High School Wrestling --
by TAMAR LEWIN/NY Times Wednesday, February 21, 2007
UNCASVILLE, Conn. — The takedown came after all of 12 seconds.
Jessica Bennett, Montville High School’s 103-pound wrestler, waited until Rich Wood went down to try to grab her leg, then launched herself onto his back, and got him down to his knees. After a brief stalemate later in the match, Jessica, 15, lifted him off the ground and took him back to the mat, for more points.
At that, several of Rich’s teammates, from St. Bernard High School here, looked down at their feet. There is still some pain in watching a teammate being beaten by a girl — even a girl like Jessica, who has won 23 of her 35 matches this season.
Wrestling may be the ultimate contact sport, and it can be a startling sight, teenage boys grabbing girls’ thighs, girls straddling boys, boys riding girls’ backs and trying to flip them onto their backs. For the most part, girls who want to wrestle — and they are slowly moving into the mainstream — must practice with, and compete against, boys.
Nationwide, about 5,000 high school girls wrestled last year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, nearly five times as many as a decade earlier. Those numbers are no doubt low, since many states failed to report girls’ wrestling participation, but whatever the full count, it is dwarfed by the quarter-million boys who wrestle.
Now that women’s wrestling is an Olympic sport, and, on some campuses, a college sport, girls’ wrestling is poised to take off. There is a Catch-22: Without many girls, there can’t be girls’ teams, and without girls’ teams, wrestling can’t attract all that many girls. The legal status of coed wrestling is not entirely clear, but in a few scattered cases, courts have ruled that if there is no girls’ team for them, they should be able to join boys’ teams.
In Texas and Hawaii, and in some California schools, girls have their own teams. Girls’ invitational tournaments, where girls compete individually, are becoming more common. Just this month, for the first time, the New York Mayor’s Cup competition had a girls’ division, albeit with only nine participants.
“It would be nice if there were girls’ teams,” said Eleanor Lewis, a sophomore at Horace Mann, a private school in New York City, who wrestled two boys on the first day of the Mayor’s Cup and two girls the second. “When you wrestle a girl, you’re more equally matched, and feel like you’re respected,” she said.
Roger Shaw, women’s director for USA Wrestling Connecticut, said the spread of girls’ teams would help wrestling’s popularity.
“I believe we’ll go on at the low level we’re at if women don’t get their own teams,” Mr. Shaw said.
While he is all for girls wrestling — his daughter, Stefenie, started wrestling at 8 and now, at 20, is an Olympic hopeful — Mr. Shaw said that for boys, coed wrestling can be disconcerting. “A boy who goes out on the mat against a girl doesn’t win,” he said. “If he beats her, he was supposed to, and if he doesn’t, he’s dead meat.”
On the other side, mothers of girl wrestlers say they worry about the cauliflower ears, broken noses and concussions. One thing that coaches, parents and wrestlers — both boys and girls — agree on is that sex is the last thing on wrestlers’ minds as they pull and push and turn their partners, same sex or opposite.
“They’re so pumped up with adrenaline when they’re out there on the mat, they’re not thinking of anything but wrestling and winning,” said Gary Wilcox, Jessica Bennett’s coach.
Occasionally, boys choose to forfeit rather than wrestle a girl, as happened at a Dobbs Ferry High School exhibition match this season, leaving Sophia Veiras, a sophomore, with no one to fight.
“It’s always a little intimidating for the boys at first,” said Jamie Block, the coach at the school, in Westchester. “They’re raised not to do this to a girl. And the thing about Sophia is, she’s very good. If you don’t really fight, she’ll pummel you. The girls who come out for wrestling now, they go to wrestling camps in the summer. They’re serious.”
Girls’ wrestling is not easy. The conditioning is grueling and intense, more so than for other sports. Since boys their age are usually stronger, only a few girls ever make varsity, let alone get to a state championship. And there is often parental resistance.
“I told her, it’s all boys, you’re going to get hurt,” said Roseanna Di Benedetto, whose daughter, Lucy, a tiny 15-year-old at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, is determined to wrestle. “But Lucy’s always loved a challenge.”
Even her coach, Josue Herrera, has his doubts about coed wrestling. “I think it’s better if it’s girl and girl,” he said. “If boys and girls wrestle together, it’s physically harder for the girl, but mentally harder for the boy.”
Lucy’s school is still considering how to treat her. She has been training with the boys. Every afternoon, she flops to the floor, does her pushups, runs alongside them and goes through the neck stretches, crab walks and army crawls. Still, she has not been allowed to wrestle with the boys.
Her school’s athletic director, Arnie Rosenbaum, will not let her do that unless she can pass a state test: among other things, she must run a mile and a half in 11 minutes and do a 7-foot standing long jump, which may not be possible for this 4-foot-11 ninth grader.
Mr. Rosenbaum said he was following state guidelines intended to ensure that girls who join boys’ teams are solid athletes. “It’s not up to me,” he said. “I’m just following the guidelines.” Other officials say Mr. Rosenbaum is going beyond state requirements.
According to the State Education Department, the guidelines for mixed competition require schools to consider the girl’s medical history and physical abilities but do not require that they pass the test, which is intended for younger athletes who want to compete alongside older ones.
At other schools in New York where girls wrestle with boys, coaches say there has not been a problem.
“We’ve had at least one girl on our team since we started the program four years ago,” said Scott DeBellis, at Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx, which has two girls wrestling this year.
Another girl, he said, dropped away because her mother wanted her out.
Even the mother of Jessica Bennett, the Montville High wrestler, had her doubts.
“When she was little, I told Jess that it’s a little bit of a man’s world, but you should never let anyone say you can’t do something because you’re a girl,” Kim Bennett said. “When she wanted to wrestle, I was very skeptical. But she reminded me of what I’d said, and told me that the first time she was hearing she shouldn’t do something because she’s a girl, she was getting it from me. And she was right.”
Her coach, Mr. Wilcox, a former marine, also wondered how the boys would behave when Jessica first appeared at practice. “I told them, if anybody does or says anything, they’ll pay me,” he said. “So there was fear.”
But Jessica and her teammates say coed wrestling seems perfectly natural. In fact, Jessica says, the boys who have known her since she followed her brother into a local youth wrestling program in fourth grade “kind of watch out for me.”
Nick Perry, a senior who often wrestles Jessica at practice, said he never thought about her being a girl.
“I grew up wrestling with Jessica, in the youth program, so it’s just how it is,” he said. “She’s good. She’s the one on the team who makes the most kids cry.”
Mr. Wilcox said Jessica was equally serious academically and athletically: she is at the top of her class and places among the fastest runners in the state. Last summer, she went to wrestling camp, where she was the only girl.
Jessica, a soft-spoken girl who braids and pins up her hair before each match, says wrestling has helped build her confidence, challenging both her body and her mind.
With the hairnet, the dark T-shirt under her singlet, and the headgear over her ears, there is something oddly demure about Jessica, even as she is on all fours with a boy riding her back. The onlookers yell, “Lock in that leg” and “Keep pushing,” and her mother yells, “Come on, Jess, upsy-daisy.”
When she gets on top, turns him and nearly pins him, the crowd explodes, stomping the bleachers. Her team cheers wildly. His team goes silent.
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C.C. Weber has found success in a sport she loves, but she credits wrestling and her big brothers Mark Weber
February 23, 2007
BY TOM LANG
FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER
Two photographs hang on the wall in the Webers' home in Goodrich.
They signify two important moments in recent family history, as well as provide the inspiration to push on.
"There are two (photos) of my brother, taken when getting his state championships, when the ref raises his arm," C.C. Weber said. "And they really inspire me and make me want to do that."
She -- yes, she -- is on the right track.
C.C. Weber is one of a handful of girls who wrestle on boys teams in Michigan, and along with brother Mark, the pair hope to make a little history of their own. The Webers could become the first brother-sister duo to finish in the top eight at states.
Junior Mark Weber is a two-time state champ in Division 3 and is ranked No. 2 across all divisions at 125 pounds this season, with a 51-1 record, 29 wins by pin. C.C. Weber, a sophomore, is not just filling up a weight class at 103 for Goodrich. She is contributing heavily at 38-6 with 15 pins.
Both Mark and C.C. won Genesee Area Conference championships, and on Feb. 15, brother and sister pinned two opponents each, leading Goodrich to the team district title. They also take individual district crowns into Saturday's regionals.
A girl wrestling on a boys team has become more common, but regularly defeating boys in the process has not been the norm. Five girls have qualified for states in the past decade in Michigan, but only one placed -- Amy Berridge of Martin -- seventh at 103 in 2004. No girl has qualified for states since.
"She brings everything she can to each and every practice and each and every competition," said Goodrich coach Matt Turnbow, a two-time state champ in 1992 and '93 at Burton-Bendle. "C.C. gets a lot of attention because she is a female wrestler, but the guys just look at her as anyone else on the team and expect equally from everyone. It's our goal that (someday) she's the first state champion."
Male vs. female
"There's been some controversy in the local papers in the opinion sections, people thinking that it's disgusting to have boys and girls wrestling, but we haven't had anyone say anything to us," Turnbow said. "In fact at tournaments the fans have been very supportive, and you have vocal fans wanting her to win and cheering her on, even from other teams."
C.C. Weber seems to have a good grasp on competing head-to-head with boys. She also said some girls want to be noticed, but potentially for the wrong reasons.
"I have to imagine some guys absolutely hate losing to a girl," she said. "But I've had guys tell me they heard I was pretty good, so it wasn't as bad losing to me.
"I think some girls wrestle just to get the attention, and they have teammates that don't treat them well because of it. But the guys on my team treat me with lots of respect, and they are very nice. The guys definitely treat me like one of them. I love them."
C.C.'s full name is Crystal Carol, but "I don't think it fits me very well, neither do my friends," she said. "C.C. just fits. I've been C.C. since I was really, really little."
She also has been very strong and athletic from a young age, according to her mom, Kim Weber, who remembers C.C. as a toddler in Gymboree class as "a cut above other children in any physical activity."
"She was never really a girly girl, but someone who was extremely driven," Kim Weber said. "I wouldn't ever say she's a tomboy, rather, she's very feminine and looks really nice every day for school. But she's always been very athletic and adventurous."
C.C. Weber has wrestled since age 10.
"I was doing pretty well in wrestling and I thought to myself, why quit?" C.C. said. "It was that or gymnastics, but I really like wrestling and I don't think my life would be anything like it is without wrestling. It gives me a strong drive and mental toughness, and once you do things right in wrestling you can do so many other things in life easier -- both mentally and physically."
Off the mat, Weber says she is down to earth, her friends say she's funny, and others tell the sophomore class princess that she's well rounded -- "but wrestling is always on my mind during the season; in the off-season I'm what you'd call a normal girl."
But referee Ron Nagy says it's a different story on the mat.
"She's a really nice looking girl, so you'd never think that once she steps on the mat she's just tough as nails," Nagy said.
C.C. takes after her mom, who was homecoming queen and cheerleader -- but also female athlete of the year at Goodrich in the late '70s, playing basketball and softball.
Proud big brother
Mark Weber truly admires his sister.
"I think it's pretty incredible that she's tough enough to go through what us guys go through each day, cutting weight and all the other pressures with wrestling," he said. "I'm pretty proud of her for that. She needs to get better with a couple things -- she stands up straight in her stance too much, and sometimes she gives up her legs too often, other than that she does really good under pressure.
"I give her advice sometimes, and I think she listens to me. I hope she does, but she's pretty stubborn."
Mark Weber is equally stubborn about winning state titles. His top priority the next two years is to add his name to the short list of four-time state champions.
"I put a lot of importance on it," he said. "That's pretty much my main goal, to get four titles. Brent Metcalf (Davison) did it. He's the only one I know personally, and there's Roger Kish at Lapeer. I just knew it was possible since my freshman year so I thought to myself that if they could, and I worked hard enough, I could, too."
The mutual respect between siblings is clear.
"I know he'll win four state titles, there's no doubt in my mind," C.C. said. "He's been so driven to win states four times, I don't think he'll let himself not win it all.
"I think he's an amazing wrestler, and sometimes I don't think he knows how good he is. Sometimes he might doubt himself, but I really look up to him. He's my hero when it comes to wrestling."
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