Adeline Gray, 16, controls her male opponent in a high-school wrestling match. Ranks of girl wrestlers are swelling in Colorado, but not by enough to have girls teams, so they compete against boys, discomforting some parents and coaches. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)
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Adeline Gray, a varsity wrestler from Chatfield High, is flat on her belly, struggling to get up to her knees. A 140-pound boy, her exact match in weight, straddles her back.

And all the traditional rules about teenage girls and teenage boys, how they should behave and how they should touch, are on hold.

Gray finally breaks free. She executes a high crotch hold and then thrusts her leg between his.

She fights to trap his arm in one of her favorite moves, the chickenwing. Locked in combat, the pair remain almost motionless until she begins to tilt him, very slowly, and pins him to the mat.

Her team roars.

He walks back to his teammates, enduring the kind of defeat rarely seen in a sport that not too long ago was a

Powerhouse

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boys-only pursuit.

Last year, more than 5,000 girls wrestled in high schools across the nation — up from 112 in 1990, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

The sport is poised to grow even faster with the addition of women's wrestling to the Olympics and more women taking on the sport at college campuses. USA Wrestling is campaigning to get women's wrestling sanctioned as an NCAA sport.

The emerging sport is a flashpoint for controversy, however, especially in 40-plus states where high school girls wrestle on boys' teams. Opponents argue against coed wrestling for reasons that range from the threat of girls getting hurt to the threat of boys being humiliated. And of course, there is the touching thing.

"Most people don't think women should be wrestling at all, period," says Pat Babi, women's director for Colorado USA Wrestling. "One of the biggest problems is that Colorado doesn't have separate teams for girls who want to wrestle."

Despite the growth in the sport, the numbers in Colorado are still too low — about 30 girls statewide — to support separate teams, says Paul Angelico, associate commissioner of the Colorado High School Activities Association.

Above, Gray tucks her shoulder-length hair under her headgear before competing. At right, she looks over her homework with sister Geneva, 14. "She's a good example," says Chatfield High coach Fred Carrizales. "She works harder than the boys do." Gray hopes to compete and win at February's state championships. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

Still, some girls are succeeding in a boy's world.

In 2006, Brooke Sauer of Golden High School became the first girl in Colorado to qualify for the high school state wrestling tournament.

Gray, 16, hopes to do even better in February when Colorado holds its state championships at the Pepsi Center.

"It's a tough goal to accomplish," says her father, George Gray, a Denver police officer. "I think she'll get there, but whether she can accomplish the goal of winning a few is difficult."

She's respected enough at Chatfield High to be a captain of the wrestling team.

"She's a good example," says Fred Carrizales, one of the coaches. "She works harder than the boys do, and it's rubbing off on them."

By the time wrestlers reach high school, boys overpower girls in strength, particularly in upper-body strength. Girl grapplers, however, must contend with more than male muscle.

"We're asking people to change their definitions of femininity and masculinity," says Katie Downing , a world-champion pioneer of women's wrestling now training for the Olympics. She just completed her master's degree thesis on the impact of women on the sport.

"Wrestling as it was developed is very much about manhood and individuality and all those things tied in with the American dream," she says. "It has stood for everything that is manly for more than a couple centuries now."

"If he loses, his life is over"

Patricia Miranda, the first American woman to

Adeline Gray looks over her homework with sister Geneva, 14. "She's a good example," says Chatfield High coach Fred Carrizales. "She works harder than the boys do." Gray hopes to compete and win at February's state championships. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)
receive an Olympic medal in women's wrestling when she won a 2004 bronze at Athens, remembers a disturbing moment at the start of her career, after her triumph over a boy on her California high school team.

"His mother confronted me when I was rolling up the mats," she says. "She gave me a lot of arguments why it was unfair for girls to compete against boys. She said I put her son in a no-win situation, that if he wins, it's just a girl, and if he loses, his life is over."

Back then, Miranda was much less adept at defending herself.

"I should have said, 'Girls can't wrestle by themselves right now, and if girls want to have this experience — which is wonderful for self-esteem and self-confidence — why do you want to close it off to half the population?

" 'Why do you, as a parent, teach your son that the worst thing he can do is lose to a girl?' "gnews2014.jpg

Most girls say they'd prefer to wrestle against girls because muscle and strength are more evenly matched.

But only four states — Texas, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon — have all-girl state championships and women's wrestling as a varsity sport.

Which means most states — including Colorado — are still trying to figure out what to do with girls who want to wrestle.

Tom Beeson, a member of the National Wrestlers Hall of Fame and a former wrestling coach at Pomona High School in Arvada, says many boys see it as a "lose-lose situation."

"If they go out and beat her, for lack of a better term, she's a girl, and not as strong, so you should beat her. There's no respect or honor. And if you lose, you have to go out for basketball."

Arnold Torgerson , a member of the National Wrestlers Hall of Fame who coached wrestling for 35 years at Fort gnews2014.jpgCollins High School, is also opposed to coed wrestling.

He has two sons and four daughters.

"I always taught boys to respect women and take care of them," he says. "Now, to have coaches say to them, 'Go out and beat her, run her nose down into the mat,' that's anti-sexist as far as I'm concerned."

Holds too close for comfort

Sexuality is another concern.

"High school is a time when guys and girls are beginning to feel their differences," says Torgerson, who believes certain holds, like the high crotch, are problematic for coed wrestling.

"This is the only sport that is skin to skin. So when you're talking about boys' skin right up with girls' skin in some places where you grab and hold onto unintentionally, these are places where a girl should be offended — or would be, if it happened in the hallway."

Gray, who wrestles with her long dark hair tucked under black unisex headgear, deals with this argument as best she can.

"This is a very physical sport," she says. "I've grown up with wrestling from age 6, so it has never been weird for me to touch guys that way. It is a very different way to touch a guy, but it's not going out there in any sexual way. This sport is so mental and so competitive that if you go out there with that mentality, you're going to lose."

To help the state's high-school coaches cope with the controversy, Terry Steiner, national women's coach for USA Wrestling, came to Colorado last month to give a clinic on women's wrestling.

"He really changed the attitudes of a lot of coaches," says Travis Masse, Broomfield High School's coach. "He brought up some good points. He talked about the statement that USA Wrestling is built around: Anybody can wrestle, fat guys and skinny guys, small guys and tall guys. So how come girls can't?"

Gray, meanwhile, is focused on making the state championships.

"I am a female when I get out there," she says. "But I am also an athlete, and that's what they have to understand."