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Iowa Girls' State Tournament Champions
2002 Girls' State Tournament Champions:
Elementary Division
Class 1 - Haley Groves, Greenfield
Class 2 - Paige Heesch
Class 3 - Katherine Williams, Gilbertville
Class 4 - Jonie Meling, Milo
Class 5 - Elizabeth Ihnen, Sheldon
Class 6 - Hope Fox, Orange City
Outstanding Wrestler: Williams
Junior High Division
Class 1 - Nicole Kay Pridie, Sioux City
Class 2 - Chandra Peterson, Lake Mills
Class 3 - Paige Storm, Spencer
Class 4 - Emma Wakefield, Spencer
Class 5 - Susan Scott, Fayette
Outstanding Wrestler: Storm
High School Division
Class 1 - Roxanne Soesbe, Clarion
Class 2 - Shadi Griffith, Spencer
Class 3 - Kjersten Harvey, Des Moines
Class 4 - Jenna Hoffman, Spencer
Class 5 - Jessy Daniels, Dallas Center
Class 6 - Brittany Winter, Spencer
Class 7 - Maude Livings, Sioux City
Class 8 - Samantha Goodale, Gilbert
Class 9 - Casey Johnson, Spencer
Class 10 - Lizz Sanders, Newton
Outstanding Wrestler: Sanders
Jenna Hoffman of Spencer (top), one of Iowa's best and the 8th ranked 118-pounder in the nation,
pins Joelyn Johnson in the High School Division Class 4 of the Girls' State Tournament Sunday in Gilbert.
Hoffman claimed one of the 21 State titles decided at the third annual tournament.
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Barreiro: Controversial mixed-sex wrestling bill stalls
Dan Barreiro
Star Tribune Mar 3, 2002
A House bill to outlaw mixed-sex wrestling in Minnesota high school competition passed out of the Education Policy Committee and to the floor of the House.
"When it will be heard, I don't know," said Rep. Paul Marquart, DFL-Dilworth, a social studies teacher and a former wrestling coach who is in favor of the legislation. "The Senate bill apparently isn't going to get a hearing. It sounds from an e-mail I received that Senator [Sandy] Pappas [DFL-St. Paul] says she won't hear the bill, so it's pretty much stalled in the Senate anyway."
The stall will come as welcome news to those who believe that girls are born with the inalienable right to acquire cauliflower ears.
For Rep. Mary Jo McGuire, DFL-Falcon Heights, who is passionately against the legislation, the issue comes down to one thing: opportunity. While some states have enough girls interested in their sport to develop separate competition from the boys, she says most states do not.
"Obviously, the best thing would be for the girls to have their own teams," McGuire said Friday. "But we don't have that right now. And with the financial crises facing our schools, it's going to be difficult to expand right now anyway. In the meantime, we don't want to take away the opportunity from the girls who are able to, and want to, compete."
Marquart says he is all for opportunity but believes there are some indelicate realities here that are easier to ignore in theory than in reality. Those realities, he says, include touching in some intimate areas, if obviously for nonsexual reasons. He is also bothered by the idea of boys and girls throwing each other around.
"This debate has nothing to do, for me, with girls' ability to wrestle, or that there should be any question that they should be able to wrestle against each other," she said. "It has nothing to do with attempting to discourage girls' participation in high school sports. I have daughters in ninth and fifth grade.
"My concern is that if you match girls and boys, you are putting them in very difficult situations on the mat that are very different than even from any other contact sport. Beyond that, I don't buy that it's too expensive to create separate girls' teams. I don't think that holds a lot of water. You can practice in the same room, travel on the same bus, and the cost would not be that much greater. I happen to believe that more girls would be interested in participating if they did not have to compete against boys. We had one girl who testified to it."
Marquart sounded like a reasonable man and made solid arguments to back up his case. McGuire sounded like a reasonable woman and also made solid arguments to back up her case.
The message here is clear. Reasonable folks should be able to look at the particulars of this complicated issue and come to different points of view.
Unfortunately, the issue has been so politicized and oversimplified that Marquart has no chance. By offering the possibility that mixed-sex wrestling is not a good idea, he will be branded as a Susan B. Anthony-hating Neanderthal who wishes it were 1956 again and believes all girls should be happy to attend home economics class and prepare for a happy life in the kitchen.
In fact, some e-mailers already have.
It will not matter that Title IX, the landmark legislation, does not mandate equal opportunity in the sport of wrestling. It will not be considered a possibility that a person could be a passionate champion of equal opportunity and still come to a common-sense conclusion that the reality of adolescent boys and girls grappling on a mat is fraught with difficulty for both sexes and might defeat the purpose of granting such opportunity.
It certainly will not be considered a possibility that the discomfort some folks feel at the prospect of mixed-sex wrestling is not the same kind of insidious discomfort that was no excuse for holding back women athletes in general for generations.
No, this issue will be foolishly presented as the ultimate litmus test of our commitment to equal opportunity for women. And that is ridiculous.
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Going to the mat for girls
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) 3/2/02
Letters from readers
I find it astounding, in a society that touts great gains in
gender equality, that our Legislature is poised to effectively deny girls the
right to wrestle competitively alongside boys in high school athletics. I've
heard many reasons why this right should be discontinued, but none has proven
satisfactory, and all leave me convinced that critics envision a giggly
game of touch and grope on the wrestling mat.
Wrestling is a tough and demanding sport, both physically and
mentally (perhaps more so than any other sport); I commend anyone, male or
female, who wants to experience that challenge. If a boy refuses to wrestle a
girl on account of squeamishness, he deserves to lose, because he's already
proven he's weaker by far than his opponent. Should this ban be
passed, it will be a slap against equality, yes, but it will also douse
the competitive spark in girls statewide who are competing, or considering
competing, in the unique sport of wrestling. And that's a real tragedy.
_ Ryan Rhodes, Rochester, Minn.
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: Wrestling With Gender Equity
The Tampa Tribune 3/2/02
Wrestling is a demanding and character-building sport for high school
boys and girls, but when girls must wrestle boys, as they sometimes do in
Florida and many other states, complications can arise.
Lawmakers in Minnesota are considering a bill that would outlaw
mixed-sex wrestling in its high schools. Outrage is rising on both sides of the
issue, which suggests the Florida approach is smart: Allow school districts to
decide for themselves how to handle the matter. Here in Florida, some
districts have all-girls teams and others let any interested girls try
out for the boys' team. The absence of publicity indicates the wisdom of
this approach.
While some girls have proved themselves capable of out-wrestling boys
of similar weight, and won praise for themselves and their sex, boys tend
to be stronger. And also unavoidable is the discomfort some boys feel at
having to fight a girl and be laughed at whether they win or lose.
That's the boys' problem, say proponents of coed wrestling. Girls
should "go for it," they say, or "just do it." And they are. Across the country,
several thousand girls are reported to be wrestling on boys' teams.
Clearly some girls are physically up to the challenge, but the correct
answer to equal opportunity in contact sports is not always "no holds
barred." The federal law governing gender equality - Title IX -
recognizes that reasonable people can disagree on how far to go; the law lets
states set their own guidelines on mixing the sexes on the wrestling mat.
The best arguments against boys grappling with girls are made by
Katherine Kersten, director of the Center of the American Experiment in
Minneapolis. Writing there in the Star Tribune, she observes that "wrestlers
frequently engage in pretzel-like contortions, such as forcing their head between
an opponent's legs while struggling to turn him on his back. About 90
percent of wrestling holds involve grabbing the upper body or pelvic area."
Those who favor letting girls compete insist that wrestling is in no
way sexual to the wrestlers. But Kersten counters that many of the holds
"would constitute illegal sexual harassment in any other setting. In our
litigious society, coaches take a risk whenever they have close physical contact
with young female athletes."
She adds: "If the sexes are to live in harmony, they must ground their
relations in a kind of compact, centered in mutual dignity and regard.
A fundamental tenet of this compact is that decent men respect women, and
view using force against them as dishonorable and unmanly."
Clearly, separate girls teams are the best solution where schools can
afford it and female interest supports it. Both sexes benefit from the
conditioning and weight discipline that varsity wrestling demands.
Florida law is correct to empower local school leaders to use their
best judgment. The law says "students may be separated by sex ... during
participation in bodily contact sports."
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