2002 World Team Trials preview for 72 kg in women's freestyle wrestling

6/18/2002
Gary Abbott/TheMat.com

This year, FILA lowered the highest weight class in women’s wrestling to 158.5 pounds, down from the 165 pound limit from the previous years. This move has not eliminated any of the top contenders from the United States from competing due to size, but it has made the weight class a bit more interesting. Some of the bigger athletes have had to drop some weight, while others have moved up from the old 149.75 pound division.

Winning a U.S. Nationals gold medal for the third straight year was Iris Smith of the U.S. Army. Smith competed in the 2000 World Championships for the United States, but was unable to wrestle in the rescheduled 2001 World Championships due to her Army basic training. At this point in her career, Smith has combined strength, experience and confidence and has developed an edge over her top U.S. rivals. What Smith lacks is a medal at the World Championships, something that she hopes to take care of this year.

Placing second to Smith at the U.S. Nationals was Kaci Lyle of Pacific, who moved up to this division for the nationals. She lost to Smith in the finals, 6-0, and showed that she will be a strong challenger here. Lyle has been nationally ranked for a few seasons now, and has developed into a top freestyler after a strong age-group level career.

Taking third at the U.S. Nationals was Satrinina Vernon of Missouri Valley College, another talented athlete who has been near the top in recent seasons. Vernon is a former U.S. Nationals runner-up, and has the power and skills to be a champion if she can put it all together. Another top college wrestler placed fourth in Las Vegas, Samantha Branka of UM-Morris, a hard-working athlete who has shown improvement in the last two seasons.

Lock Haven’s Jenna Pavlik won a spot on the 2001 U.S. World Team by claiming a gold medal at the Sunkist International Open, and placed fifth in the 2001 World Championships as the replacement for Smith. Pavlik has not competed in freestyle since then, and was not in the field at the U.S. Nationals. She has not competed at the new weight class yet, so it remains to be seen how that will affect her performance should she decide to enter in Saint Paul.

The rest of the placewinners from the U.S. Nationals also came from the college ranks. Donnell Bradley of Missouri Valley College was fifth in Las Vegas, followed by Randi Miller of the Dave Schultz WC. Miller wrestles for Neosho County CC. Both athletes have shown promise, and are gaining experience with each major event.

Placing seventh was Rachel Glogowski, who runs the club program at Messiah College. The eighth place finisher at the U.S. Nationals was Alicia Wilson of the Minnesota Storm, who wrestles for UM-Morris.

Two members of Women’s Team USA did not compete at the U.S. Nationals but are qualified for the Challenge Tournament if they choose to compete. Ranked No. 2 is Sandra Bacher Fakaosi, a 2000 World Champion who moved up in weight at last year’s World Team Trials. Bacher Fakaosi has competed in three Olympics in judo, and has indicated that she would like to make a fourth Olympic team in 2004, but this time in wrestling. Her three career World medals in women’s wrestling makes her goal something that is very conceivable. Bacher Fakaosi has not competed in wrestling this season, and it is questionable whether she will be in Saint Paul.

The other national team member who is eligible is No. 3 Melani Macari-Montierth, who last wrestled at the Women’s World Cup in France in the fall. She did not compete at Missouri Valley College this season, and it is uncertain if she is going to appear on the mats this year. Dominique Smalley, a 2000 Junior World Champion, is also eligible for the Challenge Tournament, but she has not competed this season, as well.

Heading into the World Team Trials, Iris Smith remains a strong favorite at this division. The interesting battle will be in the Challenge Tournament, which should be won by the athlete who has improved the most since the U.S. Nationals. Some of these athletes have been training in Colorado Springs during the two-month period, and may have some new techniques and tactics to use in Saint Paul. If any of the athletes who skipped the U.S. Nationals but have qualified to compete decide to wrestle, the Challenge Tournament could take some interesting twists.

72 kg (158.5 lbs.) qualifiers
National champion - Iris Smith, Colorado Springs, Colo. (U.S. Army)
U.S. Nationals #2 - Kaci Lyle, Eureka, Calif. (Pacific)
U.S. Nationals #3 - Satrinina Vernon, Rodeo, Calif. (Missouri Valley)
U.S. Nationals #4 - Samantha Branka, Lincoln Park, Mich. (UM-Morris)
U.S. Nationals #5 - Donnell Bradley, Aiea, Hawaii (Missouri Valley)
U.S. Nationals #6 - Randi Miller, Arlington, Texas (Dave Schultz WC)
U.S. Nationals #7 - Rachel Glogowski, Mechanicsburg, Pa. (Messiah WC)
U.S. Nationals #8 - Alicia Wilson, Santee, Calif. (Minnesota Storm)
Team USA member - Sandra Bacher Fakaosi, San Jose, Calif. (Dave Schultz WC)
Team USA member - Melani Macari, Fremont, Calif. (unattached)
Junior World medalist - Dominique Smalley, Iowa City, Iowa (unattached)
Past World Team member - Jenna Pavlik, Lewes, Del. (Lock Haven)

Women’s Freestyle criteria: 1. Top eight at the 2002 Senior National Championships; 2. Current National Team Member - Top three; 3. Top three Finisher in a FILA A Championship in the past three years, including the Pan Ams, but not Sunkist; 4. 2002 University National Champion; 5. Past World Team Member; 6. 2002 Regional Tournament Champion from the Northeast and Northern Plains Regionals; 7. Medalist at Junior World Championships in the past two years

Note 1: Some athletes qualified in more than one way, although just one is noted in this list.
Note 2: Other wrestlers who meet qualifying criterion may identify themselves, and will be added to this list leading up to the event. Some of the anticipated qualifiers may choose not to attend.

Starting on May 30, TheMat.com will feature a daily interview with one of the 2002 U.S. Nationals champions, as well as a preview of that weight class for the upcoming World Team Trials, set for Saint Paul, Minn., June 21-23. Visit TheMat.com daily to read about America’s best international athletes and learn about the exciting action expected at this year’s World Team Trials.

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TheMat.com interview with Iris Smith, the 2002 U.S. Nationals women's freestyle champion at 72 kg

6/18/2002
John Fuller/TheMat.com

Iris Smith thought she had everything planned perfectly last year. She was planning to compete in the World Championships and then go to basic training for the Army. Instead, after the World Championships were postponed to November due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Smith had to miss the event entirely due to her military commitment.

TheMat.com spoke with the two-time defending World Team Trials champion as she prepares to qualify for her third consecutive World Team.

TheMat.com: Last year, you were unable to compete at the postponed World Championships due to your military commitment. Do you ever wish you would have delayed your basic training to see what you would have accomplished on the World level last year?
Smith: I would have loved to compete at the World Championships, but I didn’t expect it to be in November. When I looked at the brackets, I wished I was there, but I wouldn’t have changed anything, though. I am doing my military thing and it is part of my wrestling now. The Olympics are coming up and I want to spend my last couple of years preparing for the Olympics and not in basic training. I am glad I got it done with.

TheMat.com: After basic training was over, was it tough to get back into the flow of training for wrestling?
Smith: Not at all. Once I came back, my coaches were waiting for me. I trained a little bit off and on during my basic training. On our off time I would drill and find a way to get to a mat. I was still wrestling a little bit. I wasn’t wrestling as much as I like, but enough to where it wasn’t tough at all to get back in the swing of things.

TheMat.com: In 2000, you placed seventh at the World Championships. Given the extra year since then, how much do you feel you have improved?
Smith: I think I’ve improved a lot. I have gotten more technical. I have learned from my mistakes. In 2000, I made small mistakes that hurt me during my matches. I think I have taken care of them so hopefully I have gotten a lot better.

TheMat.com: What have been the key areas of focus for you in training this year for the World Team Trials?
Smith: Since I have been in basic, I have focused on everything. I didn’t take anything for granted. I went through all of my moves. I was in pretty good shape, so I concentrated more on my technique.

TheMat.com: You have been competing on the Women’s Senior level since you were 16 years old. Though you are only 23 now, do you feel your experience is a major advantage for you now?
Smith: I really do. As the years went on, I made more mistakes and learned from them. I think it has played a big part in my success.

TheMat.com: As a leader on the women’s circuit, what improvements have you seen over the past few years in both the level of wrestling and the level of coaching?
Smith: The coaching has gotten a lot better. On a wrestling level, we have gotten a lot more technical. I look at some of the tapes from the past and just think ‘Oh my God! What are you doing?’ I think we have stepped up a couple of notches so I am really happy.

TheMat.com: The new weight class for you this year is 72 kg, nearly 7 pounds less than last year. Is the new weight easier or harder for you?
Smith: Cutting was no problem. I haven’t had to cut too much since I’ve been back from basic training, so I guess it was the perfect time to go to basic. Competing is the same as it was at 75 kg. I can’t really tell a difference in the weight class.

TheMat.com: How has the Army World Class Athlete Program helped you to reach your goals in your short time with them?
Smith: It’s been a lot of teamwork. I am able to train with my team every single day. Having someone there over you all the time giving you that support means a lot to me. It’s been great. Coach (Dave) Bennett has been a huge help. We had Mike Duroe here, but it was different. He was the National Team coach and he helped us out a lot. We now have a coach that is always going to be in your corner, though. We don’t have to worry about conflict or anything.

TheMat.com: Who are your main training partners right now?
Smith: I train at Fort Carson with a lot of the guys out there. We have had a women’s camp going on so I will get a couple of matches in against the women over at the Training Center, but it is mostly the guys at Fort Carson.

TheMat.com: Georgia is not a traditionally strong state for high school wrestling. How did you become involved in the sport?
Smith: My brother was a high school stud. I went to one of his competitions. He was picking on me and I arm-spun him and his coach told me I was coming out for the wrestling team right there. Believe it or not, he talked my mom into doing in and my mom talked me into doing it. She told me to give it a try and whether I liked it or not, she would support me. I actually liked it. I broke my ankle the second day of practice so I tried out the next season because I felt like wrestling owed me something. I am glad I continued to keep going after it.

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Women seek level field

Advocates say vestiges of discrimination exists

By GREG TOPPO Associated Press

Sunday, June 16, 2002

Washington -- Thirty years ago, the typical high school yearbook
contained perhaps one or two photos of girls on sports teams -- they accounted
for only one of every 14 varsity athletes.

Today, nearly half of varsity players are women.

Times have changed, but not enough, a coalition of women's groups said
Thursday. A report issued on the 30th anniversary of federal
legislation barring sex discrimination in school said the law has made a huge
difference in how many girls play high school and college sports but warned that
much more needs to be done.

The 1972 Title IX law requires schools that receive federal money to
provide equal opportunities for men and women. Since it took effect, the number
of girls playing varsity high school sports has grown sharply, as have
budgets for women's athletic programs. Still, the study found that the programs
fall far short of equity.

The growth is undeniable: In 1971-'72, girls represented 7% of high
school varsity athletes; in 1999-2000, they represented 41%.

In college, women went from 15% of varsity athletes to 42%.

"The more opportunities you make available, the more exposure they get
to the benefits of competitive athletics, the more interest is generated,"
said Jocelyn Samuels of the National Women's Law Center.

But she noted that women's sports programs at Division I schools
receive only about one-third of the schools' sports operating and recruitment
budgets.

The report also found that, of every new dollar that went into
athletics at large colleges in the past four years, only 42 cents went to women's
sports. Also, male athletes receive 36% more in scholarships than female
athletes.

Women's groups want the Bush administration to withdraw federal funds
from colleges that don't fund programs equally.

Nancy Zirkin of the American Association of University Women said the
administration's recent support of single-sex public schools and
classes "was a shot across the bow" in what advocates say is an assault on
Title IX.

AAUW and others say President Bush's bid to loosen gender-based
regulations on schools threatens to weaken the law without research showing that
single-sex schools are effective. They also say it's unclear whether
the administration will support Title IX regulations as it fights a lawsuit
by the National Wrestling Coaches Association, which says men's wrestling
and other sports are being hurt.

"It makes us very wary and very nervous," Zirkin said.

The report also found:

-- More women are going to college, but only 20% of full professors at
colleges and universities are women.

-- In 1997-'98, women earned 75 % of bachelor's degrees in teaching and
67% of English degrees, but only 39 % of physical science degrees and 18 %
of engineering degrees.

Thursday's report was issued by the National Coalition for Women and
Girls in Education, a group that includes the AAUW, the National Women's Law
Center, the U.S. Student Association, the National Organization for
Women, Girls Inc. and the Association for Women in Science.

Credit: Associated Press

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The War on Football; Some feminists say it's killing off less popular
men's sports on college campuses. But the real culprit is Title IX.

The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Jun 16, 2002;

JESSICA GAVORA;

Today, 30 years after Title IX outlawed sex discrimination in
education, the number of men's college sports teams done in by "gender equity" is
depressingly large. A few recent sacrifices: Howard University, with a
60% female student body but "only" a 30% female roster of athletes,
recently killed baseball and wrestling. Bucknell dropped wrestling and men's
crew. Bowling Green State University eliminated men's swimming, men's tennis
and men's track and field. The University of Vermont, Tulane and Bowling
Green all eliminated men's track but kept women's. The Universities of Iowa,
Nebraska and Kansas eliminated their male swimmers and divers but
continue to fund the women with whom the men used to share facilities and road
trips.

Unquestionably, women have achieved much in the 30 years Title IX has
been on the books. Once unwelcome interlopers, girls and women now make up
just under 40% of high school and college athletes. And although Title IX
surely played a role in this progress for women, the sacrifice of men's teams
to ally imposed gender quota has been the law's most obvious
accomplishment.As a result, pro-quota women's activists are desperately
looking for ways to change the subject. Their latest tactic is to
return to an old grudge most of us thought the women's movement had left behind
decades ago: the war on football.

"It's not Title IX's fault, it's chicken college presidents and
athletic directors who won't bite the bullet on the irresponsible spending of
their football programs," Women's Sports Foundation Executive Director Donna
Lopiano said recently of cuts to men's programs.

The logic--such as it is--of sports-gender bean counters like Lopiano
holds that football, for schools that have it, is the fat man tipping the
canoe of gender equity in college sports. With rosters approaching 100 players
and scholarship limits three and four times higher than other sports,
football programs make Title IX's mandate of reaching "proportionality" much
more difficult. Schools struggling to match female athletic participation
with female enrollment find they have to have four or five women's teams
just to "make up" for the numbers that football adds to the male side of the
athletic ledger. Many schools offer the maximum number of scholarships
in each sport played by women in their conference and still can't match
the number of men who turn out--many of whom never even get a chance to
play--on the gridiron each Sunday.

Big-time college football may be complacent and uncaring, but is it
responsible for losses in men's collegiate athletics? Most participants
in men's minor sports don't think so. They understand that the phenomenon
that wins the multimillion-dollar television contracts and fills the stands
every Sunday at Notre Dame, Michigan, North Carolina and Nebraska also pays
the bills for nonrevenue- generating men's--and women's--teams. The
National Collegiate Athletic Assn. reports that the average Division I-A
football program cleared $3.8 million in profit after expenses in 1999. Women's
sports teams at the same schools, meanwhile, lost an average of $2.3
million per school.

Not all football programs make money, but those that do are the most
successful in creating what Title IX activists claim they want: more
athletic opportunities for women. Colleges and universities that belong
to conferences with big-time football and basketball television contracts
and bowl games--powerhouses like Iowa, Minnesota and Florida--field the
largest and most diverse women's sports programs. Schools with less-successful
men's programs have fewer female athletes relative to male athletes.

Meanwhile, Title IX's reverberations are being felt everywhere.
Marquette University eliminated its wrestling team this year, something officials
there say they did to comply with the law's mandate that the
percentages of women and men who play athletics match the percentages of women and men
in the student body. The blame-football-first crowd can't pin this one on
its usual scapegoat: Marquette has no football team.

Caught between higher education's love of football's money- making
potential and its loathing of the wrath of the women's lobby are men's so-called
"nonrevenue" sports. Less popular sports like wrestling, men's
gymnastics, track and swimming are hemorrhaging teams under Title IX. Their losses
have been so great--the number of collegiate wrestling programs has been cut
in half--that organizations representing coaches from wrestling,
gymnastics, track and field and swimming have joined in a lawsuit against the
Department of Education challenging the current interpretation of Title IX. The
lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington earlier this year
argues that Title IX quotas are discriminatory against men.

Meanwhile, the big guys--football and men's basketball--have stayed on
the sidelines, surveying the carnage and cynically calculating that Title
IX cuts will never affect them.

But whether you are pro football or con football, there is one
undeniable fact in the debate over Title IX: No amount of cutting the fat from
football will make girls and women any more willing to turn out for sports in
the same numbers as boys and men.

It takes nothing away from female athletes to acknowledge that women as
a group are less willing than men to play college sports without being
offered a scholarship or without an assurance they will get in the game to
play. For now at least, men are much more willing to "walk on" to teams without a
scholarship--a practice that adds little to a school's expenses but a
lot to the men's side of their Title IX ledger.

With men more apt to turn out to play, scholarship or no, virtually
every college and university today is forced to limit the number of athletes
men's teams can accept. Women's teams, in contrast, are given incentives to
recruit and retain as many players as possible. The result is that
women's squad sizes are typically smaller than men's--it takes 18 scholarships
to produce the average 21-woman track and field squad, whereas 32 men will
come out to collect 12.6 scholarships for the average men's team. NCAA
schools offer about 600 more teams for women than for men, and still male
collegiate athletes outnumber females by about 50,000. It has little to do with
football and everything to do with differences between women and
men--differences feminists would rather try to legislate away than
acknowledge.

Football isn't killing men's sports; a twisted interpretation of Title
IX is. For too long, federal officials have at worst encouraged and at
best turned a blind eye to systematic injustices perpetrated under Title IX.
Ending this injustice will not close doors for girls and women in
education, it will ensure that the door to equal opportunity stays open for
another 30 years.

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