Pin the boys and make them cry
Wrestling champion Nicole Woody dominates a male-dominated activity

BY MICHAEL REID
STAFF WRITER II Calvert Recorder 5/29/02

In some families, boys often pick on their sisters -pulling their pigtails, throw- ing their dolls and teasing them mercilessly.
But that has not been a problem for Nicole Woody and, if things keep going the way they have, it never will be. If anything, her brother Stephen would be well-advised to just hand over the toy, clothing article or cookie -oops, brown rice -that his sister coverts.
Who could stand up to his sister and say no, especially when she sports T-shirts that bear such inscriptions as "Winning is a girls thing" and "I make boys cry"?
The reason Stephen sometimes lets Nicole get her way is that his sister has been wrestling and winning tournaments at an alarming pace during the last couple of years. In late March, she beat out 20 other middle school competitors to win the United States Girls Wrestling Association (USGWA) belt held in Lake Orion, Mich.
The USGWA is a series of 28 tournaments that run from December to March. Wrestlers accumulate points and the top point -getter receives the belt at the grand finale, the nationals.
The 14-year-old Woody finished the tournament with 166 points, well ahead of the second-place wrestler. But not only did the St. Leonard grappler win the coveted belt, she dominated the overall competitioni.
She won nine of the 12 tournaments she participated in and was the runner-up at two others. She was also named Most Out- standing Wrestler five times. She finished in fourth place finish at the nationals, where she was hampered by injuries, but she had already clinched the belt several tournaments before.
Not only is the belt impressive because of its size and what a wrestler has to go through to get it, but the travel demands made on the families are outrageous as well.
Every weekend, the family packs up their green Ford Taurus station wagon and heads out to two tournaments, one on Sat- urday and one on Sunday; One weekend, the family headed up to Kentucky so Nicole could wrestle on Saturday and then headed over to Tennessee for a Sunday tournament. Another time it was down to South Carolina and then north to Virginia on Sunday so that Nicole could compete in a club touney; Another weekend, Nicole wrestled
in North Carolina on the Saturday and in D.C. the next day:. Once, they drove 24' . hours to partake in a pair of tournaments in Iowa and then slept in the car during the 26-hour trek back to Southern Maryland.
"We've put 7,000 miles on our car in 14 weeks," said Woody's mother, Mary.
And if that's not enough of sweaty locker '
rooms, rubber wrestling mats and cramped bleachers, Nicole also practices four times a week at either Riverdale Baptist in Maryland or at Virginia's Carl Sandberg Middle School.
"Although it's a long way to go to practice, I have some great coaches [Bruce Gabrielson and Rick Jones]," Woody said. "I'm very happy where I am."
Then there's the matter of making weight. To remain within her 77-pound weight class, food sacrifices have to be made and that can be tough on a teen-ager. Instead of ice cream (her favorite) and breads and cereals (too much salt), Nicole chomps down on meals consisting of chicken, eggs and brown rice up to six times a day .But Nicole didn't always want to tussle on the mat. Although she practiced judo, Nicole was intrigued by wrestling in part because older brother WIlliam McKinney; now a Corporal in the Marines, used to wrestle for Patuxent High School in 1999.
When Nicole informed her parents that she would like to try the sport, her parents did not come to an immediate agree- ment. Her father, Larry, a brick- layer, emphatically said, "No," while her mother replied with a resounding, "Yes."
"I wanted all the kids at the same place and at same time," Mary said.
Eventually; Nicole did hit the mat but after practicing for just a week, she was caught unprepared and lost her first match. Nevertheless, she was hooked on the sport.
"The first week I didn't do any wrestling. I only practiced. I was really nervous before my first match, so I made an excuse that
I was ill so I didn't have to wrestle," Nicole said. "But then it was a lot of fun. You get to do a bunch of different moves and you get to beat someone up. You can be tough on and off the mat."
Her brother Stephen added, "Sometimes she yells at people."
Last fall, Woody stepped onto the football field for the SYB Panthers and found that in some ways, it's a lot like wrestling." You get to pick up whoever has the baIl and' throw them," said the fullback/right guard.
Her first official wrestling match was a 1998 match against Ryan Buff, the younger brother of Calvert High School wrestling great Max Buff, and the boy pinned her in just 45 seconds.
"I decided to wrestle in that tournament because I wanted a medal," Woody said. "I expected to lose but not that quickly or painfully: It was frustrating."
Woody; who has not lost very many matches since then; said that there are not very many differences between wrestling boys or girls.
"Everybody has a different style but for some reason boys think that they're quicker," Woody noted. "But sometimes girls think too much before they wrestle."A broken arm kept her out of wrestling the following year, but she wrestled the past two seasons before claiming the belt this spring.
Her basic strategy is to take a wrestler down and pin them, but depending on her opponent, she may defend and take advantage of an opening they give up.
"Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but when I wrestle boys, it's fun to watch them cry;" Woody said smiling.
Her most memorable match was during the early rounds of her injury-plagued nationals tournament. Her first match was against California's Mercedes Creason. With Creason holding a four-point advantage, Woody moved in for a reversal,
but her opponent held her arm back causing her shoulder pop out and back in.
The match was stopped and Woody was awarded two points for a switch because she had initiated the move. Midway through the third period, Nicole had her opponent on her back and was about to score two back points, but the two grapplers tumbled out of bounds.
In the last seconds of the match, Woody scored a take- down and send the match into overtime. Early into the extra pe- riod, Creason scored a take- down to win the match.
"She shot in and I wasn't fast enough," Woody said.
And wrestling runs in the family. Stephen is also an avid wrestler and has won several tournaments himself. In fact, at tournaments where there are not a lot of competitors, the siblings are sometimes matched up against each other. And the results have been close. Stephen has won two of the three matches between the two, and all three times, the match has gone into overtime.
But neither Stephen nor his sister like to face each other.
"It's not a lot of fun," Nicole said. "We both felt like having a boxing match, not a wrestling match."
With the belt tucked safely away; Nicole is rehabbing the shoulder she injured at nationals and is hoping to continue her wrestling career in high school. She's undecided about wrestling in college but would like to be a
member of the U.S. Olympic wrestling team down the road

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(We have put this story up befor but now we have the pictures)

Out on Wrestling Mat, She's More Than a Match for Boys
Nicole Woody, 14, Seeks to Be Master Of Her Weight Class

By Angie Watts
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 20, 2002; Page SM10

Nicole Woody is a petite 14-year-old girl with dark brown hair that hangs down her lower back and periwinkle flip-flops that match her perfectly polished toenails and fingernails. She has a sweet smile, hosts tea parties for younger girls in her neighborhood and owns a large collection of dolls and Beanie Babies.

She also proudly sports a T-shirt that reads: I make boys cry.

"It's true, too," Woody said, starting to laugh. "Boys always cry if I pin them."

Woody, of St. Leonard, is a wrestler. And though she began the sport four years ago as a means of improving her judo skills, wrestling has since become a much bigger part of her life. The pale yellow bedroom that houses her doll collection is now also cluttered with nearly 50 medals, trophies and plaques, and one very large championship belt.

"A lot of times I just wrestle to get the medals," she said. "They're pretty."

This spring, Woody captured her biggest prize, a belt that is modeled after those worn by championship boxers, by winning the middle school division of the United States Girls' Wrestling Association belt series. The belt series champion was determined by combining the total points scored in 14 tournaments. There were 239 middle school participants competing for the title.

Woody, who finished first in nine tournaments and second in two more, was named Most Outstanding Wrestler five times. Even though she missed two tournaments, she had already earned enough points to secure the belt before the start of the 2002 Nationals held March 23 in Michigan.

Woody chose to compete anyway and placed fourth in the 82-pound weight class after suffering a separated left shoulder and torn right triceps on the first day of the two-day championship. Woody is undergoing physical therapy for both injuries but should be ready for the start of the club wrestling season in September.

Nicole woody, 14, practices against Colin Zoski, 11 of great falls, in Northern Virginia. She won three local tournaments competing against boys last year.

"I've seen Nicole wrestle for the last three or four years, and the thing that has always impressed me watching her is that until she takes off her head gear and shakes out her hair, you would never know she was a girl," said Roy Hill, the coach at Hayfield High in Virginia, where Woody trains with the Southern Maryland Wrestling Club. "She trains extremely hard, and I've seen her fight through injury and pain. The way she works says a lot for her character."

Last season, Woody most often wrestled in the 82-pound class against girls and in the 75-pound class against boys.

Woody said she prefers wrestling boys, or all boys except her 13-year-old brother Stephen, whom she has faced three times in tournaments. All three matches have gone to overtime, with Nicole winning once and Stephen twice.

Nicole said she will stick to local boys' tournaments this fall instead of defending her title in the USGWA's belt series. Last year, Woody, who finished with a 52-11 overall record, took first in three local tournaments where she competed against boys. She placed second, third and fourth, respectively, in three other events.

Woody, one of three girl wrestlers in the Southern Maryland wrestling Club, says she prefers wrestling against boys.

Her only planned girls-only event next season will be the 2003 Nationals, where she hopes to dethrone this year's champion and her close friend, Joey Miller of Woodward, Okla.

"The boys give me a little more competition," said Woody. "Well, except Joey Miller -- I haven't beaten her yet in six tries -- but other than her, I would say I prefer to wrestle boys."

Some boys prefer not to wrestle Woody. Several have withdrawn from matches rather than face her.

"A lot of the boys say, 'I gotta wrestle a girl?' and sometimes even their dads and coaches don't want them to wrestle me," said Woody, whose family basement is being converted into a full-fledged wrestling room this summer. "But the ones who do then wrestle me twice as hard because they don't want to lose to me."

Ryan Buff, who will be a freshman at Calvert next year and is on Woody's Capital Area Beltway League team, said he hasn't been fazed by having to face Woody in tournaments.

"It's no different than wrestling a guy," said Buff, who pinned Woody just 33 seconds into their first tournament match four years ago. "You just have to watch out for her hair."

Though she weaves her long locks into her head gear for matches and sports a singlet that cuts higher across the neckline than the typical boys' singlets, some opponents of coed wrestling object to boys and girls mixing on the mat.

"I know some people question it, but that is just the sport of wrestling," said Mary Woody, Nicole's mother. "To me it's no different than seeing two boys in those positions. When she's wrestling a boy, all they want to do is not let her beat them. I don't think they're worried at all about where to touch or where not to touch . . . just about getting beat."

Women's wrestling is growing -- it will be included as an exhibition sport in the 2004 Olympic Games and is already a sanctioned sport at several universities that offer women's wrestling scholarships. But there is not enough interest to support a local girls' club. Woody is one of just three girls in the Southern Maryland Wrestling Club, which is made up of athletes from Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia.

She hopes one day to compete for her local high school team at Patuxent.

A rising eighth-grader, Woody has been home-schooled to date but might enroll at Patuxent in two years so that she can follow in the footsteps of her older brother, William McKinney, who was a second-team All-Met wrestler for the Panthers in 1998 (103 pounds) and 1999 (119) and is now a corporal in the Marines.

"I've already heard that some people at Patuxent don't want a girl to wrestle there, but that's why I want to go," Woody said with a laugh. "I want to go there my first year and beat everyone up."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

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