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IHSAA weighs in: Coach remains with team despite beliefs
By Don Tincher Staff writer 12/05/02
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HAGERSTOWN, Ind. -- Tana Hinsky just wanted to wrestle.
And now she is.
"It started when I was little," Hinsky said. "I liked all of the rough sports."
After some indecision, Hinsky is now on the Hagerstown wrestling team, and Tiger coach Kurt Boyer is remaining in his position after contemplating resignation.
According to the Indiana High School Athletic Association bylaws, Hinsky, a 15-year-old sophomore, can take the mat against boys.
At issue was Boyer's concern about coaching a girl on a boys wrestling team.
"I have chosen not to follow though with the resignation," Boyer said. "I remain adamantly opposed to co-ed wrestling.
"However, I wholeheartedly support gender equity and female wrestling.
"(Hinsky) is a great kid. That has made it more difficult because I have refused throughout this entire thing to take this to a personal level."
Although Hagerstown had a girl play baseball in the mid-1990s, this is the first time a girl wanted to participate in wrestling.
"Anytime you face something new it requires some investigation to come to some understanding and what is appropriate protocol," said Mark Childs, Hagerstown's principal.
"It's not new to the state of Indiana or the country, but for our school, it was a new situation.
"What initially appeared to be a complex situation became really relatively simple. The governing body of Indiana high school athletics had determined that it is OK."
However, Hinsky was wavering about trying out for the team.
"I didn't know if I would make the weight or if I did make it, if I could stay on it," Hinsky said. "I didn't know if I was any good."
Hinsky attended Jefferson High School in Delphos, Ohio, last year as wrestling season began before returning to Hagerstown.
"I just started. I was only there for a couple of practices," she said.
Last winter, Hinsky never tried to participate in wrestling at Hagerstown.
The possibility of Boyer leaving his post arose earlier this season as he was faced with a choice: resign to avoid compromising his beliefs or accept the realities of IHSAA regulations.
He chose acceptance. Boyer's resignation was never tendered.
"It's just always wise not to jump to conclusions or make quick decisions," Childs said. "It appears that we have been able to reach a compromise situation.
"A lot of communication took place, and I think that was very healthy. It's just a new experience for us."
Boyer and Hinsky also are communicating.
"I never wanted to do anything to make him think about resigning," Hinsky said. "I respected his thoughts and his feelings, but it was something in my heart that I wanted to do.
"I know practice is hard, and I'm going to give 100 percent every day."
Hinsky's mother, Traci, stands behind her daughter, who weighs around 108 pounds and hopes to make it to the 103-pound division.
"That's what she wants to do," Traci said. "She's determined, and there is nobody that is going to change her mind.
"I have to support her."
Moving on
Now that Hinsky is on the squad, there are some ground rules that must be established for both home and road meets.
"She would have to be provided a separate dressing room," said Lloyd Michael, who is Hagerstown's athletics director.
"The weigh-in cannot be conducted by a male official. We have to have a representative from our school, a female, conduct that weigh-in. There are some steps we have to take."
As of now, Michael was uncertain as to whom that person would be. That person wouldn't have to be a school employee, Michael said.
Hagerstown opens the season Saturday at the South Adams Invitational.
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Wrestlers putting blame in wrong place
Title IX isn't the real culprit
Gwen Knapp 12/5/02
A GROWING battle over college sports casts Title IX as a spectacular villain. In this drama, the revolutionary law that opened up athletics for women has become an amalgam of Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader and the butler.
Another college cuts wrestling, the lead victim in this story? Title IX did it.
Men's track falls by the wayside? Blame Title IX. Men's swimming goes down the drain? Title IX's fingerprints are everywhere.
That's how athletic directors explain themselves when they start whacking their budgets. They need to maintain women's sports to satisfy Title IX and, to satisfy the bottom line, they have to cut men's sports.
A backlash was inevitable. Wrestling advocates sued to stifle Title IX, and the Bush administration vowed to review the legitimacy of the 30-year-old law. A federal commission was formed and took its act on the road. The latest round of hearings ended Wednesday in Philadelphia.
The show will go on, until a final report comes out in January, and the ending seems pretty predictable. Title IX will be bludgeoned.
And as the last scene fades to black, college wrestlers will be no better off than they were before. In fact, they could be in worse shape, having just beaten up on the wrong foe.
This drama, they'll discover, was just that. The campaign against Title IX has been less fact-based than the typical movie on the Lifetime channel.
It's true that college wrestling has been gutted in the past 20 years. But some of the worst damage was done between 1984 and 1988, when Title IX was suspended by a Supreme Court ruling.
According to statistics presented in a Title IX report compiled by the Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, 53 wrestling programs were cut during those four years, bringing the total to 289. When Title IX was restored,
55 wrestling teams vanished over the next 12 years.
Do the math, and then define scapegoat. With Title IX, about 4 1/2 teams died each year. Without Title IX, the number was 13.
That report is filled with information that exonerates Title IX, which as recently as six years ago was hailed as a triumph for America, the source of gold medals galore at the Atlanta Olympics.
Now it's a bogeyman (bogey woman?). Advocates for dismantling the law, in cahoots with the Bush administration, seem to view Title IX as hard-core, left- wing legislation. An honest history suggests otherwise. The original law was signed in 1972 by Richard Nixon. The Restoration Act, which closed the loophole that led the Supreme Court to separate athletics from Title IX, was signed by Ronald Reagan.
Yet the campaign goes on, unfettered by hard facts. For example, the Coalition report shows that from 1981 to 1999, the number of wrestling participants at all four-year colleges dropped by 2,640 men. Men's outdoor track and field lost 1,706 spots nationally.
Coaches and athletes saw the body count growing and rounded up the usual suspects: women's soccer, women's volleyball, Eve enticing Adam with the apple.
. . .
But in the same period, baseball grew by 5,452 players. Football added 7, 199 players. Unless a bunch of baseball and football teams went coed without anyone noticing, athletic departments didn't trim low-profile men's sports strictly to accommodate women's sports. They did it, most likely, because the sports were low-profile.
The real fight should be between revenue-producing and nonrevenue sports. But for some reason, Title IX has been an easier target. The law's enemies say that it insists on proportionality -- a number of athletic slots that roughly mirrors the number of women in a particular school. They argue that this test forces men off the field and forces colleges to create slots for women who don't really want them.
Here's the problem: Proportionality is a test for Title IX compliance, but it isn't the only one. Another requires simply that a school prove it has accommodated all students who have ability and interest in a sport, regardless of their sex. That's really not that tough, and it certainly doesn't require dumping a men's team because its 20 members push the athletic department beyond some magic formula.
The interest-and-ability test is simple and practical, and in recent years, it has been used to resolve the majority of Title IX complaints. The law's detractors tend to overlook this point, just as they ignore the excesses of football.
Most schools put their football teams up in hotels the night before a home game. That's right -- a home game. Several football teams carry 100 players or more, many of whom will appear on the field only for a few downs on Senior Day.
So how did Title IX become the villain in this drama? It's a case of mistaken identity. Maybe they'll cover that in the sequel.
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Proportionality the focus of revamped Title IX plan
By Erik Brady, USA TODAY 12/4/02
PHILADELPHIA — The commission looking into Title IX served notice Wednesday that it plans to ask for major changes in how the federal law is regulated, including a recalculation of the controversial "proportionality" litmus test.
The Commission on Opportunity in Athletics will give a report to Education Secretary Rod Paige by Jan. 31. The 15-member panel, largely college administrators, discussed possible recommendations for the first time Wednesday. Many involved giving schools more flexibility in how they count male and female athletes under a facet of the law known as proportionality, which says a school's athletes should be proportional to the men and women enrolled.(Related story: News analysis: Title IX at 30.)
Commission co-chair Ted Leland proposed colleges be allowed to count "opportunities." In his example, men's and women's soccer would have 30 opportunities. If walk-ons swelled the men's roster to 40 and only 20 women came out, a school could count that as 30 men and 30 women.
Some other proportionality proposals have a close-is-good-enough tone that could ultimately make it easier for schools to comply with the law.
One recommendation included a "7% solution" by which schools would be allowed a variance of 7% in figuring proportionality. In one example, a school that had 43% female athletes would be in compliance. The current variance is roughly 1%-3%.
"I think we may be headed toward sweeping changes in the enforcement of Title IX," said Leland, athletics director at Stanford. "This could potentially change the way ... universities do business."
The recommendations will be refined and the commission will vote on them Jan. 8 in Washington. Paige can choose to implement recommendations or some form of them or ignore them. He named the commission in June, when the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funds turned 30.
Setback for women
Changes in Title IX being discussed by an Education Department commission "confirm our worst fears" and are "at odds with everything that Title IX stands for," said a leading supporter of the law.
"I found the tenor of the meeting and the suggestions being made simply appalling," said Jocelyn Samuels, vice president of the National Women's Law Center after attending a meeting of the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics on Wednesday. "The kinds of recommendations the commissioners are endorsing would fundamentally change the nature of existing policy and in essence repeal the protections of Title IX.
Said Samuels of the so-called proportionality proposal and other plans: "These are not new arguments. These kind of proposals have been raised for years. What's new is there is a Department of Education that is not only receptive but making suggestions."
Mike Moyers, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, was also unhappy with the proposed recommendations.
"We had hoped that proportionality would be eliminated completely," he said. "To that extent, we are disappointed. But we also feel that giving colleges more flexibility is a step in the right direction."
Moyers' group is among those that filed a lawsuit asking that proportionality be eliminated. These groups contend proportionality is a major reason colleges cut men's minor sports and cap rosters on many men's teams.
The scope of the possible recommendations surprised even Leland. "I thought they might be a little more milquetoasty," he said.
Deborah Yow, athletics director at Maryland, suggested that colleges be required to split athletic opportunities between men and women 50-50, no matter enrollment, but that there be "wiggle room" of 7%.
Julie Foudy, captain of the U.S. women's soccer team, was often a voice of dissent on the recommendations targeting proportionality. She objected to Yow's proposals and others that would have allowed variances of 5% or 9%. She said many colleges would choose the lowest participation numbers as "the point of least resistance."
"Title IX is about equality," Foudy said. "We shouldn't lose sight of that."
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Title IX commission looks for "wiggle room"
By STEVE WILSTEIN
Associated Press 12/05/02
Nothing less than the shape of college and high school sports is at stake as the commission on Title IX cobbles together proposals that could revamp a law that has been praised, scorned and challenged for 30 years.
The worst thing the commission could do, and the last thing it wants, is to recommend weakening a law that has done more for women - athletes and non-athletes alike - than any measure since the 19th Amendment gave women the vote.
Stop Title IX from hurting some men's sports, yes.
Set standards that make it easier for universities to follow, yes.
Juggle the rules so much that they set back women even a fraction, an emphatic no.
Title IX, the 1972 law that outlawed sex discrimination in any school that received federal funds, spurred a cultural revolution and a boom in women's sports that no one wants to curtail.
But the cost, critics have argued with some persuasiveness, has been a derailment of dozens of men's sports programs - most prominently wrestling, swimming and gymnastics - as schools have been forced to comply with a three-part test used by the federal Office of Civil Rights.
The first and most controversial part of that test, measuring whether the percentage of women athletes is roughly equal to the school's female population, is the target of a lawsuit filed by the National Wrestling Coaches Association.
The Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, assembled by Education Secretary Rod Paige to review Title IX, met in Philadelphia the past two days after holding public hearings in four other cities. In long, tedious sessions that revealed the magnitude of the 15-member panel's task and the implications for the next generation of athletes, the group debated details of recommendations that will be submitted to Paige in January.
For all the credentials and good intentions of the panel, co-chaired by former WNBA star Cynthia Cooper and Stanford athletic director Ted Leland, it's not clear whether their meetings will amount to much more than a dog and pony show for a Bush administration that some worry is intent on weakening Title IX.
None of the panelists suggested doing away with the proportionality test, but many favored allowing schools some "wiggle room" of up to seven percent as Maryland athletic director Deborah Yow suggested, instead of strict compliance.
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Hanks dominates Irvin triangular
Lenny Jurado 12/05/02
El Paso Times
Mark Lambie / El Paso Times |
Conditioning is king in wrestling, and Hanks proved once again Wednesday that it's among the best in the city in outlasting opponents.
In a rematch against Irvin and Franklin, the Knights, boys put up 132 points, and the girls finished with 48 as they improved to 12-0 and 2-0, respectively, at the Irvin triangular.
"I think we did really well," Hanks coach Anthony Carter said. "We still can refine some of the technique, but I think we're on track right now."
"On track" Tuesday night meant racking up 17 pins, including four from Jessica Luevano, Kim Quinonez, Jenny Franco and Diane Reveles.
On the boys, side, the Knights were led by seven returning district champions, including last year's third-place state finisher Reggie Armstrong.
Armstrong won both matches, including a stud-cradle pin against previously undefeated Justin Reyes of Franklin.
"The first time I wrestled him (in Cobre, N.M.) he couldn,t get any takedowns on me, but he pinned me because I couldn,t breathe," said Armstrong, who has been battling a sickness. "This time I stuck it to him."
Other Hanks winners included Steve Gutierrez (130 pounds), Kris Summers (135 pounds) and Scott Whetstone (160 pounds).
Carter said the conditioning is "due to strength coach John Scheetz. This is his third year implementing his strength program with us. It,s really, really paying off right now."
Irvin and Franklin, however, weren't shut down completely.
The Cougars defeated Irvin in boys, action 54-32 with one win coming from Reyes, who pinned Erik Hernandez in the first period.
Janet Balderrano was the only Cougar girl to score, pinning Hanks, Tabitha Parker at 138 pounds.
Though it recorded several individual victories, Irvin couldn't overcome its opponents numbers. Adrian Cangas (135 pounds), Abraham Han (152 pounds) and Ernesto Ramirez were just a few of the Rocket scorers.
The Rockets also notched points from Gabby Portillo and Lillian Lewis, who extended her undefeated streak to 7-0 with a pin-tech fall victory over Franklin's Loraine Smith and a 19-3 tech fall over Hanks, Jenny Franco.
"I knew (Smith) was going to be any easy takedown, and I have a pretty good shot (move)," Lewis said. "I mainly used that against her. I,ve pinned her before so this time I wanted to tech fall her and play with her."
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'An average girl who wrestles'
By David Hall/Freedom ENC 12/05/02
Havelock's Orabona grapples with boys, stereotypes
Havelcok sophomore wrestler Laine Orabona tries to escape the grasp of Wilmington Hoggard's Scott Paetzold at the Terry Bache Duals Saturday. This season, Orabona became the first girl in Havelock's history to score varsity wrestling points. |
HAVELOCK -- Wearing a long-sleeve team-issue gray T-shirt, black basketball shorts, a pair of headphones and a Navy blue toboggan pulled down almost over her eyes, Laine Orabona is hard to pick out of the crowd of Havelock wrestlers jumping and shaking and shadow-wrestling before a match.
And that's just the way she likes it.
"I think they often forget there's a girl," she said with a smile during Saturday's Terry Bache Duals in Wilmington.
But the 15-year-old sophomore definitely stands out; after becoming the first female wrestler to score points for Havelock's varsity team, Orabona is making waves and turning heads at every tournament, where opponents are finding out that she must be taken seriously.
"If you take her lightly, she's going to get you," said Havelock coach Ed Cruz, who has coached the athletic 119-pounder since she was in the eighth grade.
She's already gotten her share. Orabona, a fair-skinned Massachusetts native with a tightly-braided reddish ponytail and an engaging smile, has a respectable 6-10 record, including four pins. Her historic first win came in Havelock's opening tournament at West Carteret on Nov. 16.
But what would make an otherwise normal teenage girl want to endure the incredibly rigorous training of a decidedly macho sport, not to mention the difficulties of being the only girl on the team?
Well, as much as Orabona might be a pioneer at her high school, she's not even the first female wrestler in her family.
Her sister Lindsey, a senior at HHS, has wrestled in freestyle tournaments for Cruz for three years now but does not enjoy the scholastic style of wrestling.
"Wrestling season came around and I wasn't doing a sport," Orabona said, "so I was like, 'Hey, my sister does it. I want to try it.' I went out and I love it. There is no other sport where I am so physically challenged."
And she appears to be holding her own; Cruz said she's one of the hardest workers on the team, and that her teammates barely notice that there's a girl in the wrestling room where the Rams practice for hour after grueling hour.
"Put it this way: She has the respect of every guy in there," the coach, who is in his first season at the helm after seven years as an assistant under David Siler, said. "They watch her work her butt off. It sounds a little clichéd, but in the room she's one of the guys. She's going to go all out. She's never going to quit."
She may not have to, even after high school. Cruz said eight colleges in the United States now offer full scholarships to female wrestlers, and women's wrestling will be a medal sport in the next Olympics. He said five states have girls high school championships through their athletic associations, with North Carolina not among them.
Orabona, who travels the country during the summer with Cruz's Havelock Wrestling Club competing in freestyle tournaments, wants to see how far she can go.
"I haven't found my limitations yet, and I'm not looking for them," she said. "I just want to keep going. I don't want any limitations."
She has made believers out of her teammates, including senior Todd Bigelow, a 3-A state champion as a sophomore and a state 4-A runner-up as a junior.
"She's a soldier," Bigelow said. "She don't like getting beat. If she had some power to her, these boys couldn't hang with her. She fights better than everybody on our team."
Cruz said the lack of physical strength compared to her opponents' is the technically adept Orabona's biggest challenge.
"If Laine was stronger, she'd be hurting people," Cruz said. "She's no pushover. She's going to make you work. She fights off her back better than anybody on our team, which is normally not a compliment because you don't want to be there. But quite frankly, if she was stronger she'd be beating some of these other kids where she comes close."
"If she had some muscle on her, she'd be nasty," agreed Bigelow. "She's learning quick, she's got good hips and she's got the balance of a wrestler, but people are just muscling over her."
"My upper body isn't as strong as most of the guys'," Orabona said. "If I get one with an equal upper body, it's a really good match."
Every opponent Orabona has faced this season has been male. She said she has seen just one other female wrestler at the Rams' four high school tournaments.
"The other girl was kind of in awe of her because Laine pinned two boys that day," Cruz recalled.
One memorable pin came at the Tri-County Duals in New Bern. There, Orabona says she encountered her first negative reaction from an opponent when a wrestler found some humor in the fact that he would be wrestling a girl as they shook hands before a match.
"That was the first guy who had ever laughed at me or anything," she gleefully remembered. "I pinned him pretty bad, so he wasn't laughing afterwards."
Other than that experience, Orabona said her gender hasn't really played a factor in her place on the team. She said that while she understands the concerns of parents who might disagree, she sees no reason more girls shouldn't participate in wrestling.
"A lot of parents won't let their daughters do it, or they think they're going to be groped or something like that," she said, "but the coaches are really good about it, and the other guys are really good about it. They do not want to get beat by a girl, and they're not going to take any chances of getting beat by a girl."
"She's one of the wrestlers," said Bigelow, who added that Orabona's teammates do not change their normal behavior around her. "We treat her as a wrestler -- not a girl, not a boy."
When asked what special considerations he must make to carry a girl on his roster, Cruz is quick to respond: "None," he said. "You can ask any guy on the team -- she does everything everybody else does. Other than the fact that when we come to a tournament she has to weigh in in a separate room -- other than that, not a single thing is different."
And for Orabona, who sees herself as just another wrestler, sports are not defined by gender lines.
"I'm out here beating some of the guys," she said matter-of-factly. "It's definitely a girls' sport if a girl can beat a guy in it. I wish more girls would do it. I don't see many girls at [tournaments]. It's always interesting to see another girl get out there and do things."
"It wouldn't matter whether she's male or female," Cruz said. "They look at her work ethic and how hard she works, and that's all they care about."
Even among her peers away from the dank, sweat-soaked wrestling room, Orabona said she is not that different.
"I'm not a tomboy because I love wearing skirts and everything," she said. "This doesn't really affect what kind of clothes I wear or anything. I'm an average girl who wrestles."
Soon, she hopes, she will be an above-average wrestler who's a girl.