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"I don't think anybody works as hard as a wrestler," says Chelsea Arnhold. "Six minutes in a match is like a whole game of basketball. It takes so much individual strength."
Wendy Nugent/Newton Kansan
News Page
Just part of the team
Marion sophomore returns to state wrestling tournament
By Amanda Balzer
Newton Kansan 2/27/03
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Click for larger picture "I don't think anybody works as hard as a wrestler," says Chelsea Arnhold. "Six minutes in a match is like a whole game of basketball. It takes so much individual strength." |
MARION -- With her blonde ponytail, violet eyes and bright smile, it's easy to believe Chelsea Arnhold is a cheerleader or a member of the dance team. But don't let her looks fool you -- she'll take you down before you can say, "I won't get beat by a girl."
In addition to cheer, dance, forensics and choir, Arnhold is a wrestler for the Marion Warriors. At 103 pounds, Arnhold, a sophomore, wrestles boys -- and wins.
With a 23-11 record, Arnhold placed fourth at 103 pounds in Class 3-2-1A regionals Friday in Cottonwood Falls. She is the third girl in Kansas history to advance to state, and this is her second straight year to do it.
Arnhold said her goal at state this year is to make it to the second day.
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"The guys there are big and strong," Arnhold said. "I lost the first two matches last year."
Under the leadership of third-year coach Chad Adkins, the Warriors placed fifth at regionals with a score of 84 and qualified four wrestlers -- Zac Ewert at 130 pounds, Jordan Trapp at 140 pounds, Steven Boone at 171 pounds and Arnhold at 103 pounds.
Arnhold's career is as old as Marion's wrestling program. Four years ago, when the program started, Arnhold was in seventh grade.
"My dad said I could do it if I wanted to; he encouraged me to go out," Arnhold said.
Arnhold's brother wrestled for Marion and qualified for state in 2001. When he started wrestling, Arnhold said he would tell her he wanted to try a hold and said "if you don't move, you won't get hurt."
Four years later, Arnhold said her biggest challenge is strength. The boys she competes against are stronger. Though she and Adkins agree she needs to spend time in the weight room to build strength, Arnhold said she compensates with her quickness and technique.
"I work off what they give me by the mistakes they make," Arnhold said.
"She needs to get stronger to put her in a position where she can compete," Adkins said.
Arnhold said she enjoys the sport, but also likes knowing there is something unique she can do better than others.
"I don't think anybody works as hard as a wrestler," Arnhold said. "Six minutes in a match is like a whole game of basketball. It takes so much individual strength."
Arnhold said she has tried to convince other girls to join the wrestling team, but it hasn't worked. In eighth grade, four other girls tried but quit after the first week of practice.
Though her teammates were quiet around her and avoided interaction in the beginning, Arnhold said now "it's cool," and she feels part of the team.
At meets, however, Arnhold's opponents vary in their reactions.
There are some private school teams who refuse to compete against Arnhold. Adkins said some have a school policy which says male wrestlers cannot wrestle a female. Either the private school competitors in Arnhold's weight class asked to be put on the other side of the bracket, or they forfeit the match, Adkins said.
Now that she has defeated so many boys, though, Arnhold said she hopes opponents will respect her more.
"I hear (my opponents) say 'I don't want to get beat by a girl,'" Arnhold said. "It's pretty intense to be beat by a girl."
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3/3/03
For the second straight year, Marion's Chelsea Arnhold went 0-2 at the state meet. The lone female state qualifier in Hays, Arnhold dropped a 7-0 decision to Sabetha's Shawn George in the first round and then was eliminated by Oakley's Mark Samuelson in the first round of consolation matches.
Santa Fe Trail's Brooke Bogren remains the lone Kansas girl to win a state match.
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Her Toughest Opponent
Lawrence Academy goes to the mat for her right to wrestle
REBECCA PIRO, Sun Staff 3/3/03
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GROTON Amanda Ayotte, a petite Lawrence Academy junior, steps lightly onto the mat.
Her long braid is twirled up under a hairnet, a special addition to the headgear that protects her ears. Her nails are short. She wears no jewelry.
She crouches over her opponent, waiting for the signal. Teeth gritted, face pressed against his shoulder, she grabs his arm with both hands, wrenches it out from under him, flips him over and pins him flat.
"I really like the Butcher," the 16-year-old Chelmsford resident grins, referring to the wrestling move she just exhibited.
The boys are not Amanda's toughest challenge these days. Rather, it is the league to which she belongs the Independent Schools League, or ISL, which does not allow girls to wrestle for points in matches.
And Amanda a three-year wrestling veteran who can pin most of the boys in her weight class within seconds has lost her patience for what she calls the league's old-fashioned ways.
"A lot of the schools in the league are very old," she said. "It seems to me they want to keep girls wrestling taboo."
'Fierce competitor'
Steve Hahn, Lawrence Academy's head of school, was unavailable to comment on the rule. The school's athletic director, Ed Greene, says he does not know where the rule came from, nor what the logic behind it is.
But he says the school is supporting Amanda in her most important match yet: the 119-pound wrestler versus the 16 ISL schools in a fight to change the rule.
"She's a fierce competitor," Greene said. "I fully support her desire to participate at the highest level she can compete at."
Amanda has written a lengthy letter to the heads of school of the ISL in hopes of pinning them to the wall with reasons why excluding females is unfair. To Amanda, the message is simple.
"I can be just as good as (the boys) can," she said.
A rule that excludes female participation would be illegal in a public high school, Lowell High School Athletic Director Walter Nelson said.
"I didn't know they could discriminate like that in private schools," he said.
Title IX mandates that public schools provide equal opportunity in athletics for men and women. If a school does not have a separate women's team in a particular sport, that school is obligated by federal law to allow women to try out for the men's team, Nelson added.
It is not often that the Lowell High wrestling team, which has no female members, goes against a team that does. Nelson remembers encountering a female wrestler about three years ago in a match against a South Shore school.
"Our coach just told the (Lowell) boys, 'Just go out and wrestle and pin them as quickly as you can and move on,' just like you would (say about) any boy," Nelson said.
No qualms
There is no denying that wrestling is highly physical. Amanda, used to it by now, has no qualms about grabbing her male opponent to take him down. She does not worry about the possibility of getting groped herself.
The ISL's hesitation could come from the guilt factor, she added the possibility of wounding a boy's ego if she beats him, or his feeling bad if he beats her.
But in the true spirit of sportsmanship, none of that should matter on the mat, she argued.
"It's just another competition," she said. "I would rather them go out and wrestle as hard as they can."
The battle for acceptance is not new to Amanda, whose family and friends blinked a little when she announced she wanted to wrestle three years ago.
Greene is trying to aid Amanda in her fight. He introduced the topic at a recent monthly meeting of athletic directors from every school in the league. The directors, who he said were open to discussion, will vote on the issue this spring.
But Amanda also needs to sway the heads of school. So far, she has received a favorable response from Groton School and St. Mark's in Southboro. Governor Dummer, a private high school in Byfield, was less supportive and was not available for comment.
Teammates comfortable
Wrestling females is the norm inside Lawrence Academy's practice room, where Amanda's teammates are comfortable with her presence and respectful of her skill. Amanda also fights alongside one other female, freshman Jenna Richardson.
"There is really none of that (discrimination) in this room," Lawrence Academy co-captain Dan Keleher said.
"I think they go pretty hard on me," said Amanda, with a grin. "And I get to go beat up the lightweights sometimes, too."
Amanda is not just an overzealous female looking to further women's stature in the world. She is good and the proof is in her record, which shows that she held the top spot on her team in her weight class for half the season.
She is also tough. She has only suffered an injury once, when she pulled her biceps wrestling.
"But it healed," Amanda said quickly.
That kind of attitude, and the winning proof that goes with it, should earn any athlete, male or female, the right to compete, said Bob Conley, director of athletics at Westford Academy, a public high school.
"If you make the team, you should be treated like a team member," he said.
There are undeniable disadvantages for girls who wrestle boys, Amanda admits. Women are typically built with most of their strength in their legs. Men usually have stronger upper bodies, to which most traditional wrestling moves are geared.
"It's tough. It's the whole muscle factor," she said. "But I keep going. I try harder, I fight harder."
If Amanda wins her battle with the ISL, it does not necessarily follow that women's wrestling will be the next big sport on the Lawrence Academy campus. After all, it takes courage to wear a full body suit worth of spandex in front of a team of boys.
"I know people who won't wrestle because they're afraid of spandex," Amanda laughs.
Amanda's fight, to prove girls can do anything, could not have a better soldier to lead the battle. After an hour of wrestling practice, Amanda looks at her watch and realizes it is time to go to jazz choir practice.
"I'm also an actress and a singer. I have to get on stage and look pretty and sound good," she said.
She brushes out her long, shiny brown hair and flips it over her shoulder. She stoops to put the brush in her gym bag and stands back up.
"I have a solo," she said, flashing a pretty smile, and walks away.
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Senior proves desire, dedication
By Laura Gasparini, Feature Editor 2/26/03
There's just something about Senior Jen Armstrong that screams individual.
Maybe it's the fact that she's not afraid to try new things, or maybe it's just the fact that she's not afraid to stand up for what she believes in, but whatever it is it's propelling her through this game called life.
Freshman year Armstrong helped to break down the gender barrier in two school activities when she joined the wrestling team and drumline.
The fact that the wrestling team is a male - dominated sport apparently had no effect on her decision to join.
"When a friend told me that he wrestled, a light went off saying that's something that I wanted to try," Armstrong stated. "So I did it."
Even though Armstrong wasn't the first girl to join either wrestling or drumline, she did have to deal with the emotions of sometimes being the only girl in sight.
"The guys on the wrestling team try to support me, but I still get alienated at times," Armstrong explained.
That still didn't stop her, and in 2001 she placed third at the Women's State Wrestling Championship and in 2002 she came in first.
Considering the fact that for the last four years Armstrong has been the only girl on the wrestling team, she explained that her feminine presence has gone somewhat unnoticed.
"I don't think that it makes a difference to the guys that I'm a female," she stated. "I know that I look to all of them as my family."
As for drumline she was the first freshman girl to join the bass line, but now that she's in her senior year two other girls have followed her lead and have joined.
"Two great women have joined drumline this year, and they have made my last year simply wonderful," Armstrong stated.
In her first attempts to break down the barriers, Armstrong admits that there were some frustrating times, but she refused to give up.
"Well, in order to break down the barriers, it took a lot of frustrating days," she explained. "But once I did it, I was excited and determined to show women that it is alright to be involved in everything, not just the girly stuff."
When it comes to paving the way for other females at Greenway, Armstrong explained that what she gets involved in isn't for everyone, but she does hope that it at least makes it a little bit easier for other girls who want to get involved.
"I'm just doing it to show them (girls) that they can do anything," Armstrong said. "I think that someday another girl will want to wrestle, and, hopefully, I made it a little bit easier for them to join the team."
Not only is Armstrong heavily involved with her school activities at Greenway, but she's also in the midst of earning her bachelors degree.
This year Armstrong is enrolled in Glendale Community College in a developmental English course and Psychology 101.
However, next semester, which will be her sophomore year, she's enrolled in four courses.
As to what she wants to be when she "grows up," this young woman has set her sights on the future and today's youth.
"Right now I want to be a teacher at a deaf/mute school," Armstrong said. "I've wanted to be teacher ever since fourth grade when I had the best teacher, Mr. Kinnenon. He really inspired me."
Armstrong then thought about working with deaf children when she came across a sign language book in the library and started to teach herself to sign.
By being a teacher, Armstrong "really wants to inspire our youth that they can change the world."
But, there is one more thing that might sway her decision as of to what she wants to do with her life.
While Armstrong is enlisted in the Navy, she's going to be a hospital corpsmen (HM).
"I decided to be a HM in the Navy because I found it very exciting to work with the specimens in the lab at John C. Lincoln Deer Valley which is where I volunteer," she stated. "So, that experience helped me with what I wanted to be in the Navy."
The bottom line is this: "Regardless of what you think you know about a person stop and listen," Armstrong said. "You might be surprised that what you thought you knew isn't all that there is."
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By Mike Bockoven
The Independent
Hard-nosed and perky. Strong but flexible. Adventurous with a deep sense of team
pride. Tough yet feminine.
Lillie Stander, a junior at Central City High School, personifies all those
characteristics, her coaches, teachers, parents and administrators said. They
also have another word for Stander, who is a cheerleader -- and on the varsity
wrestling squad.
Brave.
"We do not single her out, and we don't make any concessions for her," wrestling
coach Todd Westover said. "She takes her beatings like everyone else, which
takes guts, but I have yet to hear her complain."
Stander, who's been wrestling since the eighth grade, doesn't think she's brave.
Instead, she said, she participates in both activities simply because it's what
she enjoys doing.
"I'm not brave. I just do what I like to do, I guess," she said. "A lot of
little girls tell me they look up to me, and that's good. But I'm not doing it
for them or for attention. I'm doing it because it's what I do."
Stander began wrestling because she was discouraged from taking up the sport.
Even though she began wrestling because she was told she couldn't, it eventually
became a passion.
"When people said, 'She won't stick it out,' yeah, that makes me want to stick
it out," Stander said. "But I also do it because I like doing it."
Cheerleading, on the other hand, is almost an inherited trait for Stander, whose
sister and mother were both cheerleaders.
"Everyone loves to watch her cheer," said Patty Stander, Lillie's mother and
cheerleading sponsor. "She's a girl, and she's supposed to do that."
Both activities, Lillie Stander said, have more in common than a lot of people
might think.
"There's a lot of dedication and a lot of hard work in both of them," she said.
"There's also a lot of balance involved, but the mood is very different."
Stander said her cheerleading friends were taken aback initially when they heard
of her other after-school activity. However, after a while, they came to accept
it.
"They were just like, 'Wow, you're a wrestler?'" she said. "They repeated it a
couple of times, but now they think it's neat."
Convincing the wrestlers to accept her was a slightly harder task, she said.
"Once I convinced them I wasn't going away, they pretty much accepted me," she
said. "But a lot of the parents of the wrestlers still haven't accepted it. They
don't say it to me, but you can tell by the look on their faces, 'There's that
girl wrestler.'"
Zach Meyer, a senior on the wrestling team, said Stander's transition was
awkward at first. But once she was able to make the grade physically, the team
stopped noticing her gender.
"At first, it took some time to get used to, but we don't think about it now,"
he said, taking a break from wrestling practice in the upper part of the middle
school's gym. "We all go through the same stuff up here. And if you're a girl
and can do what she does up here, there's not a problem."
"I never really wanted a girl wrestler, but if I had to have one, I'd want one
like Lillie," Westover said. "For a girl, she's incredibly strong."
And she has to be, Westover said, considering how many male wrestlers react when
staring at Stander from across the mat.
"I think guys do not want to lose to her," Athletic Director Joe Cutless said.
"I think guys wrestle twice as hard because they know the consequences if they
lose to a girl."
"They really go all out when they wrestle me," Stander said. "They do not let up
for a second -- not at all."
She said the challenge is part of competing in a male-dominated sport.
"A lot of the guys look at me like, 'You're going down,'" she said. "But others
look at me a little weird. They always look at me."
On the mat, Stander's one advantage is something that also helps her in
cheerleading: balance. Even before she began wrestling, Stander participated in
gymnastics, and she's glad she did.
"The tumbling and rolling and balance help me in both wrestling and cheering,"
she said, "which is good because a lot of the guys I wrestle have a lot more
strength than I do."
"The biggest thing she fights is the strength part," Westover said.
"Technically, she's better than a lot of guys she faces, but they can just
overpower her, so it's a definite disadvantage."
However, her flexibility and weight -- she wrestles at 112 pounds -- are an
asset when it comes to the acrobatics involved in cheering a team on to victory,
her mother said.
"She's especially good at flips and tumbling," Patty Stander said of her
daughter. "She spent 11 years in gymnastics, so that helped a lot, I think."
While Stander travels with the cheerleaders and has a lot of friends on the
squad, wrestling forces her to change clothes and weigh in separately from the
rest of the team.
"I'm treated like one of the guys, except for that part," she said. "I have my
own locker room, and I'm not in there when they have their talks. But when we're
out on the mat, it's fine."
While she will continue to cheer throughout the year, Stander said, she will
move on to track season, where she pole vaults, once wrestling is over.
"I can't wait. I really love track," she said. "It's one of my favorite things."
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