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Big Spring may also ban girls from boys' teams

BY JOE ELIAS 9/16/03
Of Our Carlisle Bureau

NEWVILLE - Two months after banning boys from girls' sports teams, the Big Spring School Board said it will consider banning girls from the boys' teams.

"We're at least going to look at it," Board President Wilbur Wolf Jr. said at last night's board meeting.

The school board ordered Superintendent William Cowden to begin researching the possibility of banning girls from boys' teams and to see what other districts, if any, already have a policy.

The board made the decision after the majority of the girls' varsity field hockey team and their parents showed up to ask school directors to reconsider the ban policy, as well as a policy that says district teams must forfeit games against other schools that allow boys to compete its girls' field hockey, softball and volleyball teams.

The school board approved the forfeit policy last month.

Big Spring Athletic Director Jim Ellingsworth said a York County school district approved a policy that bans girls from playing on boys' teams earlier this year.

A 1973 Commonwealth Court ruling bans the PIAA from setting rules about gender makeup of high school sports teams. That decision is left up to the districts.

Policies vary across the area. Carlisle has no official policy, but the district will not allow boys on girls' teams. Girls are allowed to play on boys' teams. Several other area districts, such as Cumberland Valley and West Perry, are not working on policies.

Ellingsworth said he has heard that several girls at Big Spring will try out for the wrestling team later this year.

Director Richard Copenhaver said he wanted to consider the issue to end what he perceived as a double standard in how the district treats its athletes.

Copenhaver said he was bothered by the fact that boys cannot play field hockey with the girls but girls could attempt to participate on the football and wrestling teams.

The idea of banning girls from the boys' teams seemed to have support among several board members.

Directors Gale Mellinger and Robert Barrick said they would a policy that strictly separates participation by gender in all district sponsored sports.

Cowden said he did as well.

"I would prefer that girls played on girls' teams and boys played on boys' teams," Cowden said when Copenhaver asked his thoughts on the controversy.

A policy on banning the girls from boys' teams could be before the board for a vote in October.

JOE ELIAS: 249-2006 or jelias@patriot-news.com

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She wrestles with the weight of two worlds

Freedom Newspapers, Inc. Sep 12, 2003

When Patricia Miranda takes the mat for her first match in today's
World Championships of Freestyle Wrestling, her proud father will be watching
from the stands at Madison Square Garden.

He'll watch his daughter, who has emerged as one of the world's best
female wrestlers in a young sport producing its first generation of champions.

Miranda, 24, won gold in her weight class at last month's Pan American
Games as U.S. women swept titles in all four weight divisions.

Eleven months from now, she will likely be a medal favorite at the 2004
Olympics in Athens, Greece, where women's wrestling debuts.

Dr. Jos Miranda, Patricia's father, just wants it to be over.

"I'm counting the days" until she quits, he said.

For him, his daughter's career can't end soon enough. As Patricia
wrestles, her father grapples with ambivalence.

Early on, Dr. Miranda was anything but conflicted. He set out to derail
her career.

When Patricia joined the boys team at Saratoga (Calif.) High in ninth
grade (there was no girls team), Dr. Miranda did everything he could to
prevent his daughter from wrestling.

A physician, he feared she would get hurt.

"I thought she was nuts," he said.

A political refugee from Brazil who finished medical school in Canada,
Dr. Miranda preached to his children that education, not sports, was the
key tosuccess in America.

At the time, women's wrestling wasn't in the Olympics. Women wrestlers
couldn't get scholarships to college. Just last year, USA Wrestling
established the nation's first women's residency program in Colorado
Springs.

So to Dr. Miranda, Patricia's passion was "a silly hobby."

To Patricia, it was everything.

Before his daughter's high school wrestling meets, Dr. Miranda would
tell organizers to scratch her from the competition.

He threatened to sue the school for letting her wrestle. He talked to
the school principal, teachers and her academic advisor in a campaign to
talk her out of the sport.

He'd show up at practice and make Patricia get in the car and go home.

"I was trying to sabotage it," he said.

As hard as her father fought, Patricia fought back.

"I'm going to do what I'm passionate about," she told her father.

She fought her battle alone.

Patricia couldn't confide in her mother, who died suddenly of an
aneurysm when Patricia was 10. Her coach and mentor, Lloyd Asato, could point
out wrestling's safety precautions to her father. But he could not step
between father and daughter.

"He just said, 'This is your war,' " Patricia said.

These days, Patricia stands 5 foot, her arms bulging with small mounds
of taut muscle. But she had a different kind of strength from the start.
Her will.

Patricia kept going to practice. The boys didn't want her on the team
either.

"They beat me up in practice," Patricia said, sitting above the
athletes cafeteria at the Colorado Springs U.S. Olympic Training Center. "They'd
say, 'You're the slowest one. You're the weakest one. You're never going to
make it.' "

She was a C or D student. He made her a deal. Average straight As and
you can wrestle.

By senior year, her teammates elected her captain.

That wasn't the end of it. Patricia kept her promise to her father,
often staying up until 1 a.m. to study after practice. It paid off. She was
accepted to Stanford. She has been accepted to Yale Law School, but is
deferring it for her Olympic year.

Stanford had a men's wrestling team.

Patricia had won some matches in high school, wrestling at 105 pounds,
the lightest weight class.

The lowest weight class at Stanford was 125 pounds. Patricia didn't see
much varsity action.

For experience, she'd enter tournaments. She lost for four years.

"It wasn't viewed as a futile thing," said Levi Weikel-Magden, her
boyfriend and former Stanford teammate. "It's a huge price to pay. Down the road
you knew it was going to pay off."

Finally, in early 2002, she beat a male wrestler at a tournament in
Reno, Nev.

"Patricia had a little smile on her face," Weikel-Magden said. "But
that was it."

"It was validation for me," she said.

She tried to bring her father along for the ride. She'd bring home
videos of herself wrestling and explain the sport to him.

Dr. Miranda tried. He made the trip this weekend, flying from
California to New York, but still can't understand his daughter's passion for this
brutish sport. He hasn't been to many of his daughter's matches.

The few high school meets he attended, he didn't watch. Once, Asato
glanced at the stands.

"He was either reading or balancing his checkbook," Asato said.

This weekend, he'll watch. And wait.

"It is very unusual for somebody to have a chance at the Olympics," he
said. "It's very special."

He remains ambivalent about wrestling but accepts Patricia embracing
it. Sometimes, father doesn't know best.

"She made the right choice," he said.

World Championships of Freestyle Wrestling

When: Today through Sunday

Where: Madison Square Garden, New York City

U.S. team members: Women - Patricia Miranda, 105.5 pounds; Jenny Wong,
112.5; Tina George, 121; Sally Roberts, 130; Sara McMann, 138.75;
Kristie Marano, 147.5. All live in Colorado Springs. Toccara Montgomery, 158.5,
lives in Cleveland.

Men - Stephen Abas, 121, Fresno, Calif.; Eric Guerrero, 132,
Stillwater, Okla.; Jamill Kelly, 145.5, Stillwater, Okla.; Joe Williams, 163,
Coralville, Iowa; Cael Sanderson, 185, Ames, Iowa; Daniel Cormier,
211.5, Stillwater, Okla.; Kerry McCoy, 264.5, Bethlehem, Penn.

Teams to watch: Men - Russia, U.S., Iran; women - Japan, U.S., Russia,
China

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Bad day for U.S.gold diggers

By CHRISTIAN RED
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

The Cold War has been over for more than a decade, but there is nothing like a good athletic rivalry between wrestling superpowers to bring out "USA, USA" cheers.
The World Championships of Freestyle Wrestling at Madison Square Garden yesterday represented just such an occasion - even thought the gold-medal round ended mostly in disappointment for Americans.

Kerry McCoy, a product of Middle Island, L.I., who finished fifth at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, entered the gold medal round as the favorite in the heavyweight division (120 kg.) but fell.

Earlier in the day he had pinned Iranian Ali Reza Rezaei in just 1:41. The victory immediately silenced a large contingent of Iranians and Iranian-Americans who had chanted "I-ran" practically the entire day.

"Every match is a step toward the gold medal," McCoy said after his semifinal win. "We only have one chance each year, and the people who don't win have to wait a whole 12 months."

But in the evening match against Artur Taymazov of Uzbekistan, McCoy fell behind early 1-0. After tying the match with seven seconds left, he eventually lost in overtime, 4-1, when Taymazov had a swift takedown.

Two matches before, the only other American in gold medal competition, Cael Sanderson, also lost - to Russian Sajid Sajidov, 4-3, in the 84 kg. class.

"I'm just disappointed," Sanderson said. "I didn't wrestle well. I needed to get into the match mentally from the start, and that's just not what happened."

Both McCoy and Sanderson finished with silver medals.

It was up to two-time world champion Kristie Marano in the 67 kg. class to bring the Americans the lone gold of the day. Marano, from Albany, dominated Poland's Ewelina Pruszko 7-1 as American cheers reverberated throughout the Garden.

Following Marano's victory, American Toccara Montgomery lost to Japan's Kyoko Hamaguchi.

"My heart goes out to the other girls," Marano said. "They deserve this just as much as I do."

The Japan national anthem became a regular tune in the women's gold-medal round. Japanese wrestlers, including two sisters, Chicaru and Kaori Icho, captured four of the first five medals, and five golds total. Kaori, the 2002 world champion in Greece at 63 kg., edged American Sara McMann in the final.

Yesterday's competitors who fell short of gold can still compete at the 2004 Athens Olympics when qualifying begins next June.

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She's on top of the Worlds
Wrestler Marano eyes Olympics next

By TIM WILKIN, Staff writer
First published: Tuesday, September 16, 2003

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, women's wrestling will be contested for the first time ever.
Colonie's Kristie Marano hopes she will be one of the athletes representing the United States.

Marano, already one of the top female wrestlers in the country, added to her resume when she won a gold medal at the World Freestyle Championships at Madison Square Garden this past weekend.

Marano was the only U.S. wrestler to strike gold at the Worlds, which featured 60 countries.

Japan won the tournament and the U.S. finished second. Marano, who finished third in the same tournament last year, won five matches to claim her gold medal. Wrestling at 147 pounds before 13,000 cheering fans, she defeated Poland's Ewelina Pruszko 7-1 in the championship match.

Marano, 24, is home in Colonie for a few weeks but will leave for Colorado Springs, where she works for USA Wrestling, to train for the Olympics starting Oct. 1.

There will be four weight classes in the Games: 105, 121, 138 and 158 pounds. Marano said she hopes to compete at 138.

The wrestler will know if she'll make the U.S. team next May during the Olympic trials in Indianapolis, when the top eight girls in each weight class will wrestle off.

"I always hoped there would be wrestling for women in the Olympics," Marano said Monday. "Now that it's a reality, it's very exciting. The women will be in Athens."

Marano has been associated with Team USA since 1996. Her name might not sound familiar, but area wrestling fans will remember if they see her maiden name: Stenglein. She graduated from Colonie High School in 1997.

At Colonie, she wrestled on the boys' varsity team and finished 12-12 wrestling in her senior year. Her two brothers, Matt and Joshua, followed her at Colonie, and Matt was a four-time Section II champ.

"I've been around wrestling all my life," Marano said. "I've always been a really competitive person."

This was the seventh medal Marano has won during World competition. She has two golds, four silvers and a bronze.

Her parents -- Conrad and Nancy Stenglein -- were part of the 20-person entourage that traveled to New York to watch Marano compete.

"I don't have a voice today," Nancy Stenglein said. "I do get very nervous when she wrestles, but I was more nervous when she was wrestling the guys in high school. But she is very tough and she knows what she is doing. Believe me, I wouldn't want to wrestle her."

Conrad Stenglein has few concerns watching his daughter roll around on the mats. He wrestled at Colonie High School (Class of 1971), saw Kristie begin showing an interest at a young age and encouraged her to be active in sports.

"These girls are very talented and deserve a chance, especially in the Olympics," he said. "She has always wanted to do this, and we're all very proud."
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2003 Freestyle World Championships- Women's Finals and Awards
Photos by Danielle Hobeika, hobeika@post.harvard.edu
Madison Square Garden, NYC, 9/14/2003