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She’s the One!!!
By Bob Johnson
Thursday, february 10, 2000
She practices like one of the guys. She trains like one of the guys. And she certainly wrestles like one of the guys, at least when it comes to technique, drive and dedication.
But as far as Wilson is concerned, she is just another member of the team.
“You know what, I’m addicted to the sport,” says the ever-positive Wilson. “I practice like I’m one of the guys. I don’t modify anything because I am a girl. I don’t think being a girl has anything to do with it.”
Certainly a pioneer in the arena of female grapplers, Wilson might not see more than two girls in any of the varsity tournaments she will participate in this year. But she insists she doesn’t mind — rather, she prefers to tango with the boys because of the high level of competition.
“I like to wrestle with the guys. I know I’m getting a better workout,” says Wilson, who excels in the classroom with a 4.0 GPA. “With technique, I have to make up for it because boys are naturally stronger than girls. I’ve only won one or two regular-season matches against guys. But I’ve never been beaten by a girl before.”
Coach Ralph Garcia has high praise for the defending lightweight San Diego County girls’ wrestling champion.
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“She dominates the girls completely,” says Garcia. “She uses technique along with speed and muscle. It’s her enthusiasm and her desire to compete. She’s not intimidated by the fact that they’re all guys. She regards them all as wrestlers, and she’s doing the same thing they’re doing.”
Wilson, at 5-foot-10 and 161 pounds, is hoping to wrestle more women in college as part of a Division I program. In order to do that, according to Garcia, she needs to compete in the women’s state tournament as well as several other possible national tournaments to gain exposure. This, of course, will require Wilson to raise funds that she would otherwise have access to as part of a high school girls’ program. But amidst these difficulties, her positive work ethic and enthusiasm keeps her name in lights, at least in San Diego county.
“She’s very well-liked … she probably gets the most cheers of any wrestler on the team,” says Garcia. “She’s widely respected throughout the wrestling community.”
Wilson, who is involved with Santana’s Inclusion Program as a peer-tutor for mentally disabled students, hopes to pursue a career in either teaching or astro-physics. But for now, the Wolfpack grappler hopes to continue her wrestling career with as much hard work — and hopefully wins — as possible.
“After wrestling girls, and when I won [the county lightweight title], I was like, ‘Wow, that was easy!’” says Wilson. “Wrestling is taking me somewhere.”
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Alicia Wilson
Santana High Wrestling
In a sport almost completely dominated by males, Alicia Wilson is quietly making a name for herself after winning the light-heavyweight title in the Grossmont Conference girls’ wrestling championship on Monday.
Despite weighing 50 pounds less than her opponent, Wilson easily won the title match over Kristina Hirtler of Helix High. Wilson is intent on not only attending the state finals, but going to the national championshipat the end of the season. She is also going to return to the freestyle open nationals in Las Vegas after beating the sixth-place finisher last year.
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Never on the Bottom
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By Mike Butts
Thursday, february 10, 2000
The Lanier High girls’ wrestling team, in its inaugural season, has had to borrow headgear from opponents and compete while wearing boys’ uniforms and shoes. It could be embarrassing for some, but 16-year-old Jamie Bottomley takes it all in stride.
For now.
Bottomley is a sophomore and already one of the Lady Vikings top wrestlers. She has mixed feelings about the lack of proper equipment for the team, but she wants to wrestle so badly that she would probably compete in ballet slippers and a bike helmet if there was no choice.
“I just love wrestling,” says Bottomley, who has lost only two matches this season and helps pace Lanier’s first-ever girls team. “It’s so much fun. It’s really inspiring if you get the other person pinned.”
Bottomley and her coach, Nancy Lehman-Carssow, seem to feel the team’s equipment problems are just part of starting a new sport.
“We feel like we’re blazing new territory, and the kids are fine with that,” says Lehman-Carssow.
Bottomley says her coach eventually ordered head gear for each member of the team. But when the wrestling season began earlier this school year, it was a different story.
“At the beginning we had to share with the guys’ head sets and sometimes we had to borrow from other teams,” says Bottomley. “It was hard finding wrestling shoes and at the stores they said they didn’t make girls’ wrestling shoes.”
Bottomley says the team is looking for someone to make uniforms for them. For now they are wearing new boys’ uniforms purchased for the team and boys’ wrestling shoes.
“It’s just a new sport, so I sort of understand why we have guys’ uniforms,” says Bottomley. “Honestly, by the time next year or the year after if they don’t have girls uniforms I would be upset. They should have gotten uniforms and found out about this stuff before the season started.”
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Obviously, Bottomley isn’t too worried about uniforms when she’s wrestling. Despite taking up the sport for the first time this school year, she came in first at the Austin I.S.D. meet in December in her 165-pound weight class. She placed third at a meet in Bryan. And she wants to keep wrestling, and winning, throughout her high school years.
“I think I’m doing pretty good,” she says. “Some moves I can master and some I can’t. I think I pick up certain moves really quickly.”
Although the Lady Viking athlete — who also plays softball and competes in the shot put and discus — has never been to the state championship meet, she wants to get there and win.
“I’m working on going to state this year,” says Bottomley. “And by my senior year my goal is to be a state champion.”
Lehman-Carssow has no reason to believe she can’t achieve that goal.
“Jamie is a tough kid and smart as can be,” says Lehman-Carssow. “She came out this year and started focusing and is really good.”
For Bottomley, the novelty of the sport was one of its attractions.
Says Bottomley, “I sort of wanted to be different and go out for something I never thought I would do.”
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Down, Not out
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By CJ Lampman
Thursday, february 10, 2000
Brenda Malott was the queen of the wrestling mat in Texas last season. The Arlington Sam Houston senior took down every opponent she faced en route to the 128-pound state title and is was no surprise when she was honored as the girls’ wrestler of the year for the Dallas area.
It was also no wonder that she expected big things this season.
The way things were supposed to happen, Malott would head off to college having won the first two ever UIL-sanctioned girls’ state wrestling championships for her weight class.
And it may still happen, just not the way she envisioned. Malott has a sour taste in her mouth, despite a flawless record.
“It’s been slow,” says Malott. “Things haven’t been going that great. I’m 5-0, but I’ve only wrestled two people and one of them was from my own team.”
The problem is that Malott is too good. According to Sam Houston first-year coach Roy Shultz, people have been hesitant to wrestle her because of last season’s dominance. And that has been frustrating.
“It’s hard for her to keep her head up,” says Shultz. “She only gets to wrestle once a week if she’s lucky, and the guys are wrestling a couple of times a week.”
But she’s far from down for the count. After all, she’s a fighter. To quench her thirst for grappling, she plans to move down in weight class to 119 pounds, where she hopes to face more than just her teammates.
Actually, Malott is used to overcoming adversity on the wrestling mat. When she first took an interest in the sport, there weren’t too many people in her corner. Granted, the sport is barely 5 years old for females, but the opposition even included her parents.
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“My little brother used to wrestle and I watched him and thought that it was something I might want to try,” she says. “I took a class my freshman year and people weren’t encouraging at all.
“And then my parents realized how much I liked it and they realized they weren’t going to stop me.”
In the three years since, not many people have stopped her. Malott has attacked the sport with the same vengeance she attacks an opponent on a takedown. And her dedication has paid off; in addition to last year’s state title, she has also been recognized on the national level. Malott is ranked No. 3 in the country for her weight class by Wrestling USA Magazine.
According to Shultz, who has 12 girls and eight boys on his team, training and traveling with the boys has also helped Malott’s performance.
“She doesn’t care who you are,” says Shultz. “She’ll take you to the mat.”
Malott agrees that training with the boys has been beneficial.
“It’s good because they’re faster and more muscular. I get to train twice as hard with them,” she says.
As much as the boys may help Malott get better, Shultz hints that the process has been reciprocal.
“Sometimes I wish my guys were more like her,” he says.
The season may not be going as planned, but even without much action, Malott is being recruited heavily by Missouri Valley State — one of the three colleges in the country which offer scholarships for girls wrestling.
Her long-term goal is the 2004 Olympics.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work,” says Malott, who plans to attend U.S. camps this summer. “I really I have no idea if I’ll be able to do it.”
Wilson, a junior at Santana High (Santee, Calif.), has wrestled on the boys’ team for three years. She used to wrestle at 160 pounds for the Wolfpack. But she was recently bumped to 171 pounds by coach Ralph Garcia for several upcoming meets. Wilson accepts this duty much in the same way as she has attacked her entire wrestling career on an all-boys squad — without hesitation or fear.
