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2/28/2000
By Ty Halpin

When Doug Reese proposed the idea of sponsoring women's wrestling to his institution, he was not taken seriously - at least not at first. The University of Minnesota, Morris wrestling coach had to overcome some misconceptions, as well as prove the women were true athletes.

"People thought I was talking about mud or Jell-O wrestling," said Reese. "I had to explain that this was serious, Olympic-style wrestling. We really had a lot to prove at the start, but once we proved the team had some serious athletes, everyone has been behind us."

Reese and many in the wrestling community hope the women's version of the sport will make a push to become an NCAA-sponsored sport. To do so, the sport must meet the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics guidelines and become an emerging sport.

Those guidelines require the sport to have 20 or more varsity teams and/or competitive club teams in existence on college campuses. Other data must exist to demonstrate support for the sport. Data to be considered here includes collegiate recreation and intramural sponsorship; high-school sport sponsorship; and nonscholastic competitive programs and associations. Organizational support from the United States Olympic Committee, the sport's national governing body, conferences, coaches associations and professional organizations also are considered.

Internationally, women's wrestling is on the rise. More than 50 countries sponsor a national team, and USA Wrestling expects the sport will receive medal status for the 2004 Olympics. The United States won its first world championship this year and is supported financially by USA Wrestling.

Tricia Saunders, 33, is a groundbreaker for women's wrestling. A four-time world champion, Saunders didn't compete past the sixth grade because the opportunity was not made available to her. Instead, she was a gymnast. She returned to the mat in 1989 after college when her brother, also a wrestler, saw women competing at the world level.

"I think the sport will expand whether we care or not," said Saunders. "Internationally, the feeling is that it's a wonderful sport and people are used to seeing women compete in this way. In the United States, it's different, and the process is somewhat slow. The girls are there, it's just a matter of time, really."

On the high-school level, participation numbers have increased recently. A few years ago, there were a handful of girls interested in competing. Now, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 661 schools and 2,361 girls participate in the sport. Those numbers are not the total either. Many girls compete on boys teams.

"With the growth we've had at the lower levels, there are a lot of talented athletes looking for an opportunity to participate," Reese said, noting that Michigan, Texas and Hawaii sponsor high-school championships for girls. "It hasn't been as fast a process as I had hoped, but there's tremendous growth at the grassroots level, which is encouraging."

That support could turn into NCAA sponsorship, but not before more teams are formed at the collegiate level.

Should it reach status as an emerging sport, it would be recognized by the NCAA to provide additional athletics opportunities to female student-athletes. It would have a national championship conducted by its governing body or perhaps a coaches association. But there is no NCAA championship in an emerging sport. Once the sport is elevated to an NCAA championship sport, it is removed from the emerging sports list.

Legislation was passed in 1994 creating the nine original emerging sports for women: ice hockey, rowing, synchronized swimming, team handball, water polo, archery, badminton, bowling and squash. Rowing has since been elevated to an NCAA championship sport and removed from the list of emerging sports. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics has asked water polo, ice hockey, squash and bowling be put on the "fast track" to championship status on an accelerated timetable.

In Canada, legislation has assisted the development of women's wrestling. Canadian law states that any high school sponsoring a team must do so for both genders.

"It's a completely different system," said Jennifer Reid, a junior at Wisconsin-La Crosse who competes with the men's wrestling team. Reid is a Toronto native. "What is the equivalent of the state tournaments here have just as many girls as boys qualify. The participation is similar here, just not at the college level."

Reid is on a one-year-abroad program from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Brock fields a full women's team. The men she trains with at Wisconsin-La Crosse were unsure what to make of Reid when she stepped into the wrestling room.

"At first, they didn't say much, but now, they volunteer to help me get better," Reid said. "They're getting used to having a girl in the room. For sure, it will just take a few pioneers to get the trend moving. I think everything will come together in a few years."

Reese has seen the sport make advancements. While Minnesota-Morris is the first NCAA institution to officially sponsor the sport, two schools in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics - Missouri Valley College and Cumberland College (Kentucky) - have added the sport.

"We have women from all over the country come here solely to wrestle," Reese said. "That was a big reason for starting a program. There's plenty of talent for more programs to be created."

Title IX - often blamed as a reason to cut men's non-revenue programs - may actually be a blessing, Reese believes. If the wrestling community can take a pro-active stance on Title IX through women's wrestling, Reese thinks the legislation will turn out to have a positive effect on the sport.

"In my opinion, we need to do more things to embrace Title IX and do it in such a way that we can keep our men's programs," said Reese, who has had eight wrestlers compete on the world level. "We've seen women's (ice) hockey grow very quickly with the support of the NCAA. The men's programs have continued to be strong as well. It's an inexpensive sport, especially if you already have a men's team. It seems like a no-brainer."

With the explosion on the high-school level, women's wrestling is in need of more national exposure to nudge it to the level of women's ice hockey. Taking a cue from the ice hockey constituents, those in support of women's wrestling are pointing towards the 2004 Olympics to offer exposure.

USA Wrestling has provided more opportunities for women in the United States than ever. Women compete in about 75 percent of the events USA Wrestling sanctions. The organization also sent a proposal to many NCAA institutions and conferences asking them to consider adding women's wrestling.

To make the sport viable, more support on the collegiate level is needed, Saunders and Reese say. They are not as far from that goal as it might seem.

"I think there is quite a lot of support at the lower levels and through high schools," Saunders said. "It's really just a matter of time before it becomes accepted, much like judo and karate are accepted. When it does, I think people will realize the positive influence this sport will have."

Women's wrestling, as with most sports that aren't traditionally contested by females, needs pioneers to challenge the system. Saunders and Reese continue to push the sport, hoping the 2004 Olympics will bring widespread acceptance and, eventually, NCAA sponsorship.

As for the student-athletes, Reese thinks women will continue to wrestle, and in larger numbers, whether or not colleges offer the sport.

"It definitely takes a different breed to do this, but that's true of any wrestler," Reese said. "There are a lot of dedicated athletes here. They're not out to prove something, they've just fallen in love with this sport and don't want to stop competing. They're just looking for a place to wrestle."
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Lady wrestler is an extraordinary champion

March 21, 2000, Tuesday,

CHARLOTTE, ENGLEWOOD EDITIONS

'Wanna watch my highlights video?" Angela Hernandez, 17-year-old Lemon Bay
senior and wrestling champ, fixes her listener
with a brown-eyed gaze from her guileless face and somehow, in an instant,
you're pinned.

A minute later Angela and I are watching her highlights video, titled,
"Angela Hernandez, Florida State Champion Women's
Wrestler." As the hard driving strains of "When Worlds Collide" by Powerman
5000 fade into the winsome rant "I'm Just a Girl"
by No Doubt, a tiny figure jauntily pins a series of bewildered male
wrestlers. As one young man casually spins her aloft on his
shoulders, he makes just one technical error and, yup, you guessed it; he is
summarily pinned before his astonished peers.
Following each conquest, the tiny figure pops up and raises two well-muscled
arms aloft in the unmistakable, universal gesture of
victory.

Angela is 103 pounds of honest enthusiasm. "As soon as I stepped on the mat
and started running toward my opponent, it was like
'I belong here, this is what I do.' It's something I've always enjoyed. I
started wrestling as a junior at Lemon Bay. My freshman
year I attended Charlotte High, and I really liked it there. Two weeks
before the end of my freshman year, we moved to
Englewood, and I finished the year at Lemon Bay. I hated it. I had no
friends. I feel better now; I give that to wrestling."

It's hard to imagine Angela with no friends. However, she spent a portion of
her sophomore and junior years at Port Charlotte
High before having to transfer back to Lemon Bay due to transportation
problems. Fate had a strong hand in developing this
champion lady wrestler. "Even though the guys didn't accept me, I do it
anyway. I am happy when I wrestle!" The sheer
incongruity of her words; her level voice and her diminutive persona are a
reporter's dream.

I ask to watch the video again. And again. And I ponder how social isolation
must have fueled and honed her fine competitive
spirit.

The organizers of the first-ever Florida State Women's Wrestling
Championship held recently in Longwood mailed coach Mark
Pearcy an invitation for Angela. She was honored to attend, and delighted to
have an opportunity to wrestle other high school
females - an experience she rarely enjoyed. At the Oklahoma State University
Wrestling Camp last year it was 600 guys, and
Angela. "Once the whistle blows, sex doesn't matter. Once they get on the
mat with me they know I'm for real. When I wrestled
at the Women's Wrestling Championships, everybody was cheering for the other
girl. Nobody knew me. I pinned her in 43
seconds. They named me Most Outstanding Wrestler. I am honored to be known
as the best girl wrestler in the state, but I felt a
little disappointed. We were not very evenly matched."

Angela seems disproportionately strong. At 5 feet tall, and 103 pounds, she
can bench-press 125 pounds and dead-lift 210. Her
day begins with a protein shake, and ends with a lot of hard work. "I have
worked hard - girl wrestlers are tough." You can say
that again. The University of Minnesota is looking seriously at Angela, who
is considering a career as a dentist or an orthodontic
specialist. She has her sights set on the 2004 Olympics. "I'll compete in
the Olympic trials in Las Vegas this year. Right now,
though, I'm competing in the National Women's Wrestling Championships in
Michigan next week."

Angela lives in Englewood with her mother, Carmella, and her siblings
Clifford and Fleetwill.

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Wrasslin' daughter

Last Updated: Jan. 12, 2000

Q: I'm a pretty normal sort of dad who has always encouraged my three boys to go out for different types of sports. As for the two girls, well, they were happy playing tennis and volleyball. Or so I thought! Now my 14-year-old tells me that she's made the wrestling team and she loves it! She's out there with the guys getting poked, slammed down, sat upon and mauled all in the name of good clean fun. I can't stand it! In fact, it kills me to see the boys lying on top of her. What do you think about this trend toward coed sports in the high schools? I think that it's time for all coaches to rebel and refuse to allow girls on all-boys teams. - Myron F., Palo Alto, Calif.

A: You're not the only dad who wants to protect his daughter from being mauled in a sport dominated by men. And, truthfully, I'm not so sure I would like to see my 100-pound daughter slammed to the mat by a guy wrestler.

However, as you've learned, full-body contact games are no longer a boys-only club. The number of girls wrestling and playing football and hockey is zooming and the girls love it! The problem is that there are many issues involved here, with coaches damned if they do or damned if they don't. Now that the law mandates equal treatment and equal opportunity for both sexes, the trend is growing. All you can do as a parent if you object is to forbid your child from going out for an all-male team. If she's determined, then at least go to the games and support her.

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INTERNET YIELDS SCHOLARSHIP
VALLEY'S JONELLE HICKS PINS HER HOPES ON COLLEGE WRESTLING

When Jonelle Hicks signed her letter of intent last month to attend
Missouri Valley College, she became the first Valley High School wrestler
to earn a scholarship.

Hicks said her mother learned about Missouri Valley's wrestling program
and the Marshall, Mo., college on the Internet.

"Once we saw that they had the program I wanted, we tried to get a
scholarship," Hicks said.
Missouri Valley came through with a 75 percent offer for Hicks.
"It's a different place, with no one that I know," she said. "It will be
hard at first but I'll get used to it."
Along with her wrestling talents, good timing may have helped Hicks
achieve her dream of a mostly free college education.

"Women's wrestling is just now taking off. This is only the second year
that scholarships are being offered," said Matt Winn, Valley wrestling
coach, of Missouri Valley's program. "You want to talk about perfect timing:
this young lady hit it at just the right time."
Hicks knows that there probably isn't a better time to be a female
athlete, especially one who likes to wrestle.
"If I were a guy, I wouldn't have gotten it," she said of the
scholarship offer. "They are looking for girls now, and that's why I got
it."

Although Winn thinks timing is a factor, he said Hicks' talent can't be
ignored. "Pound for pound, I don't think there's a girl in Sacramento, and
maybe even Northern California, who can handle Jonelle," Winn said. "I've
never seen anybody who has as much strength and wrestling
knowledge as she does."

Because female competition is limited, Hicks has wrestled against boys
during her career at Valley. She was attracted to the sport as a
seventh-grader at Harriet Eddy Middle School.

She said she thought the sport looked fun, so the following year she
joined the team. "I started wrestling against guys, so I just stuck with
it,"
she said. "I didn't know until the freestyle tournaments that I could
wrestle other girls."

This season she carried a 12-3 record in the 134-pound weight class. All
but one of the matches were against boys.
But her high school season was cut short when she injured her shoulder early
in the season at the Bear Creek Tournament in Stockton.

"I injured it a little in my first match, and I lost the match. My
second match went into overtime, and that's when I really injured it."

Winn said Hicks was diagnosed with a slight tear of a ligament in her
right shoulder.
Although she has been working out, she was expected to resume full-scale
practices this week while preparing for the March 25 and 26 United
States Girls Wrestling Association National Championships in Lake Orion,
Mich.

"It will be better by then but may not be completely healed," Hicks
said. "I'm still going to wrestle. If it hurts, then I'll stop."

Hicks said she wants to wrestle in the nationals to impress her college
coach, Kent Sherrow, who has never seen her wrestle. She also wants to
end her high school career on a more successful note.

"The only thing that bothers her is that she is missing out on this
season," Winn said. "This is her senior year and her last year of high
school wrestling. She is missing out on all the good tournaments, where she wanted
to make a good showing. The way she looks at it, there are other
girls out there getting the recognition and the placings that she would
normally get, and she knows she can beat them."

In the nationals, Hicks will compete only against girls, which she has
done just once this season at an all-girls tournament in Napa. The
tourney took place while Hicks was injured.

"My physical therapist said it was a no-no," she said. "But the No. 1
girl in the nation was there, and I wanted to meet someone who was
competitive, so I entered anyway."

Hicks competed but had to default in the first round because her
shoulder hurt too much.
Winn said Hicks' attempt to compete in the Napa Tournament probably set
her back several weeks, but that he expects her to do well at the
nationals if she is healthy.

He said coaching Hicks can be a challenge.
"I know that she gets mad and that she has a temper," he said. "But when
it comes down to it, she just wants what's best. She'll do whatever it
takes to set a good example and to win."

Her feistiness has earned Hicks the respect and admiration of male
wrestlers.
"All her teammates really like her ... they'd take a bullet for her,"
Winn said. "Especially some of the senior guys, who have been around the
whole time with her."

According to Winn, Hicks' attitude toward female wrestlers will help her
in the national competition.
"She has this mental attitude toward girls, where she just refuses to
lose to another girl," he said. "She tries to stay away from them during
practice because she likes the strength and intensity that the guys give her
and that obviously makes her excel."

Hicks said her attitude toward girls comes from always competing against
boys. "I've been around the guys team, so I think like a guy," she
said.

Throughout her recovery time from her shoulder injury, Hicks has
continued to practice.
"Coach is teaching me some moves with my left arm," she said. "I'm
working out and keeping strong.'

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2000 - 1st Annual California USGWA Girls State Invitational OPEN,

March 18,2000 at Edison High School, Stockton, California

104 lbs:

1st - Melissa Moore, San Jose pinned Sara Fulp-Allen, El Granada 5:39.
3rd - Laura Felix, Calabasas dec. Lenci Landaker, Vallejo 4-2.
5th - Amantha Hordagoda, Sunnyvale pinned Poonam Walia, Martinez 0:22.
7th - Victoria Gallardo, Stockton tech.fall Noelia Mancera, Stockton 15-0.

113 lbs:

1st - Malinda Ripley, Antioch dec. Rachel Salazar, Concord 3-0.
3rd - Danni Presley, Napa pinned Salina San Juan, San Jose 4:52.
5th - Jessica Dougherty, Walnut Creek dec. Alexandria Jiminez, Stockton
11-6.
7th - Zina Krivoruk, Pleasant Hill maj.dec. Kari Oneto, Woodland 15-2.

116 lbs:

1st - Teresa Dal Ben, Sacramento dec. Shiela Lerit, Vallejo 6-1.
3rd - Elizabeth Domagas, Vallejo pinned Ophelia Pickard, Pleasant Hill 1:18.
5th - Michelle Solis, Sonora pinned Emily Sisson, Clayton 1:39.
7th - Debbie Mullin, Mill Valley pinned Dominique Rodriguez, Phoenix AZ
1:48.

122 lbs:

1st - Michelle Domagas, Vallejo pinned Brook Herrema, San Rafael 2:43.
3rd - Stacia Anderson, Ramona pinned Myloan Bahn, San Diego 3:23.
5th - Teresa Ayala, Pacifica pinned Denise Lee, San Francisco 2:06.
7th - Berenice Valenzuela, San Diego pinned Ruth Uribes, Woodland 0:59.

126 lbs:

1st - Suzanne Kivi, Reno NV dec. Kiersten Hyatt, Carmichael 7-0.
3rd - Lindsey Owens, Ripon dec. Stacey Carta, Lafayette 8-4.
5th - Desiree Luce, Hoquiam WA pinned Christie Rafanan, Yountville 4:40.
7th - Jamie Eacret, Eureka forfeit over Andrea Delos Reyes, San Diego.

131 lbs:

1st - Helaina Day, San Mateo dec. Jonelle Hicks, Sacramento 6-4.
3rd - Othella Lucas, San Diego dec. Carina Valle-Santana, Napa 17-11.
5th - See Yang, Eureka pinned Elizabeth Macari, Fremont 1:43.
7th - Samantha Harrison, Spring Valley pinned Bailey Bearden, Costa Mesa
1:29.

138 lbs:

1st - Nikole Bebout, North Fork pinned Katie Ayer, Woodside 1:43.
3rd - Emilee Murphree, Napa pinned Julianna Pinder, Novato 3:44.
5th - Melissa Faulk, Eureka dec. Nicole Williams, San Mateo 11-10.
7th - Frances Lee, San Francisco pinned Kimmie Vanderbilt, Concord 4:52.

146 lbs:

1st - Danielle Bebout, North Fork pinned Kelly Womack, Turlock 3:05.
3rd - Reeah Winkle, Martinez dec. Christie Ravera, Berkeley 4-3.
5th - Brigitte Sjoquist, Eureka forfeit over Sherri Foster, San Diego.
7th - Jaclyn Attard, Concord maj.dec. Olimpia Jaswiec, Concord 10-2.

168 lbs:

1st - Kaci Lyle, Eureka pinned Melissa Fehn, Lodi 2:49.
3rd - Alicia Wilson, Santee dec. Toshia Christal, Berkeley 7-3.
5th - Chantel Downing, Eureka pinned Amanda Torres, Lathrop 0:37.
7th - Victoria Garrett, Phoenix AZ pinned Jennifer Sallas, Phoenix AZ 1:48.

HeavyWt:

1st/2nd - Sarah Capik, Eureka pinned Maria Stanley, Sunnyvale 3:02.
2nd/3rd - Maria Stanley, Sunnyvale forfeit over Michelle Wahington, San
Diego.
3rd/4th - Michelle Washington, San Diego pinned Mari Lynch, Stockton 1:11.
4th/5th - Mari Lynch, Stockton pinned Catherine Joseph, Stockton 0:55.

"Middle School Age" Division:

80 lbs:

1st - Karen White, Ripon
2nd - Chelsea Hayes, Eureka
3rd - Katherine Fulp-Allen, El Granada
4th - Marci Bebout, North Fork
5th - Rebecca Mullin, Eureka

114 lbs:

1st - Courtney Douglas, Wasilla AK
2nd - Sharlee Solis, Castro Valley
3rd - Cynthia Donahoo, Phoenix AZ

125 lbs:

1st - Natasha Douglas, Wasilla AK
2nd - Christina Nicora, Castro Valley
3rd - Jessica Moore, San Jose

"Elementary School Age" Division

62 lbs:

1st - Nikita Hayes, Eureka
2nd - Julia Sanner, Novato
3rd - Courtney Madson, Vallejo

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