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Two State Wrestling Champs! |
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The life of a freshman at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy isn't easy. Just ask Allison Bennett.
She's had upperclassmen scream at her in the early morning. She's buffed toilets to a high sheen. And she's run countless miles as part of her indoctrination.
Things are tougher for Allison. Her older sister, Amy Bennett, is an upperclassman officer at the King's Point, N.Y., military academy.
"My sister was the first person to yell at me," says 18-year-old Allison, half grinning at her sister. "She told me to go back to the kitchen where I belonged. That was the first thing I heard."
The sisters are among the few women enrolled in the predominantly male Merchant Marine Academy, where female students make up only about 7 percent of the institution's enrollment of about 970.
There are 34 women - the largest group on record - in Allison's class of about 270.
Amy, a 21-year-old senior, says she knows about two other sets of sisters enrolled at King's Point, the name students use in referring to the school.
"There's no way that I would get to spend as much time with her as I do, being at college," Amy says. "It's nice when she gets a couple of hours off to sneak away and go out to eat." Actually, upperclassmen aren't supposed to talk to freshmen, other than to scream at them, both young women stress. But school officials make an exception for the sisters.
"You don't not want to have a sister for four years," Amy says.
"It's kind of strange, but even though it's a really small school, I don't actually see her or talk to her all that much," Allison says.
The sisters both graduated from Arlington High School - Amy in 1996 and Allison this year.
Amy, a marine engineering major, will graduate in May. Allison, majoring in maritime logistics, will graduate in 2003.
"I wouldn't have known about the academy, if it weren't for my sister," Allison says. "Originally, I wasn't thinking military, but my sister had been trying to convince me for quite a while."
Allison says she eventually plans to run for political office.
"Having a military background is really good for politics," she says. "Transportation is the most important part of economics, and economics runs politics. I also want to go to law school, maybe Tulane. They have the best admiralty law program."
Amy, who was Arlington High's first female wrestler and an ROTC member, says she planned to attend a military academy after her high school graduation. She applied to the other service academies, but found that King's Point's marine engineering program was stronger.
"It's something different that nobody knew about it, so it was kind of an adventure," she says.
While Amy doesn't know exactly what she wants to do after graduation, she's leaning toward becoming a missionary and building orphanages.
In the interim, adventure is one of the benefits of being a King's Pointer. Earlier this year, while fulfilling her requirement of one year at sea, Amy was sent to Kosovo to supply ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
"It was real exciting to be part of that. I was on a warehouse ship. We carried all the food and supplies - from everything to toilet paper to frozen goods to eggs."
The Merchant Marine, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation, splits its time between supplying Navy ships and importing and exporting for commercial interests.
Both Amy and Allison say they value what they're learning at King's Point, even though their college experience is vastly different from some of their peers'.
Friends find it strange that Allison is up at 6 a.m. on Saturdays.
"To them, that's weird. When you see that, you realize how much different your experience is compared to all your friends.
"I think it's worth it," Allison says.
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Girls' wrestling debate resurfaces as regular season begins
By Brandon Bartell
iHigh.com Student Correspondent
As many of us return to the mats this winter season and we look around at our teammates whose pain, happiness and often blood we will share, we notice something different. Throughout the room there are many girls.
This has been a huge debate in schools across the state as to the ethics and morality of a girl wrestling on a boys team. In my school alone, there have been some class periods where nothing more than this very subject has been discussed, though the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association has decided the legality of it for us. It is not the strengths nor weaknesses of girls that is really causing the controversy over girls wrestling. It is that throughout our lives, we have been taught the fundamental basics on appropriate and inappropriate touching. "This is where it is OK or not OK to touch." From birth these things have been drilled into our minds. Now, put girls on a wrestling mat with boys, and what is to be done? Many wrestling moves don't fall into the area of what we have been taught is appropriate touching.
Are we to say that under certain conditions it is OK to touch wherever necessary, but in others it is not? Are there now exceptions to the rule? Can we tell children that it is wrong to touch a girl somewhere during class, but as soon as school gets out and they step into the wrestling room, social standards stay outside the door? Imagine the confusion for the younger generation of wrestlers. Another point that makes one stop and think is the question of whether or not the social impact is all right on the boys. Socially, if they win a match, they lose; if they lose the match, they lose. In other words, if they lose they just got "beat by a girl" and will be made fun of indefinitely. If they win, they are no better off; they just "beat up" a girl. What happens to the wrestler whose morals forbid this type of behavior? They must forfeit.
This all leads to another point we have also been taught: it is wrong to hit girls. Once again, does this stop the second they enter the wrestling room? Many would say that wrestling isn't hitting, but those people must have never seen a cross face. Others would argue that in our great country, we have a thing called assumption of risk. If they want to get hit, let them. But that is not the point. What about the guys who are morally opposed to it? Punish them by giving them a loss?
I am writing not to condone or promote this issue. This is being written to give voice to some issues that are of concern to many. Maybe it will even help bring rise to such questions and the push for an all-girls wrestling team will receive momentum. I am not so ignorant as to believe that it is a simple black and white issue; I just challenge people to think about it for themselves and not say, "If WIAA says it is all right, then it must be." If hitting girls is advancement in the issue of equal rights, then I do not want to be a part of it.
Note: iHigh.com Student Correspondent Brandon Bartell, senior, is a varsity wrestler at Eastmont High School in East Wenatchee, WA. Bartell was the 1999 wrestling champion in the 178-pound division, as well as an academic state champion the same year.
So what do you think? Should girls be allowed to wrestle with guys or does that send a mixed message? Send us your comments!
Read what others have to say about this issue:
"I think if girls want to wrestle, then they are going to have to put up with the touching in those areas because I know a lot of the moves are in the upper body in the chest area. I don't think it should be co-ed, but if there was a girls team there probably wouldn't be enough to do it. I know of a kid that had to wrestle a female last year and she was complaining about where his hands were during moves. I think it just comes with the sport of wrestling and if girls can't deal with it then they shouldn't be doing it."
--Patrick, Indiana
"I just don't get this big fuss about coed this and coed that. If girls want to do what boys do or vice versa, let them. They're perfectly capable. The only thing is don't make a big fuss or complain about it - the boys OR the girls. The rules of the sport aren't going to change because a member of a different sex comes in."
--Sandy Hokanson
"I have asked the question about girls wrestling in my mind over and over. At my school many girls have tried to wrestle, but all but one quit before the end of the season. I am all for equal rights, but girls should not be allowed to wrestle guys. If they want to wrestle, then make a girl wrestling team. It is an unfair advantage for a guy to wrestle a girl because of muscle, but it is also unfair for a guy to be scared where to put his hands. In the end, wrestling is a losing proposition for both sides."
--Nick Zuccarello
"I wrestled for two years and supported the team for another two in my high school career. Personally I think coed wrestling is a bad idea. I once wrestled a girl that wanted to try out for the team. The whole time I had to watch wear I placed my hands, not only that but I didn't want to hurt her. In wrestling we get broken everything. From fingers, ankles and up to legs. My sophomore year I blew a kid's knee out. I don't know how I would take it if I knew I crippled a girl."
--Marcus Galindo
"If there are not enough girls choosing to wrestle to form a girls' team, then the girls have the right afforded to them by Title IX to wrestle on the boys' team. There is nothing wrong with the contact on the mat. It is a sport, not a sex act. Is it sexual for boys to touch each other while wrestling? My daughter wrestled varsity all four years of high school and has been on the USA National Team ever since. The competition with the boys helped her become more competitive on the women's circuit."
--Gail S. Wolfe, DVM
"I think that it is cool that girls are being allowed to wrestle now, but girls also have to understand that guys may be touching them in what may be considered inappropriate ways off the wrestling mat, and guys need to understand that they only get to touch the girls in this manner because of the nature of the sport."
--Dean Kinzer
"Here is the bottom line. All our lives, those of us who have been raised to be gentlemen have been taught that it is wrong to assault a woman in any way. We have been raised to nurture our natural inborn instincts to protect the opposite sex. What I'm getting at is that wrestling is, by all definitions, a violent sport where two people grapple, slam, dominate and spill blood with each other, all in an attempt to get the count. In order for boys to effectively wrestle girls, a coach would have to 'teach' his young men to deny what comes naturally and basically attack a young lady with the same zeal he would attack a young man. But the lack of comfort that a boy may feel when in the ring with a girl is not chauvinistic, nor patronizing. Put simply, it is natural. Do we really want to start teaching young men to ignore that?"
--Beau Sizemore
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Centennial ready to rumblebwith wrestling event
By STEPHEN BROWN/Special to The Mirror
Will Wrestlemania run wild in Scarborough?
That could be the case at Centennial College's Progress campus when the
Canadian Amateur Junior Wrestling Championships kick off this weekend.
Two hundred of the best male and 80 of the best female wrestlers from across
Canada are expected to descend on the Scarborough college for the three-day
tournament which features the best under-20 amateur grapplers in the
country.
"The junior nationals haven't been in Toronto for about 20 years," said Doug
Pound, president of the Metro Toronto Wrestling Association, the
organization hosting the event. "The Centennial facilities are going to fit
very well. There are four mats running the first day and three mats on
Saturday and Sunday."
The tournament begins this Friday, March 17 and continues all day Saturday
and Sunday. The competitors are divided by weight class. There are girls'
divisions and nine weight classes for the boys.
"Girls wrestling has taken off very well," Pound said. "There were about 300
girls at OFSAA (Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association). Girls
wrestling has only been going for about five years.
"...Four years ago they started running an OFSAA-style tournament for them.
In the '80s they used to put the girls in with the boys, but that didn't
work very well."
Fans will see two types of wrestling events this weekend, freestyle and
Greco-Roman. Freestyle wrestling allows the use of the legs in the attack
and defence, while Greco-Roman style relies on the upper body.
Freestyle events will take place Friday and Saturday with the finals
starting at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Greco-Roman tournament begins at 10 a.m. on Friday, and 9 a.m. on
Saturday and Sunday with the finals set for 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon.
Besides showcasing the best junior amateur wrestlers in Canada, Pound says
this weekend's competition will also serve as the venue for selection of
this year's Canadian junior national team.
"It will be a good tournament," he said. "It will have some of the best
juniors in Canada. The top clubs are coming in."
