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News Page
The Providence
Journal-Bulletin
February 2, 1999,
The Plymouth South High School gym was filling up with
young wrestlers, and one of them, Tiffany Fagioli, sat slumped on a bleacher
seat, with her gaze fixed on the wall across the room.
Fagioli, a Durfee High School junior, was the only
female competitor in the gym, and she was getting psyched for yet another
meet on her
all-male team. Her elbow was bothering her, and the
NyQuil she had taken for a cold the night before had lingering effects.
"I'm wicked tired," she said.
Mike Murphy, a freshman at Quincy High School, later
settled down on the bleachers with his teammates. One of Fagioli's
soon-to-be
competitors, he had never wrestled a girl before. "I'm
scared I'm going to lose really bad and get ragged," he said. "You'll never
hear the
end of it."
In the fall, Fagioli became the first female to join
Durfee's varsity wrestling team. She joined the team to improve her
techniques for judo,
which she has been taking for six years. And
unwittingly, she also became part of a growing force of young women opting
to join a
traditionally male sport - a move that made her the
object of a lot of media attention.
Fagioli was recently included in a Wall Street Journal
story on the proliferation of female wrestlers, and has gotten calls from
20/20 and
Good Morning America. But the modest 17-year-old says
she's not exceptional; she's just the one who happened to get noticed.
"I think it's great there are girls on the wrestling
team. It's not a big surprise," she said. "There are a lot of girls out
there wrestling; it's not
just me."
Fagioli enjoys unconditional support from her teammates,
her coach and her school, and has won the respect of her male competitors,
many of whom know her as "the girl from Durfee."
And for a sport that often involves intimate positions -
heads are locked under armpits, legs are locked around chests, and arms are
thrust
between legs and over groins - Fagioli says the
off-color comments have been kept to a minimum.
Some males, however, are worried they may grab something
they're not supposed to and offend her. But even worse, they fear the stigma
that comes with losing to a female.
Those scheduled to compete against her are subjected to
teasing from their teammates weeks before the meet, and are prepared to
"stay
low" after the match if they lose.
"I know how it is," Fagioli said. "I know you get
teased."
"We're living in the 90s now," she added. "All the males
in wrestling need to realize females are going to want to wrestle, and it
doesn't
matter that they are going against the females. It's not
a big deal when you go against a girl and lose."
On the Plymouth South High School mat, a young male from
a Cambridge team stood across from Fagioli, waiting for the match to begin.
The idea was simple: whoever pinned the other's shoulder
blades on the mat for one second was the winner.
The wrestling began, and the two darted at each other,
groping for a disabling hold on a limb. Fagioli grabbed him from behind, her
arm
locked under his arm and around his neck. Chants from
the crowd, "Go Tiff!," sounded as he squirmed under her grip.
She turned him over on the mat and held him in a near
headlock, the weight of her upper body keeping him down.
She had pinned him.
The whistle blew, and the crowd roared.
"It felt great," Fagioli said later. "It feels great,
just hearing everyone applaud. It makes me feel good about myself."
And despite the bruised egos she leaves in her wake,
males recognize her ability.
"Wrestling is wrestling. It doesn't matter if you're a
girl or a guy. She's good, she's pinned people before. She knows what she's
doing,"
said Jimmy Tan, a Quincy High School senior.
When Fagioli first asked the school about joining the
team, the administration was skeptical. But the principal soon learned from
the
Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association that
coed teams were not only permitted, they were becoming common at schools
across the state.
According to USA Wrestling, the national governing body
for amateur wrestling, there were 1,900 female high school wrestlers last
year, a
dramatic change from the early 1980s when there were
none. "Women should, could, can, and will, and are welcome to wrestle," said
spokesman Gary Abbott.
Fagioli recalls how students spread the news of her
accomplishment after she beat two Durfee males out of her weight class,
making her
the first female on the varsity team. "My coach smiled
and congratulated me, and they were telling everybody, 'She's varsity, she's
varsity'."
The coach, Mike McMahon, who initially didn't expect her
to be competitive, says now she knows how to prepare, how to execute the
techniques, and how to score points. She's "very
competitive. If I had 14 of her, I'd be thrilled to death," he said.
"She's goes in there with an attitude - 'I'm going to
wrestle'. She goes right in there for the take-downs, right off the bat."
For Fagioli, playing sports with males was a regular
part of childhood. "I played tackle football with the boys. I was a big
tomboy. I
climbed the trees with the boys, I played soccer with
the boys, I was basically one of the boys," she said.
"I feel more comfortable practicing with boys than with
girls."
And it's her need for a challenge that keeps her coming
back. "I love competition, and there's a lot of competition in wrestling.
That's one
thing I love is competition. The workout, it's a great
workout, it gets you in shape."
Now, she hopes to attend Cumberland College in Kentucky
and join the school's judo team, and maybe go out for wrestling, too.
Someday, she'd like to compete on an Olympics judo team,
and she is considering a career as a police officer or a lawyer.
And as for the other young female wrestlers out there
who are thinking about joining a team, Fagioli says there shouldn't be
anything
holding them back.
"If they would really like to join the team, they should
no matter what anyone says or if it's all boys. If they really want to do
it, they should
just go out and do it," she said.
"Don't let anyone tell them they are not good enough to
do it."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
N. LEHIGH, WILSON EACH PUT SEVEN IN 2A SEMIS;
* MAHANOY'S BETH BOLISH COMES UP SHORT IN TRYING TO WIN
A MATCH AT 119 POUNDS.
The Morning Call
(Allentown) February 27, 1999,
History isn't exactly on her side, but that's all right
by Beth Bolish.
A junior at Mahanoy Area High School, Bolish took her
shot at history Friday night during the District 11 Class 2A Wrestling
Championships at Pocono Mountain High School.
While Bolish sought to become the first girl to win a
match at districts, Northern Lehigh survived a big scare as two of its No. 3
seeds fell
in the quarterfinals. The Bulldogs and Wilson both
advanced seven to today's 11:45 a.m. semis.
Two returning district champs fell in Friday night's
quarterfinals while the remaining two champions are scheduled to meet in the
135-pound
semifinals when Tamaqua's Jeremy Benza and Northern
Lehigh's Steve Hluschak meet.
The top four place winners automatically qualify for
next weekend's Northeast Regional at Williamsport, but a win in the semis
clinches the
trip. A top five place at the regional forwards the
wrestlers to Hershey for the PIAA Championships the following weekend.
The first big upset of the tournament came in the
119-pound quarterfinals where Palisades' Aaron Kling edged top-seed Jason
Haines of
Catasauqua, a defending champ.
On another mat at the same time, Josh Herzog of Northern
Lehigh saw his chance for a second district title go up in flames after a
9-4 loss
to Wilson's Heath Lohrman, a No. 7 seed, at 125 pounds
Northern Lehigh got one back at 145, where 12th seed
Brandon Szoke shocked No. 4 Brad Christ of Northwestern with a reverse at
the
buzzer for an 8-6 win.
The seeds held true for the most part as six weight
classes (103, 135, 152, 160, 171 and 189) advanced the top four seeds to
today's
semis.
Consolation finals begin at 5:30 p.m. and the
championship finals are slated for 7:30 p.m.
The top four finishers in each weight class qualify for
the regional, but:
* Beth Bolish didn't show up in Swiftwater to simply
cheer on her brother, Aaron, a senior seeded No. 2 at 171 pounds. She
weighed in
to win.
Bolish isn't the first girl to wrestle in the District
tournament, but she is the first to wrestle in it twice. A 119-pounder,
Bolish obviously
stands out from her male competition, but she stands out
from her female competition as well.
"International Wrestling Magazine ranks me first in the
nation," said Bolish, who won the inaugural state tournament for girls two
weeks ago
in Lancaster and earned the Outstanding Wrestler award.
An 8-10 record earned Bolish the right to a No. 14 seed
in the 119-pound weight class and a preliminary bout against No. 3 seed Jim
Moll of Wilson, who spots an impressive 22-5 record.
Moll scored takedowns at will on Bolish and ended the
match with a technical fall in 5:15 with a 23-8 score, but Bolish shot at
Moll after
every escape.
"It's pretty awkward at first, but there's no reason to
take it easy on her," said Moll. "She wants to wrestle. She didn't give up
at all."
"My goal is to win one here," she said. "My freshman
year, I lost in the first round, but got a forfeit or something and made it
to the second
day."
In Friday night's consolation round, she gave up a
takedown with 1:20 left in her match against Tri-Valley's Jeremy Stohecker
for a narrow
2-0 loss.
She missed last year's district tournament after Aaron
ran over her leg with a car accidentally. Ironically, that led to last
year's women's
national championships in Ann Arbor, Mich.
"Coach (Dave Holmes) said there was a girls nationals,
arranged for a plane ticket and a hotel, and we went," she recalled. Bolish
entered
the tournament as the bottom seed, won a pigtail round
and then lost to the top-seeded girl.
She came back strong, however, posting seven straight
wins to finish third.
So how did a nice young teen-age girl get involved in
wrestling? Her brothers.
Older brothers Chris (now graduated) and Aaron both
wrestled, and Beth attended their matches before deciding to compete in the
sport
in third grade.
"It's a different sport for a girl," she admitted, "But
it's a tough sport. It's one-on-one."
Next up for Bolish is the Girls Colonial States
championships two weeks from now in Brookline, Mass.
