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WHERE ELSE COULD A PRETTY GIRL MAKE HER
SCHOOL'S WRESTLING TEAM AND PIN A LOSS ON
A GUY? ONLY IN . . . ;
AMERICA;
AT CLAIREMONT HIGH IN SAN DIEGO, AMERICA MORRIS, A
15-YEAR-OLD BLONDE WEIGHING IN AT 107
POUNDS, RAISES EYEBROWS BY DROPPING MADISON SOPHOMORE
Los Angeles Times
January 12, 1986,
Sunday, Home Edition
A girl pinned a boy here recently, and we're not
talking about a sorority pin or a pin-up or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
We're talking about a wrestling pin, the kind where
somebody grabs somebody else, forces him onto his back and holds his
shoulder
blades to the mat for a split second. The referee says:
"You're out, fella."
But, in this case, a fella didn't win, and this is
what's so unusual. It happened at the high school level, and educators here
say it was the first
time in state history that a girl pinned a boy in a
varsity match.
Might it be the first time nationally, too?
Bob Dellinger, the director of communications for USA
Wrestling, said he's never heard of such a thing happening anywhere else.
"Gee
whiz," he said, "I doubt there's anything that's been
documented."
So what we apparently have here is history.
The girl's name is America Morris. You heard right. Her
mom came from Mexico, and when she had her baby, she wanted its name to
stand out.
"We lived in America, and America was beautiful and
Americans had big hearts, and I thought it'd be beautiful to name her
America,"
America's mother, Delia, said last week.
America said: "My grandma called me Amy because she
thought kids would pick on me if they knew my real name. But I like it now.
I see
a map, and there's my name. I see a billboard, and it's
there. I like it. It's special."
Anyway, nobody picks on her anymore.
She's America, the beautiful. She's blonde, she's trim,
she's a model, she's 15. She weighs 108 pounds, but Friday, when she
wrestled
against Mission Bay, she had to be down to 107.
She didn't weigh in with everyone else in the boys'
locker room, though. She took a scale into another room, stripped and
weighed herself.
Once this season, a boy walked in on her when she was
naked.
"Oops, excuse me," he said, smiling.
See, this sport can be hazardous. What if a guy grabs
her in the wrong place? That happened in the match she won. She was
wrestling a
boy named Russell Cain, and he accidentally touched her
breasts.
"In the back of my mind, I'm thinking: 'I don't want to
touch her in the wrong place,' and then I did," Cain said. "It was Blush
City. After
that, I didn't do all of the moves I could have. I mean,
I touched a part of her by mistake, and I was really embarrassed. I said:
'Oh my. I
should forfeit.'
"But I wasn't thinking right. I didn't know what to do.
I was in dream time."
So he got pinned.
The place went crazy, of course. It happened Dec. 30 in
a meet at Madison High School. Cain was a sophomore from Madison, and
America was a sophomore from Clairemont. Cain hadn't
expected to wrestle that day, but the regular 107-pounder from his school
didn't
show up. The coach said: "You're wrestling today."
Cain said: "I am?"
He introduced himself to America. He said he'd be
wrestling her. She said: "Oh really?" She smiled. He smiled.
"I made an instant friend," Cain said later.
She took control in the first period. With only seconds
remaining, she scored near-fall points with a reverse cradle. Matches on
adjacent
mats stopped as contestants ran over to see if girl
could really beat boy. Spectators ran out of their seats to get a closer
view, too. The
period ended. The place erupted.
Then, 21 seconds into the second period, she ended it,
pinning Cain with a half-nelson.
Immediately, she was surrounded by a crowd that lifted
her up. Russell Cain, ignored by the crowd, fought through the people to
find her.
He congratulated her.
She hugged him.
She later found Cain's assistant coach and said: "You
don't recognize me with my make up on, do you?"
He laughed.
Then she asked: "You guys won't be too hard on Russell,
will you? You won't pick on him, will you?"
Too late. Russell Cain had a new nickname.
"Miss Cain."
It's a week later, Christmas vacation is over and we're
at Clairemont High.
America has been on every local television newscast, not
to mention the front page of a San Diego newspaper.
She enters the wrestling room, where a teammate sees
her.
"Hey, America," he says. "Some girl I know says she saw
you at a restaurant. She said she doesn't like you at all, that girls
shouldn't be
wrestling. That's not feminine, she says. And she says
you're ugly. What do ya think of that!"
"Ugly, huh?"
She tackles her teammate.
Later, during conditioning drills, her boyfriend walks
in. She blows him a kiss.
Now, we take you to the halls of Madison High. They're
talking to Russell Cain.
"Are you the guy that got slammed by the girl? Ah man,
you're weak?"
"Man, you're a wimp."
"Man, you're a loser."
"Will you be my girlfriend?"
"Gee, Russ, there're some tough girls in this world,
aren't there."
Russell Cain has had a talk with the school principal,
who is worried about the youngster's psyche. Cain has assured the principal
that he is
fine, and later says:
"It (the abuse) makes me want to get up and say: 'At
least I tried.' Some guys wouldn't even try.
"And if you think it's all cookies and cake to wrestle a
girl, you oughta try it. My friend told me before the match: 'If you lose to
this girl, I
wouldn't come back to practice for a whole week.'
"I said to him: 'You're a male chauvinist pig.' I mean,
I just see this as a minor setback.
"I used to weigh 95 pounds, but now I'm up to 103. I was
really short before, really skinny. Now, I'm getting fatter and fatter. I
want to be
at least be 5-10.
"I'll keep on wrestling, too. And if I get strong
enough, I'll go out for football. That's my favorite game. I'd be a
receiver, or maybe a
running back. Like I said, it's just a minor setback."
And at the home of Russell Cain, his mom says: "He came
home the night of the pin and said, 'You guys should have been there!' He's
got
a great attitude. I'm real proud of it."
His dad says: "A guy from work brought in the newspaper
and said, 'Hey, was that your son who got pinned by a girl?' I said yes. We
all
laughed about it."
They all laughed at Kerry Hanley, too, for she's the one
who started this craziness. A sophomore at Mira Mesa High School in San
Diego,
she challenged the city's policy that said females were
not allowed to play contact sports (football and wrestling) with males.
She won.
She's just a little girl, too, a 15-year-old who thinks
she's shrinking. "I think I'm 4-10, but I really might be shrinking. I'm
dead
serious. In my last few physicals, I've lost one-half
inch and then another inch. I'm not going to worry about it, though. The
more I worry,
the more it'll happen."
So why wrestle?
She's originally from Ohio, where wrestling is a revenue
sport in high school. There, she'd been a cheerleader -- ("We called them
wrestlettes," she said) -- but, secretly, she wanted to
participate. She and a close friend decided to try out, but Hanley moved to
San
Diego before she could.
So she did it out here. She made her appeal to the
school board, which voted, 3-1, with one abstention, to let girls play
football and
wrestle. The three members who voted to let her wrestle
were women.
Anyway, when the news went public, America and one of
her friends, Kary Clement, joined Clairemont's team. A girl at University
City
High, Shannon Pippin, joined her team, too.
America has done the best so far. She was raised with
three brothers, who constantly beat her up. She says they used to drag her
down
the stairs. She says they used to spin her around and
around and drop her on her face.
"It's amazing she has any brain cells left," said her
boyfriend, Derek Magdalik.
America said: "I was always under my brothers' control.
Now, it pays off. I can endure pain. I'm used to it. Pain doesn't bother me
except
for one move. It's called the guillotine. Basically,
they tear your legs apart. That's the one thing that hurts me.
"But my brothers were rough. Miguel, he used to tell me
to clean the kitchen, and I'd say, 'I'll do it tomorrow.' He'd give me a
dirty look
and sock me across the room. It's not child abuse. Some
people will read that and say: 'Oh my God!' Well, they're my brothers."
Pippin is the only other girl to have won a varsity
match, but she doesn't have such a clear-cut excuse for being tough. She
used to be a
Girl Scout. She once won an award for starting a program
that showed young kids what it was like to be handicapped. She'd tie a
blindfold around their eyes, and say: 'It isn't so easy,
is it?' "
She wrestled because it was a challenge, according to
her mother, Sunny.
Shannon herself had little to say.
"I don't want anything in the papers about me," she
said. "A guy pinned me, and nothing happened. If I beat a guy, why should I
get
publicity? What's the difference? It's not fair."
The other day, she defeated a boy on points. She asked
that his name not make the papers.
"He'll be ridiculed by his friends," she said.
Shannon's coach, Ed Yandall, said: "You know, these boys
have nothing to gain. If they win, it's expected. If they lose, they're
wimps."
His advice to boy wrestlers? "Just win, baby."
And don't look now, but football season is just around
the corner.
"I don't think I'll play football," America said. "That
is, unless I gain 100 pounds, drink beer and lift some weights. Who knows?"
'I was always under my brothers' control. Now, it pays
off. I can endure pain. I'm used to it. Pain doesn't bother me except for
one move.
It's called the guillotine. Basically, they tear your
legs apart. That's the one thing that hurts me.' -- AMERICA MORRIS
----------------------------------
Headed for fall?; Interest wanes in girls trying out for boys' wrestling team
The San Diego Union-Tribune
December 21, 1985, Saturday
The media attention involving a girl here and another
in Mira Mesa who are trying out for the boys' high school wrestling teams is
waning.
And, some of realities are coming to light.
Among them:
o Neither of the girls -- Fallbrook High junior
Elizabeth "Bet" Singleton, competing at 126 pounds, or Mira Mesa sophomore
Kerry
Hanley, weighing in at 93 pounds -- is burning up the
wrestling world.
o Most of North County's school districts -- San
Dieguito Union High being the exception -- do not have formal policies that
permit high
school girls to compete with boys on wrestling teams.
o The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), which
governs high school athletics, has a stated policy that directs districts to
permit
girls to try out for the boys' team when there is no
separate program for girls. But most North County school officials don't
like the policy
or the idea of girls wrestling with boys.
o And, finally, although the two girls may have broken
new ground in area high school athletics, most school officials said they
don't think
girls will rush to try out for a wrestling team. They
also predict the same future for girls and football.
First, an update on the two girl grapplers: Hanley's
chances of actually competing.
"She is still on the team, but there are five wrestlers
competing at the 98-pound weight class, and she is number five," said
Principal James
Vlassis. "She hasn't been able to beat anyone (of the
boys) yet."
Vlassis said no one is ever cut from the wrestling team,
which is typical, but that the wrestlers constantly are competing to
represent the
team in upcoming matches. He noted that Hanley is only a
sophomore; but even at that, because of her weight and physical makeup, he
said he thinks she will not become a competitive member
of the team.
"She is a nice girl, and a bright girl, but I don't
think she has the physical strength or ability, nor do most girls, to
compete with boys," said
Vlassis, a former high school wrestling coach.
The publicity over Hanley became quite widespread,
Vlassis said. He even got a call from a principal of a high school in Fort
Lauderdale,
Fla., who wanted Hanley to wrestle a 125-pound girl on
his school's team. "The weight difference aside, I told him that was
ridiculous,"
Vlassis said.
The last time Hanley was seen on local television, she
was sitting in the bleachers watching her male teammates.
The cameras and reporters are still relatively new for
16-year-old Singleton of Fallbrook. She was deluged last week by the media
after
the school board gave her permission to compete with the
boys.
The media exposure got so overwhelming that this week
Singleton and her coach, Dave Albritton, turned down requests for
interviews.
"It really disrupted our practice with photographers and
reporters in her face," he said. "Some of the guys on the team were getting
to
resent it."
Albritton said Singleton "practices real hard. But she
is weak in certain areas, such as takedowns and riding (her opponent). She
is doing a
lot of what any first-year kid would."
"She is about fifth (in her weight class) of about six
or seven," Albritton added.
Superintendent Bob Thomas, during a separate interview,
said: "I just talked to her coach (Albritton), and she doesn't have enough
skills or
strength. There is some resentment among the boys
because she is getting all the ink. They usually can't even get their meets
covered."
wrestling team, or the football team either, but just
granted Singleton's individual request.
"And, unless something weird happens, I don't expect we
will get a lot of girls wanting to go out for the wrestling or football
team," Thomas
said.
"One of the concerns I have is that I don't think they
belong on these teams; girls are physically different.
"I don't see the reverse trend happening, that is, a lot
of boys wanting to go out for girls' field hockey. But, if we push in that
direction, I
can see there will be only teams made up of boys.
"I'm a believer in a strong athletic program for girls
and for equal opportunity, but I don't think males should compete with
females because
the boys are just physically stronger," Thomas added.
Actually, in what more than one North County school
official described as "reverse discrimination," under CIF regulations girls
are
permitted to try out for sports in which there are no
girls' teams, such as wrestling and football. However, boys cannot try out
for teams
that are traditionally offered for girls only, such as
field hockey and volleyball.
This CIF policy, plus the threat of lawsuits, is what
led the San Diego school board to permit Hanley to wrestle with boys and the
Grossmont Union School District to allow a girl to go
out for the boys' football team.
The San Dieguito Union High School District is the only
high school or unified district in North County to adopt a stated policy of
permitting girls to try out for boys' wrestling and
football teams. But that might have come about as much by accident as
enlightenment.
"The board was dealing with the issues of boys'
volleyball and ninth-grade soccer -- adopting the former and making the
latter open to
both boys and girls -- when we decided because of recent
cases (San Diego and Grossmont), we might as well consider making that
(wrestling and football) part of our policy, too,"
Superintendent Bill Berrier said. That action was taken about two weeks ago.
Berrier said the district had not yet received any
requests from girls to compete on the wrestling or football teams, but at
least now the
board is prepared with a policy on the issue. School,
said they have not received any requests yet, nor do they have any stated
policies on
the subject.
Here is a smattering of comments from North County
school officials on the matter:
San Marcos Superintendent Bill Streshly, a former
wrestler and wrestlingcoach himself: "I don't see anything wrong with it,
but I also don't
think that girls can really compete with boys in
wrestling or football."
Streshly cited his own daughter, Mary, an outstanding
basketball and track and field athlete (shot put). "She is a strong girl,
but there is no
way she can physically compete with boys. She doesn't
have that equal strength.
"Also, for all those who might be concerned about girls
wrestling with boys, believe me, there is nothing sexy about wrestling,"
Streshly
said.
"You sweat a lot and there's nothing sexy about being
grabbed in the crotch."
In the Escondido Union High School District,
Superintendent John Cooper said, "We really don't have a policy on girls
going out for the
wrestling team. It hasn't even been a topic of
discussion here among the school board members."
But Escondido High Principal Don Hegerle said, "I had a
girl come in and ask questions about going out for the wrestling team. But I
told
her the team had already been working out for some time
and it was probably too late for this year.
"Personally, I would really question a girl being on a
wrestling team," Hegerle said. "I think there are other sports for girls who
want to
compete." look at it.
"My personal preference is we have reasons for keeping
the sexes separate in sports," Reeves added. "That's why now we have boys'
volleyball, and that's how girls' soccer started."
Reeves said, however, that he didn't see much chance of
Poway high schools starting girls' wrestling teams.
Ramona High School Assistant Principal Ron Carter said
he wasn't aware of any girls at the school ever having wanted to try out for
the
wrestling or football team, but added:
"I used to be the junior high school basketball coach
and I carried a few girls on that team who were better than some of the
boys."
Carlsbad Unified Superintendent Thomas Brierley said,
"We don't have a policy and I guess we won't have to address it until
someone (a
girl) comes to us about it."
Oceanside Unified School District spokesman Dan
Armstrong said, "We know what the (CIF) requirements are, but we are not in
favor of
it (girls trying out for wrestling and football teams).
But, we would do what we're required to do."
A Vista Unified School District spokeswoman said that
district, too, would follow CIF guidelines.
And, noted CIF Assistant Commissioner Jan Jessop, "I
think a lot of them (school officials) are concerned that they will be
getting lots of
little, 80-pound ladies -- or even 200-pound ones for
that matter -- going out for their wrestling and football teams."
"But, we really don't expect that to happen," Jessop
said.
Added Mira Mesa's Vlassis, "It's already dying down, and
in another year or two, I don't think you will hear any more about it."
August 8, 1996
------------------------------
Kerry, 15, pins her hopes on the future
The San Diego Union-Tribune
November 19, 1985, Tuesday
It used to be that when a high school girl got pinned, it meant she was
going steady.
Kerry Hanley, 15, began to change that yesterday when she started training
as a 93-pound Mira Mesa High School Marauder, as members of the wrestling
team are known.
Officials say she is the first young woman to participate in a contact sport
with male competitors in the 131-year history of the San Diego Unified
School District.
Kerry, looking cool and wearing purple gym socks, didn't actually get to do
any marauding yesterday, because the first day of wrestling practice is
devoted to exercises and drills. honor of representing the school on the
junior varsity or varsity team.
"I'm just going to handle it as it comes," she said. "There's not much you
can do about it."
The longstanding ban on females playing football and wresting with the boys
was struck down this month, at Kerry's request, by a 3-1-1 vote.
Three female school board members voted in favor of letting women
participate with men in contact sports, while one male board member voted
against it and another male abstained.
Yesterday, Kerry would have been just as happy if the milestone had not been
recorded for posterity by three camera crews and five reporters.
"It is a little embarrassing," she told reporters after running around a
track and climbing some bleachers to the occasional cheers of coeds.
Almost all of the roughly 50 boys also going out for wrestling towered above
her.
"I did it because I wanted to, not because I'm a woman's libber or anything
like that," she said. "It's just a great sport."
Kerry and her parents moved to San Diego this year from the Cincinnati area,
where she was a cheerleader for her school's wrestling team.
Mira Mesa head wrestling coach Jon Talbott said he no longer has
reservations about her playing.
"If she can make our varsity or junior varsity team, I think she deserves to
be there," Talbott said.
Students are never cut from the wrestling team, but they can't compete
against other schools unless they win that right from teammates in the same
weight class, Talbott said.
"She's been working real hard. She can do the warmup exercises as well as
anybody else here."
There are concerns. For one, breast grabbing is not an illegal hold. No one
expects a male opponent to intentionally hurt Kerry, but in the confusion of
a tense match some people are worried it could happen.
"As it stands now, it is not illegal. You takes your chances," Talbott said.
Kerry did not shrink from contact yesterday during what are called spin
drills -- when she had to rest her weight on her chest on the back of Jeremy
Banfield, a probable competitor, and spin around to assume different
positions.
Kerry found herself alone at one point during the workout when the next
calisthenic exercise was to find someone her own size to lift. said later.
So she walked through the crowd of straining boys, found one her size at the
opposite corner of the room, and lifted him over her shoulder. Above her a
large motto on the wall said: "No guts, no glory."
Talbott said wrestlers from other schools talked to him about Kerry at a
wrestling clinic he attended Saturday.
"A lot of them were looking forward to wrestling her. Not necessarily
because she is a girl, but to get some publicity for their school or because
they think that might be an easy match."
What happens if wrestlers from other schools decline to tangle with her?
Kerry had the answer for that one: "That just gets six points for my team"
