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Dallas Observer
February 20, 1997,
On the final night of Courtney Barnett's high school wrestling season, she
is waiting, as usual. Waiting to see if any of the boys on the opposing team
will agree to
face her. Waiting to learn which weight class she might compete in. Waiting
to see if a referee will deign to officiate a match involving a girl.
Waiting, when it comes right down to it, to find out if she'll be allowed to
wrestle at all this night.
Tony Warren, Barnett's coach at Arlington Martin High, is standing
face-to-face with a referee on the gymnasium floor at Arlington Bowie High
School, site of the
Junior Varsity Region VI Wrestling Championships of the Texas
Interscholastic Wrestling Association.
Warren is holding a discussion like so many others he has found himself
caught up in this year. For him, this haggling with referees and other
coaches over whether
Barnett will be allowed to wrestle is like a never-ending film loop--the
same arguments over and over, with no end in sight.
Watching from the stands, Barnett's parents, Rai and Mike Barnett, know
exactly what is going on. They can practically read Warren's lips: Yes, the
coach is saying,
Barnett is on the Martin team. Her regular weight division is 112 pounds.
She's a girl on a boys' team, and she has the right to wrestle. Let's get
her an opponent.
"We go through this every time Courtney wrestles," says Rai Barnett, behind
a knowing smile. "They make the rules up as they go along. We just wait to
see what
happens."
Finally, after nearly five minutes of debate, Warren returns to his seat and
confers with Barnett. She dashes across the gym to tell her parents the
news: "OK. I'm
going to wrestle 112 but I have to go against a guy who's only been
wrestling five days."
Mike Barnett, a plug of a man in rumpled gray sweats, leans forward from his
bleacher seat and offers his 17-year-old daughter a piece of advice. He has
assumed
the role of unofficial coach during Courtney's five years of intense judo
competition--her first love and the sport that catapulted her into wrestling
last November.
"I'm thinking," says Mike Barnett, in a mock-gruff tone, "you get in there,
pin his ass, and save your energy."
Courtney, stretching her neck from side-to-side, jogging in place to get the
kinks out, nods eagerly. She lopes across the floor on long, coltish legs
and takes her
place on the Bowie Volunteers' Orange Crush-colored mat.
Joining her in the ring is not the novice 112-pounder from another Arlington
team Barnett expected. Rather, a member of her own Martin Warrior squad
steps
forward to wrestle her. He weighs 119 pounds. Later, Rai and Mike Barnett
will learn that the 112-pound boy from an opposing team declined to wrestle
their
daughter, which is within his rights under TIWA rules. Officials then
decided to match Barnett with an opponent from her own team who is seven
pounds heavier.
The match begins. After several seconds, Barnett's opponent appears to be on
the verge of pinning her. But in a flash, the match is over. Barnett is
sprawled on the
mat, writhing in agony, her left elbow splayed and twisted. The ref hovers
over her. Coach Warren runs to the mat. Mike Barnett hustles to his
daughter's side. Rai
Barnett gathers up her coat, paperback book, and Courtney's gym bag and
heads toward the floor.
All at once, the gym is chaos. "Is there anyone with medical experience in
the audience? Anyone!" an official pleads over the public address system. A
trainer darts in
from the locker room and applies an air splint to Barnett's left elbow. Her
dad, her coach, and two other men carry her off the mat and into the locker
room.
Rai Barnett returns for the rest of the gear, and grimly notes her
daughter's condition.
"She's dislocated her elbow. She's out for the rest of the season, I'm sure.
She dislocated her hip once in judo, and she was on crutches for two weeks."
It is not a good moment for Courtney Barnett, who has spent the entire
season fighting for the simple right to compete as an equal in high school
wrestling. All season
she had to prove herself--to her male teammates, to other girls, to team
parents, to the media. And now, in the single instant it took for her elbow
to give out, every
stereotype she had been battling came crashing down around her.
Everyone told her: Girls can't wrestle boys. They'll get hurt.
Or they said: Girls wrestling boys is unseemly. It's poor form. It's too
sexual.
Or, the argument that seems to grate on her most of all: If girls wrestle,
they'll embarrass the boys. They'll detract from the accomplishments the
boys have worked
so hard to attain.
Rai Barnett and Karen Herring, the mother of another girl wrestler in
Arlington, have done what they can to help their daughters beat the
stereotypes. The parents
complained. They wrote letters. They convinced the Arlington Independent
School District to back them up with a legal opinion advising the TIWA that
it must permit girls to wrestle.
But when this year's wrestling season ended last week, the battle to let
girls compete had fared little better than Courtney Barnett. The good ol'
boys who dominate
the sport and control the quasi-private organization which governs it
remained steadfast in their determination to keep girls off the mat. And,
for at least another year, they appeared to have won handily.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Joe Fish decided not to issue a preliminary
injunction which would have halted wrestling--and the state finals--until
girls are included in the sport.
Fish's ruling came in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Rai Barnett and Karen
Herring in late December. The American Civil Liberties Union sued TIWA, the
Texas Wrestling Officials Association, and the Highland Park, Irving, and
Richardson Independent School Districts. The school districts were included
in the suit because
they refused to allow their male wrestlers to compete against Courtney
Barnett. In contests with those schools, she sat on the bench.
Fish ruled that the ACLU had failed to prove the girls would suffer
"irreparable injury" by not being allowed to wrestle. The decision came one
day before the
TIWA's state wrestling tournament began in Amarillo, and allowed the
all-boys championships to go on as scheduled. A few girls wrestled at state,
but their matches were exhibition only.
Rai Barnett says she will continue to push the cause, perhaps by seeking a
permanent injunction against the wrestling organization. "We never went into this
determined for Courtney to wrestle boys. If there were enough girls for her
to wrestle, she'd be happy to wrestle girls," she says. "But until the TIWA
or the schools
are willing to put a girls' program together, Courtney wants to wrestle. And
boys' programs are all she has."
The drama will continue to play out, and it is abundantly clear that a mere
stroke of a federal judge's pen will not put an end to the fight.
Wrestling referees continue to vow that "hell will freeze over" before they
allow girls on the mat with boys. Entire teams have threatened to keep
walking out of meets
rather than facing the prospect of competing with--and possibly losing
to--girls. Even the parents of some of Courtney Barnett's own male teammates
seem eager to
keep the cauldron boiling.
Minutes after Barnett was hurt and escorted off the mat, and after Rai
Barnett had left the bleachers to gather up her daughter, the mother of
another Martin wrestler
turned around in her seat, commenting to anyone willing to listen. "Did you
see her elbow? It was completely twisted around," the mother said,
demonstrating by
twisting her own arm sideways. "It was gross! She shouldn't even be down
there. That's what's going to happen as long as these girls insist on
wrestling our boys."
"These" girls and "our" boys. The classic language of division has
characterized this battle since it began in Arlington more than a year ago.
Wrestling officials and parents in Texas seem to be having remarkable
difficulty coming to grips with an issue that has long since been settled
elsewhere. At least 20
other states have either created separate programs for girl wrestlers or
allow girls to participate on boys' teams. Most of those states--notably
California, Colorado,
and Oklahoma--routinely field girls on high school teams. Arlington Martin
Coach Tony Warren, who began wrestling in the fourth grade in his hometown
of Harrah, Oklahoma, says boys now come up through the Oklahoma public school system
knowing they're likely to face a female opponent.
"In most places, coed wrestling is like breathing," the 31-year-old Warren
says. "It just isn't a big deal."
Still, more than 22 years after federal law mandated that females have equal
access to sports programs in the public schools, Texas continues to stand
firm against female wrestling.
The opposition is largely spearheaded by the Texas Interscholastic Wrestling
Association, an organization that likes to consider itself private, even
though it is supported by membership dues from public schools.
Wrestling has historically amounted to little in a state dominated by high
school football. TIWA was set up 31 years ago in an effort to develop the
sport.
As recently as two years ago, wrestling was treated as a club sport at most
schools. But TIWA officials, who liken the sport's growing popularity to
soccer in its
early years, say interest in wrestling has more than doubled in the past
nine years, with some 3,000 high school kids now participating across the state.
TIWA effectively maintains a stranglehold on the sport, writing the rules
and governing the programs.
Other high school sports are governed by the state-sanctioned rules of the
University Interscholastic League which require that girls have equal access
to athletics.
But the TIWA, led from Dallas by former Penn State wrestler Jerry Giunta and
two assistants, plays by its own rules. (That will change in the 1998-'99
school year,
when the UIL has decided to officially adopt high school wrestling. It is
unclear what effect the takeover will have on the question of female participation.)
Until now, the wrestling association has been able to set its own agenda.
Near the top of its list: No girls allowed.
That wasn't a problem until late January 1996, when two Arlington girls
decided to grapple with the system. The Dallas suburb has become the
battleground over
female wrestling simply because several girls there stepped forward and
wanted to join their high school teams.
Last year, Melony Monahan, then a sophomore at Arlington Sam Houston High,
and Amy Bennett, of Arlington High, worked out all season with their respective
wrestling teams. At meets, they wrestled each other and three other girls
from Arlington and Grand Prairie schools. The matches were considered
exhibition duels and did not count for team points.
When it came time for the 1996 state tournament, however, the TIWA judicial
board decided it was time to quash this fledgling challenge to its all-male
stance. The
association decreed that theirs is an all-male organization, and that no
girls would wrestle. After pressure from Arlington Martin's Warren and a
handful of other
coaches, however, the TIWA reversed itself the next day, and girls were
permitted to wrestle each other in exhibition matches.
Still, with only five girls interested, the competition was always slim. The
same girls wrestled each other again and again. In Monahan's case, according
to her
mother's affidavit in the recent ACLU lawsuit, this meant that her daughter
was frequently mismatched in weight and strength against other girls,
increasing the likelihood of injury.
The girls finished out the 1995-'96 season in a holding pattern, but were
determined to press on during the 1996-'97 school year, says Warren, a
regional representative to the TIWA. In November 1996, Courtney Barnett, a junior and
a nationally ranked judo competitor with no wrestling experience, walked
into the Martin boys' practice and asked Warren to sign her up.
"She filled out the proper forms. She passed the physical. She had the
grades," Warren says. "She did everything the boys have to do, and there was
no reason to keep Courtney out. I tried to convince the TIWA from the day this started
that their stance was very likely illegal. I've told them again and again:
'Gentlemen, you are just asking to get sued.'
"Their response has been 'too bad, we're not going to let these girls
overshadow the guys,'" Warren says. "But they wouldn't put in a women's
division, either. It put the girls in an impossible spot. The TIWA had every chance to prevent this
lawsuit. Unfortunately, they chose the black-eye route."
Arlington attorney Michael Williams represents the TIWA and the Texas
Wrestling Officials Association, which provides referees for high school matches.
Williams says his clients have strong personal beliefs about the
"appropriateness of boys wrestling girls." Those beliefs continue to drive
their fight to keep girls off the
mat, although Williams quickly admits that such morality-fueled arguments
have failed to hold up in similar cases across the country.
"A number of things bother my clients about girls wrestling boys," Williams
says. "There is the safety issue. The referees are concerned about sexual
harassment issues. That if they touch a girl during the course of their officiating it
could be construed as inappropriate."
None of those concerns, however, were included in the answer Williams filed
to the ACLU's lawsuit. He instead contested the ACLU's argument that
TIWA--because it accepts membership dues from public schools, relies on
wrestling coaches who draw taxpayer-funded salaries, and holds its meets in
public school gyms--is a "state actor" and should be required, under the 14th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Equal Rights Amendment, to
include girls in the wrestling program.
"Whether the TIWA's position is discriminatory or not, we're arguing that
the law does not apply to this private organization," Williams says. "We're
arguing that the
TIWA is no different than the Texas Municipal Employees Organization, the
NEA (National Education Association), or any other membership organization.
And they can run their organization as they choose."
In his ruling, federal judge Fish effectively ducked the question, even
though it beats at the heart of the ACLU case.
Anthony Hume, the Dallas attorney who has been retained for the plaintiffs
by the ACLU, characterized himself as "bleeding" after Fish declined to
issue a restraining order to halt the state wrestling finals.
Fish, Hume contends, took "the path of least resistance" by addressing only
the issue of whether the girls would suffer harm by not being allowed to
wrestle. The ruling does not explore the TIWA's role as a "state actor."
"This really doesn't change anything," Hume says. "This still leaves open
some very disturbing issues. The mothers of these girls are mad as hell. And
their daughters still have another year left to wrestle."
Courtney Barnett's brother Joe was the first of the family's two kids to
take judo lessons. He is five years her senior, lean and lanky like his
sister. Courtney Barnett
remembers her brother practicing his throws on her, and the two of them
play-wrestling on the floor.
"I always wanted to do what he was doing. If he did something, I wanted to
do it better," Barnett says. By the time she was 12, Barnett was taking
judo, too. It
didn't take her long to make her mark on the sport. She now has a brown belt
and ranks number three nationally in her age group. For years, the Barnetts
have spent summer vacations and many weekends on the road, traveling to judo
competitions around the country.
Last November, they added wrestling to their schedule.
"I came to Coach Warren and asked him if I could wrestle with the team,"
Barnett says. "I told him I've played judo for a long time, and that
wrestling was kind of
similar to judo. It's just something I'd been thinking about trying."
One week before her season-ending injury, Barnett is sitting at a round
table in the Martin High School cafeteria, talking about her adventures in
wrestling. The
team's daily practice is set to start in 35 minutes, and her teammates have
begun to roll out the school's black-and-red wrestling mat. Barnett has not
yet suited
up--she is dressed in a simple white shirt with a crisp collar and brown
wool slacks. Her light brown hair is thick and grazes her shoulders. She
wears a hint of
peach-colored blush on her milky cheeks, and a wisp of mascara on her
lashes. It is nearing 4 p.m., and she is tearing into a vending machine bag
of Cool Ranch
Doritos like it's her only meal of the day. And it turns out it is.
Barnett is 5 feet 7 inches and 112 pounds. "I'm naturally pretty lanky," she
says. But for wrestling, she struggles to make weight just like the guys on
the team. This
week, though, weight control hasn't been a worry. She will not be attending
an upcoming invitational meet at Jesuit College Preparatory School in
Dallas. "The
private schools have made it real clear that they won't wrestle if I even
step on the mat," she says matter-of-factly. "So what's the point of even
going? I wouldn't hurt
my team like that."
She works out every day with her team. She attends every meet she can
without risking her team's participation. But Barnett has spent vastly more
time this year on
the bench than on the mat. That's because TIWA officials and competing
coaches have promised to walk out of the meets if she wrestled, or to force
her opponents
to forfeit if she touched the mat. The only time she has been allowed to
wrestle this year has been against other Arlington ISD teams.
To understand the tortuous lengths the TIWA and its supporters have gone to
to keep girls out, one need only read highlights from Rai Barnett's
affidavit filed as part
of the ACLU lawsuit:
When Highland Park High School wrestled Martin High this year, officials for
the TIWA and the Texas Wrestling Officials Association announced that any
Highland
Park wrestler who wrestled Barnett would forfeit his match.
Last November, at South Grand Prairie High, a girl on the team decided she
didn't want to wrestle. So Barnett faced her first coed match. Her male
opponent
refused to wrestle her, citing religious reasons.
At the North Texas Open meet at Irving MacArthur High School, Barnett was
permitted by the school--and officials for TIWA and TWOA--to wrestle, but
only
with girls. Again, she faced the same group of girls she had wrestled in the
past, some of whom she has pinned in less than a minute.
In a three-way meet between Martin, Plano East High, and St. Mark's School
of Texas, officials enforced the "touch-the-mat rule," barring her from
participating
individually or as a member of her team.
Later in the season, when Barnett arrived at Lake Highlands High School in
Dallas to compete with her team, the Lake Highlands coach, the athletic
director, and
the Richardson ISD superintendent prohibited Barnett from even weighing in
with her team.
But the churlishness was just beginning. On December 10, the referees who
make up TWOA finally gave up altogether on the coed question. They had
walked out
on previous matches. They had raised the "groping" issue dozens of times.
Finally, the refs agreed simply to disband, ostensibly to avoid being named
as a defendant
in the lawsuit the ACLU filed on behalf of Barnett and Herring. On January
28, the refs had a collective change of heart, and re-formed their
organization. This was
done, said TWOA President John Rizzuti, "to preserve the integrity of the
state wrestling meets."
And as if things weren't confusing enough, on December 23, two Arlington
parents describing themselves as "concerned citizens" seeking to promote
female high
school wrestling in Texas announced that they had formed the Texas
Interscholastic Girls Wrestling Association (TIGWA). Tom Harrison, a
longtime Arlington
wrestling booster, appointed himself executive director. He said he would
model the girls' association after the TIWA. "It will save us time and money
to use their
methods and concepts to get up and running quickly. We want to have girls
competing as soon as we can."
What Harrison did not mention in his press release is that his son, Matt, a
high school senior, wrestles on the Arlington Martin team. Matt Harrison is
one of the
team's brightest stars. In Amarillo on February 15, he easily won the state
title in his 112-pound division. During the regular season, he wrestled in
the same weight class as Barnett.
Barnett is no competition for Matt Harrison, who has been wrestling under
his dad's tutelage (Tom Harrison was a collegiate wrestler, and is state
director of USA
Wrestling, the training organization for Olympic wrestlers) since the age of
five. So why is her participation on the boys' team a problem? It's the
principle of the thing that raises Tom Harrison's hackles.
"Girls should be offered every opportunity, and participate with their own
gender and to their own physical abilities," he says. "They are different
than boys. You can say you don't notice the differences, but out on the mat, believe me, it's
very hard not to."
Still, in his zeal to set up a separate wrestling program for girls,
Harrison somehow neglected to ask Barnett or Melony Monahan if they would
join a new girls' organization.
"Wouldn't you think he would have asked us for our opinions? I mean, it's
kind of about us. I've never even heard from him or anyone in that group,"
Barnett says.
Teenage girls can be very scary creatures. The way they move, the way they
talk, the way they act--all that budding sexuality can be positively
frightening. You might
expect that reaction from the boys Courtney Barnett wrestles. But they don't
seem to have a problem.
Kevin Paige, a 17-year-old Martin senior, wrestles at 152 pounds. When he
discusses this whole controversy, he rolls his eyes and is quick to point
out: "Courtney
works hard. She's on our team. I don't think of her any differently than
anyone else."
His teammate, Bo Hopkins, also a senior, had a stellar season as a 180-pound
wrestler. "The biggest problem most guys have is being afraid of losing to
her. Losing
to a girl, you know. They don't want to. But nobody wants to lose. If it's a
fair match, you know, it shouldn't matter."
David George, a 16-year-old Martin sophomore and 119-pounder, often matches
up with Barnett in practice because she can move up seven pounds without being
too mismatched. They get along fine. George has trouble with all this debate
about her ability, the groping issue, everybody's opinions. "They're not out
there trying to
wrestle. If they're not out there, who cares what they think? When you're
out there, the only thing you're thinking about is winning. As long as
Courtney's on my team, I'm going to support her."
No, it's the adults who are running scared. The whole idea of change, of
opening up the club doors to girls, makes them shudder. The fear comes
through clearly in
the minutes of TIWA meetings and in the organization's newsletter, Mat Talk.
In a fax the TIWA sent out last year to its judicial committee members
soliciting opinions on whether girls should wrestle exhibition matches at
state, there was no mistaking their position.
"We probably should allow girls exhibitions , but I hate to see it happen,
especially with us trying to get accepted into the UIL," wrote Jim Brock, an
Amarillo committee member. "They will not want any more problem sports, and that's
what they would see wrestling female as being."
If the girls did wrestle, Brock wrote, he preferred they did so "between
midnight and 2 a.m., in case they have live TV...I am sorry," he added, "but
I am strongly opposed to female wrestling. It seems to categorize us with 'W.W.F.
RASSLIN.'"
And from judicial committee member Bill Dushane, the wrestling coach at St.
Thomas High School in Houston: "These girls have no right to be allowed to
wrestle in
the finals when the boys have infinately sic more hoops to go through to
attain this honor. I feel this would greatly take away from the boy's sic
accomplishments of
attaining the finals. I would be willing to concede at the most an
exhibition match before any of the boys matches take place. This is already
going beyond the
guidelines set forth at our meetings. Please do not detract from what our
boys have accomplished!!"
Beyond the argument that boys should not have to share the spotlight, the
coaches' and officials' fears of inappropriate groping and touching between
males and
females have been instructive. John Rizzuti, the president of the Texas
Wrestling Officials Association, has blustered and ranted on that topic for
months. A stocky
ex-wrestler who runs his own public relations business, Rizzuti has framed
the argument against coed wrestling as a fight to protect the girls.
Rizzuti sees female wrestling as a Pandora's box of sexual temptation--girls
getting groped on the mat by male opponents, or referees getting sued for
sexual
harassment if they touch a girl wrestler in the wrong way.
"All of the officials have daughters, and we know what it is like out there
on the mat," Rizzuti says. "There could just be some inappropriate holds and
other things going on. That just can't happen."
That teenage boys think about sex from time to time is undeniable. But when
engaged in pitched battle on the mat--before bleachers full of parents and
fans--boys
and girls aren't really thinking about sex, wrestlers say. That might
explain why no complaints reflecting Rizzuti's concerns have surfaced in the
20-plus states that already allow female wrestling.
Spend an afternoon watching the Martin High Warriors practice, and the idea
of groping and grabbing seems more at place in the back seat of a limo on
prom night.
The kids work hard--for two hours straight--jumping to Coach Tony Warren's
commands. Thirty minutes of warming up, with push-ups, squats, jumping rope,
and
rolls. They pair off in teams and scrimmage, with Warren tracking the time
it takes for them to take each other down. They take elbows in the eyes,
knees in the rib
cage, hits to the nose. They dislocate fingers and elbows.
Brutal at times, and not exactly sensuous or erotic.
Two days before the February 8 regional meet at Arlington High School,
Warren summed up his team this way: "They're ready, but we've got quite a
few who are banged up."
Groping? Sex? If you're wrestling for keeps, who has the time or the energy?
"Nobody has ever tried anything. Or if they have, I sure haven't been aware
of it," Barnett says. "The way I see it, if you're thinking about sex,
you're not really wrestling. That's not what this is about at all."
When Rai and Mike Barnett attend their daughter's matches, they usually sit
alone. Sometimes the other team parents acknowledge them with a smile, but
not often.
Rai always takes a paperback along. She sits tall in the bleachers, usually
about halfway back, reading in lieu of talking to other parents. "I know a
lot of people are
upset about what we're doing," she says. "They prefer not to talk to us."
Mike, a manager with SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceutical Company in Arlington,
usually sits with Rai or stands at the top of the bleachers cheering
Courtney on.
They videotape everything. They have detailed every match their daughter has
been allowed to wrestle--which has been only a handful. At a December 21
invitational in Coach Warren's hometown of Harrah, Oklahoma, "the crowd
cheered her on and treated her very well," Rai Barnett says. "She wrestled
right along with the boys. It made her feel good."
The fight in Texas continues, Rai Barnett says, because Courtney will not
give up. "She's a normal teenager who just happens to be competitive. She
does all the
normal things. She goes on dates. She took piano and ballroom dancing when
she was younger. But she was never one to accept why her brother could do
things that she couldn't. She doesn't take no for an answer."
Nor does she take kindly to criticism of her motives. In the caste system
governing who's who at her sprawling suburban high school, Barnett has been
called an
attention grabber, a dyke, and a bitch. She has been interviewed so many
times now--with appearances on Nightline and 48 Hours, and in stories for
The New
York Times and The Guardian of London--she practically answers reporters'
questions before they're formed.
"The guy from London, his first question was whether I was a lesbian. So
now, before anyone can even get to that question, I go, 'I like guys. I
really do. I go on dates.'
"Geez," she says. "It can get so weird."
The glare of the spotlight, the pressure of being the test case, is
something she can seldom ignore. "I can never let up. I worry that as soon
as I do, if I slag a little in
practice or complain, everyone will say, 'See, we told you. She can't cut
it. She has no business out there.'"
Her fear of crumbling under others' scrutiny carries over even to her
appearance. At practice, while many of the boys wear T-shirts, skimpy
jerseys, and shorts,
Barnett always shows up in heavy layers--sweatpants, T-sh
