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More girls muscling in on boys wrestling

By Beth Quimby Sunday, January 25, 1998
Eagle-Tribune Writer

Two high school wrestlers writhe on the mat, their faces red and contorted, their chests heaving, sweat spraying.

Parents shout from the stands. Suddenly the period is up. The players rise and remove their head guards. A long blond braid slithers out of one.

It belongs to Laura Hidash, 16, a sophomore at Whittier Regional Vocational High in Haverhill. Petite, blue-eyed and a football cheerleader in the fall, Laura is one of a growing number of girls who are venturing onto the wrestling mats at area high schools.

Their numbers are growing. In 1995 there were only 800 high school girls wrestling nationwide. By last year that number had doubled. Today there are about 70 girls wrestling in Massachusetts and 42 in New Hampshire.

There are at least four girls wrestling on Merrimack Valley teams, including Kate LeBlanc, a member of Timberlane's championship team.

Brookline High has added an all girls wrestling team, the only one in New England. Several colleges have started women's teams and there is a women's team on the international level.

But most girls entering the sport do not have such opportunities. They are forced to play with the boys.

Eyebrows raised

Girls cannot be excluded from all-boy teams unless there is an equivalent team for girls. While many schools have a separate teams in basketball, track and other popular sports, there are usually not enough participants to create two separate teams in less popular sports.

The growing presence of girls on boy's wrestling teams is raising eyebrows and some troubling issues - not just for high school athletic directors, but also for the girls, their teammates and opponents. A number of boys, confronted with a female opponent, will foreit the match rather than wrestle.

Wrestling is the ultimate contact sport. It is the only sport in which the opponents have their hands all over each other's bodies all the time.

Kate LeBlanc, 15, a sophomore, is in her second year on the wrestling team at Timberlane Regional High in Plaistow, N.H.

To make the Timberlane Regional High wrestling team, she had to be good. The team has been state champion five years in a row and is nationally ranked.

Last year she had about a dozen matches.

But she has come close to quitting several times.

"I love the sport. I love being part of the team. But it is hard ," she said.

Grueling workouts

The daughter of Patricia Spencer-Leblanc of Atkinson, N.H., Kate fell in love with wrestling after her first match in seventh grade. She joined a team and did well.

Back then she was bigger and stronger than most of the boys. That has changed. Now the boys are larger, their muscles are bigger and they are much harder to take on.

But it is not that, or the grueling workouts, or the injuries that have have disheartened her. It's the large numbers of opponents who would rather forfeit than wrestle a girl.

"I get upset and stuff," said Kate, who plays field hockey in the fall and softball in the spring.

Laura, daughter of Gladys and Victor Hidish of Methuen, started wrestling last year on the team at Central Catholic High, Lawrence.

"I wanted to wrestle since I as 12," said Laura, who transfered to Whittier this year to study cosmetology.

Laura has to work hard to keep herself in shape. She gets hurt. Two weeks ago she wound up with a black eye and once she gave an opponent a bloody nose.

Both girls said they know wrestling the opposite sex can be embarrassing for the boys and sometimes boys take it easy on them.

"I can tell if they are using their full force and I tell them, please, don't," Laura said.

Kate managed to beat a junior varsity boy at a match last year. It was a great moment.

"I had every single team cheering for me. I was so happy I was crying," said Kate.

Mom cheers

Kate's mother was not wildly enthusiastic about her daughter's choice of sports. But in the spirit of being supportive, she cheers her on.

"I do not like to watch. I am with her only because this is what she wants," she said.

She said at first she was worried about the close physical contact between her daughter and all those teen-aged boys. But after watching Kate wrestle she realized that on the mat, sex is far from anyone's mind.

Unlike most girls, who would rather die than divulge how much they weigh, Laura's weight is common subject of discussion among her team members. Weight is a crucial factor in wrestling.

Right now she weighs 124 pounds but if she wants to wrestle varsity she has to get down to 119, another difference that stands between her and her teammates.

Just cutting out cookies is not going to make the difference. In fact, when she went on a crash diet to lose enough weight to wrestle in her category, she got sick.

There are other differences. One referee told Laura a sports bra under her singlet would not do. So now she wears a T-shirt underneath.

Laura has to clip her carefully manicured nails and Kate goes through a ritual to remove her earrings, rings and necklaces before every match.

It can also be lonely.

They do not take part in the rituals of the weigh-in, when their teammates strip down before stepping on the scales.

Laura and Kate wind up alone in a girls locker room, where they are weighed in wearing their clothes by the wrestling officials.

Kate said she would prefer wrestling other girls, but there are not enough in the sport, nevermind in her weight class. The one time she did wrestle a girl, she won easily.

Concerned officials

Many high school athletic officials say they personally disapprove of girls wrestling boys.

"Girls and boys grabbing each other that way is embarrassing. Personally, I do not condone it but legally there is nothing you can do about it," said Carmen Iannuccilli, Lawrence High athletic director.

Robert P. Fitzgerald, wrestling coach at Methuen High, where a girl tried out for the team but dropped out after a couple of weeks this year, makes no bones about his opinion.

"I am glad I have never had to wrestle a girl," said Mr. Fitzgerald.

Despite the growing presence of girls on the competitive level and the presence of a girl on his team earlier in the year, he said the subject is never discussed.

"It just has not come up. If one of my kids wrestles a girl, I am not a social worker," said Mr. Fitzgerald.

Others see nothing wrong with mixed-gender wrestling.

Douglas J. Wood Jr., athletic director at Amesbury High, said while he is against girls on football teams for safety reasons, he has no problems with the close body contact between girls and boys wrestling.

"Kids in high school are all buddies anyway. They accept each other more than before. It is almost a unisex thing," said Mr. Wood.

Coaches with girls on their teams were positive about their contributions.

Richard Durkin, coach of Whittier's wrestling team, said Laura is a valuable member of the team.

"She is a very good wrestler. She comes to practice all the time and does just what the guys do," said Mr. Durkin.

Timberlane coach Barry W. Choolgian said Kate works as hard as any boy wrestler and he makes a point of treating her like any other player.

"We try to get her in as many matches as possible," said Mr. Choolgian.

But, he said, although her teammates accept her many of her competitors do not. A lot of boys refuse to wrestle her.

Mr. Choolgian said he believes boys are not reluctant to wrestle Kate on moral grounds but for fear of being beaten by a girl.

"What gets in the way is that it is a no-win situation. If you win, of course you should have won and if you loose, you get beaten by a girl," he said.

Kate Leblanc, 15, of Atkinson, N.H., strains to keep from being pinned by Salem, N.H., freshman Keith Alsup in her first match of the season for the Timberlane Regional High team. She lost, but avoided the pin.

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Boys respect their girl teammates

Sunday, January 25, 1998

While some boy wrestlers refuse to wrestle girls, others have no problem trying to pin a girl to the mat.

Teammates of Laura Hidish, 16, a Whittier Regional Vocational Technical School wrestler, and Kate LeBlanc, 15, a Timberlane Regional High wrestler, say the girls pull their weight on their teams.

"She is just as good as anyone on the team," said Jeremy Theurlow of North Andover, a sophomore at Whittier Regional Vocational High of his teammate, Laura Hidish, 15, of Methuen.

Laura's teammates clearly relish having as a teammate such a popular girl - she is well-known and well-liked at Whittier .

They also say they forget all about grabbing embarrassing body parts when they are on the mat.

"When she starts hurting you, she is just another player," said Patrick Buckley, 17, of West Newbury.

Keith Alsup, 15, a Salem, N.H., High freshman wrestler, had never wrestled a girl until last week, when he took on Kate, a sophomore on the junior varsity team.

He was more worried about hurting his opponent than being beaten by a girl and said he probably did not use his full strength during the match.

He also found himself repeating several phrases in his head:

"'Stay above the waist, stay above the waist' and 'I am too young for this'," he said.

Walking away from the experience, he said the only thing he regrets is not asking Kate for her telephone number. "She was cute," he said.

Keith's father, Butch, said both his sons have now wrestled girls and it is hard to watch.

"My main concern was I hope they do not lose," said Mr. Alsup.

Mr. Alsup has videotaped both bouts and finds them amusing.

"They definitely do not know where to put their hands," he said of his sons.