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by Craig Smith
The Seattle Times Company
Jan. 21, 1997
"Wing it, Emily, wing it!"
Roosevelt's Alexis Stuart and Rani Khan scream support for teammate Emily Fissel as she wrestles an Eastside Catholic boy. They yell for her to try a certain arm maneuver.
One minute later:
"Crossface, Emily, crossface!" (Translation: Use a particular move to prevent an escape.)
Forty seconds Later:
"Break him down, Emily!" (Translation: Get him flat on the mat.)
Finally:
"Yes!!!! (Translation: Emily has won 10-6).
She gets mobbed by happy teammates. It isn't that girl-beat-boy thing. What seems to matter is that Roughrider beat Crusader in the 115-pound weight division.
Roosevelt went on to win the match, which was no surprise because the Roughriders have been a force in Metro wrestling the past five years.
Coach Len Jacobson isn't exactly sure how much of a factor it has been, but the five-year span coincides with the time girls have been on the team.
"Since we've had girls, we've been wildly successful," the eight-year coach said. "We've been the top or second-best team in the city."
It isn't that Roughrider girls have won a lot of varsity matches. They have won some, but usually wrestle junior-varsity because boys tend to earn the varsity spots.
But the girls supply grit, add occasional points and create a team-oriented atmosphere.
This season, six girls are among the three dozen athletes out for the team. Roosevelt enters this week 10-0 in Metro AAA and AA matches.
"The girls add to the atmosphere," Jacobson said. "They probably facilitate a little more togetherness."
Heavyweight Thomas Schienbein added: "The girls make us work a little harder. No one wants to look bad in front of the girls."
The girls formed a sisterhood and support group within the team.
When Fissel needed to lose 3 1/2 pounds last Tuesday afternoon to make weight for the match against Eastside Catholic, Khan and Stuart ran to keep her company while she dropped the weight.
Fissel is Roosevelt's only varsity girl wrestler and was 4-3-1 after the Eastside Catholic victory. Two of the victories were in an all-girls tournament at Mariner High School in Mukilteo.
The Mariner tournament drew about 15 girls from schools around Puget Sound. The school plans to make it an annual event.
Girls are finding their way on more and more wrestling teams. Roosevelt and Evergreen High School in White Center appear to lead the state with six girls on their teams. Evergreen recently hired a woman assistant coach, Gloria Hartle.
Roosevelt's Fissel said she enjoys the team atmosphere.
"Everyone is real positive," she said. "It's fun to be around. . . . The guys are real nice and they cheer you on. They have a good attitude toward the sport and the girls."
Fissel, who also plays varsity volleyball and softball, turned out for wrestling last year because "I like the physical competition and the challenges it brings."
Her brother, Ben, wrestled for Ballard but she joked that he wasn't much help.
"He just beat me up," she said.
Ben was in the stands hollering encouragement last Tuesday when his sister won her match against Eastside Catholic.
Her father, Stephen, admits he and his wife were "a little worried starting out" about his daughter wrestling. One concern was injury risk, which came true last year when she suffered a season-ending shoulder injury.
This year she has stayed healthy and wrestled well. She outscored a Garfield boy 17-1 recently but the match technically was a forfeit because she was over the weight limit.
Fissel scores many of her points with leg moves. The girls admit boys have stronger upper bodies.
And while girl wrestlers aren't the novelty they once were, the bridge to total acceptance hasn't been crossed.
"Boys don't really want to wrestle girls," said Fissel's father. "If they win, they've `just' beat a girl. If they lose, they've lost to a girl. It's an onus on them either way."
Fissel said only one opponent has refused to wrestle her.
Khan said, "They ask the boys if they want to wrestle you and that bothers me. It's kind of a putdown. You've worked so hard and you might not get to wrestle because you're female."
Sometimes, the girls are also the target of some jeers.
"Unfortunately, you can hear some things," Jacobson said. "It really is a sign of the girls' character that they are out for the sport and if they hear some things, they have the wherewithal not to let it bother them."
Fissel said there's really only one important thing in a match.
"We just want to win."
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Girl wrestler tries to become one of the guys for Cougars
Isabell Morello, a student at El Dorado High School, spent a portion of this season on the El Dorado High School wrestling team.
Morello began wrestling in the fifth grade. Her older brothers and cousins played football and she would often work out with them. "My friends Tawnya Rojos and Alicia Linnenbrink were the two that got me started," Morello recalled.
"Wrestling has always been my love," Morello says. However, Morello did not wrestle her freshman or sophomore years because, "there were some coaches who didn't approve of me wrestling." This year, Morello wrestled in the 170 division and was on JV. At one tournament she was bumped up to varsity, but was unable to compete because none of her opponents were in her weight division.
Morello is off the team since early January for reasons she declined to discuss but indicated that it may not be permanent. According to Morello, however, she is, "officially off (the team) right now."
"I really liked Isabell's attitude," Coach Trent Williams said, "She showed up, she worked hard, she was a pleasure to coach, (and) she was a good person to have on the team."
Her teammates seemed to agree. Eric Ciampa, who wrestled with Morello, commented that he, "didn't know how she was going to react." Teammate Robert Gutierrez said that at first "it felt weird having a girl on the team (but) later on we considered her a team mate."
"I think I've done pretty good for being the only girl on the team," stated Morello, but "the guys on varsity are gorillas compared to me!" Morello believes there are at most 3 girls on other wrestling teams but in most cases there are none. When it came to being the only girl, Morello said, "it's kind of fun! I get my own locker room."
Because of her passion to wrestle, Morello plans to compete again her senior year and hopes to join the Navy following graduation. Morello is also considering coaching in the future.
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FEMALE WRESTLERS Shouldn't wrestle males
I went to a school wrestling match between Meadowdale and Brier junior high schools. One of the boys from Meadowdale was matched against a girl from Brier.
The boy was in a lose-lose situation. If he wins the match, he should. If he loses the match, he never hears the end of it.
To do his best in the match, he must put his hands on the girl in places that for half his life he has been told his hands don't belong.
I have nothing against girls wanting to wrestle, but in the pell mell headlong rush to be politically correct, I feel this is a serious error in judgment.
Girls can participate in this sport, but let them compete against other girls. Don't force a boy into this kind of predicament just to be politically correct.
What worries me is the people that made this decision are also making the other decisions that affect the kids.
ROBERT M. NEAL
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Girls and boys together on the mat?
Sutera wrestles against all-male tradition
By RICHARD A. D'ERRICO
Eight years ago, Tracy Sutera's daughter asked him if she could be a wrestler.
Her request didn't faze him a bit. Because of her father's role as a wrestling coach with the Minisink Valley Youth Club, Gillian Sutera had been around the sport all her life.
"I never felt I could tell her she could not wrestle. I didn't ever want to tell her she couldn't do something because she's a girl."
Gillian began wrestling at 5 and continued until she was 12, when it became too difficult to balance gymnastics and wrestling practices, as well as volleyball and track.
But looking back, the 13-year-old sees nothing unusual about her request – or the fact that she won 80 percent of her matches, almost all against boys.
"It was normal to me," she said, adding that she used to pin her younger brother in family matches.
She had to wrestle boys in most cases because there were not enough girls to compete against. But that is changing.
Alberto Nieves, Ellenville High School's wrestling coach and former Olympian alternate in 1992, coached the first girl wrestler to beat a boy in Section 9 high school competition.
Last year, Cassie Crisano beat a male member of the John Jay High School team when she was a junior, he said.
But Nieves is not thrilled with the idea of boys and girls together on the mat. He talks about the psychological problems a boy faces when losing to a girl.
"I try to put myself in the guy's shoes," Nieves said. "He had to not only deal with his teammates, but the rest of the school and getting teased. But I guess that's part of growing up."
Nieves said Crisano, who didn't wrestle as a senior, didn't get any special treatment from him or her teammates.
"You could see guys who went against her at one time were a little tentative at first," he said, "but after a while they realized they're out there, they snap out of it. ... They want to get the match over with."
Crisano didn't wrestle boys exclusively. She faced girls from Liberty and Rondout Valley, Nieves said. She placed second in the national girls championship in 1997.
Nieves said women's wrestling will be added to an upcoming Olympics, and eventually it will "trickle down" to colleges and high schools. He said there are few colleges that have women's teams.
Sutera said there's no reason men and women athletes should be divided by gender.
"If it were up to me, every single sport would be anybody against anybody," he said. "There wouldn't be any lines drawn. Football, tennis, it would all be one pool. That's where you'd find who the best athletes are."
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Lady wrestlers laying out new rules on state's mats
JOE BOUSQUIN Observer
Staff Writer
hen her daughter came
home and told her she had
joined the wrestling team, Debra
Gimbel didn't know quite what to
think.
"I had never heard of such a
thing," Gimbel said. "When I
went to high school, girls didn't
wrestle."
But the times, they are a' changing.
For the first time ever, there is
at least one girl on each of the
three public high school wrestling
teams this year. Charlottesville
and Albemarle High Schools each
have one lady grappler, while
Western Albemarle boasts a pair
of women Warriors.
Local coaches say the female phenomenon is one they've seen take hold in the last few
years.
"It's growing in the area," said Western Albemarle coach Dexter Jackson. "In the last
two years, we've been seeing an increase in girls wrestling."
Rachel Gimbel, Debra's daughter, is one half of Western's dynamic duo. A
14-year-old freshman, she is part of the growing number of young ladies who are taking
to the mats.
"It's pretty hard," Rachel said of the stamina sport. "But you almost start to love how
hard it is. That's what makes it enjoyable."
Mike Sizemore, head wrestling coach at Albemarle High School, said more girls are
coming out to rumble on the mats as females become more accepted in sports in general.
"I think it's like anything else with society today," said Sizemore, who first coached a
female wrestler in 1983. "Females are much more accepted now in traditionally male
sports."
Bridgett McDaniel, a senior who wrestles in the 145-pound weight class for
Albemarle, is one of those females being accepted by her peers, and audiences, for what
she does.
"People come up to me , people I don't even know, and say 'That's great, that's really
great,'" McDaniel said.
But not all audiences are equal, said Jackson. "Originally, there was like an
observation among the crowd. They were really, really observing the match instead of
just cheering."
Some boys have been thrown for a loop when they've come up against female
wrestlers in the past, according to Charltotesville Coach Bob Romanac.
"At first, it was tough to have girls wrestling," Romanac said. "My wrestler had to go
up against a [Spotswood girl] and he lost and got a lot of heckling for it at the school.
"But he turned around and said to me 'Gee, I was afraid to grab her on certain parts.'"
Queen Dixon, a freshman at Charlottesville known to her teammates as "Queeny," said
she isn't afraid of any of her male opponents.
"I'm not scared of any boys," the 125-pound wrestler said. "I fight boys all the time."
People often wonder why girls want to go out onto the mat, Dixon said.
"People say, 'How can you wrestle with boys? They're sweaty and they stink,'"
Dixon said. "But I don't only wrestle boys. I wrestle girls, too."
One of those girls was Western's Gimbel. The two lasses lashed out at one another in
a recent dual match between CHS and Western. Gimbel said Dixon makes a formidable
opponent.
"I wrestled Queen," Rachel said. "She was heavier and she was very, very good."
A changing attitude among female athletes is one of the reasons girls are showing up to
wrestle, Dixon said.
"I think some girls are getting tougher as they're growing up," Dixon said. "And they
like to express themselves in that way."
Sonya Reiter, Western's other girl wrestler, said she likes the grittiness of wrestling as
well.
"It was different from other sports," Reiter said. "It was a tough thing."
Girls showing interest in wrestling is not just a local occurrence, though. Across the
state, more and more schools are beginning to see girls join their wrestling ranks.
"We're getting more phone calls from schools asking us about girls wrestling," said
Larry Johnson, assistant director for the Virginia High School League, the governing
body for high school sports in the state.
He said girls started showing up on wrestling mats in Virginia about five years ago
and have become more and more common since.
He couldn't put a number on how many girls are wrestling in the state, but said he'd
like to know.
"Maybe we should do a survey," he said.
At Halifax High School in South Boston there are currently six girls on the wrestling
team.
"I'm trying as much as possible to have them wrestle other girls," said Halifax coach
and tournament organizer Mike Newbern. He said girls wrestling boys posed more
pressing problems than society's acceptance of it.
"I don't recommend them wrestling boys because of the physical mismatch," said
Newbern, a former anatomy instructor. "There's a major physiological difference in body
development and muscular development past puberty."
Newbern said he hopes someday that entire teams of girls will be able to wrestle one
another. In the meantime, girls take on their male counterparts, a situation that can be
troublesome.
"The first guy I wrestled was huge," said Albemarle's McDaniel. "I guess it was kind
of intimidating because he was so big."
McDaniel suffered a bruised rib in that match, an injury that has sidelined her since
December.
"I am kind of concerned," McDaniel said. "I didn't want to jump back in right away
because I was still vulnerable.
Jackson, Western's coach, showed concern for his girls as well.
"One of the concerns we have is the girls do bruise easier," said Jackson. "The girls
seem to be injured more."
The coaches also hoped for future all-girl wrestling teams.
Sizemore, McDaniel's coach at Albemarle, said a coach can't afford to treat a wrestler
differently because she's a lady.
"In dealing with Bridget, I just view her as another athlete on the team," Sizemore
said. "I think that's the only way you can approach that."
But having an all-girls team could make wrestling easier on guys as well.
"People want to see how a girl is going to do against a boy," Sizemore said. "But the
boy is in a no win situation. If he wins, they say 'Oh, you're beating up on a girl.' And if
they lose, then they got beat by a girl."
McDaniel had little empathy for the fragile egos of teenage males, however.
"I get a feeling sometimes that some of them don't like it," she said. "Guys like to be
with the guys."
But she noted that some guys like girls as well.
"A lot of them have been very supportive."
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Wrestler pins hopes on Olympic dream
Brunskill dedicated to her goal
Larry Moko Thursday 22 April 1999
The Spectator
Scott Gardner, The Spectator / Tracy Brunskill hopes to someday have an Olympic medal alongside her national bronze.
Tracy Brunskill is a wrestler that you just can't keep down.
The Burlington Central High School student has continued to compete in the sport this season even though her high school isn't offering a wrestling program. Spike Adams' departure last August from Central to cross-town General Brock left the Central Trojans without a coach.
She couldn't even practise with her classmates because Central's mats -- on loan to Milton's E. C. Drury High School for a tournament -- were destroyed in a deliberately set fire in January which caused almost $1 million in damages.
Brunskill toughed it out, however, and competed as an independent at this year's Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations tournament in London. She was the lone female wrestler from Burlington.
Although the grappling Grade 10 student suffered a shoulder injury during her second match at OFSAA and didn't capture a medal, she was able to pin down a bronze medal at the recent Canadian cadet and juvenile wrestling championships.
That national competition is for 15 and 16-year old club wrestlers. Brunskill was representing Hamilton Steelhawks Wrestling Club.
"I had the second-place girl about an inch from a pin," Brunskill said with disappointment of her semifinal loss in the 65-kilogram division at nationals.
When Adams found out he wouldn't be returning to Central, he suggested to all of the Trojan wrestlers that they travel to McMaster University for club wrestling training.
"Tracy is a very dedicated individual, no question about it," said Adams, who introduced her to the basic wrestling techniques last year. "She's always happy. Always optimistic.
"She isn't afraid to train hard. When girls first come out for wrestling, you notice a lot of them have trepidation. But Tracy jumped right in."
Adams also points out that Brunskill has become a student of the rugged sport. She has attended wrestling camps at McMaster and Brock universities and learned from watching both international events along with Canadian women's university competitions.
Her coaches this year included Tania DeBenedetti-Mair and Dave Mair, along with Rob Betz -- all winners of provincial and national honours as competitors.
Brunskill is enthusiastically involved in many other sports, including school and city league basketball and soccer. She even travels to Brampton for underwater hockey. Brunskill is also considering the option of joining a wrestling club in Bramalea.
"I give her full credit for continuing on," said Central's head of physical education Rod Frith.
According to Frith, it's too soon to say whether there will be a wrestling coach and a team at Central next season. It depends on the number of athletes who are interested. And there's also the matter of replacing the mats.
Said Frith: "We're trying to make that decision (mat purchases) based on how much we use them."
The 40-foot by 40-foot mat destroyed in the gym fire was purchased five years ago for about $11,000. Adams got it second-hand from a contact of his at the world masters wrestling championships. School fundraising also helped make the acquisition possible.
Adams enjoyed his time with Central's highly successful male and female squads and is disappointed that some young athletes are being denied the opportunity to learn the various holds and throws at the school level.
"It takes a good six or seven years to get a program up and running the way it should," he said. "We had some good kids at Central."
In her rookie season, Brunskill placed third, second and fourth three meets prior to the OFSAA tournament.
"I don't know why I started wrestling ... other than that girls' hockey didn't really have much contact in it," Brunskill said.
"Wrestling keeps me in shape. It has turned out to be my favourite sport."
"I want to try to make it to the Olympics .... probably in 2004."
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