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Buena Vista girl proud to march into wrestling finals, history
March 11, 1999
BY MICK MCCABE
Free Press Sports Writer
SAGINAW -- Cynthia Harrold's bright smile made her a natural as a cheerleader.
She flashed it on the sidelines when she led cheers for Saginaw Buena Vista's basketball team and on the football field when she was a baton twirler for the marching band.
About the only time she doesn't show even a trace of a smile is when she puts on a wrestling helmet.
But today she will have a difficult time suppressing a grin when she marches into Joe Louis Arena and becomes the first girl in Michigan high school history to wrestle in the state championship meet. She'll compete in the Division III 103-pound class.
Harrold, a senior, earned that honor when she finished second in the districts and fourth in the regional meet at Caro.
She's fulfilling a goal she set three years ago when she and her teammates traveled to Battle Creek to watch a Buena Vista wrestler compete in the state finals.
"When I saw everybody march in that day, I knew what I wanted to do," Harrold said. "I told myself I was going to be in that grand march someday."
That day is at hand, and it has been a long journey. When she first enrolled at Buena Vista, Harrold never dreamed she would compete in wrestling.
"My brother, Tony, was on the wrestling team and I wanted to see him so I kept the stats for the team," Harrold said. "After a while, the wrestler at 103 quit the team, so I asked the coach if I could try it and he let me on it."
Before Harrold could begin wrestling, however, she had to convince her mother, Pam.
That was no easy sell. Cynthia is Pam's only daughter, and wrestling is not a sport parents envision for daughters.
"I have to be honest," Pam said. "In the beginning, I wasn't like: 'Yeah, go for it.' She basically had to talk me into it. I thought it was too physical. She told me it was skill and technique and she would only wrestle people her weight. She told me that once you master the technique you can go far."
Harrold, 29-7 this season, has mastered enough techniques to record 96 career victories. She would be well past 100 had she not suffered an injured shoulder and missed half of her junior season.
"Cynthia's a little dynamo," Buena Vista coach Dale Pike said. "She's a tight ball of energy."
Randall Jackson was the Buena Vista coach when Harrold was a freshman. He encouraged her and challenged her to excel. Pike has refined her skills.
"She's got some equalizing moves," Pike said. "With my martial arts background, we've incorporated some of that and it's given Cynthia a little different look."
Pike has taught karate and tai chi chuan for 12 years. An English teacher at Buena Vista, he was the first person the team approached when Jackson left.
"Cynthia was the one who came and asked me to coach," Pike said. "When a kid asks you to do something you have to do it."
Buena Vista does not have a wrestling program on a par with that at Rochester Adams or Clarkston or newly crowned state champion Temperance Bedford. The team began the season with only 10 wrestlers and was down to six when the state tournament rolled around.
But for the two weeks since regionals, the other five -- four boys, one girl -- have been at practice each day to prepare Harrold for the individual state meet.
"I've gotten a lot of support from my teammates," she said. "All four of the guys play baseball and they could be practicing baseball right now. But they chose to help me on my way. I love every last one of them."
The team's support of Harrold became evident early this season when a Flint Southwestern Academy athlete refused to wrestle her.
"The guy said he would feel funny wrestling Cynthia because she was a girl, but that wasn't it," Buena Vista wrestler Anthony Genwright said. "He wrestled a guy from Flint Central first, and he was having a really tough time beating him. Then Cynthia pinned that Flint Central guy in the first period. So I guess he saw that and didn't want to wrestle her."
When the Southwestern Academy coach told Pike that his wrestler didn't want to compete against Harrold, the BV wrestlers met and decided not to wrestle anyone from Southwestern.
"This is what Cynthia's been fighting for," Genwright said. "I wanted to wrestle, but sometimes you have to prove a point."
Harrold said she was proud of her teammates' decision.
"I was so happy that I had a team that would back me up like that," she said. "My teammates are wonderful, my coach is wonderful."
Throughout high school, Harrold has also competed in softball and track. When she was a cheerleader she would have to shower quickly after wrestling practice to cheer at basketball games.
But she ultimately gave up cheerleading and decided that she liked wrestling best.
"I like the discipline and the competition," Harrold said. "It's just you and the other person. Your teammates can cheer for you, but they can't pass you the ball. You have to do everything yourself."
Harrold thinks she has at least a mental advantage in each match against a boy.
"A lot of boys come out and underestimate me," she said. "But when they see me fighting back it's like they say: 'Whoa.' "
The grabbing and touching that transpire during a match were one of her mother's initial concerns. But after she watched Cynthia compete, Pam's mind was at ease.
"She grabs them, too," Pam said. "You look at it like it's a sport. They're not looking where they're touching her. They're out there to take care of business."
Harrold said she doesn't worry that guys might grab her where they otherwise shouldn't.
"They're too worried about getting pinned," she said.
Opponents have a difficult time wrestling against Harrold, but it is even harder if they try to ask her out afterward.
"I don't allow that," Genwright said. "I'll walk around with her sometimes so they'll think I'm her boyfriend. If some guy tries hitting on her I tell them: 'That's not going to happen, so don't even try it.' She's a wrestler."
Jennifer Peters also wrestles on the Buena Vista team. She tried volleyball, softball and cross-country before a friend persuaded her to give wrestling a shot.
"Five girls started out on the team, but it ended up just me and Cynthia," said Peters, who wrestles at 119 pounds and faces many of the problems Harrold does. "People think they won't put us in certain moves because we're girls. But they'd be embarrassed to lose to us. They'll put us in anything to win. There are no hesitations, believe me. They'll hurt us."
Peters was keeping statistics during the regional meet and became chief cheerleader during Harrold's matches as she qualified for the state finals.
"I was on the mat yelling," Peters said. "Usually, she's the big crybaby. But when she made it I was crying and she was just smiling. She's like my hero. I tell her that all the time. We've become really, really close."
All of the Buena Vista wrestlers are close, because they train with and against one another.
"Yeah, Cynthia's beaten me," Genwright said with an embarrassed smile. "It gets really competitive in here. Everybody beats up on everybody. Cynthia is the most intense wrestler I've seen. She's really dedicated."
Next fall, Harrold will be a freshman at Central State in Wilberforce, Ohio. The school does not offer wrestling, but she plans to continue training with Pike's brother, Ed, who runs a youth program in nearby Xenia.
"I heard that in 2004 they're going to have female wrestling in the Olympics," Harrold said. "That's my goal."
For now, she will have to settle for her original goal -- the state finals and a place in the grand march into Joe Louis Arena today.
"It's just so surprising, now that it's going to happen I can't believe it," she said with a broad smile. "There will be 895 males and one female."
To pick out the one female, just look for the brightest smile.
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WRESTLING CHAMPS: High-schoolers show what sport is really all about
March 12, 1999
Wrestling has taken hold in Detroit this weekend.
Not "rasslin' " -- the fake stuff that's all for show -- but wrestling, the Olympic sport, where champions are forged of strength, quickness and grit.
Unfortunately for Detroit, and as a result of last week's fire that disrupted the SAE convention at neighboring Cobo Hall, an asbestos-in-the-air scare delayed the starting rounds of the Michigan High School Athletic Association Lower Peninsula wrestling championships at Joe Louis Arena. Hosting this prestigious event for the first time, the city had better keep the air clear for the title matches Saturday that could draw 16,000 people. The MHSAA chose Joe Louis because of its size and ability to hold the tourney over three days, instead of two as in past years, easing the strain on the competitors. Asbestos wasn't supposed to be an issue.
How ironic, too, that the finals are being held in a city with a school district that doesn't offer its athletes a wrestling program.
Among the 896 competitors for championships in 14 weight classes in each of four divisions will be 103-pounder Cynthia Harrold from Saginaw Buena Vista, a Division III school. She is the first girl to qualify for the state wrestling finals.
Her team's nickname is the Knights, but Harrold is more of a pioneer. She has overcome all sorts of obstacles to post 96 victories in a four-year career and will leave Joe Louis Arena as a winner whatever her fate in the championship tourney.
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MHSAA plays the Joe, hopes fans will come
March 11, 1999
BY TOM LANG
Free Press Special Writer
As Cynthia Harrold makes history by wrestling in the individual state finals, the state will be doing the same by holding the meet at Joe Louis Arena.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association has devised the largest high school wrestling tournament in the country, with all four divisions under one roof today through Saturday.
Championships will be sought in 14 weight classes in each division by a total of 895 boys and one girl -- Harrold, a senior at Saginaw Buena Vista.
Fifteen wrestlers will be defending titles. Manchester's Jeremiah Tobias (27-0) and Mason's Joe Ray Barry (30-3) are going for their third straight championships, and the MHSAA hopes they'll be competing before crowds in excess of 10,000 on Friday and Saturday.
Previously, Battle Creek's Kellogg Arena and Western Michigan's University Arena hosted the finals over a two-day period -- two divisions at each site. But too many people who wanted tickets couldn't get in, so the MHSAA is trying 19,000-seat Joe Louis Arena at least this year and next.
Advance ticket sales have been slow compared with those in Battle Creek, where people bought in advance because they expected the finals to sell out the 6,000-seat arena. The team finals were decided last Saturday at a nearly full Kellogg and will remain there for now.
"The reason the move to a larger venue was needed is that the people at Battle Creek did such a good job and expanded the fan base," said Bill Bupp, assistant director of the MHSAA.
"The reason it's coming to Detroit is because of some key people at Olympia Entertainment and the Convention and Visitors Bureau who were very interested in having a family-friendly event -- high school sports -- come to Detroit."
Except for two years of girls basketball at Calihan Hall in the early 1980s, Detroit has not hosted a high school state final since boys basketball in the 1920s.
The wrestling ticket prices are right compared with those for Detroit's major league sports -- $6 for single-session reserved seats, $5 for general admission.
Suburban coaches like the new venue because they hope it will develop interest in wrestling in the Detroit Public School League, which does not offer the sport.
"The metro area is a mecca for wrestling," tournament director Ron Nagy said. "We're sure Detroit and the surrounding communities are ready to make this event a great experience for the wrestlers and fans."
The Metropolitan Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates the economic impact of the tournament will be between $3 million to $4 million. More than 300 schools will have at least one wrestler and coach at the arena.
"Amateur sports continues to be an important market for Detroit," said Larry Anderson, acting president and CEO of the visitors bureau. "We're excited to be hosting this tournament because it gives an opportunity to showcase the area to thousands of outstate visitors."
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Girl loses opener; Simmons brothers star
March 12, 1999
BY TOM LANG
Free Press Special Writer
After a four-hour delay, Joe Louis Arena's doors were opened to a series of historic events at the individual state wrestling finals.
Four divisions, including about 900 wrestlers, wrestled Thursday in the first round of the nation's largest wrestling tournament.
Cynthia Harrold, the first girl to qualify for the state tournament, lost her Division III opening match to Grayling junior Matthew Evon, 17-3.
Evon (53-1) scored four takedowns and three near falls en route to the victory.
Harrold (29-8), a senior from Saginaw Buena Vista, scored on three escapes. She drops to the wrestleback bracket and can finish no higher than third place.
"The kid she faced was real tough," said Buena Vista coach Dale Pike. "I didn't even tell her how tough before the match. She didn't wrestle as aggressively as she usually does."
Nick Simmons (103 pounds) kept his aggressive style intact.
The Williamston sophomore set a national pin record at 53 in a season, falling Marysville's Tim Balcuns in 18 seconds.
Simmons' brother, Andy, won, 6-0, over Goodrich's Chase Metcalf to advance at 112 pounds in Division III.
The Simmones have set the national season record for pins by brothers and have compiled a 110-0 record, helping Williamston to last week's team championship, the school's first.
"Nick's just very dominant," Williamston coach Jim Mooney said. "That pin record has been on his mind of course, as well as the combined record.
"But our program goal is that you pin to win. I'm not a great mathematician, but if you get a pin it's six points (in team duals) and a decision gets you two or three. So as a team we go for pins."
Mason's Joe Ray Barry and Manchester's Jeremiah Tobias completed the first steps toward achieving their third straight state titles.
Barry advanced at 125 in Division II with a default victory against Lowell's Dan Rottier. Tobias moved on at 135 in Division IV after pinning Rogers City's Corey Viegelahn in 1:03.
"It's going to be hard for anyone to get mentally prepared," Barry said about the crowded warm-up area. "But we're all in it together.
"I'm just glad I got here. I didn't make it the best way I could, but I got here and want to get the job done."
Barry placed a shaky fourth in districts and third at regionals to qualify.
In addition to Barry and Tobias, 13 wrestlers are defending state titles.
Defending Division I heavyweight champ Casey Rogowski of Redford Catholic Central pinned his opponent, Andy Iszler of Grand Ledge, at 5:04.
Rogowski next faces Ted Bowersox of Northville, an 8-3 winner over James Pack of Rochester Adams.
A.J. Grant (44-0) of Clarkston advanced at 125 in Division I with a default. He won at 112 last season.
The estimated attendance was 9,000, which was especially strong considering the delay. Officials evacuated the arena because of possible asbestos contamination.
"We appreciated everyone's flexibility with the unusual circumstances," said Bill Bupp, assistant director of the MHSAA. "It's good to know that folks can go with the flow."
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