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Wrestler dismantling sport's stereotype
Today, women on the playing field are old news.
Beth Bales
Chicago Daily Herald
January 16, 2000, Sunday,
From the WNBA to Mia Hamm and her championship soccer teammates, all the way
to third- and fourth-graders on the softball diamond and 5-year-olds playing
for Tri-Cities Soccer, females on the field are becoming rather commonplace.
Far less common are women facing off on the wrestling mat.
Lisa Couch is one of them.
The 19-year-old Geneva woman is a member of the wrestling team at Elmhurst
College in Elmhurst. Couch, a 1999 graduate of Geneva High School, also was
on
Geneva's wrestling team. She lettered one year each in tennis and wrestling
and for four years in track and field.
Couch joined Geneva's wrestling team in the second semester of her junior
year after being encouraged by two wrestler friends.
Because two girls were needed, she recruited her best friend, Mary Williams.
The two went in to see the coach during Christmas break that year, to get
him used to the idea of them joining the team the following school year,
remembered
Couch.
"He handed us our singlets (wrestling outfits) and said, 'Suit up,' " she
said. "We said, 'What?' And he said 'You're on the team.'
"He just kind of tossed us in there. And that was good, because otherwise
there's a good chance we might not have followed through," she said.
She regrets she didn't take up the sport sooner. Her relative inexperience
has meant that at Elmhurst, coach Tim Gotta is focusing on this year as one
of practice for
Couch.
"She's behind as far as the collegiate level goes, not just physically but
technically," he said. "That's what would hurt her the most."
For college, the weight classes starts at 125, "and I don't weigh that
much," agreed Couch. "With the weight factor as well as the experience
factor - I don't think I'd
be much of a challenge for anyone. Basically, right now I'm getting more
college-level experience by practicing with the
Gotta said he knows of one team that has a woman in its varsity lineup.
Couch is the second female wrestler at Elmhurst. The first comes to work out
with Couch
from time to time.
But competition could be coming Couch's way. Though women can wrestle
against men, women's wrestling in general is more in the freestyle and
Greco-Roman
styles, according to Gotta.
"Those are the Olympic styles," he said. "Men's wrestling is folk style -
that's what they wrestle in college and high school."
And the competitions in the so-called women's styles are in the spring and
summer, meaning Couch could have some challenges ahead of her, he said.
The freshman said some teammates give her a hard time over her practicing
and not competing.
"They don't understand it's not my choice, that I'd love to be competing,"
she said.
Couch said some teammates are more receptive to her than others.
"A lot of them ignore me at this point," she said. "There are always going
to be some guys who don't like me."
Gotta said the other wrestlers regard Couch not as a member of the opposite
sex, but as a teammate.
"She did weight lifting and running in preseason," he said. "After a couple
times (practicing) everyone looked at her as someone on the team. They
didn't look at her
in a different way."
Much as women in the locker room have been accepted and the world has
adjusted to women and girls on the playing fields, Couch predicts a growing
popularity
for wrestling among females. During her senior year she wrestled two women
from Chicago-area high schools.
"And I help with some park district-types of meets and I saw a couple girls
there," she said. "They're coming."
Couch is full of enthusiasm for the sport and the self-esteem it builds.
Contrary to what some people may think, she said, "It's not just a bunch of
sweaty guys out there. It's a lot of mental stuff.
"If you're not smart, you won't be a good wrestler. You can only get so far
on brute strength. You have to anticipate your opponents' moves and have
several
counter-moves for it. You have to think and think fast - and on your feet."
It is primarily an individual sport.
"It's you and your opponent and the mat," she said. "You're out there doing
your best. You don't have to count on someone else; it's you, your abilities
and your
knowledge."
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Cheerleader grapples with idea, grabs hold on sport
John Carlson
The Des Moines Register
January 19, 2000,
Wednesday
Wayland, Ia. - Erin Hennings used to sit at the edge of the mat, pounding
the floor with the other cheerleaders, screaming at the WACO wrestler to
"pin him, pin him, pin him."
That's what she was yelling. What this teen-age girl was thinking was that
if she were the one out there wrestling for WACO High School, she might be
able to pin the guy herself.
"I decided I wanted to be on the wrestling team," she said. "A lot of my
friends are basketball players. I can't run or jump, but I thought I could
wrestle. I knew it might not go over real big, but I didn't care. Call me crazy. I was doing it."
So she told all her friends and the coach, she told her mom and her
boyfriend, and everybody thought it was a pretty bad idea. At first, anyway.
Then they all figured out that this 18-year-old senior wasn't kidding. This
petite, popular blonde had made up her mind, and that was all there was to it.
The cheerleader was joining the wrestling team.
Not that she'd be the first girl to do that in Iowa, a state nuts over
wrestling. But it is darned unusual, particularly when you think of what
wrestling is all about.
"I thought, boy, is this ever going to be a pain," said Sterling Rex, WACO's
wrestling coach. "I knew that the guys on the team wouldn't like it. And
when we travel,
we're assigned only one locker room, so there was that to think about. It
represented a big change and a big change is always difficult at first."
But Rex and the WACO boys found it could be done.
"I told Erin some of the guys would resent her and she'd have to work hard
to get their respect," Rex said. "She is working hard and I think all the
guys will be happy to see her win one."
Even though she is a senior, Erin is wrestling at the junior varsity level.
Her record is one win and five losses. The win came as the result of a
forfeit, but it goes down as a win and she'll take it.
"I could have won my match on Monday," she said. "But I messed up. I wasn't
thinking, I made a wrong move and ended up getting pinned."
Has it been a good experience so far? Yes, she said. She's more confident
and she feels better.
"I have asthma pretty bad and my doctor didn't want me to wrestle at all,"
Erin said. "But I think all the conditioning has helped that. I feel better,
and I think it's improving the way I look at myself."
Another upside, Erin said, is the way the younger girls at WACO are
beginning to think.
"They come up to me in the hallway and ask me about wrestling and whether I
think it's something they should try. I think that's great."
Erin's boyfriend, who happens to be a member of the wrestling team, is
getting used to the idea.
"I didn't like it at first," said Ryan Corman. "But it's turning out OK.
She's showing everybody if she says she's going to do something, she'll do it. "
As for the awkward part of it, the thing that makes people squeamish at the
thought of a girl out there, grabbing and being grabbed, and rolling around
on the wrestling mat with a boy, well, people will just have to get over it. Erin did.
"That's part of it," she said. "People have asked me if I've ever been
touched wrong and the answer is yes. But it's not an intentional thing. It's
inevitable that it's going to happen. It's just part of the sport. But nobody is groping or anything."
Erin said she has nothing else drastic in her future, although she once
dreamed of going into combat as a Navy SEAL. That's not going to happen,
though, and it's all right.
"I'm planning on going to UNI next fall," she said, and no, she's not going
out for the wrestling team there. "I'm going to major in art education. I
want to be a high school art teacher someday."
Wrestling, she said, will be in the past, a good memory she can share.
"I'll be able to tell my grandchildren that I was a high school wrestler,"
Erin said. "Maybe by then, it'll be no big deal. That would be nice,
wouldn't it?"
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