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WHEN DANA Procaccino strode out onto the mat during a wrestling match at the Perkiomen School in suburban Philadelphia, the crowd fell silent. They weren't stunned by the wrestler's record, nor tongue-tied at the prowess of the Germantown Friends wrestling team.
The kids at Perkiomen were speechless because Dana is a girl. And she's not the only one wrestling for Germantown Friends. Dana and friend Megan Hicks, both ninth graders, were looking for a challenge this year when they went out for wrestling. And they certainly haven't been disappointed.
Some matches have been a wash because schools won't allow their male students to wrestle Dana and Megan. Others say they don't object to girls wrestling - but only if their opponents are other girls. And some boys have forfeited matches rather than wrestle - and possibly lose - to a girl.
During a tournament last month at Westtown School, Dana spent a lot of time escaping from her opponent's attempts to pin her. The bystanders loved it. "She's got great escapes," said one. "She's quick and brutal at escapes." Megan wrestled in the tournament, too. Like Dana, she wears a dark blue stocking cap that covers her hair. When she takes it off, her hair is cropped close to her head, except for a long brown strand that falls over one eye.
While Megan wrestled, the spectators were impressed with her skills, though they didn't realize there was something different about this match.
"He didn't pin her last time," said one.
"That's a girl?" said the other.
"Yeah."
Although there are girls who wrestle at other schools, it's still a shock to see one wearing a singlet and taking to the mat. The Women's Sports Foundation in New York says it has no statistics on the number of girls wrestling in high school, but the trend is growing and getting a lot of attention right now.
"More girls are wrestling in high school,'' confirmed Julie Sommer, an advocate with the non-profit foundation. The group recently received a complaint from a parent in Michigan who said her daughter's co-ed gym class separated the girls and boys when it came to wrestling. The boys wrestled; the girls played a game. That's illegal under Title IX, a federal law ensuring equity for girls in school sports, and the Michigan school had to change its program. Because wrestling involves so much touching and close contact, the idea of girls wrestling boys makes many school administrators, coaches, parents and some athletes uncomfortable.
Dana and Megan are not the first girls in wrestling at Germantown Friends. Last year, a girl wrestled for part of the season before breaking her collarbone in a match. Coach Jeffrey Fetter-man said he spends a lot of time talking with girls before allowing them to join the team. "I try to get the real reason they come out for wrestling," he said. "Do they want to roll around with guys? Or do they really want to be in wrestling?"
Fetterman said he is upfront with the girls and tells them that as an adult, even he is uncomfortable wrestling them in practice. The problem for boys is that they are trying to balance a see-saw of different feelings when they wrestle a girl, said Jed Morganstein, also a ninth-grader and a member of the Germantown Friends wrestling team. "Guys would feel compelled to hold back, because they're girls," he said. "But if they hold back, they might lose. Then, they'd lose to a girl. But, if they don't hold back, then they beat a girl."
The solution? "You have to stop seeing faces," he said. "You have to see arms, legs, singlet. You have to stop seeing sex." Dana's mother, Neesa Becker-Procaccino, said she didn't understand when Dana announced she wanted to wrestle. Dana has a horse and competes in jumping classes. But wrestling?
"I was pretty horrified," Neesa recalled. "I'm not an earthy person, and I'm not an athletic person but I wasn't going to say no because it's sports. I did tell her I thought she was crazy." A year ago, Dana was "acting out her independence," dyeing her hair red, listening to hard-core punk and wearing fishnets and Doc Martens. Neesa said she also got tired of saying no, and decided to go along with wrestling.
"The first thing we did was go shopping for an industrial strength athletic bra and a black spandex that covers her in the singlet," said Neesa. Megan and Dana, both 15, have earned varsity letters in wrestling and plan to stay with it, drawn by the possibility of college scholarships. Megan is an accomplished soccer player who runs cross-country and the hurdles. It was her idea to go out for wrestling, and she convinced Dana, whom she had met in soccer. Both girls said they thought it would be interesting, as well as a challenge. "It's like really different from every other sport," said Megan. "I really love it."
Both say they have gained physical and emotional strength from wrestling. "There's a lot more to it than you think from watching it," said Dana. "It's kind of mental."
When Dana wrestles, she is quick, usually quicker than the boys. She's also small; both she and Megan wrestle in the 112 pound class. "One thing we wouldn't allow her to do was drop weight to make a weight class," said Dana's mother. "Having a teenage daughter, we didn't want her to focus on weight loss in any way, because that can lead to problems." The girls' teammates have been supportive of their delicate position. The guys decided, for example, to forfeit a match with the Academy of the New Church school because the school - for religious reasons - won't allow their team to wrestle girls.
"We decided to go as a team or not at all," said Jed. Today, Neesa Becker-Procaccino is thrilled with her daughter's involvement in the sport.
"I didn't understand why she was doing it at all until I saw her wrestle," said Neesa. "She was completely focused. She won with an equally matched opponent. I was super-charged watching her. And yet, it was excruciatingly difficult watching her get mashed."
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Grappling with a dilemma
By Dylan B. Tomlinson
Denver Post Sports Writer
June 16 - As females begin to filter into the male-dominated sport of wrestling, they might find themselves with a dilemma: The fastest-growing sport, proportionately, among high-school girls is disappearing just as quickly at the collegiate level.
According to USA Wrestling, 1,629 girls participated in high-school wrestling in 1997, up from 112 in '90 and 760 in '94.
The increased interest does not mean there are girls at every high school clamoring to be on the wrestling team. Even as the numbers rise, girls primarily have had to wrestle against boys at the high-school level.
Few argue females should have the right to wrestle against other females, but mixed-gender matches are being looked at with a watchful eye.
Bill Maurice, wrestling coach at Green Mountain High School, has coached girls in each of the past three seasons, since the Colorado High School Activities Association voted in 1995 to allow girls to wrestle. Colorado had 55 female wrestlers in 1995-96 and 41 in 96-97, making it one of the hotbeds for girls' high-school wrestling. CHSAA was not able to provide figures for the 1997-98 season.
"I think girls should be allowed to wrestle, but I've always been against girls wrestling against boys,'' Maurice said. "I don't like it, and I never have. CHSAA allowed it to happen because they they were scared of a lawsuit.
"It's unfair for boys because if they win, they beat up on a girl. If they lose, they can't even walk the halls at school. I was at a meet last year where a boy took a quick lead on a girl, but she tied the match in the second period. He wouldn't come out for the third period because he'd rather forfeit than risk losing to a girl. That is what this has all come down to.''
Maurice said girls wrestling boys is not without safety concerns.
"I've seen a lot of girls get hurt. I've seen a few that have had to be carried off the mat,'' Maurice said. "The boys are so much stronger most of the time. I have no problem with girls wrestling other girls, but with the numbers we have they only get two or three of those (matches) each season. Most of the time they have to wrestle boys.''
With women's wrestling becoming an Olympic sport at the Sydney Games in 2000, it is a safe bet that the number of female wrestlers will continue to rise. But as the numbers fluctuate at the high-school level, men's college wrestling programs are being cut as schools struggle to get in compliance with Title IX.
While the ax has fallen on numerous men's programs such as baseball, swimming and track, wrestling has been the most frequent victim. Since Title IX was passed in 1972, 352 wrestling programs have been dropped, cutting the number of programs at NCAA and NAIA schools in half.
Depending on the opinion, women's interest in wrestling will either save the sport or make no impact at the collegiate level.
Donna Lopiano, president of the Women's Sports Foundation, said Title IX is being unfairly blamed for men's sports being cut. Lopiano told ABC's "20/20'' last month that if schools offered as many scholarships for women to wrestle at the college level as men, cuts would not have to be made to men's sports.
"You treat the sport the same way, and girls are just as interested in playing as boys,'' Lopiano said. "Boys have never had to prove their interest to get an opportunity to play. Why do our daughters have to have that burden of proof?''
Leo Kocher, board president for the National Coalition for Athletics Equity, disagrees. He said it is a myth that women have the same interest in wrestling, much less athletics, as men.
"It's like trying to squeeze blood from a rock,'' Kocher said. "You could offer the same opportunities for (women) at the collegiate level, but it would be wasted money. They can create the scholarships, but they'll have to resort to begging to find any takers. Until these people realize that it is ridiculous to force schools to have equal athletic opportunities for women as men, we're going to continue to see (wrestling) and a lot of other sports get cut.
"No one is for discrimination on the basis of sex. But if you're going to define discrimination as unequal numbers of males and females, then we've got nothing but discrimination in this society because men and women do not pursue the same interests.
"What would happen if we told a school they have to have 50 percent of men in your dance and music programs? One of the areas where men continue to outnumber women is in sports, and for some reason, we've selected that to just kick the daylights out of the boys with.''
Last year Stephen Neal, a wrestler at California State-Bakersfield, successfully sued the university to stop it from cutting the wrestling program.
Neal cited reverse discrimination in his lawsuit and was able to keep the wrestling program intact. Title IX reads, in part: "No person in the United States shall on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.''
Neal made the most of his final season, winning the 1997-98 NCAA heavyweight championship.
Roger Reina, wrestling coach at the University of Pennsylvania and president-elect of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, said the rise in interest in wrestling among males and females will be offset by the cuts being made at the college level.
A few schools, such as California State-Bakersfield and Northern Iowa, are trying to introduce women's wrestling as a club sport, but if any women want to wrestle at the college level, they still have to mix it up with the men. Women are allowed to try out for the wrestling teams at any school that offers the sport but has not created a separate team for females.
"The irony is that wrestling is growing in popularity with every age group,'' Reina said. "It is the fifth-most popular sport among high-school boys and is becoming more popular with girls, but universities are cutting wrestling in favor of sports like women's crew, which have virtually no participation at the high-school level. That is largely due to the current interpretation of Title IX.''
Reina also doesn't believe colleges will keep wrestling programs despite a rising interest among women.
"University presidents are going to athletics directors and telling them to fix the discrepancy in numbers between men and women in athletics, but not the money isn't there to fix it with,'' Reina said. "There's no choice but to just start cutting men's sports.''
But compliance is more important than cost, which Boston College proved last month. Its wrestling program was cut and a women's crew team, which will offer 47 full scholarships, was added.
The wrestling team consisted entirely of walk-ons and both coaches were part-time employees. According to Kocher, the total cost for operation of the wrestling team in 1997 was $31,000. The cost of a scholarship for one year to Boston College is $29,000.
"That's how ridiculous this is,'' Kocher said. "(If) they give 46 scholarships instead of 47 to that crew team . . . they almost finance the wrestling program. But with this quota system that Title IX has become, this is typical.''
A 1997 NCAA gender-equity study shows that as every additional opportunity is created for women, four are lost among men.
"In the last five years we've lost 10 percent of all male athletes from the college level,'' Kocher said. "That's 20,000 men, and that is what Title IX has done to collegiate athletics. Anyone who thinks Title IX is good for college sports either doesn't know what really is going on, or doesn't care about men's athletics at all.''
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Feature Update: The Warriors hosted the Colonial Girls Wrestling Tournament on March 7th and fared well. Hannah Arm won an individual championship in the 146 weight class by going 3-0 in the tournament. On March 13, they traveled to Keene, New Hampshire to grapple in the Northeast Girls Championships. Four wrestlers competed (Arm, Jenny Arm, Hannah Sumerai, and Sarai Yaseen) in the event, with Jenny Arm claiming a tournament title while the other three recorded second place finishes. The Warriors will next compete in the High School National Championships to be held on March 27 & 28.
02/08/99
Sugar and spice and... a full Nelson or two
Girls' scholastic and women's collegiate wrestling has enjoyed skyrocketing athlete participation and fan appeal over the last three years nationwide, but Brookline High remains a distinguished leader in the sport's surge.
Though hamstrung by geographically scattered programs and wobbled by gender bias controversies, girls scholastic wrestling is, without question, here to stay. And Brookline still boasts what is believed to one of the five largest scholastic girls wrestling teams in the nation -- definitely bigger than any US collegiate women's team in '97-'98.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Warriors' coaching staff, the Warriors' double-digit roster is helping to shatter a huge gender-specific athletic stereotype.
Girls wrestling has been at the eye of the storm in multiple gender-equity controversies. Locally, the banning of a female youth wrestler from a boys tournament in Topsfield sparked a gender-equity uproar in January of '96. The incident prompted the girl, then only nine, to investigate filing an anti-discrimination complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) and incited the state-funded, youth-oriented Governor's Alliance Against Drugs to offer to stage a state house rally.
In January of 1998, an organization of Texas high school wrestling referees chose to disband rather than officiate coed wrestling matches.
The role Title IX plays in the wrestling team's very existence is plenty clear to the Brookline High girls' program.
"Certainly, we would never have gotten off the ground if not for a growing awareness about discriminatory practices against female athletes," says former Brookline head coach Brian Anderson.
Success on the mat hasn't hurt either. Brookline came away from last spring's first-ever U.S. High School Girls Wrestling Association Championships at Michigan's Ann Arbor High with more top-eight finishers than any of the 191 high schools entered in the 272-wrestler tournament. Five of the eight Brookline High wrestlers entered in the tournament field earned All-American honors.
Three of those All-American selections -- senior 116-pounder Sarai Yaseen, senior 145-pounder Hannah Arm and senior Betsy Fierman -- have returned this year and remain ranked in the top 10 of their respective weight classes, nationally.
Arm is the best of the bunch this winter. The senior entered this week at 13-0 with eight pins and is coming off wins by decision over three nationally ranked opponents from New Hampshire on Jan. 31.
Arm believes acceptance goes hand-in-hand with winning. The Brookline program's success, she says, has taken some attention away from the gender issue.
"If there's a sport out there, it's for both sexes," says Arm. "This isn't girls' wrestling. It's wrestling. Period."
For Arm, her participation in the sport is more than a conversation piece. It's a crusade.
"A lot of girls ask me, 'How on earth can you wrestle?'" continues Arm, whose career win percentage is over .800. "I'm part of a team. It's my life. Every time someone makes a comment about it, I challenge their imagination. What's wrong with what we do?"
The Warriors' biggest showcase of the season (excepting the nationals) will come on March 7 (Schluntz Gymnasium, 9:30 a.m.) when the team hosts the Colonial States Championships. Wrestlers from Maine to North Carolina will compete and Brookline's staff is expecting as many as 170 competitors to take part.
"Anyone even remotely interested in wrestling would find this tournament fascinating," says Brookline High volunteer assistant coach Dustin Carter. "If you want to get a sense of where the sport is and how far it's come, I wouldn't miss it."
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No shortcuts for FHS girl wrestler
Albert set to wrestle in World meet in Poland
By Peter Jakel
Camera Sports Writer
Some criticize Fairview's Cathilee Albert for wrestling.
Some disapprove.
And others object.
Yet none of that matters to Albert because she's good at it.
The junior-to-be at Fairview High School competed on the junior varsity boys wrestling squad in the 130 and 135-pound weight classes during the winter before winning the 16-and-under girls wrestling national championship earlier this summer.
That championship has extended Albert an invitation to wrestle in the Women's Cadet World Championships in the 143-pound weight class in Poland this August.
"I'm really nervous because I've seen pictures of the women down there and they are like 5 feet tall and they weigh as much as me," Albert said. "I don't know what to expect. I have no idea what I'm getting into."
Albert has also won the Rocky Mountain Regional Open Women's Championships and competed in the Open Women's Nation Championships this offseason.
Albert has to come up with $900 to make the trip to Poland, but she said she thinks her parents are going to foot the bill.
That's a surprise, considering Albert's mother, Barbara, hasn't been really supportive of Albert's decision to wrestle for some valid reasons.
"My mom hated the idea of it because my sister always wanted to do hockey or football and they said no there's no way," Albert said. "She hates it because she doesn't like watching kids get thrown on their heads.
"I got a concussion and sprained my top vertebrae and broke the top of my teeth off and she spent a lot of money to get that fixed."
Other FHS parents have told Fairview head coach Jim Heun they will not allow their sons to practice with the team if Albert is a member of the squad.
Heun's answer was simple — those sons won't wrestle. And they didn't during Albert's season last year. Albert wrestled and fit in well with the guys who could handle her presence.
"She's respected in our room," Heun said. "She comes out with black eyes and bruises because she's really going at it. There are some guys who have a chip on their shoulders about wrestling a girl and they don't hold up at all. They just want to run her out of the sport. They come at her and she comes right back at them."
Albert didn't mind being one of the guys, but there is a limitation to how much of her feminine side she will give up to be accepted.
"I love being one of the guys and hanging out with them, but there's an extent to where I don't want to really be one of the guys," Albert said. "I don't want to be a guy or act like a guy. I don't want to be bulky. I worry about my voice getting deep. I've only seen one wrestler who doesn't look like a man."
Albert might be avoiding a physical bulk up but it's a different story academically. Since Albert made the decision to wrestle in the second semester of ther freshman year, her grades in high school have jumped from around a 1.0 grade point average to a 3.2 or better this year.
Her explanation for the sudden turn academically is that wrestling keeps her from going out with her friends and finding some sort of trouble.
"I give up every Friday night to cut weight instead of go out with my friends," Albert said. "Last year I was more worried about hanging out with people and going to parties and getting in trouble instead of sports.
"Wrestling means so much to me that I wouldn't want to do anything to ruin it. I just don't want to do anything to mess it up."
Wrestling will probably have to mean a little bit more as she prepares for the World Championships.
"It's going to be hard during the summer for her to train as consistently as she needs to," Heun said. "The hardest thing is going to be getting some good workouts. She's very strong but she hasn't spent much time in the weight room. She could be a whole lot stronger."
July 9, 1999
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SOLTIS NOT WRESTLING WITH FUTURE
The Record (Bergen County,
NJ)
November 1, 1999, MONDAY
Kelly Soltis may draw more attention as a high school wrestler only
because the public still has not become accustomed to the idea of girls
wrestling against boys. But the sister of a former State silver medalist
wrestler, Brad, now at Harvard , plans to make her way athletically in
college as a field hockey player.
"I prefer wrestling against girls because they're not as strong,"
Soltis, a Pompton Lakes senior, says. "I did some varsity wrestling, but
mainly I practice with the team. I wrestle mainly to keep in good
shape."
It's a wonder she has time. Soltis is an honor student and a
year-round field hockey enthusiast. Even during wrestling season she
plays."We practice outdoors and play indoors,"she adds.
She has played in the Futures, a developmental program for highly
skilled players, and in the national Field Hockey Festival in Florida.
Virtually every Sunday, Soltis is somewhere playing her favorite sport.
Saturday, she was a central figure as Pompton Lakes beat Passaic
Valley, 5-0, for its seventh Passaic County championship of the decade.
She is a defensive standout who has been accustomed to shutting down
opposing attacks with tremendous stickwork.
Sunday, she took time for a recruiting visit to Holy Cross.
Cornell, Pennsylvania, and Boston University are among the others
schools courting Soltis.
She echoed coach Eileen Allan's words that Pompton Lakes first
loss, Thursday to Red Bank, took some of the pressure off the players.
"Teams come out after us because of how successful we've been," Soltis
said."We don't get cocky, but no one expects us to lose, so we feel we
have to win. The loss got us focused again."
Senior Jess Hamway, who scored a goal against Passaic Valley is
another multisport athlete."She's one of the fastest players you can
find,"says Allan."It's only her second year playing. She's been a
dedicated in-line skater, but once she found out in-line skating would
not be an Olympic event, she switched to speed skating."
Sophomore Danielle Avenoso scored the team's two goals against Red
Bank and two in the County title win over Passaic Valley. She has added
to her arsenal with what Allan calls"an Indian dribble, which is
reverse sticking, and it's improved her dribble downfield."
Allan says once the Red Bank loss settled in, she delivered a
familiar cry,"Pride, hustle, never say die," that was originated by a
former Pompton Lakes coach, Joel B. McKenzie, now Superintendent of
Schools. And, to make sure the girls got back on track and captured the
decade's seventh County title, Allan had one more reminder: "Seven is my
lucky number."