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Just one of the boys: Girl wrestler bends tradition in boys-only sport

: CASPER, Wyo.

High school wrestler Sarah Tolin is bucking tradition in a boys-only
sport. In fact, she is pinning it to the mat.

The Wyoming High School Activities Association recently decided to allow
girls to petition the association to participate in
boys' football and wrestling, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.

The association approved the petition rule after Tolin asked the group to
allow her to participate in wrestling this school year.
But Tolin, a junior at Kelly Walsh High School in Casper, still has a fight
to win on the gym floor.

She has been practicing with the team for the past two weeks, and at
5-foot-3 and 112 pounds, the pony-tailed Tolin is easy to
spot on the wrestling mat.

When the coach yells for everyone to pair up, she is the last to find a
partner.

And the guys don't go easy on her.

"When I wrestle her, I go out there and show her why it's a guy's sport,"
said teammate Chad Jackson.

Some of her fellow wrestlers think she should have tried to start a women's
wrestling team before joining the boys.

Some contend it is unfair that boys are still prohibited from playing girls'
sports. The association does not allow boys to
participate in girls' volleyball or gymnastics.

Many are just trying to get used to the idea of a girl on their team.

"It's just different," said teammate Ryan Erdahl. "But we'll still treat her
the same."

Tolin said she realizes she is now the poster child for equal rights in
sports, but she is quick to say that she is not trying to prove
any point. She just likes to wrestle.

"I like being aggressive," Tolin said, tightening up the rubber band holding
her hair back.

Tolin is no beginner to the sport. She has been an amateur wrestler for five
years, earning titles such as Wyoming State Girls
Free style Champion and 1998 outstanding wrestler at the Rocky Mountain
Regional Senior Women's Division tournament.
Last June, she placed fifth at the Cadet Women's National Championships in
Louisiana.

She said she likes the respect that comes with being the team's lady
wrestler.

"Sometimes people in class say things like, 'Watch out for her,"' she said.

And it's not awkward to toss her male teammates around.

"I'm used to it," she said. "And it's gotten a lot easier, more guys respect
me now."

Her father, Donald Tolin, said he is proud of his daughter's perseverance.

"We've worked on this for two years and we feel good that we were able to
accomplish this without having to litigate it," he
said.

His daughter is no tomboy, he said. She is a member of Job's Daughters,
plays viola in the school orchestra and is a student
council member.

Wrestling is a family tradition. Tolin's older sister is a former wrestling
manager, her parents are wrestling officials and her older
and younger brothers are wrestlers.

Glen Legler, athletic director at Natrona County High School, said he
expects the petition rule to create problems.

"I think the earlier rule was set up to protect girls' sports ... and to
also protect girls," he said.

Now it is a matter of time before guys petition to play female sports, he
said.

"I think this opens up a whole can of worms," he said.

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Ocampo ready to conquer the world
WOMEN'S WRESTLING: Channel Islands graduate to compete in Junior Championships in Romania

By Derry Eads
Staff writer

Published Friday July 30, 1999

She was made an honorary scorekeeper for the CIF-Southern Section individual finals. Made front-page news for becoming the first female in Ventura County to win a league wrestling title at the 1998 Marmonte Championships.
Channel Islands High graduate Olivia Ocampo knows how it feels to be a novelty act.

Just like women's wrestling.

But Ocampo and the sport are on the cutting edge of taking women's wrestling from a WWF novelty to the Olympic stage.

One year after beating many of Ventura County's best high school 103-pound wrestlers, Ocampo became one of the premier athletes in women's collegiate wrestling at the University of Minnesota-Morris as a freshman and added two national championships to her growing resume.

Notoriety. Respect.

Nearly simultaneously, both have knocked on the doors of Ocampo and the sport.

"They (the media) have made more of a big deal for women than men in the sport," said Ocampo. "There's not any negative reporting about women's wrestling.

"I've had people calling me all of the time for interviews."

Never heard much about women's collegiate wrestling? Much less women's amateur wrestling on a national/world level?

Ocampo's team, Minnesota-Morris, had one of the smallest squads, 13. Many of its opponents had 20-25 player rosters.

She has competed in a half dozen junior and senior national championships. On Aug. 12-15, Ocampo will be competing in the Junior World Championships in Romania.

"At the Junior Worlds last year in Norway, we were treated like royalty," said Ocampo. "It was awesome."

In five years, women's wrestling takes center stage as a demonstration sport at the 2004 Olympic Games.

What women wrestlers don't have is equality with their male counterparts.

"The guys get paid to go to tournaments," said Ocampo. "Women barely receive any sponsorships."

Ocampo, seven-time national champion Trish Saunders and Julia Gonzales rank as the nation's top three women wrestlers in the 101-pound division.

Ocampo pinned Gonzales in 5:01 in the championship match to win the women's freestyle 97-pound title at the U.S. National Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas last spring.

In June, Ocampo won the 101-pound title in the junior nationals and was runner-up at seniors to Saunders.

Ocampo leaves Oxnard on Aug. 6 for a training camp outside of Chicago. Ocampo has been extended an invitation to another training session Aug. 23-31 in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Now a world traveler, Ocampo had never left California on her own before leaving for college last fall.

"The biggest thing was learning how to be responsible for myself," said Ocampo.

Ocampo had a 16-4 record in her first collegiate season.

"I feel that I have a better understanding of wrestling," she said. "I feel the openings better. My technique has improved quite a bit."

During her short vacation in Oxnard, Ocampo has trained with longtime coaches Robert Ferguson and Brian Peterson.

Like most wrestlers, Ocampo struggles to maintain her weight.

"I'm 4-11," said Ocampo, "if I get up to 112 pounds, I am a blimp. I look like a cabbage patch doll. I get really big legs.

"Being home doesn't make things easier. I can't resist my mom's cooking."

Ocampo's diet consists of vegetables and fruits for breakfast, a lunch of high protein with either tuna, fish or chicken and fruits for dinner. She usually runs three miles a day and lifts weights at night to complement her mat workouts.

Ocampo file

personal information: 18, sophomore at the University of Minnesota-Morris; 1998 graduate of Channel Islands High School.

family: Parents: Oscar and Ester Ocampo.

high school: 1998 Marmonte League champion, becoming the first female in Ventura County history to win a league wrestling title.

Nationals: 1999 National Women's Freestyle champion in 97-pound division; 1999 National Women's Junior Champion in 101-pound division; runner-up in 1999 National Women's Senior Championships.

--------------------------------

Go to the mat
HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING: At Thousand Oaks, 20 athletes are pioneering a new
sport with enthusiasm, determination.

November 4, 1999, Thursday
Molly R. Okeon
Staff writer

Shake hands. Forehead to forehead. Arms around arms. Wrestle.

You've never seen girls fight like this before.

Cool, calm, calculated. Civilized. Imagine it: a sport that lets girls
perform hand-to-hand combat just like
the guys do it.

But in Thousand Oaks girls' wrestling coach Shannon Yancey's ideal future,
it might be thought of as a
girl's sport as much as it is a guy's.

Yancey, a four-time world silver medalist and four-time national champion
for USA Wrestling for
women's freestyle, has even coached well-known Channel Islands High alumna
Olivia Ocampo on the
women's national wrestling team this past summer. Ocampo won a league
wrestling title against males at
the 1998 Marmonte Championships and has won two women's national
championships since.

And when coaching the 20 young women who are now part of the first female
wrestling team in the
Marmonte League, Yancey is, to say the least, a source of positive energy.

During a practice last week, Yancey, who also coaches the cheerleading
squad, commanded quite a
presence. All 16 girls watched her intently during instruction, as though
she were reciting holy scripture to
them.

"You're looking her in the eye saying, 'Come on, let's go,' " said the
5-foot-1-inch Yancey, who uses her
maiden name, Williams, when wrestling professionally, as she explained the
latest drill.

Her enthusiasm for the sport has apparently rubbed off on the team in a big
way.

"Wrestling is my life," said 15-year-old sophomore Mollie Craven, who
wrestled last year along with the
four other girls who showed interest. "I go to sleep thinking about it.
Idream about it. Sometimes, at night,
Ican feel myself clinching up because I'm thinking about certain moves in my
sleep."

Craven said she believes wrestling is not only a physical sport, but a
mental sport. She said it's not about
who is stronger, it's about who knows the moves best.

"Anyone, any size, any color, any race -- anyone can wrestle," she said. "It
crosses all boundaries."

Yancey explained that while the girls wrestle both each other and members of
the boys' wrestling team
during practice, they invite girls from other schools to wrestle in matches.

But some of the girls want to wrestle guys in competition. Sophomore Justine
Chiou, who Yancey said
has serious potential as a wrestler, is one of those young women.

Chiou studied the martial art Tang Soo Do, which she describes as being 60
percent kicking and 40
percent punching. Though this is her first year wrestling, she said she
enjoys competing against males.

"They actually see you as part of the team after a while," she said. "They
don't see you as a girl, and 'Oh,
I can't touch her there.' "

Chiou said wrestling epitomizes the idea of a sport because the weight
classes make it fair.

"You're not wrestling someone who's much bigger or much smaller than you,"
said the 15-year-old. "I
really enjoy working with different people and developing my own style."

While Craven and Chiou said they didn't take flak for being girl wrestlers,
15-year-old sophomore Brianna
Rooney said she did. After playing soccer for 10 years, Rooney gave up the
sport to be on Yancey's
team.

"Not too many girls are doing it," she said. "(My friends said), 'What are
you doing wrestling for? You
don't belong.' "

Now Rooney's friends think her new sport is fascinating. At a recent slumber
party, Rooney got her
friends in wrestling clothes and taught them, along with some of the adults,
some wrestling moves.

Rooney added that she also hopes to wrestle guys in competitions because she
thinks some girls "tend to
be frail."

Yancey said she is proud of her girls, who she believes are brave for
"pioneering" girls' wrestling. She
added that wrestling is a great form of self-defense.

"I hope that in a few years, it's a league sport," she said. "Ithink they
are going to get a fantastic
experience, and most of all, I think it's empowering that you can protect
yourself."

The Thousand Oaks girls' wrestling team will host the "Williams Cup" Girls'
Wrestling Tournament Sat.,
Jan. 8, 2000.

The tournament will include a clinic taught by Yancey prior to the weigh-ins
and competition. Fees before
Dec. 1 are $15 per wrestler and $175 per team. After Jan. 1, they are $20
per wrestler and $200 per
team. If not enough wrestlers register before Dec.1, the tournament might be
cancelled.