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Five NESD teams start new season
H.S. Wrestling

By John Welch
Special to the Express-News

Wednesday, Nov 17, 1999

Five of the six North East School District teams and Beeville open the second UIL wrestling season tonight with dual meets.

The six North East schools — Churchill, Lee, MacArthur, Madison, Roosevelt and newly opened Reagan — Beeville and Corpus Christi Ray comprise District 31 and are the only schools in the San Antonio and Corpus Christi areas competing in wrestling this season.

Churchill, Lee, MacArthur, Madison, Roosevelt and Beeville were in the same district last year. Churchill won the district title and finished fifth at the state meet.

In tonight's matches, Reagan entertains Lee, Roosevelt plays host to MacArthur and Madison travels to Beeville. All matches start at 7:30 p.m. Action continues Saturday with the Churchill Tournament. The Chargers will be joined in the meet by the five other North East schools. Matches start at 9 a.m.

Dallas Highland Park won the state championship last year with 190 points. Churchill finished with 68.

"Our goal this year is to beat fifth place," Chargers coach J.D. Mosley said. "And if we got fourth, I think we'd all be very happy as a team. We're not going to slack off on our goals just because we graduated a bunch of guys. We've got a lot of good guys who will be taking their place."

Ross Harkrider, Justin Pelletier and Chris Todd return from Churchill's 1998 squad. Harkrider finished sixth in the 125-pound class at state.

Two of the strongest area wrestlers spearhead Roosevelt. Senior Brock Stratton, the top area finisher at state, captured a gold medal in the 189-pound class. Teammate Ben Hunter finished fourth in the 275-pound class.

Reagan, coached by David Greathouse, is expecting a good season even though the Rattlers' program is in its first year.

"We have a decent team this year," Greathouse said. "And even though we're going to be young, we've still got a lot of kids with some wrestling experience. We think we should be competitive."

The District 31 meet is Feb. 5 at Reagan, followed by the Region IV meet on Feb. 11-12 at Littleton Gym. The UIL State Tournament is Feb. 25-26 in Austin.

Three schools — Churchill, Lee and Madison — have girls on their squads. Texas is the only state where girls wrestle against only other girls in competition.
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Women in sports making big strides

LINDA ROBERTSON

Published Thursday, October 14, 1999, in the Miami Herald

Twenty-five years ago, only the most imaginative dreamer could have foretold a
standing-room-only Rose Bowl crowd for the Women's World Cup of soccer, with
more TV viewers than the last game of the NBA Finals.

Or the presence of a female sideline broadcaster on Monday Night Football.

Or the popularity of the championship series of a women's pro basketball
league in which one of the star players has her own $110 signature shoe line.

This week -- as the Women's Sports Foundation celebrates its 25th
anniversary,as the Miami Heat's sister WNBA franchise barely meets its
season-ticket-sales
deadline, as Serena Williams ponders entering a men's tennis tournament -- is as
good as any to reflect on the progress of women in sports and the hurdles
they will face over the next 25 years.

Women have the muscle. When will they get the money?

Will fans turn out and tune in even when the winning goal isn't scored by a
pony-tailed blonde in a blue bra?

Will female athletes learn from the mistakes of selfish and boorish male
stars -- or repeat them?

When the Women's Sports Foundation was founded in 1974 by Billie Jean King,a
year after she defeated self-proclaimed male chauvinist pig Bobby Riggs in their
``Battle of the Sexes,'' American society wasn't ready for sweat equity --or a
female Supreme Court justice or a female astronaut. A woman's place was in the
laundry room, not the boardroom. It would be 10 years before women were
allowed to run the marathon in the Olympics.

Today, it's cool to be swift, strong, confident, competitive. Many girls aspire to
look like Mia Hamm or Marion Jones instead of Farah Fawcett. The TV producers
of the Winter/Figure Skating Olympics and the Summer/Gymnastics Olympics
can't resist putting women on the screen.

But if women's sports is to widen its current wholesome, family-circle
appeal and climb beyond its current politically and culturally correct plateau, the
games and the names have to take off economically.

Sure, it's heartwarming to see the expanding WNBA draw an average of 10,000
fans. But when will it have the sponsors and TV ratings to make it profitable?

The wage gap in women's pro sports is worse than that of the workplace, where
women earn 79 cents for every dollar a man makes. More than half of U.S.
colleges and universities ignore the 27-year-old Title IX, the law that
mandates equal opportunity.

Male coaches outnumber female coaches of women's teams on the college level.
In the WNBA, the percentage of female coaches has dropped from 88 to 42
percent. The Heat's hiring of Ron Rothstein, who cannot possibly know as much
about the women's game and talent pool as an experienced female coach of
women's basketball, is puzzling.

``The 40-and-under mom and dad get it, but the athletic directors and corporate
decision-makers are typically older folks who grew up when girls and women
weren't athletes,'' said Women's Sports Foundation executive director Donna
Lopiano. ``It will take us time to get through this dinosaur stage. The
standard of success is public visibility and recognition.''

Women must also shed negative stereotypes. Five years after endorsement-poor
Martina Navratilova retired, players such as Amelie Mauresmo and Serena
Williams endure the preoccupation with their physiques.

At the same time, women must not sully their heroic image the way men have.

``We felt terrible because we were aware girls were watching,'' Detroit WNBA
coach Nancy Lieberman-Cline said of her team's bench-clearing fight with
Cleveland. ``I spent so much time apologizing, answering letters from parents.
When guys have brawls, everyone says `it happens.' Women want to be different.
We want to be role models.''

Twenty-five years from now?

Lieberman-Cline foresees equal pay for equal work. Lopiano predicts women will
coach men's teams -- why not a woman coaching Notre Dame football or owning
the Florida Marlins? Why not Tuesday Night Softball, sponsored by Ford, with
Bob Costas' daughter doing color commentary? Why not Lisa Leslie as NBA
commissioner?

Why not?