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Jessica Heckman just wants to be another wrestler.
Sunday, December 5

Sunday News
If Jessica Heckman's big brother had wanted to be an astronaut or offensive lineman, this would be a different story.

If he had been passionate about a conventionally coed activity, this might not be a story at all.

But Jessica's brother was a wrestler. So a wrestler is what Jessica wanted to be.

Heckman revealed this information to her parents about seven years ago, when she was in fourth grade and it was time to sign up for Manheim Township's youth wrestling program. Mom and Dad said they were OK with it.

"I think they thought I'd be done with it after a year," she said.

She's a junior at Manheim Township now, and not at all done with it. Last winter, Heckman won the state high school girls' championship (yes, there is such a thing; it was held at McCaskey) in her weight class, winning two matches in a combined total of 57 seconds.

She finished eighth in the country in the national girls' meet, in Ann Arbor, Mich.

There are over 2,300 female high school wrestlers in the country, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, or more than three times the number of female football players. Yet there are almost no female teams.

Which means, of course, teen-age girls wrestling teen-age boys. I know what you're thinking. Stop thinking that.

"Have you ever wrestled?" Heckman asks. You hear a lot of that sort of thing from wrestlers: You don't get it because you're never done it. It's an understandable attitude. This is not, after all, the WWF.

"Once you get on the mat," Heckman continued, "you're not thinking about where your hands are, or thinking, "I'd better not bump her here.' You're thinking about winning the match."

At least three males who speak from experience agree.

"I think the guys treat her more like a little sister than anything else," said Jan Minnich, Township's coach. "I think they admire her."

"It's pretty much just like wrestling a guy," said Todd Lewis, Township's varsity regular at 145 pounds, who worked out with Heckman often last year, before he moved up in weight class.

Pretty much, but not exactly, according to 140-pounder Brian Beattie.

"You're taught not to hit girls, and at first it can be a little weird," Beattie admitted. "Then you just get into wrestling like usual, but you do draw a line somewhere."

Minnich saw Heckman coming years ago, of course, since she was in the youth program.

"I thought I'd have to make a lot of special provisions, but it's been easy," he said.

Minnich said he does call the opposing coach before each match, to remind him there's a girl on his team, and to suggest that a female staff member at the school be present for the weigh-in. He's asked Heckman if, in coaching her, she minded his reflexive use of male pronouns, as in "set him up," or, "take him down."

No problem.

"If she thought I was making any kind of special provision for her, she'd be upset," Minnich said.

Heckman is currently a backup for Township at 112 pounds. But last year, she was Township's varsity starter at 103 pounds, and compiled a 7-17 record.

Several of the wins were by forfeit, since 103-pound teen-age males are in short supply. But she did win some matches against boys. At least one had the experience of being pinned by a girl.

The world continued to rotate on its axis.

"She knows what she's doing," Lewis said.

"I don't know how well she could do (against boys)," Beattie said, "because of the strength factor."

Against girls, though?

"She'd dominate," Beattie said.

And that's what Heckman is interested in: not being a pioneer, but being part of an established, organized girls' sport.

"I look at (wrestling against boys) as a training thing, and for that it's great," she said. "But (for competing), it's not ideal. It's just what you have to do to get started."

Even in colleges, opportunities are few. Heckman is interested in the University of Minnesota-Morris, which has an intercollegiate team and gives scholarships. Heckman said the men's wrestling coach at King's College has contacted her about perhaps getting the sport started for women there, at least at a club level.

Doug Reese, Minnesota-Morris' coach, said Friday he's aware of only three other colleges with intercollegiate teams: Missouri Valley College, Cumberland (Ky.) College and American International College in Springfield, Mass.

That seems strange, since so many colleges, even lavishly endowed Ivy League schools, have dropped men's wrestling programs because of the cost and problems with Title IX, the law that compels colleges to offer equal scholarship opportunities for men and women.

Offering the same number of wrestling scholarships to both sexes would seem to address that problem.

Juniata and Messiah are among a small-but-growing number of schools that have or are planning women's club teams.

Wrestling will be an Olympic medal sport for women in 2004.

"We get (women) from all over the country," Reese said. "Usually they contact me. There are a lot of women who've fallen in love with the sport, and want to continue with it."

Count Heckman in that category.

"It's self-challenging," Heckman said, explaining her love. "It's quite different from other sports. A lot of it is you against yourself. You can take yourself as far as you want to go."

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7th Circuit won't penalize ISU for axing men's sports programs

Chicago Daily Law Bulletin

December 6, 1999, Monday

A federal appeals court panel has rejected arguments that Illinois State
University discriminated against male students by eliminating its men's
wrestling and soccer programs.

In an opinion Friday, a panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held
that ISU acted lawfully when it dropped the two programs in a bid to boost
the percentage of female athletes at the school.

The panel said universities have broad leeway under Title IX of the
Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. sec1681, to devise strategies
intended to offer men and women equal athletic opportunity.

In its case, ISU chose to achieve that goal by adding a women's soccer
program and eliminating the men's wrestling and soccer programs, the panel
said.

The panel said those moves helped produce a body of student athletes that
was 51.7 percent female and 48.2 percent male at a school whose enrollment
was 55 percent female and 45 percent male.

The figures for men and women -- when rounded off -- showed that the
disparity between enrollment and participation in school sports for both
sexes was within three percentage points, according to the panel.

And policy interpretations by the Office of Civil Rights clearly state that
universities may demonstrate compliance with Title IX by showing that
participation of the under-represented sex is substantially proportionate to
their enrollment at the university," the panel said.

The panel affirmed a ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Joe Billy McDade of
the Central District of Illinois in favor of the university.

A group of former and prospective student athletes had brought a lawsuit
alleging that the university violated Title IX when it dropped the men's
wrestling and soccer programs.

The suit also claimed the school was guilty of sex and race discrimination
under 42 U.S.C. sec1983 and 42 U.S.C. sec1985(3).

But McDade granted summary judgment to the university on the Title IX claim
and dismissed the constitutional claims after concluding that they were
preempted by Title IX.

In challenging McDade's ruling, the student athletes contended that ISU had
violated Title IX because the elimination of the two athletic programs was
based solely on the sex of the programs' participants.

The athletes acknowledged that the university could have singled out the
programs for cancellation because of financial concerns, even if those
concerns included sex-based considerations.

But ISU violated Title IX because its decision to drop the men's wrestling
and soccer programs was motivated by the sex of the participants, the
athletes argued.

The 7th Circuit panel, however, said the athletes were cutting too fine a
line.

Schools take many factors into consideration when deciding which athletic
programs to offer, the panel said.

To say that one decision is financial, while another is sex-based, assumes
that these two aspects can be neatly separated," the panel said. They
cannot. Absent financial concerns, Illinois State University presumably
would rather have added women's programs while keeping its men's programs
intact."

The panel rejected the athletes' attempt to distinguish their situation from
the situation addressed by the 7th Circuit in Kelley v. Board of Trustees,
35 F.3d 265 (1994).

In Kelley, members of the men's swimming team sued after ISU eliminated
their program in an attempt to drop teams that were not competitive on a
national level, the panel said.

But in order to comply with Title IX, the university maintained the women's
swimming team even though it was not competitive, the panel said.

The panel said the 7th Circuit rejected the challenge to ISU's actions,
holding that the elimination of men's athletic programs is not a violation
of Title IX as long as men's participation in athletics continues to be
substantially proportionate' to their enrollment."

In the current case, the student athletes suing over the cancellation of the
men's wrestling and soccer programs incorrectly read Kelley to allow the
elimination of men's teams only because of financial concerns, the panel
said.

But the panel said that given the practical difficulty of distinguishing
financial and sex-based concerns, the effect of accepting such a distinction
would only force universities under serious budget constraints to cast
decisions made under the shadow of Title IX as financial ones."

The panel also rejected the athletes' argument that eliminating men's
wrestling and soccer did not serve an important government objective because
it merely decreased opportunities for men without increasing those for
women.

Quoting Kelley, the panel said Title IX's purpose is not to increase
athletic opportunities for women but to prohibit educational institutions
from discriminating on the the basis of sex."

And the panel cited Waid v. Merrill Area Public Schools, 91 F.3d 857 (7th
Cir. 1996), in holding that the athletes' claim of sex discrimination under
section 1983 was preempted by Title IX.

The panel also rejected allegations under sections 1983 and 1985(3) that
race discrimination was involved in the elimination of the men's wrestling
and soccer teams.

Those claims must be resolved under Title VI, which bars discrimination
based on race, color or national origin in any program receiving federal
funds, the panel said.

The panel said the availability of a claim under Title VI preempted any
claim of race discrimination under sections 1983 and 1985(3).

Judge Joel M. Flaum wrote the opinion joined by Judge Terence T. Evans.

The panel's third member, Judge Harlington Wood Jr., also joined in his
fellow jurists' well-reasoned opinion."

But in a concurring opinion, Wood added that a university might in some
situations have the additional funding needed to maintain athletic programs
that are not competitive.

In that case, Wood said, he would expect a school to refrain from cutting
any programs in an attempt to reach proportionality in athletic
participation between the sexes.

Student athletes would neither be helped nor hindered by the proportionality
formula," Wood said. Participation is more important than percentages."

Chris Boulahanis, et al. v. Board of Regents, et al., No. 99-1561.

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