From the "darkside" In a response to B Meyer for "145 girl needs a partner" I hate to reiterate it but this is my "saferoom".
"Girly" writes:I wouldn't want my son wrestling some crappy beginner girl wrestler. What is he gonna get out of that? Girls should wrestle girls if they must participate in this sport.
"Of the 3 girls this year all three made it to regionals and 2 of the 3 made it to state"
That's ridiculous. Don't you know that most BOYS wrestle for up to 10 years to even have a chance to "make it to state"? Some girl decides to start wrestling and makes it to state because girls wrestling is really bad and not many participate. Stupid. Really takes away from hard working boys who have paid their dues and earned a trip to the big dance. Girls wrestling shouldn't even be included at the sacred "Matt Classic"!
So my question to the "Board of Intellect" is this.
Pros and Cons I know the pros to Girls Wrestling because I have 34 daughters in this sport so Im a bit biased. Does anyone see the cons?
Oh and bye the way no one ever did help much with finding this girl a partner.
It's awesome that we're seeing such a large turnout of girls at the high school level, but I still see comparatively small numbers at the junior high and USA tournament levels.
The general skill level of the girls at state is still lower than the general skill levels of the boys... but that's to be expected right now. Girls wrestling is still very young and you won't start seeing equivalent general skill until we have more that start at a young age.
For example, I refereed for a match at Einstein Middle School last Thursday, and three girls competed, gaining two wins. Most of the kids there were brand new, so when you gave equivalent experience, the playing field was actually pretty level.
Don, you and I have discussed the different techniques when wrestling against girls over e-mail, and we both know that while many aspects are similar, there are a lot of differences, too. Imagine if B-E could start preparing girls to face other girls at a younger age (say, junior high). They'd be downright dominant at state! I'm personally rooting for that to eventually happen.
There's a girl named Sabrina (can't remember the last name) who's going to go to Eastlake next year, and she gave our 103 pounder (who went to state) a good match at a WWKWL exhibition. I think our boy won by 1 or 2, but still, it goes to show what a girl with several years of experience can do, and she's hasn't had a year of high school experience yet.
Just for fun, let's pretend that the rules for girls and boys volleyball were equal (they're not, notably due to net height). I remember doing volleyball in PE, and the volleyball girls were kicking @$$ and taking names. If you were to field an all-boys team (assuming almost none started before high school) and being allowed to enter the girls' draw, what would the odds of them winning state be? What would be the odds of them qualifying for state?
Honestly, not that good on either count. As of right now, there are going to be some examples where some girls qualify for state mostly because the numbers in their region and weight class do not yet support thinning out the weaker wrestlers. However, that's what the first two rounds of state are for
What's happening now is the foundations are being laid for future success of the sport.
Now, for the potential cons.
A long time ago (a year or two, maybe?), I argued with TRV on the other board about girls wrestling and he did make a good point about the risk of lawsuits over sexual harassment. I initially thought that he was being silly, but after more thought, he did raise a good point.
Keep in mind, this was based on the concept of boys and girls wrestling each other during the main season, both on the mat and in the practice room. However, I've seen boys messing around (playing grabass or something) and thought "if they did that to a girl teammate, we'd be hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit so fast..."
When I was in junior high school, we had a girl wrestler on the team. One team actually forfeited the weight class because the boy didn't believe in wrestling against girls. While unfortunate, we're still going to see some of that here and there. I can't help but think that it'd take just one crafty lawyer to sue the pants off the coach and school.
In my opinion (which, combined with 75 cents, is worth a bag of chips from a vending machine), B-E is doing things the right way by separating the girls and boys during official team practices. As you mentioned earlier, it makes it tough for girls like your daughter to compete against girls like Jomae (who get to wrestle the boys), but I think it's going to become more and more common as more girls sign up to wrestle.
It sucks that we have to deal with idiot trolls in the meantime, but they'll slowly fade out with time.
Hey Max, Always good to see a fellow choir member lol The "cons" will only be solved in the future when more girls are participating. Hence the boy/girl wrestling problem. With the perspective of girls wrestling as a astigmatism "wink,wink" with most.
There are several daughters nieces sisters and so on that will sadly never get the chance to participate in such a great sport. Most of the girls that wrestle with the boys have "gotten over it" as a possible sexual harassment unless the boy is just bein stupid. You just have to check those kids at the door and not allow them around the girls. That goes for coaches too.
With 1 female asst coach or none for that matter, imagine the challenges and limitations of a male coach working with one or 30+ girls. You can tie up elbow off and work arms and shoulders, knees, ankles but then you stop and play charades. Thats all you can do. With the girls from a single girl team and no female coach what the heck are they supposed to do? I cant wait for some of our recently successful and experienced girls to come back and give us a hand! But the last yrs state participants were also "not allowed" into practice with this yrs girls, its gettin pretty tight and I can see how and why that will happen at some of the other schools when the numbers go up. Hey, its because of frivolous law suits that the cost and liability of everything we do in our public and personal lives gets a double take.
My contractor insurance liability premiums went up over 1000% in 5 yrs with no claims because of stupid people wanting something for nothing! Which makes me understand an AD's position over sexual harassment suits in a given sport. Being exposed to an industry full of sue happy people I do know the pain of it!
Thanks Max for another opportunity for me to ramble/vent again hopefully not aimlessly.
Rowan is a pretty good leg rider (in my totally unbiased opinion.) She got good at it because her male coaches had no compunction teaching the techniques or demonstrating them on her.
I find it kind of funny when folks get all weirded out by some wrestling positions when its a male and a female but they have no problem when it is a couple of guys. The deal isn't the positions, it is the context. As long as you keep the context about wrestling, there should be no problem.
Agreed, Rowan is a very good wrestler and I'm glad she had a good experience in the Inglemoor practice room (which doesn't surprise me, knowing the quality and character of the coaching staff).
We had a girl on the team two years ago who almost qualified for regionals. Her parents had no interest in going and asked if I would be willing to drive her (my response was an emphatic "no" - sorry, I'm not going to be alone in a car with a high school girl).
It annoys me how we have to be so careful about lawsuits, but it's necessary. Don, you hit the nail on the head about girls who graduate coming back to coach, as they are the future coaches and the ones who can probably teach girls technique better than I could.
However, a smart AD won't hire them until they're a few more years removed from high school.
One of the other local schools (I can't say names because it's still under investigation) had an issue where they brought on a kid fresh out of high school to be a volunteer coach. There's a lot of "he said, she said" between what happened and what was told to me, but from what I gather, he was hitting on a few of the cheerleaders of that school and they got uncomfortable and reported it. He didn't see it as a problem because he was 18/early 19 and the girls were 17, but the problem came in that he was an assistant coach and a school representative, even though he wasn't getting paid.
I have to imagine that basketball went through the same growing pains we're going through now. Too bad we can't just skip ahead. Kind of exciting, though, seeing the second generation of pioneers within the sport (the first being girls like Aurielle, Camie, et al who qualified for state with the boys).
Ro is coaching at one of the Inglemoor feeder schools. There was already one girl turned out for the team. (She been at to for a couple of years already.) When she told her friends that one of the coaches was a woman, she was able to get 4-5 more girls to come out for the team.
yea..many boys that start late have to get over a homophobia before compfort levels go up. As it is with the girls..all of them would never have a problem with coach "Donny" gettin to show them the proper technique without all the cherades. But the problem lays with the outsiders of wrestling seeing a male coach in such a position with a HS girl at practice.
I have to admit if I were an outsider I would probably think it was very wrong...but we understand wrestling and our girls appreciate the opportunity with out thinking this dudes a creeper.
At any moment another "administrator" or other sports coach could walk in..and uh oh...there goes a great program and opportunity for the girls to overcome some social angst...and on the B side of this record is the self defense that is learned by several of these girls...all winner winner in my book.
To bring in new girls will only happen with wider acceptance. Some accepting wrestling "Families" are not afraid to get their daughters in early to get the advantage in HS. If we can just mainstream it a little more and get "positive" media attention. I talk with Lundgren--B-E boys coach on occasion to see what the middle school turnout is because he coaches it. Mostly left with recruiting within the high school right now. Maybe a few flyer's for some clinics/meet and greet with younger girls can get them interested before mis-guided peer pressure gets in the way. Thats where guys like us come in!
Re: New Girls--farming
Posted by Seattle Coach on 3/1/2010, 5:14 pm, in reply to "New Girls--farming"
True. One idea to spark interest may be to have some of the high school girls speak/demonstrate at a junior high assembly before the junior high season starts.
Or PE... I got my initial start when we did a week of wrestling in PE and our teacher suggested I give it a try.
We need to remember that as more girls wrestle and improve, more and more girls will be looking to continue past high school and wrestle at the collegiate and even international level. We parents, coaches, etc. should challenge ourselves to facilitate this progression in our wrestlers. I don't think the arbitrary rule of "girls wrestle only girls" is the way to accomplish these goals.
My daughter is a sophomore wrestler at a Metro school. She has done pretty well so far for an athletic kid with no experience before the 9th grade. However, she has decided that this sport is something important to her and she wants to take it as far as she possibly can. So my job is to make sure she gets the best possible coaching and appropriate practice partners.
My position is that the best partners are determined by ability and weight, not gender. As such, I had no problem with her practicing with the boys on her school's coed team. Same thing for wrestling with the coaches. She likes to wrestle hard and when the other kids are on a rest break, she grabs a coach to get in extra mat time because she wants the challenge. Her teammates and coaches must concur as she was just voted to be the team captain next year.
I've seen Victoria Anthony (Jr World Champ) up at Simon Frasier and Clarissa Chun (2008 World Champ, 5th at Beijing) wrestle in person and I guarantee that they would not be where they are today if they had been limited to same gender practices.
YMMV...
Re: Long-term view
Posted by Seattle Coach on 3/4/2010, 8:33 am, in reply to "Long-term view"
Which metro school? Is she coming out for freestyle wrestling? They're tuesday/thursday, 5:30-7:30 at Ballard High School (she'll need a USA card and there's a club fee... can't remember how much off the top of my head). We can always use another hard working practice partner.
Re: Long-term view
Posted by TMitchell on 3/4/2010, 9:35 am, in reply to "Re: Long-term view"
She wrestles for Lakeside.
She is training with PinCity 3 days a week as well as the odd judo practice prepping for the HS judo state championships this spring. We'll be at all the tournaments with a girls division.
Abilities
Posted by B-E Dad on 3/4/2010, 7:08 pm, in reply to "Re: Long-term view"
Some girls are offered the chance to wrestle boys when in a smaller HS program. Most are only offered the opportunity in freestyle. Some high schools forbid it all together on the girls wrestling team while at practice. It offer advantages and disadvantages for many. As many times as I have brought up the subject I now understand both sides. I do not see a general rule from the WIAA coming in anytime soon until participation numbers get higher. From what I have learned we will be looking at an average of 8 to 10 girls for most teams before it is brought up again. I don not think it is fair however to be allowed by one and not another and vice versa.
on 2/28/2010, 10:29 pm
The deal isn't the positions, it is the context. As long as you keep the context about wrestling, there should be no problem.