awood1

Wrong and wrong again. Never said that she or the weight class were weak. Simply point out the fact that it should not come as a surprise to anyone that one of the best ATHLETES in the state <120lbs is a girl. She has maximized her strength, skill and talent, just has every male competitor that she faces. The bitter pill for you to swallow is that she IS one of the best athletes in IN <120lbs regardless of gender. Sorry boys.

I can't resist.... Here in CA we heard of and learned about Kayla Miracle today. As much as I could write thousands of words about class wrestling, girls wrestling, women's rights, boy's embarrassment, chauvinist refs,etc. it won't change Sarto (or some others) minds. By page 1 this discussion had deteriorated to bristling and posturing from most. That said, I will share the conclusion of a days worth of conversation in the bleachers during wrestling here.... No man exists at 112lbs. The fact that we have a weight class that low slaps in the face of any responsible weight mgmt. program and was created for the pre-pubescent underclassmen anyway. The fact that women, who mature faster and are generally smaller, can put in the work and succeed at it, should be no surprise. The best and strongest women in sports may be gymnast who frequently way less than 100lbs. It's not viewed as a "weak spot" in IN wrestling, it's viewed as exposure of a sport that fails to acknowledge that in their effort to provide fair and equal access they have done just that. They just didn't count on one of the best <120lb. athletes being a girl. DUH! ;D

Right after they eliminate baseball, football and ...oh wait they DO have male gymnastics!! (and don't give me that "not at my school" crap, didn't seem to stop lacrosse from growing!)

He can in CA, not any kids fault...it's the adults. If enough boys want to play volleyball, they would have boys volleyball. Enough girls wanted to wrestle in CA, they now have girls wrestling. If you want to be trite to make a point, you gotta do better. ;D ;D ;D :o : : :

It's really pretty simple...it's just YOU! Coach, mom, priest...no one is out there but you! YOUR time, YOUR work, YOUR sacrifice, YOUR humiliation..it's all you. You are alone unlike any other sport. There are several stories that blame coincidence, the draw, the ref, but none of the changes when they grab the wrist of your opponent and raise it to the sky. The ONLY person standing there is YOU.

20+ years of the SAME complaints every year...until Merrillville's AD dies, it will be there and NOTHING will change.

Kinda been outta the loop for awhile, but Geez-o-pete do LaPorte and New Prairie still HAVE wrestling teams? WTH is going on there? :-\

It is always going to be a tough call for an official and a frustrating call for a coach when it is made. Especially when officials are calling match after match and may not know a particular wrestlers "style". It is easy to assume that as a match starts wrestler A is "agressive" and wrestler B is just defending. Truth is that in many cases wrestler B has a style that does not include offense at all. These guys will refuse to put themselves in danger on their feet. Couple that with riding legs and these guys will win a ton of matches as they are "fresh" on bottom and work extremely hard to get the E or T2 and thats all they need to win. If wrestler A happens to get the E from bottom, he is often much more fatigued and hence easier to stop when taking a shot and score a T2 (again from a defensive position) On a personal note, I have found the consolation rounds (1-2-2) are much more advantageous to my older son! He can go out and push the action hard for 1 min. and "expose" a defensive wrestler as wanting nothing to do with offense without working a full 2 mins "chasing" a guy. Starting the 2nd pd. he is ready to ride a guy hard and work to turn him OR get his E or R and work again to score. At this point the "defensive" style has to go out the window.

Saliva - Ladies and Gentleman Tim Mcgraw-How Bad Do You Want It Judas Priest - You've Got Another Thing Comin' AC/DC -For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shcI6vE-PlE AC/DC - Its A Long Way To The Top If Ya Wanna Rock And Roll http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o Cypress Hill - How i could just kill a man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d12EI3xNiqE Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down (good for kids to learn it is NOT A DODGE COMMERCIAL!!)

I get that, and my motivation is strictly selfish reasons. But since college I have lived in at least 10 different addresses and every time I was asked, regardless of where I was living at the time, my response has always been and will always be Elkhart, IN. The feeling is fostered by the ongoing argument with CA folks about the "quality" of wrestling in selected regions. I am proud of the fact that CA still has 1 true state champion at each weight. But to get the equivalent in IN, you would have to have the state champions from IN, ILL, OH and MI wrestle. Kids in CA retort, "If wrestling in the Midwest is so tough, how come CA kicks their ass every year at Nationals!?" Being able to point at Reece, Howe and Angel as "Indiana boys" make my case much stronger!! ;D

You showed him!! :

Medals? Where did we go to get the medals! HAHA It cracks me up that you guys are all getting crazy about what another coach chooses to do with his line-up. We all heard that the kid that "didn't get to wrestle" was some supposed bad a$$ that was being dodged. That's YOUR perspective, but I am not gonna grab the rope and round up the posse to hang the dude. MAYBE the kid had an injury, bed wetting issues, a trick knee, whatever. But for someone to get all butt hurt that their stud was denied the opportunity to whoop up on some JV kid is crazy. There are all sorts of life lessons to be learned in wrestling, but I doubt the kid on the receiving end of the forfeit is scarred for life. Chances are he gets much better wrestling the guys around him in the room on a good team than pounding on a kid from those %$#^@& cheaters that shuffle their line-ups!! :

Just make sure they don't have tape on their headgear though!! (love that one, BIG deal in CA all of the sudden!! HAHA)

Coaches will kick away from a punt returner all day though....essentially removing him from impacting the game though. ;D

Sure like it better when guys like Howe list their hometown as opposed to Humphrey and Escobedo that list the town they are training in? >

As the father of 2 boys, the only dog I have in the fight is WRESTLING! Some knuckle dragging peers can't seem to see the benefit of girls wrestling and I would probably be WAY behind the curve too if I hadn't had the good fortune to have this young lady play football for me when she was in MS. She never got big enough to continue in football through HS but played her frosh and soph. years as a tough-as-nails DB. Through her first 3 years of HS, there was no womens state tnmt....well watch the video, it tells her story pretty well. Nothing but love for all the young ladies TRYING to wrestle, hopefully you can draw some inspiration from this and know that you are not alone!!

Sorry Y2, but that's what I was told. Based on the fact that the results would indicate as much, I had no reason to doubt it. But it is all hearsay without proof. Thanks for pissing on my statement and point with your facts. Just F'in ignore the rest of the text and go on about your business.

I reread what I wrote and what you wrote and I left out probably the most important bit of information from my side. At the CORE of why I think it is a great idea is that it removes wrestling from the Title IX discussion. Football gets involved because of the disproportionate # of participants, but most others have a counterpart has an approximate equal # of scholarships / opportunities. Baseball has softball, men's basketball has women's basketball, men's track and field has women's track and field, etc. etc. Any girl's program without a male counterpart just helps compensate for football. Wrestling sticks out like a sore thumb to administrators looking to "fix" their Title IX problems and the addition of a women's program puts wrestling in at least the same category as tennis, track and field and soccer when it comes time to make budget cuts. Add in the logic that it has an Olympic counterpart, requires little capital outlay (buy a mat, most already have a gym for basketball), and you are standing on much more stable ground than you are now. Important to remember that people in the Midwest are somewhat jaded to the urgency of the matter. The Big Ten is the only conference that has a lot of wrestling teams for some unknown reason. ??? : Look at the ridiculous number of Pac 10, Big 12, SEC and other mega-conferences that half less than half of their schools with wrestling programs. Since I have moved here I have seen Fresno State and UC Davis both yank the rug out from under their wrestling programs. When EVERY program is marching the bursar's office steps as budget cuts are made every (mens only) wrestling program has a big red target on their chest as administrators think "We can fix our Title IX AND our budget problems with one cut!! It's a no-brainer! At worst we upset a dozen guys and those are the neanderthal, knuckle dragging, trouble makers that chased our basketball team out of the gym!" Sum total: I support women's wrestling as it is the best way to protect men's wrestling. :-\

You stepped on a slippery slope. If you are against a sport because no one watches it, or supports it financially, or a very small portion of the population supports it, you may want to look in the mirror? Heck, statistically no one in the US competes in Greco Roman...let's dump it from the Olympics? I certainly hope not! As numbers go, freestyle is WAY behind skateboarding, darts and bowling. And when I went to the Olympics in Atlanta I saw sports that I didn't even know were sports!! Handball? Judo? Synchronized swimming? So how does it start and how is it supported? It starts just like it is now. Girls wrestle boys and people beetch about it. Then a few "girls only" tnmts. start popping up. Then the IHSAA gets enough pressure and suggests that some version of a girls tnmt. be held. In IN that would probably mean a "regional" of all girls from 4 quadrants of the state with the top 4 at each site qualifying for a state championship. VIOLA 2 weekends, and you have girls wrestling. It ain't perfect and it doesn't happen overnight. Yes the girls that are wrestling now will pound the snot out of the girls that are "trying it" for awhile. Just like kids from the Mater Dei's and Mishawaka's of the world pound the snot out of tiny country bumpkin kids that "try it". And this year, being the first where a girl's state championship, was not without controversy. Case in point, Jennifer Page http://bvwrestling.com/p3717.html. She was a senior who had wrestled Varsity on Bella Vista's team through HS. She was a far better than average wrestler to even make the line-up and usually made at least the semi-finals of every big tnmt. she entered. As a senior, she faced the idea of wrestling in the boys tnmt (where she had zero chance of winning a state championship) or wrestling in the girl's tnmt. The CIF was clear when it started the girl's wrestling tnmt. series. A female wrestler could wrestle in either tnmt. but not both! She decided to wrestle the boy's tnmt. and qualified 2nd in her league, 2nd in her section, and finished 1 match short of qualifying for state (which is much tougher than qualifying for state in IN) In years to come, very few (if any) will chose to wrestle in the "boy's" tnmt. and I am sure the CIF will eventually not even allow it. But each year the competition for the girls will be tougher and the quality of wrestling better. Think of the first soccer, lacrosse, or rugby teams in IN....they sucked!! But as the sports grow, so does the level of the competition. Hope this in some way responds to your questions and comments.

Anywhere that there isn't a boys volleyball team, ABSOLUTELY!!

And who / how would this "petition" be reviewed? Your suggesting that someone would stand in judgment of each case individually to decide if a girl is allowed to wrestle? And what would be the criteria? Are they allowed only if they are flat chested lesbians who don't cry? So the guys will now be submitted to similar "petitioning" procedures too right? I mean I would feel a lot more comfortable if we required everyone be <15% body fat (everyone knows the fat guys can't wrestle) and certify that they don't have any homosexual tendencies (I mean the whole controversy of boys vs. girls seems to center on some uncontrollable urges by teenagers). This sort of thinking can't help but bring a Hoosier classic to mind. As John Cougar Mellencamp stated, "I fight authority, authority always wins." Wrestling has done their best to fight Title IX tooth and nail....and each year we see how successful that method is as more D1 programs drop out of existence. So along comes a savior....an effortless solution to the problem. Simply allow women the opportunity to wrestle and watch as the popularity and controversy grows and more states do the right thing and form separate women's programs.

Don't mistake my input as anything other than supporting/introducing the potential of women's wrestling. When Tianna started wrestling in CA it was the exact same set of conditions as girl's have in IN. There were a lot of girls that had to wrestle boy's all season before going to Fargo...Now they have the opportunity to wrestle girls, be a section / region / state champion. And Tianna is now wrestling in college. In my mind, on the selfish side of things, that means one more male wrestler that is eliminated from elimination by the Title IX beast!!!

I have bragged / argued this point before, often citing my experience since I moved to CA. I won't rehash it all in fear of producing another firestorm, but I will share the following video clip about a documentary being filmed about my favorite female wrestler.

So it's OK for an 189lber to wrestle up against a guy with a 96lb weight advantage(285-189), but asking a 98lber to wrestle a kid 8lbs heavier is an injustice? Truth be told, I personally believe that this is a much bigger issue to the parents and coaches. Of all the 103lbers I have ever known, I have never heard them bitch about the size, strength or age of their opponent. It is what it is and that is what makes wrestling great.

Yup, when I was 13 I weighed 112lbs....but I grew up. And let's make it official, check your inbox...I don't want to embarrass you in public. Sincerely, The Troll