After Atalanta

Yep--it's true. Girls wrestle. But girls who wrestle made news this past week (yes, I am late to post on this) when a boy forfeited a first-round tournament match rather than face female student-athlete Cassy Herkelman. Herkelman thus became the first girl ever to win a match at this particular state tournament. The big deal is not so much that girls wrestle. This we know. The big deal is that this is IOWA. IOWA has produced many an elite wrestler. This year marked the first time a girl had ever qualified for the state tournament (2 girls achieved that mark--Herkelman and Megan Black). But girls have been wrestling in the state for about two decades according to the article linked above. I haven't seen much anti-girl rhetoric in the coverage of this event--which is good. The defaulter, Joel Northrup, cited religious convictions in his statement about why he chose to forfeit his match. He did not believe it was right for a boy to engage in a combat sport against a girl. Not bein...

Usually I post about another college or university adding women's wrestling to their roster of varsity sports. Sometimes it is to increase the number of opportunities for women to participate in sport; sometimes it is an attempt to "save" men's wrestling. But this time, it's just to get women involved in the sport and sport more generally. And it's not at a college or university. It's not even in the United States. Apparently wrestling clubs for women are taking off in Iraq. One guy, a former champion wrestler and national coach, came in and started a club for women a year ago and despite some community resistance, women came out to wrestle and more clubs around the country have popped up. And they like it. They really like it. Plans include travelling to tournaments in nearby countries like Syria and Turkey and the women in the founding club have their sites set on the Olympics.

The women who train under USA Wrestling have filed a grievance claiming they are receiving inferior treatment. Some of the top female wrestlers in USA Wrestling's program say discrimination exists at multiple levels and includes: less qualified coaching, more harsh punishments (including being publicly demeaned by coaches), and differences in monetary compensation. USA Wrestling executives will get first crack at addressing the claims. If they do not do so in a "reasonable time" or not to the satisfaction of the women, the grievance will be sent to the United States Olympic Committee.

Jamestown College in North Dakota is making a name for itself with its latest athletic department: women's wrestling. Because it is one of the few and one of the first programs in the country, Jamestown has been able to recruit from all over the country. The state champion from Hawaii attends! Hawaii to North Dakota. Other schools should take that famous piece of advice from a classic movie: "if you build it..." It might not be that hard to believe the dominant paradigm of women's wrestling in which people usually envision long hair, bikinis and some kind of viscous substance, is adjustable; but it is a little more difficult to swallow the idea Jamestown AD Lawrie Paulson has that there is no more novelty to women's wrestling. It may be acceptable on that campus now, but broader acceptance is a little more tenuous. Certainly many people attend out of curiosity; what they come away with depends on a myriad of factors--some of which have nothing to do with what they...

There were so many things happening last week that I didn't get a chance to write about the brief article in the NYT about college club sports. I was reminded by the fact that I had to do so by the letters the NYT received about the piece. First, the actual article. As I said, it was brief but quite interesting. Entitled "Dropped from Varsity Lineup but No Longer Grumbling," it featured athletes and teams that once had varsity status but were now club sports. Come to find out that it actually is not a fate worse than death. In fact, some athletes like it better. Some chose a school with a club program over an opportunity to play on a varsity team. So refreshing given that so many complain bitterly about how sports are cut--due to Title IX, the argument goes--and this deprives so many students--mostly men--of the great experience of playing sports. First, playing sports is not inherently great. I am sure there are plenty of former athletes who could tell you about some pr...

I was pleased with some recent media coverage. (I know, I know; it happens so infrequently.) USA Today ran some pieces on some non-traditional women's sports a few weeks ago. The first was a feature on one of the leading female motocross riders, 17-year old Ashley Fiolek. Fiolek is heading to the X Games next month where she will participate as one of ten riders in the first women's motocross, which consists of 10 laps around a x-country course set up in the Staples Center in LA. I wasn't too excited about how both the article and Fiolek herself (girls are more hesitant to make an aggressive pass on the track, she said) set up how this is such a masculine sport. But I did like that they mentioned Fiolek's (dis)ability--she's deaf--and how she has had to train to take that into account. They did not posit her as a hero or as someone working against insurmountable odds. One might even be able to argue that her gender was more of an obstacle than her hearing loss. A ...

Wrestling, of course. With Wimbledon on its day off, it's time to tackle other issues. Or rather wrestle with other issues. Found this interesting story about the group in Oregon, SOW (Save Oregon Wrestling), that attempted to bring some attention to its cause by buying ad time on ESPN and ESPNU. The group, which is suing the school for dropping the program and adding competitive cheer and baseball, bought spots to air during the DI wrestling championships. But ESPN execs turned back the ads saying they don't take ads that contain political advocacy or issue-oriented advertising. Wow--so many issues here. First, SOW is claiming that Oregon had no reason to drop the program: it costs less than the programs they are adding; the department was in compliance with Title IX (I haven't checked out the reality of this situation, though). And in general they seemed pissed off the the athletic director, a man without a college degree, seemed to make the decision unilaterally. Sounds ...

You think I am going to say wrestling, right? Because there was that article earlier this week in the NYT about small colleges adding women's wrestling . But no, the NCAA has not even added women's wrestling to its list of emerging sports. This is unfortunate. Especially in light of the sport the NCAA has been considering adding: beach volleyball. An NCAA committee is investigating the possibility of intercollegiate beach volleyball. There definitely seems to be interest in places like Florida--where this article is out of. But one has to wonder at the viability of a sport that can only be played in certain areas of the country. (I know there are other sports like this--the issue is whether we want to add another.) And one also has to wonder why the NCAA is investigating this sport as a potential emerging sport but not seriously considering wrestling. Hmm...could there be an image problem with women's wrestling? What else is on the list of emerging sports? Well there's...

Since I get so many hits from people looking for information on female wrestlers and because this story is just rife with issues about gender and sexuality, I couldn't pass up commenting on it. This article in the Press-Telegram out of Long Beach, CA came out at the very end of last month and I actually read it while at my family's on Christmas Day. Some discussion ensued. It's no secret that women and girls are are entering the sport in ever increasing numbers. And it's no secret that this has created much consternation. [Again, I recommend highly the documentary Girl Wrestler as a good example of the issues faced by young girls who want to participate in the sport.] But even with growing participants there is just not enough critical mass yet to have girls' teams (though some colleges are starting women's wrestling teams). So high school teams are going co-ed. And given that wrestling matches are organized by weight categories, the concept of girls wrestling...

1. There must have been a rerun of The Family Guy episode in which Peter disses the WNBA relying on sexist and homophobic stereotypes. There have been a lot of hits looking for "WNBA Family Guy." If it is really as harmless as some of the commenters on the original post suggested, I don't think people would be looking for blog commentary on it. 2. There have also been a lot of searches about the Tonka "boys are built differently" ad campaign. I actually have not seen the ads of late because the little television I get to watch these days does not seem to be aimed a toy truck-buying market. But I hope every parent that sees those commercials is outraged. It seems that a feminist forum on a My Space page has linked here as evidence that others are perturbed by the blatant essentialism in Tonka's ad campaign. 3. Have I missed a big story about women's wrestling or race and gender in wrestling? There are a lot of searches for women's wrestling or black ...

Not in Jello, not in mud, not wearing string bikinis--but on a regulation mat wearing real wrestling singlets in intercollegiate competition. It appears that women's wrestling may be an emerging sport in intercollegiate athletics. And Oklahoma City just may be the epicenter of this progressive move. Oklahoma City University is starting a women's wrestling program to go along with its successful men's program. It will also be coached by the current men's coach. The program, when it is implemented next fall, will be one of only 6 programs in the country. But the move by OCU is generating significant buzz. The coach has already fielded calls from all the top female high school wrestlers in the country. And OCU will also have the benefit in recruiting as it borders Texas, which has half of the country's 5,000 high school female wrestlers. [I find this somewhat ironic given that, last I knew, Texas had a ridiculous law that said, after age 14, girls could not wrestle aga...