News Page

Girls Wrestling Guys

Now I am not talking about the WWF or any of that stuff on TV, I am talking about a female going one-on-one with a male opponent in an intercollegiate wrestling match. Intercollegiate wrestling, the style of wrestling that high schools and colleges sponsor, is a very tough and demanding sport. Does this automatically mean that girls should not be allowed to participate. If an individual chooses to take up a sport then why should restrictions be put on what they can and cannot do. I am writing this paper to prove to the public that any girl that is capable and willing should be allowed to go against a male opponent in a wrestling match. There are several different reasons why a girl should be able to wrestle a guy, and my goal is to help convince you that it is ludicrous that it is even an issue.

Now you might say that if a girl wrestles a guy, then the guy will have a physical advantage over the girl. Well in some cases this may be true but in the long run you have to look at several different aspects of what makes a good wrestler. Wrestling is a very technical sport and the most important skill that one must possess in order to be successful is exceptional technique and how well the person executes their moves. There is absolutely no move that a guy can perform in wrestling that a girl cannot. From a granby roll to a sit-out, girls are totally capable of hitting moves as well as the guys are. The second most important skill is speed. A wrestler has to be able to move around quickly and with good balance for up to nine straight minutes in high school and for ten straight minutes in a college match. The stand-up is a lightning fast move performed to escape from the bottom position. Girls can move around just as fast as their opponents as I saw in Oklahoma, where a girl escaped from her male competitor in a blink of an eye (wrestling is sanctioned in Oklahoma) (Kretzschmar, B4). Wrestlers also have to be very well conditioned because they do not stop exerting energy until the match is completely over. The last quality that makes up a good wrestler is strength and physical fitness. A good wrestler is able to use their strength not to initiate a move but to finish a move. A wrestler that is quick on their feet and possesses good technique can dominate over a wrestler who merely tries to overpower the other one. This is what makes wrestling such a unique sport, it does not matter how big the person is. As an experienced wrestler I realize what it truly takes in order to be a successful grappler, and there is no reason that a girl cannot live up to these qualities. Contrasting from football where a team will have players of all sizes, in wrestling everyone is divided up into weight classes so there is no size or weight advantage. This means that any girl or guy has the potential to be a champion in wrestling (Clearfield).

Sexual harassment. The term strikes fear into the heart of several Americans today. In Advancing the Cause of Wrestling Jim Giunta, the president of the TIWA (Texas Interscholastic Wrestling Association), states that "With 'political correctness' at an all time high, male/female wrestling is a time bomb ready to explode on coaches, officials and school administrators" (Guinta, http://www.montana.com/magazine/7feb folder/7janweb/7pointofview.html). I do not think that he is looking at the situation correctly. If a girl decides to take part in wrestling then I think that there should be a clause written that exempts any sort of "harassment" upon the two people wrestling eachother. Besides, if there is any sort of flagrant misconduct in a wrestling match then the referee will stop the match and warn the person committing it. The referees are trained to watch wrestling and if they see anything besides a wrestling match then they will recognize it and halt the match. If this person still continues to "abuse" their opponent then the referee will stop the match and disqualify that person. This goes for girls along with boys. If a girl/guy decides to take part in this sport than they need to be prepared to be injured and emotionally affected. I say emotionally affected meaning that wrestling is an individual sport and it therefore puts a lot of pressure on the participant to do well compared to that of a team sport. If a girl gives the consent that she will not hold anyone responsible except for herself from the time that she steps onto the mat till the time that she steps off of the mat than why shouldn't she be allowed to wrestle against a boy?

Guys wrestling girls is not a new idea that has just come about. In fact, co-ed wrestling is sanctioned in twenty-four states in the United States today. Texas, along with twenty-three other states, does not have girl/guy wrestling but Texas is the only state to restrict it. In the 1996-7 wrestling season the TWOA (Texas Wrestling Officials Association) disbanded for a time because they feared that they would lose their license if they refereed un-sanctioned co-ed matches. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) threatened to sue the TIWA as they were not allowing the girls to participate unless a girls league were established. Now I am all for an all girl's wrestling league if they can get enough girls to participate in it. Currently wrestling is growing in the state of Texas but it is still not huge as other sports are. There are hardly enough guys in some areas of Texas wrestling and there is not nearly enough competition for girls to be only wrestling girls. Until there is an adequate amount of participants to establish a female wrestling program, the girls should be able to wrestle the guys (Kretzschmar, B4). Melony Monahan, one of the pioneers for female wrestling commented on wrestling the same opponents ceaselessly, "Practicing against Sandra (a fellow female teammate) all the time got real old. And we were getting to the point where it wasn't helping either of us. In wrestling, you need to work against a lot of different people, I wrestled three--at most four--different girls last year." That is why at the time co-ed wrestling should be permissible. It should be allowed until there is an abundant amount of girls wrestling that the TIWA should establish an all girls division (Monahan, BB8). Now if you are asking, what will the girls do if they establish an all-girls league, join the league or stay co-ed. Well the answer to that is yet to come. Girls are playing football with guys but there is no girls football league, and there was a time when there was no girls' basketball leagues but I am sure that there were girl basketball players. Only time can show how a sport is going to develop and then you can let the girls choose their own path (Clearfield) .

Overall there is no reason that girls should not be able to wrestle guys in the state of Texas or in any state for that matter. I have seen some girls with extraordinary wrestling skills but no true competition. If these women choose to step onto the mat then it is to continuously wrestle the same opponent all season. This can cause boredom and possibly the chance of girls with a lot of potential giving up a sport that they truly love. I had the personal experience to have a girl wrestler on my wrestling team in the 1996-7 season who was not only a tremendous wrestler but she was ranked third internationally in Judo. She never honestly had any competition except for the few sanctioned matches in which she was allowed to wrestle boys (before the TWOA disbanded). Equal rights is a huge issue today and women are showing more and more political freedom. So why should wrestling be a black mark on their civil rights. I feel that if a female is up to it, than she should have every privilege and opportunity that a male has. I think that this last statement that I found pretty much sums it all up, "There are blind wrestlers, there are hearing impaired wrestlers, I've seen wrestlers compete without limbs. Wrestling is the only sport in the world where anyone can wrestle, except in Texas," Randall Ellenbecker, TWOA referee (Maun, B4).

--------------------------------------