By Blake Timm, Sports Information Director
FOREST GROVE – On first appearances, Terry Steiner looks like your typical, grizzled wrestling coach., Sweaty t-shirt and shorts, toned legs and shoulders, the cauliflower ear from years of time on the mat.
Yet this 36-year-old, typical looking coach is just the person who Pacific University’s women’s wrestlers want to impress., And the Boxers are who Steiner wants to put an impression on.
Steiner, the U.S. Women’s National Team coach, recently spent three days in Forest Grove., He not only checked out what the Pacific team has to offer, but also spent plenty of time on the mat teaching them some tricks of the trade in the freestyle game.
After two days of two-a-day practices and a 6:30 a.m. Monday morning practice, Steiner feels successful in imparting some of the knowledge that helped the U.S. earn two medals at the 2004 Olympic Games., “We tried to focus on a number of key areas, “Steiner said., “They all seemed to pick things up., Now it is a matter of getting some repetition in, learning it, understanding it and using it.”
Steiner’s visit is part of tour he is taking of the nation’s five collegiate women’s wrestling programs., His purpose is two-fold: teach aspects of freestyle wrestling that will help collegians advance to the international level and to help programs build and better serve his growing sport.
It will be in the college programs, Steiner believes, where many of the next internationals stars for the U.S. will surface., “We have a development program in Michigan and a program in Colorado Springs for the elite team, but that is only 40 girls, “Steiner said., “We need to get out to these other programs because the college coaches will be doing a lot a development work for us., It’s getting out here and developing coaches technically too so they can better help their athletes.”
Pacific’s women’s wrestling program is only five years old, but has quickly established itself as one of the most important in USA Wrestling’s stable., Pacific yielded four of the first 18 women to be part of the U.S. Resident Development Program., One of those women, Sally Roberts, has gone on to be a two-time world medalist., Another, Tela O’Donnell, represented the U.S. at the Athens games.
So Steiner is familiar with the type of wrestler Pacific turns out, but he had not had a chance to see the program work first-hand until his visit.
And he likes what he sees.
“Things are very stable in the team aspect, just with the team members and how they interact, “Steiner said., “They like where they’re at., There are not a lot of worries about if they are doing the right things or if the coaches are catering to the girls.”
In fact, Scott Miller’s program continues to grow., Pacific’s current roster of 16 wrestlers is the largest in the team’s five seasons and is nearly as large as its men counterpart., In the most recent U.S. College Women’s Individual Rankings, released in late January, a record 12 Pacific wrestlers earned poll positions.
Miller, in his fourth season at Pacific, said that Steiner’s visit couldn’t have come at a better time for the Boxers, who are beginning to gear up for this month’s Canada West Championships and the March national tournament., “He showed us some really good stuff, “Miller said., “I was able to pick his brain on things for both the men’s and women’s teams.”
As much as the visit was important for the team’s growth, Miller said it was just as important for his personal growth as a freestyle coach., Steiner shared needed tips on transition offense and scoring from the neutral position, a pair of aspects that Miller admits he and his team can improve in.
“You don’t like to talk about your weaknesses, but he worked a lot on two of our biggest weaknesses, which helps immensely, “Miller said., “My weakness in my coaching freestyle has been from the par terre (top) position, and in the past once we have scored we have had a hard time scoring again., That is something that will help us.”
Both Miller and Steiner agree, however, that the most important aspect of the visit comes in starting to sync training styles and techniques that national teams will look for when choosing future team members., “We want to make sure that they are learning the right things here so that when they make that transition to the national level, then we will only have to tweak some things.”
That’s important for a Pacific team that has yielded international competitors and national collegiate champions., Roberts, currently No. 1 ranked wrestler in the nation at 59 kg. (130 pounds) has won two world championships medals., O’Donnell was one of four women on the first U.S. Olympic Women’s Wrestling Team, finishing seventh at 59 kg., Kapua Torres (Jr., Kahuku, Hawaii) earned double national championships in 2005, winning the collegiate championship and the Body Bar Junior Nationals title at 51 kg. (112.25 pounds).
In fact, Steiner sees plenty of potential in the Pacific program., “There are some girls who are on the verge of being national team members, “he said., “I think there are some girls who could be our Junior World Team members of University World Team members.”
GROWING THE SPORT
Despite the recognition of women’s wrestling as an Olympic medal sport, Steiner is concerned about the slow growth of the sport in the United States., Only five U.S. colleges currently field recognized varsity programs and only three states, Florida, Hawaii and Texas, have high school championships for girls.
Building numbers, Steiner said, is the first challenge to building the U.S. into becoming a true world power in the sport., That has to start at the junior high and high school levels and begins with breaking down long standing stereotypes of wrestling as a men’s only world.
“If you sit down with wrestling coaches and ask why they coach, they will say that they believe in the sports, “Steiner said., “To be successful in the sport, you have to dedicate yourself., You have to have discipline. There’s a lot to be taught.
“If that is the reason why they coach, then why does it matter if it’s a man or a woman?, Why do you want to limit it to half the population?, If coaches start looking at it that way rather than they old way of saying girls shouldn’t be on the mat, then they will have a different appreciation of the sport and will open those doors.”
The next challenge will be to develop the sport at the college level., Steiner quickly points out that American colleges provide a great infrastructure for sport development, but those opportunities are currently limited with a lack of competition.
Steiner proposes a system that combines the current U.S. programs with the 12 to 14 recognized varsity programs in Canada., His concept would develop a schedule of 10-12 dual meets involving American and Canadian schools, up to four open or invitational tournaments, a U.S. national championship, a Canadian national championship and a North American championship.
Pacific has already taken a step in that direction with their provisional membership into the Canada West Conference., The Boxers will compete in their first Canada West Championship meet beginning on Feb. 11.
The concept would allow both countries to benefit., “All of the European countries grow off of each other and feed off each other, and if we don’t used Canada and Canada doesn’t use us, then we’re really missing the boat, “Steiner said., “I think we have established it with their national staff., We have a good relationship, now it’s a matter of setting the college system up.”
Growing the program on a multi-national scale will take some organization, but Steiner feels that the time is right to efforts into motion with or without other national athletics governing bodies., “Women’s wrestling is so new that we can really shape it however we want to, “Steiner said., “We don’t have to make it a NCAA sport, and maybe we don’t want to., Maybe we want to make it different and have a different organizing committee with different guidelines and rules.”
Until that happens, USA Wrestling will depend on programs like Pacific to blaze the small trail for women’s wrestlers to reach their Olympic dreams.
Posted by Blake Timm ([email protected]) on Feb 2, 2006 at 1:45 PM
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