Ryan Metcalfe: Girls prep wrestling deserves increased support
LAST WEEKEND, two girls from Marin finished in the top 10 in the nation in their sport of choice, wrestling.
Sure, wrestling is not a sport that a lot of girls chose, but the fact that Kristina Koenning and Kristin Esterheld did so well should encourage other girls in Marin to join the sport and encourage schools to make a greater effort to support them.
Koenning, who finished fourth at the United State Girls Wrestling Association National Championships, and Esterheld, who was 10th, are the exception – or exceptional – their class.
The reality is more than half of the girls who go out for wrestling in Marin usually don’t make it more than a week or two before they quit. The problem for many is they are new to the sport and often must wrestle boys with several years of experience.
Some coaches will say girls quit because they didn’t expect the competition and workouts to be so physically demanding and they can’t keep up, but where else do we expect the female athletes to endure the same conditioning as the males? Do we chastise distance runner Katelyn Calvelli for not being able to keep pace with Jake Schmitt or do we praise both of them for being among the best in their gender?
Sure, it always tickles our interest to see a female take on males, whether it is high school wrestling or professional golf. A case could even be made that one reason Koenning and Esterheld were able to do so well stems from their strong male competition and practice throughout the year.
Still, the girls often feel like all eyes are on them and stick out like Ted Nugent at a PETA meeting whenever they have to wrestle a boy in a competition.
The one school that seems to have a leg up, or leg hold, on girls wrestling is Redwood. Esterheld, a sophomore at Redwood, said one key is the safety in numbers theory – there are more girl wrestlers there so more feel comfortable joining the team.
“Having a lot of girls on the team gives us a big support system, “Esterheld said.
She added that many of the girls on the team spend a lot of time together both in and out of practice. They also feel like they are wanted, which isn’t always the case with some programs where the head coach is accustomed to only coaching males.
“The girls definitely get a lot of attention at Redwood, “Esterheld said. “Our coach (Pavan Gulati) was supposed to be our girls coach last year and he went to all-girl tournaments with us last year. I think all of our coaches support us.”
The reality is, there may never be enough demand for each school to have a separate team for girls and certainly not a strong enough field to have an MCAL league for girls anytime in the near future.
However, it’s time for all the coaches to adopt an attitude similar to Gulati. Of course it isn’t easy for coaches to run a practice that helps both the males and the females, the advanced and the beginners. What many wrestling coaches could use is an assistant coach dedicated to female wrestlers. This system could be similar to track. There is often one head coach who oversees both the male and female program, but that coach has several assistants who specialize in certain events like throwing, distance running or hurdles.
One idea tossed about, but would have issues with California Interscholastic Federation rules, is have an all-Marin girls team. Although this would not be possible as a daily team that practices together at one site, there are other ways to unite our girls.
If a team can’t be formed on a daily basis, what about letting all the girls meet at one central site – such as Marin Catholic? Every Friday – usually the day after the MCAL competition – the girls could practice against other girls of similar weight. These Friday practices could set the stage for the girls to then travel together to Saturday tournaments held just for girls.
The all-girl tournaments already exist, but often times the head coaches are already committed to taking male members of their team to elite tournaments focused on the boys – hence the greater need for assistant coaches dedicated to the female wrestles.
“The girls, whenever they get together, discuss (having an all-Marin team), “Esterheld said. “It would be an interesting idea, but it would be complicated. Like, who would you wrestle against? All the girls from another county?”
Setting up an all-county team would be against the CIF rules, but they could travel together to the all-girl tournaments and wrestle independently. With a little more organization, they could also fill some empty weekends by hosting their own tournaments for other girl wrestlers in the Bay Area.
A move could even be made to introduce more girls to wrestling in the middle schools. When I was a student at Kent Middle School, the boys and girls played and learned several sports on the same field such as soccer and softball during P.E. Other times, the boys and girls were separated. When the boys spent a couple of weeks learning the basics of wrestling the girls were elsewhere doing tumbling or gymnastics. Perhaps things have changed, but why not let the girls have a couple of weeks of wrestling in a sport they can compete in at the high school level rather than one that no longer exists in the MCAL. Let them wrestle the other girls in the less-pressured environment of P.E. class to see if they have an affinity for the sport.
The opportunity is there for the girls and our schools and with a few moves it is very likely that others can prove that Koenning and Esterheld aren’t the only girls able to put a headlock on wrestling.
Contact Ryan Metcalfe via e-mail at [email protected]
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