Padecky: Time to end boys-girls wrestling

This should not exist, should be stopped immediately and should make uncomfortable any parent of any teenager involved in the sport.

Boys wrestle girls in high schools around here. It is as wrong as it is inappropriate, as illogical as it is disturbing. Teenagers have enough on their minds without dumping this little morsel on a plate already brimming with identity concerns, raging hormones and appearance obsession, just to name a few of their favorite preoccupations.

“If I had a daughter,” said Vinny Bagala, assistant wrestling coach at Montgomery, “I would never let her wrestle a boy in high school. It’s simply not fair. A boy is so much more physically developed. And at this point in their lives they (both sexes) are just not mature physically, emotionally or sexually.”

Since all-girls wrestling teams do not exist in the Redwood Empire, if a girl wants to wrestle, she has to join her school’s boys’ team. On weekends, however, she can wrestle in all-girl tournaments. During the weekdays she wrestles for her school in league or non-league. Such duality is only the beginning of the goofiness — and that is the kindest way to describe this knuckleheaded arrangement — surrounding this high school sport in Sonoma County.

“I don’t think my mom wants me to get hurt,” said Ari Aspelin, a junior at Montgomery who is allowed only to wrestle girls. Obeying a strict edict from her mother, Patti, Aspelin has wrestled only twice in the Vikings’ 13 regular-season matches.

A girl getting hurt is a real concern, said Bagala. Injury results from one of the most basic instincts — fear of embarrassment. A girl beating a boy, as Bagala has experienced, produces unceasing ridicule the next day in school for that boy.

“Boys want to avoid losing to a girl,” Bagala said. “One time I saw one of the nicest kids (a boy) I ever knew become one of the meanest kids during a match. He picked up a girl and slammed her straight down on her head.”

And if a boy does lose to a girl, from Heather Moore’s experience, he may not have to wait until the next day at school to get ridiculed. Moore is a junior, an accomplished 103-pounder from Montgomery, who heard first-hand how poorly a father can treat a son who has lost to a girl. Moore was in the eighth grade at Cook when she beat a boy and heard something she’ll never forget.

“The father said to his son, ‘No dinner for you tonight’,” Moore said. “I really felt bad for the boy. I mean I didn’t do anything (wrong). It’s not bad that a girl beat a boy (to warrant such condemnation).”

In the oddly perfect symmetry that does occur in high school wrestling, the boys aren’t immune from feeling uncomfortable or conflicted. Robert Delgado, a Montgomery junior who wrestles at 152, would be happy never to wrestle a girl again, if for no other reason than his peace of mind.

“You don’t want to hurt a girl but you don’t want to lose,” Delgado said. “You don’t want to go too easy on a girl but you don’t want to go too hard. I try to pin a girl as fast as I can (to get it over). So far, it’s always been in the first round. I’m just glad when it’s (the match) over.”

That high school wrestling does not separate boys from girls is at least dumbfounding, if not outright stupid. Girls and boys have separate basketball, baseball, swim, tennis and golf teams but in the most intimate of high school sports they are allowed to compete against each in skin-tight singlets.

“If I want to demonstrate a move to a girl,” Bagala said, “I will take one of the male wrestlers and show the move while she stands there and watches. I will avoid physical contact with a girl at all costs.”

The first argument against establishing an all-girls team is lack of interest. Why would girls want to wrestle anyway? It’s the same wrong-headed male argument made in 1972 when Title IX was pressed into law — Geez, really, how many girls want to play basketball, tennis, golf, soccer and baseball?

At the start of Montgomery’s school year last fall, any girl interested in wrestling was invited to come to the gym that afternoon.

“Eighteen showed up,” Bagala said, “and then we lost eight immediately when they found out they would be wrestling boys. We are now down to four, in part because of injuries and also in part because girls or their parents don’t want them wrestling boys. If they (Santa Rosa City School District) allowed all-girls teams, participation would double within two years. It would be a huge success.”

By Bagala’s count, six area schools have girl wrestlers, ranging from six at Piner to one at Rancho Cotate.

Jessica Griffin, a junior and 114-pounder for Montgomery, went on myspace.com in September and asked how many girls would like to wrestle for the Vikings. She said 20 offered their names.

“But only if they could wrestle girls,” she said. “It would be huge (if all-girls wrestling teams existed).”

If a coach is uncomfortable, if a boy is uncomfortable, if a girl is uncomfortable and if a parent forbids it, then why does the situation still exist? Wrestling, for one thing, is not soccer. It does not enjoy widespread popularity. A CIF official claimed 1,110 girls are registered wrestlers, a puny amount for the size of this state. So the awkward interaction, comparatively, goes relatively unnoticed.

Secondly, and this is such a given it has become a cliché, red tape tangles even the most obvious of inequities. School principals have to raise the item as an agenda topic to the Santa Rosa City School District (SRCSD), said Arlen Agapinan, director of SRCSD’s curriculum and student support services.

“Could you bring up the topic yourself?” I asked Agapinan.

“Sure, I could,” he said.

When the SRCSD reviews the 2007-08 athletic school year, Agapinan said wrestling will be discussed, especially how to supply girls with coaches when they compete on weekends against other girls. At present, each city wrestling team has two coaches but three teams to oversee on weekend tournaments — varsity, junior varsity and the girls in girl tournaments.

The issue is complicated and costs money, said Agapinan.

How will the coaches be paid? Are there enough facilities? What about background checks? Are there men or women out there who would coach? These are just a few of the concerns, Agapinan said.

“A bunch of us (Montgomery) parents got together and we would pay that salary,” said Mary Griffin, mother of Jessica. “As it turns out we are tired of fighting and disappointed. Jessica was promised back in the fall that the city agreed a third coach would be hired to coach the girls on the weekends. And then the city changed its mind.”

Agapinan disputed Griffin’s assertion.

What is not in dispute, however, is the dysfunctional mess of adolescent girls wrestling adolescent boys.

It’s weird.

And what’s even weirder is this.

Thirty-six years after Title IX came into law, girls still have to say: Give us a chance.

Considering the obviously awkward environment, that doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.

You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com