This topic seems to come up every so often. I am Catholic, and wrestled girls different times throughout my wrestling career. I know many other Catholics, and catholic schools that allow their wrestlers to compete if a girl is in their bracket. Myself personally feel this is telling your wrestler that even though you worked your butt off to get to this point, we are going to take it all away because we don’t trust you to just wrestle out there. I also feel it is telling the girl I don’t respect you enough to go toe to toe with you. I know I may get some negative responses to this, but I feel if a girl wants to participate in a predominately male sport, let her, and let the boy go out against her and lets see who is the best wrestler.
I have 2 nieces that wrestle in kids wrestling here in Kansas, and both of them are very competitive in the boys division. I hope if they wrestle later on into middle school and high school, they don’t have to deal with this situation, as they are catholic and if this becomes a big deal it will end most of their wrestling career, as girls wrestling is not an every weekend thing yet in Kansas.
I have read this entire thread, including all of the pros and cons of why or why not girls should be allowed to compete with boys in wrestling. Me? I am opposed to it, on several levels, but one of the reasons that I think that it is a bad idea is that, even if the boy wrestler is not Catholic, and has no prohibition of wrestling a girl (from his church/school), there is (many times) a residual "holding back" on the part of the male, due to upbringing against beating up on a girl. It is unfair to the boy, that's all. PERIOD.
And a second thing - I ask you, how could a girl who won because of these type of defaults due to her gender take any satisfaction in advancing? I am a competitor, and the last thing that I as a competitor want is to have victory handed to me. I want to EARN it! And I would venture to say that ANY competitor feels the same way. So how can she feel good about advancing to State and winning (?) second place in the regional when the only match that she wrestled, she was pinned???
Below is the result of the 113 lb classification at Mill Valley Regional today:
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113 - Kali Gracy (6-6) placed 2nd and scored 18.00 team points. Quarterfinal - Kali Gracy (Shawnee-Mill Valley) 6-6 won by injury default over Gabe Gooch (Overland Park-St. Thomas Aquinas) 18-1 (I-D 0:00) Semifinal - Kali Gracy (Shawnee-Mill Valley) 6-6 won by injury default over Tyler Hensley (Lenexa-Saint James Academy) 31-18 (I-D 0:00) 1st Place Match - P.J. Cheney (Kansas City-Turner) 27-4 won by pin over Kali Gracy (Shawnee-Mill Valley) 6-6 (Pin 1:26)
You can see that Kali Gracy advanced due to two "injury" defaults, and Mill Valley received 16 team points for a wrestler that won zero points on the mat. The only time that she did go to the mat, she was pinned by the kid from KC Turner!
Consider: The young man from SJA was 18-1 on the season. Do you think that he would have won against an opponent with a 6-6 record? Especially in view of what he did after his "injury" default:
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KSHSAA 5A - Mill Valley Regional Results for Overland Park-St. Thomas Aquinas 113 - Gabe Gooch (18-1) placed 3rd and scored 13.00 team points. Quarterfinal - Kali Gracy (Shawnee-Mill Valley) 6-6 won by injury default over Gabe Gooch (Overland Park-St. Thomas Aquinas) 18-1 (I-D 0:00) Cons. Round 1 - Gabe Gooch (Overland Park-St. Thomas Aquinas) 18-1 received a bye () (Bye) Cons. Semi - Gabe Gooch (Overland Park-St. Thomas Aquinas) 18-1 won by pin over Zach McQueen (Shawnee Mission-South) 18-16 (Pin 2:47) 3rd Place Match - Gabe Gooch (Overland Park-St. Thomas Aquinas) 18-1 won by pin over Tyler Hensley (Lenexa-Saint James Academy) 31-18 (Pin 4:54)
