WOMEN’S WRESTLING – WHO KNEW?

I impressed to recently read about the life and accomplishments of a contemporary U.S. Olympian. Born in sunny California to parents who were political refugees from Brazil, she began her athletic career at the age of eleven. It culminated on the world’s stage at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where she became the first woman to medal in her chosen sport while wearing the Red, White, and Blue. Fourteen years of determination, discipline, and dedication would place on the stand of Champions.

Understand that this young woman is an extraordinary individual. She is driven to excellence, and competes in a sport not usually associated with the “fairer sex.” Patricia Noriko Miranda has worked very hard every step of the way in her wrestling career. She was the first female to wrestle in her post elementary schools growing up, and would earn a spot on the all mail NCAA Division I roster, as a starter, in the 125 pound division, while attending Stanford. And, she won a match against a male opponent while in college, only the second woman to achieve such a result, the first coming more than a decade before.

Miranda is a well decorated wrestler, having medaled in several World Championships, and World Cup Championships. Add the Bronze from the Athens Games in 2004, and you know you are looking at a Champion hands down…or would that be shoulders down…tap out! Her academic career did not end with only a BA in Economics, and a Master’s in International Policy Studies from Stanford. Not this woman. After the Olympics, she went on to earn a JD at Yale Law School in 2007. Again determination, discipline, and dedication would rule the day, especially when added to a more than capable intellect.

I came upon Patricia Miranda’s name while researching women’s wrestling. No particular reason, save for having witnessed a few girls high school matches over the years, and the recent death of my oldest brother who incessantly paired the four of us siblings into tag teams for much of my girlhood. Having three brothers is a trip, let me tell you, and Mike would frequently call me laughing about the current story lines in today’s pro wrestling scene. With those memories on my heart, who not look up the USA Women’s Wrestling Team, right?

One simple search on the net revealed some controversy within the Senior Women’s program. I came upon a television news story by McKenzie Martin, posed July 15, 2009 (find at http://www.kktv.com/news/headlines/50883222.html), entitled: “Female Olympic Wrestlers Claim Unfair Treatment.” It seems several women, who have been part of the elite USA Team, have filed a grievance with USA Wrestling citing violations of the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act. This Act apparently is supposed to ensure that men’s and women’s sports are managed equally. “The women include multiple examples of when they claim punishments, rewards, and the quality of their coaching staff has differed from that of the men’s team…The women also claim they’ve been publicly insulted and the coached played favorites, ignoring some who asked for help,” according to the article.

Ms. Miranda states that she left the program based on “the principle that women deserve to be treated better.” At first read I had to chuckle to myself, noting that Ms. Miranda must not be part of the Plaintiff’s bar because one of the first things you learn in litigation is that cases based on “the principle” of anything will not result in a pay day – See Ya! Reading her next statement however, did verify evidence of an Ivy League legal education. “Discrimination actually occurs in many areas, from unequal coaching to unequal financial incentives to different expectations of the athletes to different punishments of the athletes.” WHA?? This woman really kicked the butts of male contemporaries during her youth and college careers? Wha??...or Waaanh…Waaanh…Waaanh??? Which was it?, I asked myself.

The KKTV News 11 article went on to list eight claims included in the grievance. These claims sound very much like the numbered paragraphs of a Plaintiff’s Original Petition, to the point I was looking for the prayer at the end. The language used deals with enforcement of “disciplinary sanctions unequally”; “unequal requirements and burdens” on female athletes; National coaching staff allowed to “exhibit inappropriate predatory behavior towards outside female athletes and outside female training institutions”; tolerance for “inappropriate, sub-standard coaching behavior”; and “unequal caliber of coaches…compared to their male athletes.” [NOTE: there are no charges regarding sexual misconduct in sense in this grievance]

Executive Director of USA Wrestling, Rich Bender, says these claims will be “taken seriously and USA Wrestling will follow the process and hopefully find a quick solution.” Per the News 11 piece, Bender went on to note USA Wrestling is proud of the program, and that more resources are invested in the women’s program than the men’s. This statement was no doubt prompted by the claim, “USA Wrestling offers diparate monetary incentives between their men’s and women’s programs.” This piqued my curiosity…which one was it – do they pay more, or don’t they? And, is this the real skunk in the wood pile for the women??

I found another article regarding this matter, written by Brian Gomez, titled: “Women’s Wrestlers Accuse National Governing Body of Discrimination”, published 7/15/09 (http://www.gazette.com) This article listed the fourteen women bringing the grievance, and it is a veritable Who’s Who of the sport at the elite level. These athletes competed between 2003 to the present, and include not only Olympic medalists, but multiple-time world champions; every name listed is accomplished in the sport.

The central theme of these claims seems to be the lack of consistency in how the Senior Women’s program is managed. There are severe indictments of assistant national team coach Vladislav Izboinikov. It seems he gets a kick out of playing favorites among the wrestlers, yet publicly humiliating others. The grieved women have looked to national team coach Terry Steiner to address “Izzy’s” behavior, but apparently there have been no changes of note, hence this filing. Mr. Gomez’s article includes lengthy quotations from the letters of the athletes filed with the grievance. While I am sure there are some valid issued presented in these attachments, to me I see a lot of sour grapes. I am not anywhere close to being able to know what these women have experienced, and endured, but much of what I read in these excerpts make me wonder how the USA Women’s program has been successful at any level if all this inconsistency has prevailed. How?

The remarks I found most scathing were those of Levi Weikel-Magden, the coach for the 2008 World Championship Team. He notes that the program is the pinnacle for these elite women, and gives this warning regarding the current state of affairs, towit: “that pinnacle will continue to be held hostage, as it has been in so many other circumstances by a handful of men who seek to retain power over the uprising of powerful females. These males currently retain their power by denying the females under them the rights and privileges they have earned.” [emphasis mine]

WHOA-NELLIE!!! Stop that train from backin’ up! Rights and privileges?? Who is this guy, and what office is he stumping for??

According to the All-knowing Wiki, he is Patricia Miranda’s coach and husband, who is also a law school graduate from the University of Virginia. How about that?

You know, once you start connecting the relationship dots in a situation, many times you find that skunk in the wood pile you were looking for. Could we possibly argue that some ones are lobbying for jobs within the System? While having removed themselves from the program, they certainly are stirring the stink from the outside. I obviously have not dog in this fight, and am simply remarking with some simple “human-kind” perspective. I have lived a few years on this earth, and politics intrigues me…how people jocky for position in life, and I am not referring merely to governing applications of the word “politics”. By shining a critical light on another, and ratcheting up the rhetoric, you can get an audience to choose sides. If you don’t believe me, watch the 2010 Gubernatorial race in the State of Texas when Rick Perry and Kay Baily Huchison take the gloves off during the primary season…WHOA-NELLIE, indeed.

Again, many of the claims being made might very well be legitimate. But, I want to clarify, and address, the point regarding resources provided for the men’s and women’s teams. The Brian Gomez article quotes Rich Bender on the amount of money per athlete: $38,500 in “direct athlete support” for each of the four women’s Olympic weight classes, and $18,600 for each of the 14 divisions in men’s freestyle, and Greco-Roman. Doing some quick math gives us a total of $154,000.00 for the women’s four OG weight classes, and $260,400.00 for the seven divisions each for freestyle and Greco-Roman for the men.

I am not sure where Bender gets that there are only four weight classes for the women, but perhaps that is all that is available for the women at this time at the Olympic Games. The USA Wrestling website lists seven weight classes for three basic divisions (Men’s freestyle, Men’s Greco-Roman, and Women’s freestyle), with three athletes listed under each. That would make a total of 21 women on the National Team roster, and 42 for the men in the program. Taking the total resources for the men ($260,400.00) and dividing by 42, we get $6200.00 allotted per male athlete. For the women, divide $154,000.00 between 21 on the roster, and you get $7333.34 per athlete. I am not positive if that is the correct formula, but if it is, then Bender is right to say more is being spent on the women’s program. Perhaps the men have other opportunities to secure additional incentive dollars, as the women note in their grievance. Obviously I am not privileged to that part of how USA Wrestling operates.

So what can we conclude? Can we say life is not fair? Perhaps, but I think this says more about a Title IX entitlement mentality than anything else. Ms. Miranda was born in 1979, and the enforcement would have been well in place by the time she started pinning the boys to the mat in middle school. The fact that she broke down barriers, and accomplished a win in Division I against men while at Stanford, makes me scratch my head that she would now be calling “foul” because the girls are being treated “unequally.” It seems to my knuckle-headed sensibilities that something else has led her to this point of action. That’s all I’m sayin’. You don’t go from kickin’ men’s behinds in the squared circle to organizing your girlfriends to call people out. To my way of thinking, these women are bigger than this, and better than this. The husband-coach is the one I would keep my eye on…the Svengali…but, that’s just me.

Tammy G