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Will wrestling bill pin local girl?By Joel Stottrup An 88-pound girl in the fifth grade at Princeton's North Elementary is at the center of something some Minnesota legislators, including Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, are wrestling with. Legislators in the House are mentally wrestling with a bill Erickson has authored that would ban girls wrestling with boys as a sport in grades 7-12. The bill was debated in the House education policy committee and was headed for the House floor, when the Union-Eagle spoke with Erickson by phone at the start of this week. The Princeton fifth grader referred to earlier is Morgan Holland, who has been pinning enough boys to the mat in nearly three years that she has gained notoriety in wrestling circles. She wrestles in a local club called Princeton Youth Wrestling in which Morgan is the only girl. Her accomplishments for her weight class include: ï Champion for three years in a row in the state Jaycees Wrestling Tournament, competing against boys ï USA freestyle state champion last year (just girl wrestlers) ï National champion for two years in a row in the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association (USGWA) ï Champion last year in the five-state regional USGWA tournament. Her father Jerry Holland predicts she will be national champion this year in the USGWA, noting that she has placed second two years in a row. Last weekend when the local club competed at an open wrestling tournament in Sartell, Morgan won in her weight class and all of her opponents were boys. "She's looking good," Jerry added. "She's a seeded wrestler." The stance of Morgan and her parents, and what sounds to be at least the majority, if not all the girl wrestlers in the state judging from Erickson's comments, is that they are against Erickson's bill. While the bill in the House caused a stir starting last week, Erickson actually drafted the bill last fall. She explained her reasons last week. A few weeks after the state (high school) wrestling tournament last year some wrestlers and parents came to the Legislature to discuss the issue of male wrestlers not knowing how to respond to female wrestlers on their team, she said. "The boys felt confused," Erickson continued. She brought up the case of one boy who didn't advance in competition because he didn't wrestle one female wrestler and therefore forfeited his match. Erickson said she didn't think there would be any problem if the coed wrestling was between girls that have not reached adolescence and thus do not have the physical changes of an adolescent. But the big issue, said Erickson, is that coed wrestling brings about conflicting messages - on one hand coed wrestling says "it is OK to slam a girl to the mat, to take them down or to force their body on them," but it's not OK outside the wrestling ring. "They were raising, I thought, some good questions," said Erickson, about the male wrestlers who came to the Legislature. Erickson called the allowance of girls to wrestle against boys a "double standard" and says she has the support of at least some of the state's varsity men's wrestlers. "I really think pitting girls against boys or boys against girls in a contact sport is an error in judgment," she said. She added that the kind of moves required for wrestling are "certainly objectionable for [boys and girls] in society, and becomes the basis of harassment suits and domestic abuse." Erickson explained her comment on the double standard by saying that society says it's OK for girls to be in a boys sport but not vice versa. Some coaches have had to "make deals" with parents, she said, to set up parameters for what could be done in some coed wrestling meets. Some history Erickson, a retired English teacher at PHS, gave this short history of coed wrestling in Minnesota's public schools: In 1972 the state allowed girls to compete in each boys sport except wrestling. Then 20 years later the state passed a law to drop the exception. "Only in the last 10 years has it become an issue," she said. But now that the bill began taking on life in the Minnesota House, the estimated nearly 30 girl wrestlers in public schools across the state have been bucking Erickson's bill, as have some adults. One of the strongest opponents of Erickson's proposed legislation is Morgan, who said she isn't "scared" about the bill, "just mad." On the day after the bill had a strong audience of supporters in the House committee, Morgan made 40 phone calls to fight the bill, her father Jerry said last Thursday, during a Princeton Youth Wrestling practice. Jerry and his wife Laura's statements were their personal ones, he and other club members pointed out, because the club's bylaws prohibit the club from taking political sides. Laura said last week that wrestling was not a sport that she would have picked for her daughter, but since it is one that Morgan loves, she is supporting her efforts. "Morgan picked it on her own," she said Thursday. "It's not like, ëWe've got a son in wrestling, let's have a daughter that wrestles.' " Laura noted that Morgan had 215 wrestling matches the last two years and there was only one time that a boy refused to wrestle her and that was the one where the boy's father said no. Jerry added that he has a problem with some people inserting that there is a sexual thing about coed wrestling. "There's nothing sexual about it whether it's two boys wrestling or a boy and a girl," he said. "In the wrestling moves we taught, you don't even think about what part of the body you're touching." Jerry also noted that Princeton Youth Wrestling head coach Phil Meinert is supportive of Morgan being in the club. Meinert, while speaking to the Union-Eagle Monday, agreed with that assessment. "She's treated as if she were a boy," he said about the treatment she gets in the club in which she is the only girl. "We don't even notice that there's a girl in here." Morgan has set her sights on the 2008 Olympics since female wrestling has just been added to the Olympics. For that reason, her father said, she needs to compete against high school boys in order to stay in shape and work toward that goal. Debate may move elsewhere Erickson noted that there may be an amendment coming to the bill that will put the question in the hands of the Minnesota State High School League and said she doesn't foresee the bill becoming a law this session. Erickson admitted she has received a lot of criticism for authoring the bill, noting that she must have heard from every girl wrestler in the state. But she also said she accepted the challenge. "I want to be fair about this but if the boys have concerns . . . I want to hear the concerns," she said. "I am willing to take the heat, the criticism, for offering the legislation." Estimating there could be as many as 6,000 boy wrestlers in the state versus 24 girl wrestlers, the Legislature "needs to hear what the young men have to say," she said.
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