Girls wrestling team fighting to become official
Cristal Contretras places fourth at the DGS conference in the 99 Lb weight class.
November 16, 2018
Wrestling was first introduced in 1905 in the St. Louis games as a freestyle sport, and for 89 years, it was considered a boys-only sport. Starting this school years, girls wrestling is considered an emerging sport in the IHSA state series competitions.
Girls wrestling is not official yet, but it is in the process of becoming a sport of its own. This year, DGS will participate in six girls-only competitions. Several female competitors have been wrestling for some time now.
Head coach and Special Services teacher Sean Lovelace has coached the DGS wrestling team for the past 11 years. Lovelace compares how much the sport has changed since he was in high school.
¨When I was in high school, there was maybe one or two girls that wrestled. Not that these girls felt that it was a novelty, but these girls were treated as such. People would stand up and be amazed when they would see a girl wrestler; now I don’t think we see it all of the time,” Lovelace said.
“It’s not that big of a deal, but it is also a big deal to be a part of those 10-15,¨ Lovelace said.
Junior Cristal Lopez has been involved in the DGS wrestling program since her freshman year. She began as a manager, but she is now an official team member. She claims becoming a wrestler was something she did not plan on but is something that became a big part of her life.
¨I started as a manager first, but then I started to see the guys practice, and I got more interested in it…The first day I was a manager, and the next day I was a wrestler,¨ Lopez-Contreras said.
Senior Mitzi Maloyan is also a returning wrestler that has been wrestling with DGS since her freshman year. Being one of the few girls that have wrestled for DGS, Contreras and Maloyan express the challenges that they sometimes face as girl wrestlers.
¨I have been called [derogatory names] just because of how often I’m surrounded by guys because once you join the team, it’s like your family… others don’t seem to understand that,¨ Maloyan said.
Contreras has also experienced challenges because of her new-found interest in the sport, but it has motivated her to be the best version of herself.
¨Freshman year, there were a couple of my friends that were saying, ‘She’s not going to be able to do it. In two weeks she’s going to give up.’ I was like, ‘no I´m not, I’m going to commit to it,’” Contreras said.
Some of Contreras’s friends and family support her decision to partake in wrestling, but others are not as supportive.
However, not everyone agrees with this stereotype around female wrestlers. Senior wrestler Matthew Straus believes that girls wrestling should be its own sport; he knows how much a sport can affect people.
¨I think that more girls will join without the fears and doubts of wrestling with a bunch of boys. I think everyone just wants to belong and join something that creates bonds with people; it is hard to join something by yourself when you feel alone,” Straus said.
Straus also feels that by wrestling with people, you can form a bond, which has helped him improve, and by making girls wrestling a sport would in turn also help the girls improve.
“It is definitely easier to do something if someone you care about does it by your side. I have been wrestling with some of my teammates for over 10 years, and that truly helped me get better and helped me join in the first place. When girls wrestling becomes its own sport, I believe it will grow at an incredible rate,¨ Straus said.
Lovelace sees no difference between the male and female wrestlers on his team and hopes to instill the same values of the male DGS wrestling team in the new girls’ team.
¨Three main goals for our female participants: continue to grow the number of participants each year, continue working on initiatives and things that are going to get us identified as our own sport and season. The last thing is that we want to instill our south strong philosophy with our boys’ team, with our girls as well. So all of the goals, core missions and values we have with our boys’ team is not specific to gender, it´s a wrestling individual concept,¨ Lovelace said
The boys and girls of the wrestling teams are looking forward to a great upcoming season where they wish to continue their long standing traditions of inclusion and winning.
Lovelace sees no difference between female and male wrestlers.
“A wrestler is a wrestler, male or female,” Lovelace said.