'No big deal. We’re just wrestlers'
Patrick Henry’s wrestling lineup features three young women.
Senior Jamesa Robinson, left, sophomore Hannah Brown and senior Danae Lawson will take on all comers to the wrestling mat. Photos by David Pierini
By David Pierini Staff Reporter
Everything Melissa Gross wanted in a son was about to score big points for the Patrick Henry wrestling team with a ferocious pin move known as the head and arm.
The recipient is suddenly muscled down to the mat on their side with their head and an arm locked in an unforgiving opponent’s tight grip. The attacker squeezes and applies all their weight on the chest until the opponent’s shoulders roll flat to the mat.
Gross was at the edge of the mat shooting smartphone video as the referee raised the arm of her daughter, Hannah Brown.
“My father was a wrestler, I was the manager of my high school wrestling team,” Gross said. “I wanted a son so bad so I could watch him wrestle. Now my dreams are coming true with girls.”
Her daughter is one of three girls on the Patrick Henry wrestling team. During a recent quad meet, where Hannah pinned her Washburn opponent, teammates Jamesa Robinson and Danae Lawson also won with pins.
“It’s no big deal,” Robinson said, “we’re just wrestlers.”
Once seen as a controversial rarity, girls in boys wrestling are becoming more common. Last season, more than 2,124 girls were on high school wrestling teams, a 27% increase from the previous year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Minnesota high schools had 20 girls on wrestling teams last year, according to the federation’s annual sports participation survey.
The gender equity law known as Title IX does not require high schools to allow girls to wrestle, but many states, including Minnesota, allow it. Some states have separate teams for boys and girls and a couple, including South Dakota, forbid “mixed wrestling.”
Despite the growing numbers of girls wrestling, there remains discomfort for some schools, coaches and wrestlers.
Before the start of the quad meet at Washburn High School, a coach from Trinity at River Ridge told Patrick Henry coach Anthony Minus that their faith-based school has a rule against boys wrestling girls. Trinity forfeits the point at any weight class where a girl is penciled in to wrestle.
“I guess I get it, but you still have to have progress,” Minus later said. “I think the girls add to the culture of wrestling. We train everybody the same to go out and compete. These girls are tough and they are just as dedicated and have the same drive as the boys.”
Danae Lawson comes off the wrestling mat victorious and gets congratulated by Brown.
Minus also coaches Henry’s softball team, on which Robinson is a top player. He encouraged her to come out for wrestling her junior year, when he had only a handful of kids, including Brown. This year, Robinson’s best friend, Lawson, followed in hopes of upping her fitness before enlisting in the Air Force.
Lawson and Brown both wrestled the girls from Washburn. Robinson scored the pin against a taller boy in the 126-pound class before the end of the first of three rounds.
Her male opponent seemed to have control of Robinson, but she could feel an opportunity to change course.
“He wasn’t putting any pressure on me,” she said. “I got up, turned around and grabbed his head.”
On the mat, Robinson is fierce, unflappable and one of Minus’ tougher wrestlers.
Brown is actually the second of three girls in her family to wrestle (her twin sister wants nothing to do with the sport, except to root her on). She is by far the most vocal of the girls when it comes to their opportunity to wrestle against the boys.
Earlier this year, she wrote the Henry student council seeking their support to fund the purchase of girls' wrestling singlets, which are higher cut, in hopes it would welcome more girls to participate.
“I love the sport. I can be mean when I wrestle,” Brown said. “I definitely take advantage when I sense the slightest hesitation from [a male opponent]. We can be intimidating.”