Salata Takes Role with Wrestle Like a Girl, Ready to Move Women’s Wrestling Forward

pc: wrestlersarewarriors.com

by Derek Levendusky, AWW Staff writer

One thing Julia Salata has done well in her career is move things forward. She’s moved herself forward as an athlete, boasting an impressive competitive resume. She was a 2x WCWA National Champion, the 2018 US Open Winner, won gold at the 2019 Pan Am Championships, and has scores of other accolades. She’s helped move the King University program forward, recruiting and coaching at one of the top programs in the country since she graduated in 2017.

Now she’ll help Wrestle Like a Girl move women’s wrestling forward as the new Collegiate Initiatives Program Manager.

“Wrestle Like a Girl is a very in-depth organization that’s doing a lot of things to help women’s wrestling,” says Salata, “and I think a lot of it are things that people don’t even realize.”

Salata officially started her role on August 31st. “Since I started working just these last couple weeks,” she reports, “I’ve started realizing just how much they’re influencing so many different areas of the sport. They’re just doing so much. Sally is doing an incredible job, and it’s really cool to be a part of.”

Salata will work on three main initiatives. First, she’ll be working on securing emerging NCAA sport status for women’s wrestling. A good part of her effort will be spent on lobbying to the NCAA administrators to vote “yes” on women’s wrestling.

“That vote is going to happen in a few months,” explains Salata. “So we need to get NCAA administrators—many of which don’t have women’s wrestling at their schools and some don’t even have men’s wrestling—so many of them don’t even know women’s wrestling exists, and we need to convince them that women’s wrestling is the next great thing and that they need to support it. That doesn’t mean these schools are going to add these programs themselves, but we need their administrators to see the value in it and vote yes.”

The second initiative Salata will work on is education for women’s coaches. This will involve building a wider base of women’s coaches, teaching both male and female coaches the dynamics of coaching women. The development program will be done in two parts. Though the vision for the resource is still in formation, WLAG will develop some sort of an online series to train coaches. This will be a flexible resource. “For example, if a new program starts up,” explains Salata, “they can go through this course whenever they want to do it.” This curriculum will work in conjunction with WeCOACH, an organization dedicated to training female coaches. The second part of this initiative will be hosting a WLAG Women’s Coaching Summit at the Olympic Training Center next summer.

The third initiative will be developing the “Body Image Positivity Project.” When the Committee on Women’s Athletics recommended women’s wrestling for Emerging Sport status, the NCAA came back with a series of questions. “One of the biggest things that they were concerned about,” explains Salata, “was body image positivity and knowing how we are going to combat [the issues]. That all includes body dysmorphia, eating disorders, positive practice environment—all that.” Similar to the coaching curriculum their developing, WLAG will develop a webinar series to educate on these issues. “This training will also educate our athletes on how to support their teammates, have positive language in the locker room…so it’s both going to be designed for athletes and coaches.”

There will be other duties for Salata, but those three initiatives will be her primary focus. She’s very excited to be on the team. “I’ve started to realize how much they’re influencing so many different areas of the sport. They’re acting on a global scale right now,” says Salata, “and I’m just included in one tiny part. Just to have a small tiny impact on all the things that Wrestle Like a Girl is doing is an honor, really.”

She’ll maintain her role on the King University coaching staff, and will work remotely with Wrestle Like a Girl. Salata is currently ranked #4 in AWW Senior Level Rankings and continues to compete in both wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu competitions.

Salata will bring her experience as wrestler & coach to WLAG.
(pc: InterMat Wrestling)