Campaign Aims to Move Women’s Division I Wrestling Forward
Arizona State’s Marlee Smith is on the men’s roster at the NCAA Division I program. Photo courtesy of D1 Women’s Wrestling, Marlee Smith & ASU
by Derek Levendusky, AWW staff writer
Twitter: @AWWderek
If you’ve been in the wrestling community on social media for the last few months, you may have noticed a campaign in your feed promoting Division I women’s wrestling. “D1 Women’s Wrestling” now has their own website and runs accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Indicative of the ground swell of interest in the whole idea of NCAA Division I women’s wrestling, all accounts have been growing steadily since their start in July of 2020 as their Twitter account has 676 followers, their Instagram is up to 1300, and their Facebook page has 847 followers. (All social media handles are at the end of the article.)
We thought we’d pull back the curtain and let the organizers share the vision behind the campaign, a dream to see women’s wrestling thriving in the big lights of NCAA Division I sports. The powerhouse team of women driving this campaign—the ones we interviewed for this article—are Kyra Tirana Barry, Lori Ayres, and Jacque Davis.
Barry was Team Leader for the United States Women’s National Wrestling Team in 2013-2015, when the U.S. women brought home team bronze each year from the World Championships. She was Team Leader until 2016 for the Rio Olympics when the U.S. won its first women’s gold medal and was named USA Wrestling’s Woman of the Year in 2016. Barry also served as the president of Beat the Streets New York for 10 years and was founding Chair of Beat the Streets National.
Ayres is the co-director of USA-NJ Women’s Wrestling and is the Director of Princeton Wrestling Club’s Women’s Wrestling Program. Her husband Chris is the Princeton head coach and her daughter Chloe has also made a name for herself, a top 5 nationally ranked high school wrestler.
Davis was the Director of Girls Development for Boston Youth Wrestling from 2018-2020 and is an active advocate for women’s wrestling. She has since moved to Baltimore, Maryland and started her own company called Shape the Game, a consultancy “that specializes in refocusing sports delivery to be about human development, social emotional learning, and life skills development.” Davis also worked as girls’ director for Beat the Streets New York from 2013-2018. There are numerous others involved in the D1 campaign that are mentioned below.
The D1 campaign team has developed three initiatives for moving their campaign forward, a plan to build momentum and assist the wrestling community in launching new programs. First they seek to create visibility through social media platforms and their website. Second, they aim to provide education for the wrestling public. Says Davis, “We’ve created a development committee that works with and advises alumni working groups from schools. This committee hosts regular large group meetings to check-in with all schools and disseminate new information or helpful next steps.”
The third initiative is to build resources. Davis explains, “We want to release clear and palatable information. We have honed in on three easy pathways for schools/girls to take, created how-to documents and educational infographics, built easy-to-adapt templates for club applications—all of which are released on our social media platforms, but hosted permanently on the d1womenswrestling.com website.”
“After beginning our research, we realized just how much there is to unravel,” says Ayres of the challenge before them. “There is an overwhelming amount of information, several governing bodies with different guidelines, and no one-right-way to build programming at each school. It became clear that if we couldn’t understand it, it would be impossible for high school girls, parents, coaches, and administrators to.”
“[Our dream is that] in 10 years,” says Barry, “we’ll have a growing number of D1 schools and that we are establishing the robust traditions akin to the men’s programs.” She also points out how the women serving on the campaign team bring their skills and passions together to work toward this vision. “Jacque’s social media skills,” she notes, “and Lori’s artistry and the combined desire to get the word out, it just seemed obvious [to do this.]”
While we step into this conversation, it’s important to remember that female wrestlers at the Division I level is not new. The history of women’s wrestling includes women like Patricia Miranda, Afsoon Johnston, Audrey Pang, Lauralee Summer, Danielle Hobeika, Elena Glassman, Tina Pihl, Kelsey Campbell, all of whom competed at the D1 level, along with many more. The D1 campaign team points out that the majority of these women started their collegiate careers over two decades ago in a Division I collegiate landscape that didn’t look a whole lot different than it does today. There is much work to be done.
The following are some of the Q & A from the interview. More info on connecting with specific D1 programs and clubs is near the end of the piece.
Lehigh University’s Marisol Nugent won a Junior national title in November. Photo courtesy of Tony Rotundo / WrestlersAreWarriors.com
How did this campaign "Division 1 Women's Wrestling" get started?
Lori Ayres: After D1 emerging sports status was officially announced for women’s wrestling this past June we started to question how we could help to move the needle for D1 women’s wrestling during a pandemic. Hopes of schools promptly starting varsity programs didn’t seem realistic, especially since several prominent D1 schools across the country were actually dropping varsity sports. It was clear that we’d have to spend some time understanding how to explicitly outline pathways for building towards school-sponsored varsity programs. We spent a lot of time on Zoom calls talking with key stakeholders. As we gained information, we began to log it into a shared resource. Our idea was to build a transparent resource for all wrestling community members, athletes and coaches included, to educate themselves on options for women at the D1 level. That resource has now morphed into social media platforms, a website, and countless hours of direct contact with members of the wrestling community.
What are the goals of this campaign?
Kyra Tirana Barry: Our goal is to increase the awareness of opportunities for women’s wrestling at D1 schools and help establish clubs and varsity programs. One thing we consistently hear in women’s wrestling is that it can be difficult and confusing to understand collegiate options for girls. Since women’s wrestling is in its infancy in Division I, we know we need to do a lot to educate and raise awareness of opportunities for women. At the same time, we know that more colleges and universities will adopt women’s wrestling if they see the demand.
Lori Ayres: It’s important to note that there are many fluid aspects to D1 women’s wrestling. Competition opportunities, for instance, are evolving quickly. Similarly, training options will continue to evolve at institutions. We aspire to keep the wrestling community up to date and informed about the ever-changing landscape that is D1 women’s wrestling.
Jacque Davis: Although there are 87 collegiate women’s wrestling programs, only two are D1—Presbyterian and Sacred Heart. This means that while there is an incredible support system for women to matriculate to the college level, we are still missing a whole sector of higher education options. Many young women are in the position of choosing between the academic institution of their choice or the sport that they love. Women should have the same breadth of options as men. We have spent the past 6 months researching and unraveling the D1 landscape in order to be able to demystify the process for high school athletes, parents, high school coaches, as well as women and coaches who are already at the D1 level.
Some of the founding Harvard Women’s Wrestling Club Members (Left to Right): Sandra Moon, Jane Rhee, Sravya Kuchibhotla, Melinda Meng, Mary Katherin DeWane. Photo courtesy of D1 Women’s Wrestling
What are some strategies you're using to build momentum?
Kyra Tirana Barry: [We’re using] social media, producing materials for information and use in starting programs, [providing] technical assistance and educating administrators, and providing coaches and athletes with available D1 options.
Lori Ayres: I would say we’re also organically building momentum. It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill. As we’re gaining speed and hitting our stride the snowball is starting to grow. We’re constantly adding human resources to the initiative and developing a basic sequence for growth that all schools can pull from. The truth is, our wrestling community has been hungry for a systematic plan to advance women’s wrestling at the D1 level. People are eager to be a part of it.
What kind of response have you gotten from the wrestling community?
Kyra Tirana Barry: We have received an overwhelming enthusiastic response from everyone. It has been remarkable how many different people from all parts of the wrestling diaspora are joining the effort. Not only are athletes, parents and coaches stepping up, but wrestling alumni, referees, medical, ADs...
Considering how many D2/D3 women's programs there already are, why do you think the development of D1 programs is important?
Kyra Tirana Barry: There is so much variety in academics, extra-curriculars, degree programs, et cetera, among schools, we think that women should have as much choice (or more) as men. Opening up Division I will just expand the opportunity for women and ensure that female wrestlers do not have to sacrifice either their academic or athletic goals to find a school and wrestling program with the right fit for them.
Do you have a sense of what kind of timeline might be a realistic expectation for the development and maturity of D1 programs materializing?
Kyra Tirana Barry: There are already two D1 programs—Presbyterian and Sacred Heart. The COVID pandemic has adversely affected many universities, but we see D1 schools continuing this steady trajectory of women’s wrestling as we come out of the pandemic. In the Ivy League, we have been focusing on starting student run clubs. As often, this is the first step.
There's been much said about how developing women's programs can help save men's programs. Can you elaborate on this?
Kyra Tirana Barry: Equity and inclusion is a major theme throughout the country and the world right now. Thousands of girls and women wrestle when they have the opportunity which demonstrates the ability of wrestling to be highly inclusive and increasingly equitable sport. At the same time, everyone is under financial pressure. Women and women’s programs can help save men’s programs because you will see the overall growth and visibility of the sport rise. The more people who are wrestling and the higher the visibility, the more youth will be attracted and the greater the value is to the host institutions.
Jacque Davis: There’s three practical pieces of this:
1) Title IX compliancy = In some cases having a women’s equivalent can contribute toward a healthier Title IX compliance for the school.
2) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) = Men’s wrestling is second to football as the sport that hosts the most first generation college students. Anecdotally we are seeing women’s wrestling is even higher. Right now, research is being done to see if these numbers are supported on the women’s wrestling front.
3) Funding = With each new athlete invited to the table comes an entire community and support system that wants to see that athlete successful. Bringing in a new team of athletes means a potential increase in donors as well as an increase in future alumni.
Who are some of the players involved and what are their roles?
Kyra Tirana Barry: There is a growing contingent of supporters involved. We welcome anyone to the table—we have a regular call that pulls in around 80 people from alumni, coaches, current women wrestlers and advocates. They come from very every part of the wrestling family.
Jacque Davis: In addition to the alumni, governing bodies, media, and current student athletes that make up the 80+ individuals on our regular calls, there are a few individuals that fall as key leaders:
Lori Ayres= D1 Women’s Wrestling Development Committee Member
Chris Ayres= D1 Men’s Coach Advocate
Kyra Tirana Barry= D1 Women’s Wrestling Development Committee Member
Jacque Davis= D1 Women’s Wrestling Development Committee Member
Julia Salata= WLAG Collegiate Initiatives Program Manager and Executive Director of the Women’s Wrestling Collegiate Coalition
Zach Tanelli= D1 Men’s Coach Advocate
Danielle Hoebeka = Harvard Working Group Leader + Web Designer
How can the wrestling community help?
Kyra Tirana Barry: Everyone in the wrestling community has a role:
Female high school athletes should look at schools they feel are right for them, reach out to the wrestling coach and RTC to see what options to continue training and competing would look like if there is not a women’s varsity program and apply. The more women who apply and talk about wrestling the more the lay leadership and admissions will see that women’s wrestling is a desired component of their institution.
College coaches should welcome women’s outreach and be supportive and creative in looking at options for them to meet their goals. Remember, these young women are doing something new and inherently brave and fierce. Coaches and current men’s wrestlers support can go a long way.
High school coaches should talk to college coaches about both their male and female athletes—even if there is not yet a women’s program at that school.
Alumni should support the coaches and let their other contacts in the institution know about their support for adding women’s wrestling to the athletics program.
Wrestling Hall of Fame State Chapters: WHOF chapters should recognize women, raise their profile in newsletters and communications and include them in all activities and recruit for membership.
Referees and medical can advocate for girls by seeking out and increasing the number of girls matches they serve—don’t make organizers come to you.
Male wrestlers can make the extra effort to make girls and women feel welcome and wanted in their wrestling rooms and cheer extra hard for the girls on your team.
Jacque Davis: Media can play a huge role in raising visibility. Girls, parents, and coaches don’t know what they don’t see. Coverage of women taking non-traditional pathways in interviews, articles, all-star matches, rankings, takeovers, commentating, etc. are all ways to get the message out to the next gen of girls. Media can also promote where to find the information and resources that are being built by D1WW.
Bri Csontos of Columbia University at the 2020 Junior Nationals. Photo courtesy of Tony Rotundo / WrestlersAreWarriors.com
Schools that currently have women’s initiatives/social media accounts to follow:
Columbia:
Instagram: @columbiawomenswrestling
FB: Columbia Women’s Wrestling Club
Harvard:
Instagram: @harvardwomenswrestling
FB: Harvard Women’s Club Wrestling
Princeton:
Instagram: @princetonwomenswrestling
Lehigh:
Men’s Instagram: @lehighwrestling
RTC Instagram: @lvwcrtc
Arizona State:
Men’s Instagram: @sundevilswrestling1962
RTC Instagram: @sunkistkidsrtc
Women’s Division 1 Wrestling handles:
website: d1womenswrestling.com
Twitter: @d1womenwrestle
Instagram: @d1womenswrestling
FB: D1 Women’s Wrestling
Princeton’s Demetra Yancopoulos at 2020 Junior Nationals.