The USOEC Women's Wrestling Program

by Shannyn Gillespie
Gillespie is a guest columnist for AWW.

Before there was a female wrestling Elite Athlete Program in Colorado Springs and before there was a female wrestling Wyoming Seminary program, there was the USOEC.

But what exactly is/was the USOEC female wrestling program?

Let’s start at the end to give some perspective…

From 2004-2012, the author coached at the U.S. Olympic Education Center, via USA Wrestling’s National Team Staff, coaching teams at: 34 National Championships, 12 international tournaments & camps, 4 World Championships, & 1 Pan American Championship. He has also coached individuals to: 29 National Championship gold medals, 14 World or Pan American medals, 5 USA Wrestling Outstanding Wrestler Awards, & 1 Olympic bronze medal.

Randi Miller, technically, did not win an Olympic medal while training at the USOEC — however, the administrators at USA Wrestling and the USOEC credit a portion of her success to the USOEC.

Helen Maroulis, USA’s only female wrestling Olympic Champion, also trained at the USOEC for 1 year while attending Marquette Senior H.S. In the In the article, Jenna & Erin Wrestle, the high school portion of the USOEC is discussed and other high schoolers who attended the USOEC & MSHS were Adeline Gray, Erin Clodgo, & Vonnie Carlson.

So, the USOEC is/was located on the campus of Northern Michigan University and was a partnership with National Governing Body groups like USA Wrestling, USA Boxing, USA Weightlifting, & US Speedskating. The program was designed to offer student athletes (15-23+ years of age) educational opportunities and elite level training via national team staff members of just mentioned NGBs. Now, the USOEC is called the U.S. Olympic Training Site at Northern Michigan University or NMU-OTS.

The above article touches on the idea that there were very few opportunities for female wrestlers in high school or college pre-2019. Now, things have changed a lot for the better. At the USOEC, the ladies were the main focus of the training design and training was designed with their goals in mind.

International Competition
Admittedly, the author asserts his learning progression to teach & coach women was enhanced by the many international trips up North (Canada), in Europe, & in Asia. The first 2-3 years of the “USOEC Experience” were a challenge because there was no US model to follow for coaching women or females in wrestling. Trial & error is a method usually employed to figure things out. The challenge is — a lot of people may lose out in this process. To be certain, the trips abroad helped the USOEC female freestyle program grow & evolve.

The first international trip the USOEC women’s wrestling program went on was in 2005 at Trofeo Milone competition in Italy. This trip helped form the author’s coaching philosophy in many ways… For one, it appeared to make more sense to attend international training camps instead of international competitions. The rationale being many students will get more bang for their buck during international training camps. In other words, some athletes may spend $2,000 for 1-2 matches — instead of spending the same amount of money for close to 20 wrestling matches and 10 days of an educational, cultural exchange. Most international tournament trips are about 5 days and sort of go like this: land, acclimate, make weight, wrestle, leave. Those trips are great for medalists. But what about everyone who doesn’t medal or win more than 2-3 matches? The answer turned out to be training tours for the USOEC!

International Training Camps
The title of this paragraph is also a synonym for training tours. You may see the value of training tours based on the last paragraph alone. Here’s more justification for training tours…They are way more fun than an international competition; social media helps everyone connect with people all over the world more effectively; much more learning (and repetition) of sport is executed; those trips help young people (and old people) develop a much more realistic world view; way more training partners with different styles; & camaraderie of the experience. The last point is similar to the social media point and is stated again because — on the female side of this sport, that communication piece or trust peice or friendship piece is huge.

Friendships for lifetimes is central to women’s wrestling — along of course with competition.

Japan
Japan was the first international training camp the USOEC went to in 2007 and this was after 8X Olympic Wrestling Coach, Tadaaki Hatta, set the trip up. Because this was the first training tour, only 6 people attended and they were: Sadie Kaneda, Liz Short, Amy Borgnini, Jenna Pavlik & coaches Shannyn Gillespie, Tony deAnda. On the next 3 trips to Japan, entire teams bought-in to the training tour concept. Lesson learned: when athletes buy-in — they tell other athletes to buy-in. Ok, so that’s part of the story…

Those Japan tours were enlightening on several fronts. For one, wrestling, and specifically women’s wrestling, is seen as a respected Olympic sport in Japan — no matter the gender. So that means when Olympic Champions like Saori Yoshida & Kaori Icho are you hosts and walk you down the street — everyone stops them for autographs & selfies. Yoshida & Icho are use to it; they are superstars — and treated like superstars. This was great and the USOEC was apart of this experience.

Now training was on another level — for real. There are several videos floating around on social media that show what the heck the USOEC was doing. In many of those training experiences, the USOEC athletes were just trying to keep up. It is easy to see why Japan’s women’s wrestlers have been on top for almost 3 decades. Their coaches really believe in them, their federation really believes in them, & as a byproduct of the last 2 points — the athletes really believe in themselves!

From a mental training standpoint, the USOEC athletes learned: to believe they could achieve just like their Japanese sisters, barriers are meant to be overcome, they can do more with less. The last point is worth explaining… The Japanese college where the USOEC trained at for 2 years was Chukyo Women’s University (now Shigakkan University) and it was similar to an NAIA or NCAA small school. CWU had what it needed. CWU was smaller even than Northern Michigan University and with what appeared to be less resources. Lesson learned: it does not take a lot to be dominate.

Austria
Austria was also a place where the USOEC had training tours for 3 years and was different because there were generally more athletes from more countries to train with. Again, the theme of doing-more-with-less was prevalent. Actually, many women’s wrestling international training camps happen because most women’s teams are smaller (in most countries). So, countries pool their athletes together, in many cases, to create a more effective training experience. This was great for the USOEC because at the time, there were about 5-6 other US colleges that had women’s wrestling teams — and few, if any, wanted to train together.

In Austria, The USOEC women’s wrestling team had the opportunity to train with teams from the Czech Republic, China, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, & other clubs from Austria. Training with different countries was great and also being overseas is a challenge due to the many things that are different and need to be learned on the spot. As an example, back in the day, the internet was difficult to get & slow overseas (no phones) — and the athletes had to adjust by talking to other athletes from other countries. In a competition or tournament environment, this is tricky. In a training camp environment, this is easy. Sure, the students want to compete and win during training, but after training, it’s time to socialize. International tournaments offer very little time to socialize and this might be a must for female wrestlers to effectively grow in all areas. We are, after all, social creatures.

Some of the training learned from those Austria trips was also captured on video. This is mentioned because training at the USOEC was twice a day for the entire school or academic year. So this suggests — training can become boring or unmotivating for the athletes. Bruno Hartmann, the host & Austrian coach, suggested that these training camps were invaluable because they add that extra challenge to the athletes. He might have meant that athletes get excited to train during these international camps for a variety of reasons. In either scenario, it is good when athletes are excited to train and train with a passion & enthusiasm to improve (this is also motivating for the coach).

Jr. World & World University Championships
The USOEC head coach was assigned to assist, organize, & lead teams at the Jr. Worlds or World University Championships annually. The World University Championships or WUC were the world championships for college students held annually at the World University Games or the WUC — while the Jr. Worlds were age group world championships for U20 athletes. In 2005, Mary Kelly (a USOEC student) won a Bronze medal at the World University Games. Also, in 2005 Dany Hedin (a USOEC student) won a silver medal at the Jr. World Championships. Those feats are mentioned because this was the first summer of the USOEC program and to suggest the type of student athletes the USOEC was getting. The USOEC women wrestlers won medals at world or continental championships every year the program existed (and after too). Another challenge develops…

Politics, bureaucracy, focus…

Those were reasons the author (believed were the catalyst) he actually started to pen thoughts regarding competition results, training tours, training camps, & other events related to the USOEC success. Or, the powers that be found it hard to scribe results from just mentioned USOEC women’s wrestling type of events — so the author started chronicling this important info. Because of this challenge, there is a gap from 2004-2007 when very few articles about the USOEC freestyle female program are journaled.

So let’s begin with 2008…

In 2008, Team USA won the women’s version of the World University Championships!

Athletes on that 2008 WUC team were: Sara Fulp-Allen, Katherine Fulp-Allen, Chelynne Pringle, Othella Lucas, Alaina Berube, Elena Pirozhkova, & Stephany Lee. This trip was held in Bulgaria & Greece and that article gives a full description of the travels to-and-from airports, travel to venues, lost bags, & more. This tournament is also important because, to this date, it is the only other world championship that the female Team USA wrestlers have won. The other world team title was won in 1999 by the senior national team. Both of those World Championships Team Titles are apart of history and one is apart of the USOEC history…

At the last minute, the author was asked to coach the U17 Cadet Pan Am team of 2011 in Mexico. Now this trip is not a WUC or a Jr. World tournament — so why is it in here — one may ask. The cliches suggest that the past is easier analyzed years later. So, this trip is in here because it was one of the best trips for these reasons: it was one of the last USOEC trips, those young ladies were a great re-fresh, & this was the first all cadet team the author had coached. Also, this trip sort of rounded out the around-the-world tours for the USOEC program. One of the first trips (that was not written about), was in 2005 in California at the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center. On that trip, the Canadian National Team was there and we had the opportunity to train with 3X Olympic medalist and now Canadian National Team Coach Tonya Verbeek. Also on that trip, and more related to this paragraph, the author and Tony deAnda (assistant USOEC coach) travelled to Tijuana, Mexico (on a sightseeing mission) — which is literally minutes from the Chula Vista OTC. One of the last trips the USOEC went on was to Compeche, Mexico and this trip sort of circled the Globe for the USOEC.

The legacy of the USOEC
When the USOEC women’s wrestling program began in 2004, the same year as the inaugural Women’s Wrestling Olympic Games competition, there were about 2-3 states with sanctioned high school girl wrestling state tournaments and about 5-6 women’s wrestling collegiate teams. Now, there are roughly 70 women’s wrestling collegiate programs and about 18 states with sanctioned high school girls wrestling state tournaments. So, change is slow & steady, and progression is perhaps a byproduct of change. In either case, the USOEC no longer exists because of the many college programs that have taken the place of the USOEC. The author believes the new college programs can use the USOEC as a model to build their programs. The USOEC was started in 2004 and ended in 2012 — there may be a lot to model there.

Name dropping is not necessarily the point of this article — but here we go…

These former USOEC women currently are women’s wrestling head coaches at colleges or universities: Brandy (Rosenbrock) Green, Limestone College; Dany (Hedin) deAnda, Presbyterian College; Carlene Sluberski, University of Providence. These women’s wrestling college head coaches were coached by USOEC coaches at world championships or at international tournaments: Elena Pirozhkova, New Jersey City University; Leigh Jaynes, Delaware Valley University. These former USOEC women are assistant coaches at colleges or universities: Randi Miller, Limestone College; Ally Somera, New Jersey City University.

Conclusion
This article was written because history has a way of forgetting things — especially when history is not ever written down. Also, as stated, many women’s wrestling college programs may be able to use bits & pieces of this history to help fortify their new budding women’s wrestling college programs. Finally, many USOEC women’s wrestlers names were not listed and generally there were about 16 women per year who wrestled at the USOEC for an 8-year span. Many of these women are high school teachers & coaches or other productive citizens elsewhere. Your names were not forgotten and if your name is not highlighted in this piece — you are still valuable, worthy, & special!

The author is thankful for the opportunity to coach as a USA Wrestling National Team staffer plus proud of the women wrestlers of the USOEC and created this “Hall of Fame” to showcase some of their accomplishments:

● 2004 USAW Female Wrestling Resident Athlete Program Established at USOEC
● 2004 Shannyn J. Gillespie Named Program Coordinator
● 2005 Tony deAnda Named Assistant Coach
● 2005 Shannyn Gillespie – Jr. World Team Coach (Lithuania)
● 2005 Mary Kelly World University Games – Bronze Medal
● 2005 Dany Hedin World Champ Jr. – Silver Medal
● 2005 Mary Kelly Sr. National Team
● 2006 Mary Kelly Sr. National Team
● 2006 Sharon Jacobson Sr. National Team
● 2006 Amy Borgnini Sr. National Team
● 2006 Stefenie Shaw Sr. National Team
● 2006 Mary Kelly 9th Sr. World Championship
● 2006 Dany Hedin Jr. World – Bronze Medal
● 2006 Sadie Kaneda Jr. World – 9th
● 2006 Sharon Jacobson World Cup Team Member
● 2006 Randi Miller Pan Am Champion
● 2006 Mary Kelly, Sharon Jacobson, Randi Miller join U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO
● 2006 Shannyn J. Gillespie - World University Championship Team Coach (Mongolia)
● 2006 Liz Short World University Championship – Bronze
● 2006 Sharon Jacobson World University Championship – 5th
● 2006 Randi Miller World University Championship – 5th
● 2006 Sharon Jacobson Sr. National & University National Champion - voted Outstanding Wrestler
● 2006 Dany Hedin Jr. National Champion - voted Outstanding Wrestler
● 2007 Resident Athlete Development (RAD) Team created
● 2007 Alyssa Lampe Jr. World Bronze
● 2007 Whitney Conder Jr. World Champion
● 2007 Cherae Pascua Jr. World Team Member
● 2007 Erin Clodgo Jr. World 8th
● 2007 Paige Rife Jr. World Team Member
● 2007 Alyssa Lampe Jr. National voted Outstanding Wrestler
● 2007 Erin Clodgo (16 years young) USGWA National Champion, Cadet National Champion, Jr. National Champion
● 2007 Japan international training camp at Chukyo Women’s University
● 2008 Alyssa Lampe Jr. National Champion
● 2008 Schuyler Brown Jr. National Champion, USGWA National Champion
● 2008 Whitney Conder Jr. Pan Am Champion
● 2008 Beth Johnson Jr. Pan Am Champion
● 2008 Nikki Darrow Jr. Pan Am Champion
● 2008 Lindsey Brooks Jr. Pan Am Bronze
● 2008 Alyssa Lampe Jr. World Bronze
● 2008 Schuyler Brown Jr. World Team
● 2008 Japan international training camp at Chukyo Women’s University
● 2008 Shannyn J. Gillespie World University Championship Team Champions Coach (Greece)
● 2008 Tony deAnda Jr. Pan American Team Champions Coach (Ecudaor)
● 2008 Tony DeAnda Cadet Pan American Team Champions Coach (El Salvador)
● 2008 Whitney Conder joins U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO
● 2008 Randi Miller Olympic Games Bronze (China)
● 2008 Helen Maroulis World Team Trials Champion
● 2008 Helen Maroulis Sr. World Team (Japan)
● 2008 Austria Trainingscamp (Gotzis, Austria)
● 2009 Helen Maroulis World Cup Team (China)
● 2009 Adeline Gray World Cup Team (China)
● 2009 Alyssa Lampe, Adeline Gray, Melissa Apodaca, and Erin Clodgo join U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO
● 2009 Japan Institute of Sports Sciences international training camp (Tokyo, Japan)
● 2009 Helen Maroulis FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2009 Adeline Gray FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2009 Schuyler Brown FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2009 Vonnie Carlson FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2009 Erin Golston USGWA National Champion
● 2009 Jenna Burkert USGWA National Champion
● 2009 Amy Whitbeck USGWA National Champion
● 2009 Erin Golston Cadet National Champion
● 2009 Melissa Apodaca University National Champion
● 2009 Schuyler Brown University National Champion voted OW
● 2009 Helen Maroulis Sr. National Champion
● 2009 Adeline Gray Sr. National Champion
● 2009 Alyssa Lampe Pan Am Champion (Guatemala)
● 2009 Alyssa Lampe Sr. National Team
● 2009 Helen Maroulis Sr. National Team
● 2009 Adeline Gray Sr. National Team
● 2009 Vonnie Carlson Jr. World Bronze medal
● 2009 Grand Prix of Spain international training camp (Madrid, Spain)
● 2009 Jenna Burkert Jr. National Champion
● 2009 Vonnie Carlson Jr. National Champion
● 2009 Adeline Gray Jr. National Champion
● 2009 Erin Golston Cadet Pan Am Champion (Nicaragua)
● 2009 Tony deAnda Cadet Pan American Team Champions Coach (Nicaragua)
● 2009 Tony deAnda Jr. Pan American Team Champions Coach (Mexico)
● 2009 Adeline Gray Sr. World Championships 5th place
● 2010 Erin Golston Youth Olympic Games Qualifier Champion
● 2010 Erin Golston USAW National Folkstyle Champion
● 2010 Jenna Burkert Youth Olympic Games Qualifier Champion
● 2010 Jenna Burkert USAW National Folkstyle Champion
● 2010 Anneliese DeAragon USAW National Folkstyle Champion
● 2010 Jenna Burkert qualifies for Youth Olympic Games in Singapore
● 2010 Erin Golston Pre-Jr. Canada Cup Champion
● 2010 Carlene Sluberski Jr. Pan Am Silver (Nicaragua)
● 2010 Anneliese DeAragon Jr. National Champion
● 2010 Jenna Burkert ASICS High School Athlete of the year
● 2010 Jenna Burkert Youth Olympic Games 5th (Singapore)
● 2010 Jenna Burkert Youth Olympic Games Beach Wrestling Bronze (Singapore)
● 2011 Kim Spiegel Jr. Pan Am Silver (Brazil)
● 2011 Jenna Burkert USAW National Folkstyle Champion
● 2011 Jenna Burkert FILA Jr. National Champion & OW
● 2011 Jenna Burkert ASICS High School Athlete of the year
● 2011 Carlene Sluberski University National Champion
● 2011 Carlene Sluberski FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2011 Erin Golston FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2011 Anneliese DeAragon FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2011 Anneliese DeAragon FILA Jr. World 8th (Romania)
● 2011 Jenna Burkert FILA Jr. World 8th (Romania)
● 2011 Erin Golston FILA Jr. World Bronze (Romania)
● 2012 Erin Golston FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2012 Jenna Burkert FILA Jr. National Champion
● 2012 USAW Resident Athlete Program Closes at USOEC
● 2012 Erin Golston FILA Jr. World Bronze (Thailand)
● 2013 Ally Somera Jr. Pan Am Bronze (Chile)
● 2013 Jenna Burkert FILA Jr. World 8th (Bulgaria)
● 2013 Erin Golston FILA Jr. World Silver