If the media would treat Lisa Maslowsky the way most wrestlers treat the freshman from Tekamah-Herman, she could just wrestle.
But Maslowsky is the subject of woman bites dog-type stories because she is just the second female in history to qualify for the Nebraska State High School Wrestling Championships.
Maslowsky has a respectable, but not glittering, 19-15 record this season. She placed third in her district meet last weekend and is one of 16 competitors in the Class C 103-pound weight class.
She also dyed her hair blond, like her seven teammates who also qualified for the state meet. It's a Tekamah-Herman tradition followed by her brothers, Justin and Ian, who competed in the state meet in 1999 and 1997, respectively.
"We've told Lisa that she has to be prepared for a lot of attention, but that this can promote wrestling, too," said Tekamah-Herman coach Brent Abrams.
Elaine Blessen, the first girl to wrestle in the state meet, knows what awaits Maslowsky on Thursday in the first day of the meet at the Devaney Sports Center.
"She's in for a ride," said Blessen, who competed in the 2001 state meet. "At times it can seem like two days of hell." She tried to blend in with the wrestlers by wearing her hooded workout sweats and sitting high in the Devaney Center seats between matches.
"It was crazy with the media and everybody else. Security people who won't let you go to your locker room, cameras everywhere, cameras and reporters all around the mat. Friends, family and dozens of people who you never met rooting against you, rooting for you and all you want to do is wrestle the way you know how."
Blessen, a senior studying pre-law at Nebraska, hopes to enter law school next fall. "I don't know if a majority of Nebraska will ever get over the ‘girl wrestler,' and understand that the Parade of Champions isn't just for boys."
Maslowsky isn't worried about the attention as much as she's worried about the competition.
"I don't think about being the second girl to wrestle in the state meet," she said. "I think about being one of 896 wrestlers and being one of the wrestlers on our team at state," she said.
Blessen, then a junior at Malcolm, lost her two matches in the 2001 state tournament. As a senior, she finished 16-11 but did not qualify for state.
Since then, the number of girls wrestling on high school teams in Nebraska has grown to almost 30.
Nationally, there are about 3,500 girls wrestling and about 250,000 boys wrestling at the high school level. Texas and Hawaii have separate meets for boys and girls, but the rest of the states mix the sexes on the mat because of court orders.
The Nebraska School Activities Association has no special rules for girls in wrestling. "Just a different weigh-in room and a different locker room and the rest is the same for boys and girls," said Bob Colgate of the NSAA.
"There was no big deal here when Lisa and Chelsea (Lisa's twin sister) came out for wrestling," said Abrams. "They've been wrestling for a long time. They've been in a lot of national meets. Chelsea has three national girls titles and Lisa has one and two runner-up finishes.
"They are good, technical wrestlers with solid techniques," said Abrams, who has coached for 27 years. "They practice against each other and they practice against some of the boys on our team. We have eight state qualifiers on this year's team and Lisa is a member of that team going to state. Simple enough."
Some schools refuse to allow boys to wrestle girls. Lincoln Christian had a wrestler forfeit a match in last week's district because he was paired with a girl.
"It is our school policy," said Christian athletic director Kory Kavan. "Wrestling is an aggressive sport and the wrestlers are in awkward positions and we don't need to put a boy in that situation."
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