Trista Wants To Wrestle: Western NY School Denies Opportunity For Female National Champion To Wrestle
7th grade Trista Blasz won’t be allowed to compete for her school, Lancaster Central, this year. Photo courtesy of Danielle Blasz.
by Derek Levendusky, AWW staff writer
All Trista Blasz wants to do is wrestle. Until female wrestling is sanctioned in New York, the way to do that is by wrestling in the boys’ program. But Lancaster Central School in western NY won’t let her. Why? Because, according to her mother, she’s a girl.
Trista’s mother, Danielle Blasz, posted on November 8th in the “Wrestle Like a Girl Community Forum,” an organization that advocates for women’s wrestling, “I am beyond disgusted with Lancaster School District Board. Yesterday I received a phone call informing me that Trista could not be part of the JV or varsity wrestling team. Apparently she’s ineligible because…why??? SHE’S A GIRL!!!”
At the request of the varsity coach, Blasz tried to fulfill the middle school protocols to participate in the varsity program, as the coach wanted her to compete at 99 pounds. The 7th grader is a 2019 NUWAY National Champion. She scored a 4 on the Tanner test, which nixed her varsity hopes, but she easily passed the varsity standards for the APP (Athletic Placement Process) test, which should still qualify her to compete on JV with a Tanner 4. Not only has the school denied her the opportunity to wrestle JV, according to her mother, Trista can’t even wrestle on modified.
“It says ‘No’ on the panel [decision] paper for mixed competition,” explains Mrs. Blasz. The school superintendent and athletic director cannot be reached to confirm or comment on this.
The same school doctor that denied Trista the opportunity also denied her aunt, Cristta Hartinger, in 2010. It seems he doesn’t think the girls should wrestle the boys. Hartinger, who was a NY state champion and on the U.S. national team, was denied the opportunity to compete for her school because of, according to a story at the time by Jonathan Wall of Yahoo Sports, “muscle mass differences” and “social/pubertal issues.”
The school’s doctor also had another strange indictment regarding Hartinger’s build. “He said her shoulders were too wide,” explained Mrs. Blasz, who is Hartinger’s sister.
Lancaster Central School, based on the doctor’s evaluation, denied Hartinger the opportunity to compete for a year—a punishment, it seemed to her family, for being a girl. Though the school overturned their decision a year later, getting the decision overturned wasn’t easy. Hartinger’s mother, Renee, persevered and pushed the issue “all the way to Albany” until the door opened. Even so, the obstacles were so severe that there hasn’t been a female wrestler in the Lancaster program since.
“The reason Trista has such a passion for wrestling is Cristta,” explains the mom. “Since she was 4 we never missed one of my sister’s tournaments.”
Now the old arguments for denying Hartinger the opportunity to wrestle at Lancaster have resurfaced again for her admiring niece.
What was the official reason for denying Trista Blasz the opportunity to wrestle? From the school’s mixed competition report, signed by the doctor: “strength/muscle mass difference boys vs. girls.” The report on Blasz also lists her pull-ups as “1” though she actually did 10 on the test.
Trista’s efforts to qualify for the boys’ varsity program were halted when she only scored a 4 on the Tanner—the physical/sexual maturity test—so she decided to move forward getting permission to compete on the JV squad. Her mother was shocked when the school panel that met to discuss the issue contacted her to inform her that Trista couldn’t wrestle on JV, though she passed all the requirements, and apparently, she couldn’t even compete on modified.
The school’s doctor had written in a letter to the school, dated November 14th, “She is requesting to participate in boy’s Varsity Wrestling as a 12 year old girl. By NYS standards, boys must be Tanner Stage 5 to participate…She is Tanner Stage 4 and does not qualify for further testing and certainly not to participate in the above sport.”
“He knew that she was going for JV and not varsity,” explained Trista’s mother. “This [letter] is a piece of crap.”
That last line—“…and certainly not to participate in the above sport”—seems to have given the school carte blanche power to deny Blasz from participating in wrestling for the school at any level, even modified. “She didn’t pass the panel,” explains the mother Blasz. No varsity, no JV, and it seems, no modified. No wrestling at Lancaster for Trista. Danielle is grieved. “This girl passed everything the boys have to do,” she lamented, “but because she’s a girl…they said no. Lancaster won’t allow her this opportunity.”
This same school doctor, after checking the box “not cleared…” on the APP Physical Maturity Form in September, then handwrote, “[not cleared] for maturity & girls don’t play boys sports in Lancaster schools.” It appears that he’d made his decision from the beginning about Trista’s wrestling fate.
Now the mother wants to get the word out about happened, “…for any girl that ever wants to wrestle at Lancaster.“
The “Regulation of the Commissioner of Education on Mixed Competition” recommends only a Tanner 4 for female athletes wanting to compete in wrestling at the JV level, which Blasz has from both the school doctor and her primary physician. However, her primary had given her a Tanner 3 in July. Though the Tanner 4 should have trumped the Tanner 3, the school dug in and had a committee meeting to decide the matter because the Tanner 3 was the original test result when the testing process started. That was the panel that made the final decision to deny young Blasz the chance to wrestle.
Blasz’ primary physician had also written a letter to the school, part of which stated, “I feel extremely confident that she will be more than able to participate in wrestling against boys or girls her size and weight. Please notify me if there are any questions.”
This letter alone should have opened the door for Blasz, as the Tanner tests are merely “recommended” and a physician’s evaluation of a middle school athlete’s readiness can override the Tanner test. The committee, however, defied the primary’s affirmation and sent Blasz, and her dreams, away.
This is defiance in the face even of NYSPHSAA, that just last year made an amendment allowing girls certified on boys’ teams to wrestle in girls-only divisions for their schools. That decision effectively opens the doors for more female wrestlers, female state championships, and even girls’ teams. They already do this in PSAL (Public Schools Athletic League) in NYC. Decisions to turn away female wrestlers like they did in Lancaster seem ignorant to the reality that the fastest growing sport in the country is at our doorstep, already gaining momentum. Certainly the next generation will look at the people who created obstacles for female wrestling and wonder why they hindered young girls from ever being involved.
The National Federation of State High School Association reported that last year, the biggest jump for participation within wrestling at the high school level came among the girls, as it grew (again) for the 30th straight year. In 1994, there were 804 reported female high school wresters. In 2018-19, there were 21,124 girls competing, an increase of 4,562 athletes from the previous year. That’s a whopping 27.5% increase in one year.
There were well over 500 girls certified to wrestle in boys’ varsity high school programs last year in both NYSPHSAA and PSAL, the two governing bodies in New York that allow female wrestlers to be certified. Being certified on these high school teams is the way these young women qualify to wrestle at some of the new events created for female wrestlers, like the Section 6 NYSPHSAA Women’s Invitational last year or PSAL States in the Bronx. But this story isn’t even about wrestling the varsity guys. It’s about wrestling modified or JV. Modified is a level that has a reputation for wrestlers being at the novice level, as many high school wrestlers who didn’t wrestle in youth programs start at this level. Experienced youth wrestlers, including girls, often dominate modified wrestling.
Many girls have not only survived, but thrived against the boys, even at the varsity level. In the same section as Lancaster (Section 6), last year Mushirah Sheppard of Salamanca had over 15 wins against the boys. In Section 3, Riley Dalrymple of Copenhagen won a Class D sectional title against the boys. In Section 9, USA Wrestling national champion Sofia Macaluso took 3rd in the boys’ state qualifiers. In Section 5 in 2018, 99-pound Esther Levendusky of Avon took 6th in her varsity class sectional and advanced to the state qualifier as a freshman. Her older sister, Joye Levendusky, is a college All-American for NCAA school McKendree University and had 70 wins wrestling the boys in high school.
“Being able to wrestle on the boys team throughout high school gave me exposure to wrestling, partners, technique and coaches that I would not have otherwise had,” said Joye Levendusky, who now lives in Illinois. “In upstate NY, you have to wrestle boys if you’re going to wrestle at all. So wrestling the boys helped me to develop and eventually help pay for my college education. Some of my best friends to this day are the boys that I met through wrestling, so it was positive even from a social angle.”
When asked about her thoughts on Lancaster, Levendusky said, “The West Coast and Mid-West are so much farther along in sanctioning women’s wrestling the East Coast. Actions like these are what keeps New York behind the rest of the country and limit opportunities for college scholarships.”
But Lancaster said no in 2010. And now they’ve said no in 2019. Meanwhile, Trista just wants to wrestle.
A photo taken several years ago Cristta Hartinger and her niece, Trista Blasz. Photo credit: @cristtahartinge