Feature Stories
A league of their own
Brooklyn high school teacher says wrestling teaches life skills to her female students
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Gary Schoichet
With students on the team clustered in a semi-circle to watch, the coach and one of their teammates demonstrate a technique known as the two-on-one tie-up.
The coach controls the opponents’ arm with two hands, then leverages a leg to get the athlete off-balance and down to the floor.
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Gary Schoichet
Girls wrestling coach Lisa Mandry (wrestling, right) demonstrates to the girls how to review their lines of defense with good head positioning and how to use their arms to stop an opponent.
For aficionados of high school wrestling, it wouldn’t be surprising that the technique was quick, intense and effective. What many might find surprising, however, is that both the coach and the athletes are female.
“The minute I touch her shoulder, she’s down,” says Sunset Park HS teacher Lisa Mandry, clueing in the girls to an important tip for the takedown on this June day.
Next up: how to reverse the move. Mandry is teaching about leverage, about control, about being in the moment, reacting and not second-guessing oneself.
The girls are hanging on every word.
“I don’t like any sport with balls or bats,” said Elizabeth Acevedo, the student with whom Mandry demonstrates the move, as the senior and co-captain of the team describes what led her to try out for this nontraditional sport for girls.
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Gary Schoichet
Warming up with some “Frankenstein walks,” part of a routine that includes forward and backward somersaults, jogging, stretching and more.
Much to her surprise, she soon discovered a love for the sport. “Physically, I’ve lost a lot of weight and gained so much muscle. Mentally, I started to be more positive about everything after I started this,” Acevedo said.
Mandry introduced the program to the Brooklyn school in the 2012–13 school year, when the Public Schools Athletic League teamed up with the nonprofit Beat the Streets to create a girls’ wrestling league.
Prior to that, a few girls participated in wrestling along with the boys, but they didn’t have a league of their own. From 16 schools citywide participating in 2013, the sport has expanded to 21 schools and is gaining in popularity.
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Gary Schoichet
Warm down, after the practice.
Mandry is available to her 10 students five days a week for after-school practice, and on weekends when there are tournaments.
Beyond coaching a sport, Mandry feels that she’s also teaching her students life skills.
“It’s not just about what you do on the mat — this translates to real-life situations,” Mandry says.
She recalled shouting “Dig deep, you can do this!” to one of her students who was pinned by an opponent and had only 30 seconds to go in the match.
The student came through, she said. “That’s the life lesson: Do you give up? No! You do the things you’ve committed to in life, whether you’re on the mat or one semester short of graduation — are you going to drop out or finish and go to college?”
Mandry also discusses with her students eating well, getting enough sleep and exercising.
“Our girls trust her,” said her fellow physical education teacher Xavier Torres, who coaches softball at the school. “When she teaches techniques, she gets in there with them.”
Acevedo recalled being insecure about her looks when she first started high school. “When you go to tournaments, you see girls with different body types, different weight classes,” she said.
Gaining muscle and strength “gives you confidence,” Acevedo added, noting the changing attitudes of her peers, who now think that wrestling is cool.
Kamylle Morency, the co-captain of the team and a graduating senior, said that she loves the sport because it motivated her to do well in all her subjects and provided a channel for her anger.
“Ms. Mandry is like a second mother,” said Morency, who started at the University of Bridgeport this fall and noted that she has found a gym there for wrestling.
For senior Brianna Cruz, the experience with the sport gave her a new focus. She’s now majoring in sports management at the University of Connecticut.
Overcoming girls’ — or, in some cases, their parents’ — rejection of wrestling is part of the challenge that Mandry faces as she talks up the sport in the school.
“She puts up fliers in the hallways, wears clothing that promotes women’s wrestling and has guest speakers come to the school, including an Olympian,” said Chapter Leader Joe Tarlo.
Tenth-grader Giselle Cortes recalled that when she first heard about it, her initial reaction was, “eww, wrestling.” But her sister was doing it so she came to check it out and discovered a new passion.
Finding time for a sport can be challenging, Cortes said, but “your whole mood changes after you start exercising; in general, you become a happier person.”