By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

When it’s come to women’s wrestling in this country, the more things change, the more things stay the same. At least that has been the case on the Senior level, where many of the same women have made up the National Team since USA Wrestling officially recognized the program in 2002.

During that time, the American women have produced 17 of the 46 all-time World/Olympic medals — the first 29 came between 1989 and 2001 when women competed in championships on more of an individual basis — and 15 belong to four women: eight by Kristie Marano (the most decorated woman also won the first of two gold medals in 2000), three were produced by Patricia Miranda and two each by Tina George and Sara McMann.

But it should also be noted that Marano, McMann and George all lost to American women in tournaments this past year, including at the recent U.S. Nationals, where the 121-pound George, a seven-time World Team member, lost to Marcie Van Dusen, a 2005 World Team member. (McMann, meanwhile, avenged an earlier-season loss to Randi Miller in Las Vegas at 138.75 pounds, while Marano, who lost to Stephany Lee earlier this year, defeated 2005 World champion Iris Smith for the 158.5-national title.)

Meanwhile Stephanie Murata, who turns 37 this year and has competed in eight World Championships, had to rally to beat Mary Kelly at 105.5 pounds in Las Vegas, one year after losing to the younger Kelly in the 2006 Team Trials, and little-known Leigh Jaynes upset Erin Tomeo in the 130-pound championship match.

“That’s what we need,” said Terry Steiner, the U.S. women’s National Team coach. “When you start to have depth and people pushing each other, that’s the secret. You can only push them so much. When they start pushing each other and know if they aren’t doing their job that someone can replace them, there is power in that.”

Pushing the power and other benefits of women’s wrestling to a growing number of athletes has been the task of Steiner and USA Wrestling, which has made a concerted effort to grow the sport in this country.

“We are working with the NWCA (National Wrestling Coaches Association), which is very close to hiring a full-time person for this exact thing; in pushing states to sanction the sport in high school and push college administrators to look at starting to add women’s wrestling if they are looking at adding a women’s sport,” said Steiner, who knows he must also affect the thought pattern of skeptics in wrestling.

“What we are doing is putting the emphasis on the grass roots level at the clubs that we already have; to open coaches’ minds up and get existing coaches to be more accepting of women’s wrestling; even recruiting women onto their clubs or high school teams,” Steiner added.

Steiner, the former University of Iowa NCAA champion, is pretty candid about the cultural roadblocks he runs into while trying to spread women’s wrestling to coaches who were once his peers in college.

“I know being behind women’s wrestling isn’t the popular opinion for a lot of coaches out there,” said Steiner. “A lot of them don’t agree with it because it’s change or for religious reasons or because they don’t know how to handle girls in wrestling situations.

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