• Girl’s wrestling is official at JHS starting this fall

• Fire crews take control of fire burning south of Levan

• School district held budget hearings on June 16th

• Nephi City prohibits setting off personal fireworks east of I-15

• Obits

• Classified

• Back

• Home

By Myrna Trauntvein
TN Correspondent

There will be girl’s wrestling at Juab High School this fall.

After hearing from community members, Juab School District Board members voted unanimously in favor of adding girl’s wrestling to the list of high school sports.

Jilean Ercanbrack, Justin Seely, Kaycee Anderson, Jeremy Stephensen and Shayla Stephensen, spoke to the Juab School District Board of Education in support of the need for a girl’s wrestling program at Juab High School and they all spoke highly of Dr. Joel Holman’s wrestling program.

Remarks were also made by Billy Cox and Hollie Holman.

UHSAA, the leadership organization for high school athletic and fine arts, sanctioned the program and now schools may choose whether or not to adopt girl’s wrestling.

“I favor wrestling for girls,” said Ercanbrack. “I have two daughters and, since they were ages 1 and 2, they have been in wrestling rooms.”

They had not wanted to wrestle because they would have had to wrestle boys but now that the sport was sanctioned by the UHSAA, they were interested because they would wrestle other girls.

They were now in the sixth and eighth grades.

Some girls were showing up at matches coachless. Other coaches had stepped up and helped the girls during matches, she said. She also had a son who wrestles.

She said they could have the same success that Holman had with the boys program.

“Give them a coach,” she said.

Seely recounted the history of the development of the program under Holman. His son, Ashton, was part of that history.

“What he (Holman) brings to the program is what makes it a success,” he said. “We have the third largest wrestling program in the state with 183 youth participants.

He said when you have 15 to 20 kids show up at the Ute Stampede to clean up the bleachers, you know that you have boys who are committed.

He said that Cox had coached wrestling at Maple Mountain and had now moved to Nephi.

“His daughter was close to a pioneer in girl’s wrestling,” said Seely. “He is all-in.”

Anderson moved to Nephi less than a year ago. He was a wrestling coach at Skyline High School.

“Last year we had five girls,” said Anderson. “Billy was coach of the year.”

The girls needed to be given a platform and many colleges were now seeking girls to help fill their weight categories for the team, therefore, scholarships were available.

The young girls should be part of the feeder program. He would be around to help.

The Stephensens said that their daughter had been on the drill team but had given it up to participate in wrestling.

Dr. Kodey Hughes said that one thing people needed to remember was that programs are not free. They needed to be financed.

“Do it right, or don’t do it,” he said.

Ron Marelli, JHS athletic director, had done research on adding the program to the budget.

“If you have eight girls, you will need a bus and a bus driver,” he said. “If there are five girls you could use the van.”

There would be the possibility of eight tournaments.

In addition, the wrestlers would need singlets which would be rotated over a three year period.

“I used the same fees that I use for the boy’s program,” Marelli said. “I based my figures on five wrestlers.”

For track, he said, they pay for competitions by the participant. They could do the same for the girl’s program. That was usually about $5 per participant.

“We could use part of the pay to play fund,” he said.

Hughes said that often the participants in a sport would hold fundraisers.

Dale Whitlock, board president, said he thought that most activities did hold fundraisers to help pay for costs of that activity.

His concern was what the plan would be if girl wrestlers from other districts without a program wanted to join the Wasps.

“If a girl from Manti, for example, wanted to wrestle and wanted to be part of the team, would the district charge the student?” asked Tracy Olsen, board vice-president.

Principals from the school the student attended would be contacted about paying for the student to participate.

Marelli said that the participants in baseball buy their own pants because the bottoms don’t last. The tops are reusable.

“Singlets are reusable,” he said.

The coach needs an assistant, said Whitlock, because they need to be two deep for the comfort and safety of the girls.

The wrestling season runs from November to February. Because it is a winter sport, the board has more flexibility with working it into the budget. The budget could be amended in July and a fee for wrestling could be added, said Hughes.

“Would we carry two people for ten years?” he asked.

He said that Holman had said he would be comfortable with three girls in the program and there were others who had some interest.

Hughes said he was comfortable working with the program for three years and then readdressing the subject.

There likely should be one more singlet added to the budget because they would need two sets if they were like the boys team.

“We haven’t recruited but it is on Instagram,” said H. Holman.

Linda Hanks, board member, asked if this would present one more program to book through the high school activities association.

Marelli said he had already talked to the association and knew it would be approved. In July, they fill out an application for the sports that the school intends to offer. It only costs $50 to add a sport.

Janet Ware, board member, made the motion to add the sport to the high school sanctioned events, Cassie Beutler, board member, made the second and all voted in favor.

“I think this has been a great process,” said Whitlock.