THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601140287
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Waiting to wrestle for Booker T. Washington High School on Saturday, Sherika Sadler kept warm in a T-shirt that bore a portentous message.
On the back of her white shirt was a description of wrestling as ``The All-American intense, legal pain sport.''
Soon enough, Sadler's opponent in the area's first all-female varsity wrestling match, Dana Worthington of Wilson, found out for herself. Courtesy of Sadler, all 5-foot-1, 104 pounds of her.
Worthington, 5-4 and 111, walked onto the competitive mat for the first time, but had to be carried off. Sadler pinned Worthington in 1:08 of the first period in a 112-pound match at the Oak Duals at Norfolk Collegiate, but that wasn't the worst of it.
Worthington got up limping and sobbing, distraught over losing and letting her team down, she said, but also racked with pain in her right knee.
At the mat's center, she lay on her back for 20 minutes as a trainer, her coach, her mother, her sister and others offered treatment and solace. Finally rescue squad workers splinted her knee and rolled Worthington out of the gym on a stretcher and into an ambulance, which took her to DePaul Medical Center for X-rays.
Worthington was discharged three hours later and returned to Norfolk Collegiate with two sprained ligaments, a pair of crutches she'll need for two weeks and bruised pride.
``Everybody made such a big deal out of (the match),'' said Worthington, a 16-year-old sophomore. ``The whole school knew about it. People I didn't even know were coming up to me and asking me what I thought about it. Now I have to walk into school Tuesday on crutches.''
As Worthington talked, Sadler sat beside her on a bench and listened. They didn't know each other until Saturday, and Sadler, a 17-year-old junior, said she only learned she'd wrestle Worthington at mid-week from a newspaper article.
``I thought, `Oooh, that's gonna be fun,' '' Sadler said. ``I've never wrestled a girl before.''
But she had wrestled, unlike Worthington. Sadler was 2-5 before Saturday, including one forfeit and an 11-9 victory in her second match over a boy from Menchville.
``I don't know if (Worthington's) been working out, but she's in for it,'' Booker T. coach Rob Toran said before the match. ``Sherika's got a mean streak in her. And she's got a strong, strong desire to win.''
Sadler, an all-Eastern District field hockey player, was the aggressor, taking down Worthington by the legs for two early points. She then was penalized a point, however, for clamping a full nelson, an illegal hold, on Worthington.
Thirty seconds into the match, referee Jerry Kirby stopped action to remove a ring from Worthington's finger. When wrestling resumed, Sadler wrapped her arms around Worthington and threw her to the mat, the sequence in which Worthington's injuries occurred. The pin quickly followed.
``She started to cry, and I asked the ref if I should stop and he said keep wrestling,'' Sadler said.
``I started feeling sorry for her. I know it was her first match. I wanted to try to take it easy on her from there.''
The bout, ironically, gave Sadler the chance to experience the no-win pressure boys often feel when wrestling girls. Sadler's limited experience made her the heavy favorite over Worthington, which would have made losing to her difficult.
``Yes, a guy has to beat a girl,'' Sadler said. ``If he doesn't, the whole school finds out. It's not a pretty sight. This was important to me.''
Thankfully for all concerned, Sadler noted, the bout was clean, in that there was no outside-the-rules scrapping.
``Girls tend to go off a little bit,'' Sadler said. ``They have a tendency to do girl things, like scratching and poking, biting sometimes. I've felt myself start to do it in practice, but I've stopped. Coach says those are just things girls do.''
More and more, wrestling boys is one of those things, too.
Sadler turned to wrestling because she doesn't like basketball and was a bad swimmer last winter, she said.
Worthington saw it, tried it, liked it and pursued it, despite suffering ridicule in some quarters and possessing what her mother, Donna, called a low pain tolerance.
``I thought she handled it well, though,'' Donna Worthington said of her daughter, who promised to return to wrestling as soon as she is able.
``If I cared about what people thought,'' Dana Worthington said, ``I'd be a cheerleader.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot
Sherika Sadler throws Dana Worthington, above, in the area's first
all-girl varsity wrestling match, at the Oak Duals at Norfolk
Collegiate. Booker T. Washington's Sadler came into the match with a
2-5 record, but it was the first for Wilson's Worthington. It was
also her last for a while: Worthington suffered injured two sprained
ligaments in the match. Her 2-year-old niece Brittany, left,
comforts her as she waits to be taken to the hospital. Worthington
will be on crutches for two weeks, but she plans to return to
wrestling as soon as she is able.
by CNB