A camp instructor gives pointers to wrestlers at Ken Chertow’s Gold Medal Wrestling Camp.
By John Hartsock
jhartsock@altoonamirror.com
For most of its long and venerable history, the sport of competitive wrestling has been an exclusively male competition.
With the relatively recent emergence of women’s NCAA collegiate programs and the sanctioning of high school girls wrestling as a PIAA sport, however, wrestling has developed into equal-opportunity endeavor.
One hundred girls from the ages 6 to 18 were among the 350 total wrestlers enrolled at Ken Chertow’s Gold Medal Wrestling Camp, which began this past week at the Blair County Convention Center and will continue through next Sunday.
Another 200 wrestlers are expected to enroll for next week’s sessions, which are held in four separate areas throughout the facility.
Chertow, 57, a former three-time All-American wrestler at Penn State who competed for the United States freestyle wrestling team in Seoul, Korea back in 1988, is a first-hand expert on how wrestling has developed for women. Along with the camps that he runs nationwide, Chertow was hired as the women’s head wrestling coach at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pa. in 2023, and that program will begin its first season on the NCAA Division III level of competition during the 2024-25 campaign.
“Wrestling had long been known as a combat sport that wasn’t for women,” Chertow said. “But with the sanctioning of wrestling by both the NCAA and the PIAA, there’s now more of an opportunity for girls and women to wrestle than ever before.
“Society has evolved, and women have been getting equal opportunities with men in all sports … and now wrestling,” Chertow added. “I’ve been trying to promote women’s wrestling myself for the past two decades, and the sport has been growing exponentially among girls and women across the state of Pennsylvania and nationally because of their skill level and their commitment.”
Chertow’s renowned camp has been bringing wrestlers from all across the world, not just the United States, to Altoona each summer to hone their craft. More and more of the wrestlers attending the camp are girls and women.
Sarah Glenny, 14, who will be a freshman in the Altoona Area School District this fall, was one of two girls to compete with the boys on the Altoona Area Junior High School wrestling team last winter, and she qualified for the Pennsylvania State Junior High Championships in Johnstown at 112 pounds.
Glenny — who hopes that Altoona High School will eventually offer a varsity wrestling program exclusively for girls — was one of the girls attending Chertow’s camp this past week, and she was grateful for the opportunity.
“It’s intense, but the coaches also make it so much fun,” Glenny said of the training at the Chertow camp. “It’s a very welcoming atmosphere — everybody here is very nice. This is a great opportunity — I’ve met a lot of people from a lot of different states here.
“There are a lot of girls here, and they’re learning from the best,” Glenny added.
The PIAA mandated that at least 100 high schools in the state of Pennsylvania have a varsity girls wrestling program before it would sanction postseason district, regional and state tournaments in the sport. That was accomplished last season, when a state girls competition was held along with the boys state competition at the Giant Center in Hershey in March.
Rachel Shoemaker, who will be an incoming junior at District 2 Crestwood High School in Mountain Top, Pa., competed at 118 pounds for that school’s girls wrestling team last season and finished second at her weight class in the district tournament and qualified for states, where she won one match.
“I did pretty well,” Shoemaker said. “I didn’t place at the state tournament, but I did the best that I could, and I am proud of myself. Once I got to Hershey, I felt a sense of calmness, surrounded by other girls wrestlers who had worked hard to get there.”
Shoemaker has been a trailblazer for the sport at her school, and she spearheaded the drive to organize the girls team at Crestwood herself. The team numbered eight wrestlers in its first varsity season last winter and Shoemaker is confident that more will join the squad next season.
“Once the PIAA sanctioned wrestling for girls, I knew that it was going to be a big thing,” Shoemaker said. “So many girls just wanted to get out there and wrestle. Girls do it not so much for the competition, but because they love it.
“Girls have so much heart for the sport, and even when it wasn’t a sanctioned varsity girls sport, girls began coming out of nowhere to wrestle,” Shoemaker added. “This is why I think that the sport has grown so fast among girls.”
Fifty-five coaches are helping Chertow in his mission to spread knowledge of wrestling skills to young competitors this week and next at the Convention Center. Among the coaches here are former Bloomsburg University greats Ricky and Rocky Bonomo, and former Penn State head coach John Fritz.
Former Hollidaysburg High Area School coach Joe Baranik, who has spent the past two decades as a wrestling coach on the college and high school levels in North Carolina, joined the coaching staff at Chertow’s camp for the first time this summer.
“I grew up here, and after I first heard about it, I wanted to work this camp,” said Baranik, who was a District 6 wrestling champion during his high school days at Altoona in the late 1970s. “I gave Ken a call this year, and he invited me to join the coaching staff. Being here is neat, it’s cool, and it brings back a lot of memories.”
One of the wrestlers in Chertow’s Misericordia’s women’s wrestling program, Angelina Dawson, is also serving as a wrestling counselor at Chertow’s camp this summer.
Dawson, 22, who hails from Howell, N.J., began wrestling at the high school level at the age of 16, and said that the lessons that her involvement in wrestling have taught her have been very valuable.
“I think that wrestling prepares you for life,” said Dawson, who previously competed for the girls high school wrestling program at Wyoming (Pa.) Seminary for one season. “It teaches you resilience, and it builds you as a person. Even if I put everything I have into a wrestling match, I can still fall short. Wrestling can be the most humbling experience, but it teaches you to get up and keep fighting.
“Wrestling mirrors life, and life mirrors wrestling,” Dawson said. “I love it, and these girls are having opportunities in wrestling that I never had. It’s been so amazing to watch the (girls and women’s wrestling) community grow.”
Chertow stressed that openings are still available for enrollment in his camp by emailing him at camps@kenchertow.com. He said that need-based scholarship opportunities are available to girls and boys wrestling campers as well.
Chertow said that the sky is the limit for the future of wrestling for girls and women, and he is happy that camps like the ones that he runs will be part of that outstanding future.
“I think that the sport of wrestling is just going to explode for girls and women in the future, like it has already for women’s basketball and women’s volleyball,” Chertow said. “It’s just going to keep on growing.”
