Let Her Wrestle: Exposure events connect athletes and coaches
ALLENTOWN, Penn. – Let’em Wrestle hosted a Let Her Wrestle college exposure showcase event at Muhlenberg College last Sunday. The event was only the second of its kind—the first being held earlier this year at Raritan High School in Hazlet, New Jersey.
The day was a mix of college fairs, technique sessions, intense mat time for wrestlers and a financial aid seminar for parents. One of the parents referred to a portion of the event as speed dating for recruiting—a quick and engaged way to learn about the culture, academics, campus life and feel for where a student can see themselves fitting in over the next four years.
Dan Seidenberg, founder of Let’em Wrestle, said: “The whole point of the day was to get kids thinking about their future after high school wrestling . . . We’re not giving them anything they haven’t earned themselves. It’s just a platform to be heard and to be seen. The work is not our doing, we’re just putting them [coaches & athletes] together.”
The Let Her Wrestle college exposure showcases in New Jersey and Pennsylvania brought together 75 female wrestlers. Clinicians from the collegiate women’s wrestling world included:
- Elena Pirozhkova, New Jersey City University (program beginning 2020)
- Caitlyn Baker, Delaware Valley University (program beginning 2020)*
- Breonnah Neal, Ferrum College (new head coach, 2019)
- Ronnie Perry, Lock Haven University (program beginning 2019)
- Brandy Green, Limestone College (program beginning 2019)
- Andrey Rodriguez, former head coach at Lindenwood University
- Ashley Lliff, four-time WCWA All-American for King University
Missouri Valley College and Alderson Broaddus University were also present at the New Jersey showcase.
Seidenberg stated, “It’s phenomenal; when you’re under that roof wrestlers are wrestlers. There was no difference in the intensity and passion between the boys’ and girls’ mats. It was very inspiring to see how eager the girls are to learn . . . it’s not just needed, it’s truly something everyone wants to see happen. Girls wrestling is adding a breath of fresh air to the sport . . .”
Ferrum College head coach Breonnah Neal said the event was perfectly organized and did much more for the sport than she had expected. She commented on the atmosphere, saying that the men’s coaches expressed genuine interest in the women’s programs—asking questions about roster size and positively commenting on the growth of the sport on the women’s side.
Neal added, “The wrestling community is just so great; I like how Let Her Wrestle just brought us all together so we could see that, too. It was great for our school and for the girls to have another opportunity to find the place they feel like they belong in college.”
The roots of Let Her Wrestle
Back in 2017, Seidenberg noticed a lot of wrestlers flying under the radar. He found there seemed to be two different types of wrestlers not going on to college: “the ones who maybe thought they were going to go Division I and then the ones that started late and didn’t think they were going to go on to wrestle in college at all.”
He quickly realized that Division II, III and NAIA programs just didn’t, and don’t, have the resources to be all over the place at once for recruiting. So he transformed observations into an idea and ran with it, bringing Let’em Wrestle to life as a project.
His driving question: “What about the other 99% of kids that have the same passion for the sport that are doing all the things within their control to succeed? . . . We want to show that if you are doing things that bring out the best in you—academically, socially and athletically—that there is a college program for you.”
They decided to add the Let Her Wrestle section in 2019 after hearing that New Jersey would sanction girls wrestling. Seidenberg said, “This is big, and these girls need to see they’re not just needed here, they’re wanted here. We went with Let Her Wrestle as a standalone section because girls need something of their own . . . if we create the opportunities the numbers will follow.”
Looking toward the future, coach Neal said, “What I think would be a good idea is maybe just to move the event from place to place. . . have one showcase more southeast, that’ll kind of help the Kentucky programs like Campbellsville, Cumberlands and even King, plus pull in girls from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida, too.”
Seidenberg said, “It’s still brand new . . .the goal is to take it further outward, but right now it’s one step at a time keeping the purpose at the forefront. We’ll go back to the drawing board in 2020 to see what state Let Her Wrestle will be in next.”
Seidenberg is a 2014 graduate from Rutgers University—New Brunswick.
