Pendleton Heights plans camp to pique girls’ interest in wrestling, rugby

PENDLETON — Coaches at Pendleton Heights High School are trying to spur interest in their wrestling and rugby programs by offering a free camp.
There is one stipulation: You have to be a girl.
A girls-only camp is planned from 3 to 5 p.m. (right after school) on Wednesday, March 3, in the wrestling room
The camp is for all ages, from elementary school to high school. Participants don’t have to be South Madison students.
Campers are asked to wear workout shorts, T-shirts and athletic shoes for a camp that will get expert instruction from the school’s wrestling coaches, Dave Cloud and Katie Kriebel, and rugby mentors, Curt Trout and Chelsea Clark.

The camp is a combination brain-child of Kriebel’s and Trout’s.
Kriebel (then Katie Downing) wrestled at the high school in the 1990s and later in college at Minnesota-Morris, at the time the only college with a women’s wrestling team.
She went on to win a silver medal and two bronze medals at the Women’s Junior World Championships. She was an alternate on the U.S. Olympic team in 2008.
Trout is one of the most respected rugby coaches in the state. He is a nominee for Rugby Indiana’s first Hall of Fame class to be named later this year.
Cloud, who has been the Pendleton Heights head coach for 30-plus years, was inducted into the Indiana Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2019.
The wrestling program is hoping to have enough interest to have a full girls team next year.
In the past, the Arabians have had a handful of girls compete, anywhere from two wrestlers to nine, Kriebel said. They would like to have enough girl wrestlers to be able to have representation in each weight class and be able to wrestle other all-girl teams.
“I wanted to have a day where we could give girls a chance to try it out,” Kriebel said. “Several people say so-and-so wants to try it, or they think they want to do it, and only 1 or 2 show up. We want to give girls a chance, without the guys around, to give it an actual try, try it out and see what it’s like and to see if they enjoy it and see if it is fun.”
Kriebel and Trout believe skills for both sports go hand in hand and that holding the camp would be beneficial to the growth of both programs.
Trout said the middle school has a full girls team to play 7-on-7 rugby, but the high school team, which plays 15-on-15, is a few players short of having a full squad.
Both rugby teams had their most recent seasons shut down because of the pandemic.
“We had talked about (holding the camp) before last spring before things got crazy,” Trout said. “We’re trying to join efforts and drum up some enthusiasm for the sports.”
Both Trout and Kriebel said they believe having a camp for just girls is important. They said many girls may not want to participate knowing they have to compete against boys.
“Just thinking about my own daughter (Mamie, a seventh- grader), if she had to play middle school rugby against boys, she wouldn’t do it,” Trout said. “Whereas, if she can get her friends involved and have fun at practices and do things she wants to do while enjoying a sport, it’s game on. That’s where she wants to be. I think the same goes with some respect with girls that are apprehensive to try something they see as a boys’ club, which it’s not.”
Kriebel praised the sport of wrestling and all it has done for her, noting the lifelong friendships she’s developed from competing at high school, college and the international level.
She also said a big plus for the sport is that it’s for everyone.
“Wrestling, by its very nature, is an inclusive sport,” Kriebel said. “It’s for all body types. It’s for all talent levels. It’s for all. You don’t have to be particularly strong, flexible or smart. You can be smart, and that’s your thing. Or you can be flexible, and that is your edge. You can be really fast or really strong, and that’s your edge.
“You don’t have to be a certain thing, and it’s for all sizes. It’s an inclusive sport, and it should be inclusive for girls, too. To be more inclusive you have to reach a wider audience than ones that draw on their own.”
The coaches hope this camp will be a start to that.
They bill it on their camp flyer as a way to “earn respect, confidence and strength and be a part of history in the making.”
“I think it’s huge any time we can present an opportunity for anyone that doesn’t have an opportunity, whether perceived or whether it’s actual,” Trout added. “If girls don’t feel like they have an opportunity because boys are involved then they might not even try it. Shedding that perception is part of what we are trying to do with the girls-only thing.”
Kriebel noted how the sport of girls wrestling has grown every year since she started as a competitor in the 1990s. It now has emerging sport status at the NCAA level, giving more opportunities for girls to not only compete at a higher level but also receive an education at a higher level.
“There is a lot of growth (in the sport) and a lot of opportunities that aren’t going away,” she said.
The veteran coaches are hoping the door to those opportunities can begin opening for girls in Pendleton and around the area when they hold their camp in March.
“I know we’ll get some that have tried the sports before, but I wanted to do this for the people that the sport was new for and for them to be around other people that were new,” Kriebel said. “They can try it out on an equal playing field with people that are also new and not worry about getting hurt.
“It’ll be good to have that chance to do it with other girls.”