Takedown Report

Women’s Wrestling Pioneers: Kent Bailo and the USGWA

By Shannyn Gillespie
The author first met Kent Bailo in 2005 at his US Girls Wrestling Association Nationals, held at Lake Orion H.S., in Auburn Hills, MI.  This was 8 years after his first girls only wrestling state tournament.
Mr. Bailo started the USGWA to get more girls involved with our sport partially because of what he saw as a referee.  Kent was named Wrestling USA “Man-of-theYear” for 2004 for his work as a coach, referee, and women’s wrestling pioneer. Some of Kent’s wrestling accolades include: high school coach, record of 251-65-2; referee, refereed at 12 Michigan High School State Wrestling Finals, 7 NCAA Division III National Championships; & creating opportunities for girl wrestlers across the USA as you will see.
Not only does Mr. Bailo have credentials in our great sport, he also holds a Master’s degree in Secondary School Administration from Eastern Michigan University AND 11 majors & minors in social studies, history, geography, physical education, psychology, sociology, economics, area studies of Africa, African-American studies, political science, & criminology.  Kent has some interesting takes on folkstyle, freestyle, & the growth of wrestling in the USA.  Below, you will be able to briefly get inside his mind and discover how he was able to effectively transform the sport of wrestling.
Why did you start the US Girls Wrestling Association?
I saw a few girls here and there when I was reffing [refereeing] in the ‘90’s. Every girl I’d see wrestling (on a boys team), I’d ask, “Are there any other girls in this area wrestling?”  And the answer was just about always the same, “they have two at some high school and one at some other high school and that’s about it”.  But I reffed in such a wide area (75 mile radius around Metro Detroit), I saw at least 30 girls wrestling and they all thought they were the Lone Ranger – when in fact, there were a lot of girl wrestlers.  Also, I’d ask the managers & scorekeepers “why aren’t you wrestling?” 
Answer was nearly always, “I would, but not against boys”.  So then, my businessman (save wrestling mind) mode kicked in. Why not get all these girls together so they could wrestle each other — then 100% of the winners would be girls.  Much easier to like a sport or any endeavor when your chances of success (winning) are greater.  Then, I decided to mail a letter to all 480 schools in Michigan that had a wrestling team. One letter to each coach, each athletic director, & each principal so they’d know my intentions were legitimate.
What were some of the obstacles USGWA had to overcome?
Finding a building to host events…  No coach was ever interested unless he had a girl or daughter on his team. 
Finding refs [referees]…  My son Brent, my brother Sam, one other ref and myself reffed that first Michigan State Meet in 1997.  
I heard some guys worried about [inappropriately] touching the girls maybe to prevent illegal holds or injuries — but those things never happened…  After a couple of years and the USGWA Nationals that started in 1998, the touching issues were never a problem again. Heck, we even had female refs come to Michigan from Missouri & Illinois.  Our first Michigan Girls Wrestling State Meet, in 1997, had 116 girls.  We allowed 7th & 8th graders to compete to get the numbers up. In the first girls Nationals, at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, we had 272 girls from 35 states.
Why do you believe USGWA Nationals was a success?
The USGWA Nationals were a success because every girl in the country who had a coach — who cared — knew about it.  Originally, I was going to mail to 10% of the high schools in each state.  Then I thought, “heck Ohio, Indiana, Illinois are all real close, then geez Pennsylvania might bring a lot”.  Then, I decided the best thing to do was to mail to EVERY high school in the country that had a wrestling team. I got the coaching directory from every state from the Clell Wade Coaches Directory Company.  With the help of my wife, we entered every address in my computer, printed labels, folded 10,500 letters, stuffed envelopes, put on stamps, address labels, & mailed.
Rest of the story at https://news.theopenmat.com/womens-wrestling/womens-wrestling-pioneers-kent-bailo-and-the-usgwa/75165?mc_cid=fd834b255f&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

November 4, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized