“Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you,” has been a mantra of little girls thanks to the famous song by Ethel Merman. The first time the song resonated with me was watching a Gatorade commercial featuring soccer star Mia Hamm and basketball-great Michael Jordan going head-to-head in just about any sport they could.
The competitive spirit of those two was palpable, and leveled the playing field.
For many, competitive sports have been an accelerator to development, teaching more than rules of a game. Motor skills, routines, regular exercise, teamwork and self-esteem are only a few of the noted benefits participants have carried into adulthood. Studies show that a large percentage of women currently working in a C-Suite role played sports at one point in their lives. Additionally, other articles tie their success back to learning leadership skills early on.
Sally Roberts is no exception to this statistic.
She struggled in junior high, behaviorally, until she found wrestling as a sport. It was a natural fit. She ended up representing the United States at both the U.S. National Championships and the World Wrestling championships where she has an impressive string of medals to show for her commitment and effort.
Roberts took a break from wrestling to join the Army where she volunteered for a deployment to Afghanistan. While there, she noticed that her reception was quite different than that of her male counterparts. She had a number of young girls approach her and she realized that in that area, women in leadership positions were rare. She started contemplating her long-term impact and decided to “bloom where she was planted.”
Wrestling is where she was planted and the sport had offered her experiences and opportunities she might not have gotten otherwise. That is where she would begin.
Wrestle Like A Girl (WLAG), a not-for-profit organization, started in 2016 to “advance girls and women using the sport of wrestling to be successful in life,” Sally remembers. “How hard could it be to start a business,” she laughs, “my own naïveté was the courage I needed.” She has surrounded herself with some smart people who are advocates of both the sport and her cause, and the growth has been exponential.
What started as a chance to get girls excited about the sport of wrestling and teaching coaches to coach female wrestlers has morphed into a worldwide campaign. Because sport is neutral, WLAG is able to share concepts like democracy, freedom, gender equality and human rights using the sport as a catalyst. They have worked to increase high school girls’ wrestling as a sanctioned sport in multiple states. They are working with the NCAA to advance and develop the sport offering more opportunities at the collegiate level. They provide research to advance inclusion in the sport.
“This is the year to get involved in women’s sports,” Sally says. If you are at all passionate about advancing women’s inclusion in the area of sports, WLAG has a way for you to get involved.
Website: https://wrestlelikeagirl.org/
Facebook + Instagram: @wrestlelikeagirl