And Now, Wrestling for Girls

Welcome to the Main Event

By Ben Shlesinger

Staff Writer

"I got this done for a Bat Mitzvah and as soon as I got them done I was like 'Oh gosh, I still have to wrestle.' " Emily Dillon, a bubbly Eastern Middle School 8th grader, is talking about her bright-red nails. A new layer of polish is not standard for wrestlers, but maybe Emily thought she was part of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Dillon, sporting ginger-hair complemented by red and green Christmas-colored braces, did participate, however, in The Main Event: that's the name for the wrestling competition for middle school kids in which she competed on Thursday.

Jerry Seidman, Dillon's P.E. teacher, makes sure that everybody knows the difference between The Main Event and professional wrestling. "In a combative sport like wrestling, you can go after each other and still respect one another," Seidman says.

Seidman, a physical education teacher at Eastern and director of the this event with an 18-year history has a lot of experience coaching wrestlers. He is currently the assistant coach at Walter Johnson High School and he tutored his son Adam through a collegiate career at the University of Maryland.

It was Seidman's long experience with wrestling that led him to start The Main Event. Back in 1986, however, The Main Event wasn't really an 'event' at all. It was just a small P.E. tournament , just like the ping-pong tournament a school might hold after all the classes have finished that unit.

Over the years , though, more and more students have become interested in wrestling and they are the ones who have turned The Main Event into the phenomenon it is today.

One group of interested studentsgirls were not, at first, allowed to compete in the wrestling tourney. And Coach Seidman himself was not so open to the idea of female wrestlers. "In the first 10 years there were no girls. I told them I was strictly against it. I thought they'd take it as a joke or it would water down the competition."

But a group of girls kept begging Seidman to let them participate and he finally gave in. His little wrestling tournament has never been the same.

A few years ago, Mary Alice Salinas from NBC4 came over to Eastern when she heard about the girl wrestlers. She did a piece on the program and ran with it on the air that night. Ever since that story aired, girls have come out in droves to wrestle. This year, 105 girls came out for a shot at competing in The Main Event.

A little exposure from Channel 4 also brought Seidman some popularity. "Every time I go out in the Silver Spring area people always say 'You're the guy that runs the girls wrestling program at Eastern.'"

Even though Salinas brought some exposure to girls wrestling at Eastern, Seidman puts on a show worthy of the name "The Main Event." Recently, the tournament has become so large that it had to be moved to the gym at Montgomery Blair High School. In 2001, the Main Event's first year at Blair, Seidman installed a patriotic theme because of September 11th. That year, 50 firemen and policemen marched in carrying American flags .

This year's offering started off with a little help from area schools. The Blair Pep Band, Cheerleaders and Pom Squad did their routines followed by the Eastern Step Team. A "Parade of Nations" came next with 6th graders carrying flags from countries all over the world.

Seidman is especially proud of this aspect of the pre-match pomp and circumstance. "We have families from all over the world. Eastern has students from 78 different countries. The Parade of Nations teaches students to respect their heritage and culture. And since 6th graders can't wrestle, it gives them an opportunity to be involved."

Such involvement got Doug Jimenez interested in this year's tournament. "I just tried out this year because it looked interesting last year when I saw The Main Event. It looked fun." Jimenez almost small enough to be vacuumed up if he wasn't looking, but he wanted to wrestle regardless.

As for the actual wrestling at The Main Event, there are 13 boys' matches and 13 girls' matches (boys only wrestle boys and girls only wrestle girls). Each match is determined, as is the tradition, by weight-class. Jimenez wrestled against Keith Busey in the boys lowest weight-class and they looked as if the two of them together wouldn't top 100 pounds. Both were flying around the mat taking each other down, escaping and then taking each other down all over again. Jimenez ended up losing, but he enjoyed his time on the mat. "It was fun," he said.

In the most entertaining girls match of the day, Emily Dillon was on her back, about to be pinned, but fought back for a pin of her own. After her win, Dillon admitted to not believing in herself during her match. "I guess you can say I had my doubts , but you always have to think it can be better because in wrestling it can always turn around."

And why would your typical girly-girl 8th grader wrestle? "It is something else besides soccer and basketball," Dillon says.

To be sure. But in those sports you don't have to worry about messing up your new coat of nail polish.

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