Bald Eagle Area becomes 12th school district in Pennsylvania to add girls’ wrestling
Bald Eagle Area is now the 12th school district in Pennsylvania — and the only one in Centre County — to add girls’ wrestling to the sports it offers.
The Bald Eagle Area School District school board of directors approved the addition of the sport at a board meeting Thursday night. The vote to approve the sport was unanimous, with all nine members voting in favor of the change.
“I was so happy,” senior wrestler Grace Stem told the Centre Daily Times. “I’m just so grateful that this can happen. ... I think it’s a huge step in girls wrestling and I’m really proud that this was able to happen. I think that my hard work is starting to pay off.”
The approval came after Stem and BEA wrestling head coach Ron Guenot gave a presentation on the matter and earned the support of the board.
BEA is the second school this week to add a girls’ wrestling program, after Western Wayne became the state’s 11th girls’ program on Wednesday.
“Without the support of our school board and our administration this wouldn’t be possible,” Guenot told the CDT. “I thank the school board and administration for the opportunity to have a girls’ wrestling team.”
Stem is an active member of Sanction PA, an organization founded last year that wants to help girls’ wrestling achieve official standing as a sport in the eyes of the PIAA — a goal the PIAA says it will need 100 programs to meet.
The movement to add girls’ wrestling at BEA was spearheaded by Stem, who will be a senior this coming school year, with the assistance of Guenot — who Stem credits for helping her throughout the process of adding the program.
“He’s been a huge supporter,” Stem said. “He’s been there to help me with the presentation and he was there to help me present it to the school board. I’m really grateful that he has been there for me and I think that he is taking the right steps to help us get this started.”
While Stem credits Guenot for pushing her forward, the Bald Eagle head coach — who will also coach the girls’ team — says it’s Stem who deserves the credit. Her efforts include handing out a survey to girls at the school to gauge interest in a team, with 30 of the 79 responses in favor of trying out.
“She’s taken the lead on this,” Guenot said. “I’ve just helped out. She put in the work, and I’m there to help her out and support her. ... It’s an exciting step for our school district and for girls’ wrestling. Hopefully, as more and more teams start girls’ wrestling in their high schools, other schools will follow suit. Maybe some schools around our area will jump on board.”
The work of both Guenot and Stem will help Stem be a part of the team in her final season at Bald Eagle. The program will begin this season with Stem already helping set up open mat workouts for girls interested in joining the team, per Guenot.
Her hope is that her success on the mat — she made the U.S. Cadet World Team for women’s freestyle and will wrestle next month in Budapest at the United World Wrestling championships — and her success in building the program will help build a tradition at Bald Eagle.
“I’m really proud and I’m hoping to be a role model for all the girls,” Stem said. “(I want to) help them learn and to help the program get started and then hopefully (leave) a legacy at Bald Eagle.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2021 at 1:59 PM.
