Olympic wrestling coach at M-A Saturday

Having previously served as an assistant coach at Iowa, Oregon State and University of Wisconsin, Steiner said he’s long put the consternation behind him.

“I’ve found my place,” Steiner said. “I don’t see myself really going back to the college level. The only thing that would entertain me is my brother and I coaching together ... but the probability of that is probably not so likely.”

With his twin brother Troy serving as the head coach of the men’s wrestling team at Fresno State, Steiner will be in Northern California this weekend, with his itinerary including a daylong wrestling clinic Saturday at Menlo-Atherton High School. The event in the M-A Gymnasium starts at 8:30 a.m., with early registration for wrestlers who wish to participate in the clinic starting at 8 a.m.

M-A head coach Phil Hoang said he submitted requests to USA Wrestling for the past three years in hopes of bringing such an event to the Atherton campus. Late last year, Steiner responded to him personally.

“Since I started this, I always dreamed of having an Olympic coach or someone of that level for a long time … so I went for a Hail Mary and thought maybe the coach might be interested,” Hoang said.

The connection is fitting as Hoang has proven M-A’s version of Steiner, helping found the school’s girls’ wrestling program and bring it to prominence in the Central Coast Section. M-A’s lady grapplers are three-time reigning CCS champions.

While the Bears return just one podium finisher from last year’s team, senior Anna Smith, three 2019 graduates are wrestling at the next level, including four-time CCS individual champ Folashade Akinola, who is now on roster at NAIA powerhouse Menlo College.

Now, Steiner’s appearance at M-A will be in step with the collegiate pipeline Hoang has helped establish.

“This is super unique for us because it’s an Olympic year and somehow we got an Olympic coach to come for high school wrestling,” Hoang said. “The excitement is he’s going to come in and give the wresters a flavor of what it’s like to be coached at a national level.”

Saturday’s clinic is open to everyone, Hoang said. There will be a morning session and an afternoon session, with a break at lunch at approximately noon, Hoang said. There will be a public question-and-answer period with Steiner during the lunch break.

“If the public wants to come and ask questions, I’m going to open that up to everybody,” Hoang said.

With the issue of equality in women’s athletics coming at the forefront with the continued success of the U.S. women’s national soccer team — two players from the 2019 World Cup champion squad, Abby Dahlkemper and Tierna Davidson, attended M-A’s neighbor Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton — women’s wrestling is busy blazing its own trail on the national and international stages.

When Steiner took over the women’s U.S. National team in 2001, there were just two states that had sanctioned women’s collegiate wrestling, with five colleges fielding women’s wrestling programs. Now, 71 colleges in 20 states have women’s wrestling teams, Steiner said.

“We’ve got a lot of momentum right now,” Steiner said.

That momentum is moving toward the NCAA potentially adopting women’s wrestling as an official sport. Last year, the NCAA’s Committee on Women’s Athletics proposed a target date to add the sport by Aug. 1, 2020, though it is still under consideration. The NCSA (Next College Student Athlete) sponsors collegiate women’s wrestling, pooling programs from Division II, Division III and NAIA schools.

There are currently no NCAA Division I schools with women’s wrestling programs.

Steiner said he faced a difficult decision in 2001 when offered the job of head coach for the women’s U.S. National team. The topic of sports equity as part of the federal Title IX law — prohibiting discrimination on the basis of, among other traits, gender — was gaining further spotlight in the early 2000s.

“At the time, it was a hard position, or I thought it was at the time,” Steiner said. “I was really concerned that if I jumped into this position I wouldn’t be allowed back in college wrestling … so I really had to get over that.”

Steiner said a talk with his wife Jodi was all it took to convince him to take the job with the women’s U.S. National team. Their daughter Raven was an infant at the time, and the game-changing message from Jodi, Steiner said, was: “This is the start of something. They’re not just looking for a coach. They’re looking for an advocate, someone who will stand up and fight for it.”

Now, Steiner sees the fight for women’s wrestling as not only an athletics issue but a cultural one.

“At the time there weren’t a lot of people stepping up and stepping forward for women in the sport,” Steiner said. “So, I feel like I was really fighting everyone … and just the attitudes in sport.

“I knew that was going to be a generational change.”

Location: Menlo-Atherton High School Gym

Registration: 8 a.m.

Event: Wrestlers should be at the M-A Gym by 8 a.m. (preregistration required); public Q&A around noon during lunch; runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Preregistration link: https://forms.gle/eEzHv2GMK94NBK1M7