A wrestler named Joel Northrup makes a hard choice at the Iowa state tourney, and the nation is interested

Me, I would have wrestled the girl. If I had given my soul to wrestling and got to the point where I could compete for a state-title, I would have wrestled a boy, a girl, or a dancing bear in Des Moines.

But that's just me. Well, just me and probably the vast majority of the males who qualified for the 2010 Iowa state wrestling tournament.

I haven't walked a mile in the wrestling shoes of Linn-Mar sophomore Joel Northrup, who left his 35-4 season-record at matside Thursday and declined to compete in his first-round state-tourney match against Cedar Falls' Cassy Herkelman.

Northrup had a written statement that Linn-Mar Athletic Director Scott Mahmens gave to the media Thursday. It said:

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for (Cassy) and (Ottumwa's Megan Black, who also qualified for state) and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other High School sports in Iowa.”

Northrup is home-schooled by his mother, Sara, and his father, Jamie, is a minister at Believers in Grace, a non-demoninational church in Marion.

I'm paid to give opinions, which can be dicey when I can't come up with clear-cut feelings about an issue. I believe in gray area. I don't think there are two sides to every issue. I think there are more like 3 or 5 or 10.  People who see things only in black and white kind of scare me. Not so much by what they believe (though that can often be unnerving), but the sheer force of how they express their beliefs. It's been my observation that the louder the insistence, the less the thoughtfulness behind it.

Anyway ... should boys be wrestling girls? If there isn't girls' wrestling, I think so. Look, two girls were capable enough on the mat to make it to state. Why should they be deprived of that opportunity, especially in a state that (with good reason) places so much emphasis on participation by its high school students, athletic or otherwise?

Now, should Northrup have made the choice he made? This is a fellow who finished third in the state as a freshman a year ago, someone with the potential to be a state-champion. Should he have let go of an opportunity to win state because he thinks it's inappropriate for boys to "engage a girl" in his manner?

I don't know. I shoot my mouth off about this and that, but I try to keep my fingers off the keyboard when it comes to religious beliefs. Nothing you can write about them won't be misconstrued by someone, and who am I to tell anyone else what's the essence of spirituality and what's distorted nonsense? Let's just say people aren't lining up at my office for guidance.

A lot of people don't like Spike Lee, but he had a line in one of his films that may have been the wisest thing I've ever heard.

Ossie Davis' character in "Do The Right Thing" was an old man who liked to drink who everone called "Da Mayor." Lee's character was a young know-it-all named Mookie.

Da Mayor: Always do the right thing.

Mookie: That's it?

Da Mayor: That's it.

Always do the right thing. It makes everything else fall in place.

The hard part, of course, is one person's right thing isn't necessarily another's. So we all have to do the best we can in deciding what it is, and hopefully our instincts are right more often than not.

I did appreciate what Cassy Herkelman's father, Bill Herkelman, said Thursday.

“I'd like to see (Northrup's) father and meet him because I applaud them for holding onto their convictions. Even on a big stage like this. That's something that takes a lot of guts. A lot of people may second-guess it, but your convictions have to be your convictions.”

This has become a national story. It has the elements that make it one. A question about males and females squaring off in a physical competition, with religion thrown in to spice up the stew.

Unlike some, I have no qualms about girls wrestling against boys. Maybe someday there will be enough girls interested to have their own high school wrestling. I don't know if that could happen in Iowa given the size of its population and the overall interest of wrestling among girls, but who knows? A half-century ago, who would have believe soccer would not only be part of Iowa high school sports, but would have such large participation numbers? The world changes.

But I also have no qualms about Northrup refusing to wrestle a girl. The easier thing would have been for him to do it and move on. He would almost surely have won given the records of the two, and relatively few would have noticed. By forfeiting, he has invited a curious and often callous world into his life. He has invited a lot of ridicule from those are too quick to give it. You have to have some serious convictions to put up with that.

Was he right or wrong? I have no idea. Some may argue, but I don't think he hurt anyone with his beliefs, and he did sacrifice something considerable to stand by them. If he truly feels he did the right thing, that's good enough for me. Because you should always do the right thing.