"A lot of kids don't want to do the work. It's hard when you have practice and you see your friends hanging on the corner, going home. Soccer practice, baseball practice, basketball practice. Basketball? You're 5-2! These are the excuses that have piled up over Sherman's 54 years at Tech, reflecting the ongoing challenge of recruiting athletes to a demanding wrestling program."
"Senior Shayna Ward, a two-time runner-up for the state championship under Sherman's tutelage, has one last shot this weekend at becoming Tech's first champ ever, boy or girl. Should she win at the state finals in Bakersfield this weekend, Ward would also become Oakland's first wrestling champ of any gender since 1983, not to mention the first girls wrestling champion from an Oakland school since the California Interscholastic Federation added a girls wrestling tournament in 2011."
"She's been training for this since she was 7, when her father, Darrel Ward, Jr., an amateur mixed martial artist, first got her and her younger sister, Layla, out onto the mat. It's harder now because I've made it to the finals twice. They expect you to win, reflecting the mounting pressure Ward faces in her final attempt at a state title."
Ashlee Sherman, a 79-year-old wrestling coach at Oakland Technical High School, has spent 54 years struggling to recruit athletes to his program, facing competition from other sports and students' reluctance to endure rigorous training. Notable recruit Rickey Henderson chose baseball over wrestling in 1972, a decision validated by his MLB Hall of Fame career. Senior wrestler Shayna Ward represents Sherman's best opportunity to achieve a state championship, a goal that has eluded him throughout his tenure. Ward, a two-time state runner-up and the No. 3 seed in the 135-pound division, has trained since age seven under her father's guidance. Winning at the state finals in Bakersfield would make Ward Oakland Technical's first wrestling champion of any gender and Oakland's first girls wrestling champion since the CIF added girls wrestling in 2011.
#high-school-wrestling #state-championship #girls-athletics #oakland-technical-high-school #athletic-recruitment
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