Joel Northrup, left, refused to wrestle Cassy Herkelman, right.

Joel Northrup refused to wrestle Cassy Herkelman of Cedar Falls, Iowa, because of his religious beliefs.  The son of a minister, Joel Northrup believes that taking on a girl in a violent sport like wrestling is against his religion and decided to take the forfeit loss rather than compromise his beliefs in an attempt at a state title.  Northrup was 35-4 this year and a serious risk to take the title in his weight class; Herkelman is 20-13.  The forfeit moved Northrup into the consolation bracket.

“As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner,” said Joel Northrup, a home-schooled 112-pound sophomore who wrestles for Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa.  “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan (Black, another female wrestler in the weight class) and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. … It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most of the high school sports in Iowa.”

Iowa has not one, but two girls wrestling at 112 pounds.  The other girl, 25-13 Megan Black, lost her first round match in the tournament and moved to the consolation bracket.  If she wins her next two matches, she could face a potential square-off with Northrup, who would then have to decide for a second time whether or not he is capable of wrestling a girl.

Tags: Joel Northrup, Linn-Mar High School, Marion, Iowa, wrestler refuses to wrestle girl, wrestler forfeits rather than faces girl, Iowa state wrestling tournament, Iowa state wrestling championship, wrestler refuses to fight girl, Cassy Herkelman, Cedar Falls, Iowa, sports, wrestling, combat sports

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]