The moment wrestling coach Vincent Perez stepped foot onto campus, he knew he wanted to improve the future of the wrestling team, starting with a secure place for his team to practice.
After years of the space being designated for dancers only, the dance room became a shared space between the dancers and the wrestling program. Perez led the movement to change this.
“My whole goal was to get a wrestling room, whether it was to share with dance, a portable or, adding on to the school with another building — whatever the case — we just needed a wrestling room,” Perez said. “Baseball has baseball fields for them, football has a football field, every sport has a facility, except for wrestling. I was just trying to be fair and find a place that we could call home.”
Before being able to name the dance room a new home for wrestling, Perez needed to receive permission from the administration and the Rocklin Unified School District Board of Trustees to execute his plan.
The history of the room began with it being created to supply the space for wrestlers and dancers to coexist, but the agreement was lost after some time.
“Originally, the room was for dance and wrestling, and we were there for maybe four or five years,” Coach Daniel Parker said. “The [former] dance teacher did not like sharing and it was just easier for [the school] to move us into the cafeteria and practice there.”
Though wrestlers felt having the space was a necessity, dancers felt negatively impacted by the change.
“The space now being shared affects the dancers just by the competition for space,” Gracie Farris said. “The dance team [now] has had to rehearse before basketball games in the multipurpose room because JV wrestling has practice [during the same time]. Overall, it feels very suspenseful. It’s not as comfortable as it was before it was a shared space because at any time the male wrestlers and coach can walk into whatever we’re doing.”
With the room becoming a designated spot for wrestlers, changes have been made to meet the team’s needs. These changes included adding wall pads, storing wrestling equipment in the costume storage shed and constructing wooden bars on the mirrors.
“They took down all of the dancers’ posters and hung up their wrestling banners,” Farris said. “They brought in wall pads that cover the entire perimeter of the room that says in bold letters “Whitney Wrestling.”
The changes started small, then began to increase as time went on affecting the dance culture that exists in the room. Ms. Ciera Askerneese, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is halfway through her first year on campus as the dance teacher.
“There was personality to the room that [dance] students years before had brought,” Farris said. “Ripping apart and tearing down the years of community that has been built in the space — that’s just devastating. I care a lot about dance and how [the] dance program is going to carry on, and these changes make it really hard to have hope for the future.”
With the changes, the wrestling team has acquired a space that can support the improvement they hope to achieve.
“[Now that we have our space,] the intensity is there,” Perez said. “It’s really hard to be intense when you have a cafeteria. It’s not very warm; everybody’s coming in and out of the room because everyone has a key, and it’s just hard to be focused. Now having our own space, we can really lock in, and the kids feel like they have a home. They’re respected and our program is thriving because of that, and it’s going to help us build the program up to compete with the Del Oro and the Folsom of our league,” Perez said.
Being a varsity wrestler and Dance IV student, Grace Berg has seen both sides of the situation.
“They had a brick wall [decorated by former dance seniors] that got covered by the wall pads; I was sad when they got covered up because they keep graduating seniors’ memories alive,” Berg said. “I’d say the dancers might find [the changes] more negative than the wrestlers do because we’re gaining something [and] they’re losing something.”
With the dancers losing a sense of their space, the impact of gaining a safe place to practice has provided multiple benefits for the wrestlers.
“The wrestling program has been in the cafeteria for a long time, and we [had] very old mats in the cafeteria where everybody eats and walks,” Berg said. “At times, there was food in our mats and cockroaches crawling out. It was very gross. Now that we’re in the dance room, we’re in a clean, safe space that [has been] a great experience.”
With the implemented changes, Perez hopes the wrestling team and dance classes can find a balance where they both can succeed in their programs while sharing the space.
“I don’t want them to feel like I’m trying to take their space, I just want to share their space,” Perez said. “I’m basically trying to build my program, but also not trying to tear their program down. I want them to feel at home and I want both of us to thrive so if we work together, I think it could be a perfect match.”
by DESIREE MONTEJANO
