My Sportsman Choice: Patricia Miranda

By Jack McCallum

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You ever think what it would be like to lose all the time? Not some of the time; all the time. And as you're losing, you're getting physically beat up. While you're losing and getting beat up, you're also getting criticized for even attempting to play. And when you finally win, you honor a pledge not to talk about it.

That pretty much describes what Patricia Miranda went through during her five-year collegiate wrestling career at Stanford in the late 90s. Competing against men in the 118-pound weight class (though she usually wasn't within 10 pounds of that), Miranda got kicked around the wrestling room for four years; got her shot to crack the lineup in her fifth year only after one wrestler got injured and another had academic problems; lost every dual-meet bout she wrestled; and usually came away feeling like she had been run over by a milk truck. She finally beat a male, other than by forfeit -- it happened at a tournament -- but felt so bad for him she agreed not to provide specifics to interviewers.

Sound like fun?

"It was fun," says Miranda. "Because wrestling and competing is about the struggle. If you only put yourself into safe places, you're never tested. People find that hard to understand."

She never did. For that, and a variety of other reasons, Patricia Miranda is my choice as the Sportsman of the Year.

I first met Miranda in Athens, where she was working out at the American University of Athens in preparation for her opening bout in the 105.5-pound division of the first women's freestyle wrestling event. I was struck by how remarkably similar an Olympic wrestling room was to every other wrestling room I've been in: the smell of sweat; the laughter (albeit more high-pitched) mixed with the grunts and groans of exertion; the post-practice pickup basketball game in which eager but overly muscled mesomorphs clang shots off the backboard. This has been Miranda's world for much of the last decade, ever since she signed on as a freshman wrestler at Saratoga (Calif.) High School, defying the wishes of virtually everyone, including her loving father, Jose Miranda, a physician who had emigrated from Brazil.

Well, not her only world. When she wasn't wrestling she was pursuing a pre-law curriculum at Stanford (she didn't get into school because of her wrestling skills), earning a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's in international policy. She made Phi Beta Kappa and got accepted into Yale Law School. She got married, to another brainy Stanford wrestler, Levi Weikel-Magden.

With much less attention than she received for losing to men, she also kicked the butt of most female wrestlers who came her way. Women's wrestling has been around for a couple of decades but think of the limited attention men's wrestling receives then cut it by 90 percent. She was a national women's champ and made it to the 2003 world finals, where she was beaten by three-time world champ Irini Merleni of the Ukraine. When women's wrestling was added to the Olympic schedule for '04, Miranda decided to defer Yale Law School, so she could go after a gold medal.

Along the way she became the face of her sport in the United States, endlessly re-telling what it was like to compete against males and defy her father's wishes (he eventually became her biggest fan) and eloquently explaining why she chose to spend her days sweating and cutting weight and trying to push around opponents who were much stronger.

On the basis of tenacity alone, I figured Miranda was good for a medal. And, indeed, after losing to Merleni (the eventual champion) in the semis, she came back to win the bronze. She was disappointed but expressed no regret. "It's on to the next challenge," said Miranda, who is now at Yale and will pursue a career as an international arbitrator or diplomat after she gets her law degree. "It's just another mountain to climb."

We're at the point where we celebrate jocks who attend college for a year or two and positively venerate those who actually earn a degree. Somewhere along the way the idea of the scholar-athlete has been forgotten. Patricia Miranda makes me remember.

Sports Illustrated will announce the 2004 Sportsman of the Year winner on FOX on November 28. Check back every weekday until then to read more Sportsman picks from SI writers.