Great leaders

Chautauqua Lake women’s wrestling coaches Pete and Emily Dorman have been named New York State Head Coach and Assistant Coach of the year respectively by the National Wrestling Coaches Association.

Pete has a long-standing career in coaching wrestling, having coached boys in local schools for over twenty years. He has worked to develop existing wrestling programs and created new programs at schools where they were lacking.

Emily is a high school English teacher at Chautauqua Lake, and while she was new to wrestling when she began coaching three years ago, she has come to share her husband’s love for the sport. She also sees this as a rare opportunity to offer female teens empowerment and inclusion.

Pete was a driving force in bringing women’s wrestling and its sanctioning to New York State coaches. When he and Emily began the varsity women’s wrestling program at Chautauqua Lake three years ago it was only the third of its kind in New York.

The Chautauqua Lake girls wrestling team.

In its inaugural year the team had five girls, but the roster has grown exponentially, totaling 23 athletes in the 2023-2024 season. The two also coach an off-season women’s club, Become the Bull wrestling, which includes athletes from all over Chautauqua County.

During their tenure as coaches, the Dormans have proven to be a formidable team, qualifying twelve girls in two years to the NYSPHSAA Championships and building their team into a competitive, bonded force.

During this past season, the team went 7-1 in dual meet competition and saw multiple first and second-place team finishes in tournaments. The Dormans’ philosophy is clear; mutual respect and discipline should be balanced with fun and support of one another, on and off the mat. They seek to foster empowerment and passion in their athletes, and their pride in their athletes and the program they have built together.

In the course of their immersion in women’s wrestling, the Dormans have seen one clear and pervasive problem: the lack of appropriate and comfortable uniforms for women in wrestling. There is a need for quality sportswear that allows female athletes to compete at a high level and feel comfortable and confident in their own skin. In response to this, the Dormans created No Excuses Sportswear, LLC. Over the past year, they have worked to design a new women’s singlet from the ground up. Surrounding that keystone piece, they have designed a line of women’s athleticwear that serves to empower and uplift women and young girls. Their patent-pending design, the “Gabriella Singlet”, is named for their daughter, who joined the team soon after they started it in 2021. Their website states, “Wrestling has changed her life, as it has changed those of nearly every female athlete we meet and talk to. Wrestling gives young women a rare opportunity to appreciate their bodies for what it can do and be, rather than its flaws and shortcomings. Wrestling gives young women a place to grow and belong, and it fosters relationships well beyond the mat. Our company seeks to give these amazing athletes apparel and uniforms that speak to who they ARE and who they WANT to be.”