2004 Olympic bronze medalist Patricia Miranda (New Haven, Conn./Sunkist Kids) will make a special appearance to introduce wrestling at the Scholar's Academy in Rockaway, Queens in New York City.

Miranda will be representing the Metropolitan Wrestling Association (MWA) Beat the Streets program at the appearance, which will be held on Monday, Dec. 19 at 10:00 a.m. The MWA is a partner with USA Wrestling on the Beat the Streets program.

Miranda won the Olympic bronze medal at 48 kg/105.5 lbs. at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. She is also a two-time World silver medalist and a 2003 Pan American Games champion. 

Miranda is currently attending Yale Law School, and is a graduate of Stanford Univ.

Joining Miranda at the presentation is Julieta Okot (New York, N.Y./New York AC), who has represented Bulgaria at the Women's World Championships and other major international events in the past. Okot has been a resident of New York City for years, and recently received her U.S. citizenship. She has a wonderful story to tell the boys of girls that will help demonstrate the value of wrestling as an activity developing fitness, strength and lifelong skills.

Beginning in January,  Scholar's Academy is having every boy and girl in the school participate in a 5-week physical education unit of wrestling.  The Beat the Streets Program, through private funding, has provided two mats that will be used for separate PE programs for boys and girls.  After the unit in Physical Education, the school will offer an after-school program participating in the Spring BTS Program.
 
Many local administrators from the Region 5 schools and the New York City Board of Education have been invited to attend the presentation. The assembly program will help accelerate introducing wrestling to every middle school through a physical education program and help broadening the base of the activity/sport to hundreds of thousands kids in a short period of time.
 
For more information, contact Bill Crum, Executive Director, Beat the Streets Program at 1-646-244-9714 or edmwa@aol.com