Three Steps to Building a H.S. Girls Wrestling Program
by Shannyn J. Gillespie
IG: @coachshannyntalks
Before I was a women’s wrestling coach at Lakeland University in WI, I was a women's wrestling coach at the United States Olympic Education Center on the campus of Northern Michigan University. Sandwiched in between those great jobs, were stints as a club coach, junior college coach, & high school coach. And, this paper details 3 ideas that worked to build a high school girls wrestling program.
Flyers, posters, & social media
One of the first things many high school coaches can do is to combine the use of flyers & posters with social media. By that, it is meant to first create a graphic or picture or image, then to post it on the various social media platforms. (Before that, coaches must create a social media platform via Facebook, Instagram, etc.) After the image is created, it can also be posted around the high school in places like locker rooms, cafeterias, gyms, posting boards, & more. This method allows those images to be used by local news media, high school news media, & other high school students. Many high school students will re-post or share images that they like to their personal social media pages.
Adjacent to the last paragraph is posting actual pictures, videos, & slideshows to the same platforms with essentially the same results… Mass or more exposure to and for prospective students at your high school. The posts do not need to get 1 million views, likes, or shares (although that’s helpful), the posts just need to reach the student body at your high school.
Combining the strategies of the last 2 paragraphs is impactful and will let most students in the school know → there is a girls wrestling team at your high school and they can join. These paragraphs could have also been titled Recruiting.
Tournaments, scrambles & duals
Another idea high school coaches can use is to host home competitions in several formats. To get the most bang for your buck, it is recommended to host tournaments or scrambles (Scrambles are round robins that guarantee most participants 2-3 bouts.) These types of competitions allow more than one team to compete, and in many cases, teams with only 1-5 students will compete too.
Another recommendation is to hire a tournament director to run the event. Monies from the entry fees can be used to pay the tournament director. Tournament directors free up the coaching staff to coach athletes at the events. And, in most cases, tournament directors have used tournament software or other tournament applications likely 50-100 times; so they have experience in the ebb & flow of tournament direction.
Home competitions can also use the services of social media and/or websites for promotion and posting results via articles or simple scores of matches.
The coaching staff
Many people would like to be high school coaches in wrestling and many times, you can find these people if you ask… Two examples are female physical education teachers in your high school and former wrestlers at your high school. Both sets of people have a vested interest in either their employer or their alma mater.
Female physical education teachers can act as role models and leaders for the high school wrestlers to emulate.
Former high school wrestlers can act as the technical teachers of wrestling skills and will be overseen by the female physical education teachers.
Ultimately, the head coach is in charge of the coaching staff and oversees the health & growth of the coaching staff and high school wrestlers.
Conclusion
I used the above three steps to build a high school girls wrestling program and many will ask “Where are the results?”. The second year of using these strategies, the high school that I worked at went from 1-2 girls on the team to 9-16 (we started the season with 16 and ended with 9). And, we had a state runner-up at the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association State tournament. This interview suggests my former team now has 20 high school girl wrestlers. This team also produced that high school's first wrestling state champion in history!
The tournaments that were held ranged from 28-151 wrestlers and it is believed timing is a critical element for participation numbers. In other words, it is important to discover when other girls wrestling tournaments are being held that might conflict with your home events.
Below is a list of tournaments held in order of increasing participation numbers:
This piece was written to offer 3 strategies for high school coaches and their staff as we embark on the next phase of growing wrestling.
Let’s gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!