Open Letter to College Presidents & ADs: Women's Wrestling

by Shannyn Gillespie
This is a guest column. Gillespie is the current Head Coach at Homewood-Floossmoor High School (IL), past assistant coach at Lincoln College (IL) & former USA Wrestling National Team Staff Coach.

Intro
Women’s wrestling college national championships have been contested since 2004.  The inaugural female wrestling World Championships, High School National Championships, & Olympic Games were in 1987, 1998, & 2004 respectively.  And, this letter is to highlight some other important women’s college wrestling topics for college presidents & athletic directors (ADs) as they make decisions to add women’s wrestling teams to their institutions.  These topics are informational in purpose and may go unnoticed by many college administrators prior to adding a women’s wrestling program to their respective athletic departments. 

Growing numbers
There are roughly 70 women’s wrestling college programs in the US (about 16 in Canada) and many of them participate in the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association nationals or the WCWA.  The WCWA started a women’s wrestling “National Championships” in 2008 and these nationals are generally held in January. In the last 2-3 years, 25+ women’s wrestling college programs have been added, AND, the NCAA named women’s wrestling an “Emerging Sport." 

Recently, the NAIA named women’s wrestling as an “Invitational Sport” and held their inaugural National Invitational meet in March 2019.

There are 18 high state organizations, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), that currently hold a girls wrestling state championships or an official/sanctioned girls wrestling state tournament.  The NFHS also reported that there were 21,124 high school girl wrestler participants in 2018-2019.

Styles of wrestling
The style of wrestling competed at the WCWA National Championships is freestyle or the same style of wrestling that is competed in the Olympic Games.  The style of wrestling that is competed in the NAIA’s end of the season National Invitational meet is also freestyle.

The style of wrestling competed in high school is folkstyle.  This style of wrestling (folkstyle) is also competed by NCAA, NAIA, & NJCAA men’s programs.

A challenge that faces many high school girl wrestlers, that plan to wrestle in the WCWA, NAIA, or NCAA women’s wrestling programs, is the style change.  That is, many may not have adequate preparation nor training because all high schools participate in folkstyle wrestling. Think playing baseball for 4 years in high school — then playing softball in college...

Staffing
Staffing women’s wrestling programs also has some unique challenges that are outlined next.

Some college presidents & ADs have chosen to select/hire 1 head coach for 2 different styles of wrestling & teams. (This means, 1 coach is coaching 2 teams.) Think of training a baseball team & a softball team at the same time… For one, there is likely not enough room to train both at the same time (also think about time…). Plus, the rules (& technique) suggest that — what may work for one style — may not work for another style. Finally, travelling to competitions poses another issue because of space limitations (on the mat, bus, or hotel) or other logistical issues like referees i.e. the referees may not know how to officiate a freestyle match. Because of this, no men’s NCAA, NAIA, nor NJCAA collegiate tournaments (nor dual meets) are hosted jointly or at the same time as women’s college wrestling tournaments or dual meets.

Hiring experienced or qualified folkstyle coaches from high school or college, who have limited experience with freestyle training/competitions, has been the trend. The challenge there is that it might take 4-5 years for that coach to learn & master freestyle wrestling. In other words, this coach will be learning the sport s/he is supposed to be teaching to the students of the college team. Think of a teacher learning a subject while concurrently teaching the same subject to the students...

In addition to above, recently, assistant men’s wrestling coaches have been hired to assistant coach the women’s wrestling programs too. This means, the assistant coaches are coaching 2 different styles and presumably recruiting for 2 different teams. The style differences have been alluded to along with the difficulty that may arise from having joint practices (think coaching baseball & softball at the same time…) — but, the challenge of work fatigue (overwork) is also a real issue. In other words, the assistant coaches (who coach both teams), may be overwhelmed with work regarding training times, recruiting, scouting, watching film/video, etc. Coaching 2 teams is really the work of coaching 2 teams…

Finally, coaching women is different than coaching men and many coaches must learn how to coach women “on the fly.” Many male (& female) coaches have little to no experience coaching college women which adds to many of the issues above for staffing. Thus, college presidents & ADs may be required to ascertain who is qualified staff for new women’s wrestling college teams — this will give those programs the best chance for growth, development, & success.

Season(s)
The WCWA National Championships are generally held in late January or early February with the regular season starting in October. Similar to men’s wrestling collegiate programs, the women’s season is comprised of dual meets & tournaments. Last year, the NAIA held their inaugural National Invitational in March with many conference tournaments a week or two before that.

Because freestyle is also the Olympic style, USA Wrestling also holds several national championships for college age students starting after the defined seasons of the WCWA, NCAA, & the NAIA. These college age championships, which also serve as World Team Trials, are U23, U20, & U17. World Team Trials are selection tournaments for Team USA for the respective age groups. The World Championships for each age group are generally held in the summer months of June - August. These World Team Trials & World Championships offer additional international exposure for women’s wrestling colleges & universities that directly impacts recruiting — then enrollment which will be discussed soon...

This is mentioned because many college presidents & ADs may be unaware of the college style of wrestling for women that overlaps much more than the college style of wrestling for men. Or, the same style of wrestling (freestyle) that is competed in the WCWA, NAIA, & NCAA for women is the same style that is recognized at the Olympic Games & annual World Championships. So, even though the season may end for the WCWA, NAIA, or NCAA for women’s wrestling, many women wrestlers aspire to compete and represent Team USA in the summer months. This stretches the season out from October to August for many. This seasonal overlap is a reason many coaches believe women’s college wrestling should be a spring (not winter) sport.

Strength factor
Science has proven that most men are stronger than most women (on average) largely due to the amount of testosterone men acquire, when compared to women, as pubescent teens. This is pointed out because most high school wrestling programs are mixed teams. Or, the boys train with the girls during wrestling practice. This creates an injury issue for most high school wrestlers who train in states where girls wrestling is not sanctioned. These injuries that some girls sustain wrestling against boys — carries over to college. Most injuries girls sustain against boys end up being chronic injuries of the neck, back, shoulder, & knee. This is one argument many coaches use to get girls wrestling sanctioned in their respective states. The other argument stems from fairness and Title IX which will be discussed next.

Opportunities
In 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act was passed. By and large, Title IX was supposed to equal the playing field for male & female athletics, activities, & education (or equal opportunity via scholarships in many cases). This means, if there were 9 male athletic programs in educational institutions (high school or college) there should be 9 female athletic programs to equalize educational opportunities for males & females. One sport that caused some inequality was football due to the size of those teams or participants per team. No female sport in high school or college, to this day, equals football teams participation numbers. So, many colleges & universities “got around” this equalization by dropping college men’s programs like gymnastics & wrestling while adding college women’s programs like rowing & soccer.

A role for all college/university wrestling programs — now & years ago — could have been to add women’s wrestling teams similarly to how women’s rowing programs were added to help balance the Title IX equality scenario. This strategy could have been used — then & now — at larger DI NCAA institutions especially since many NCAA DI institutions used Title IX as a reason to drop many men’s wrestling teams. The next strategy is being used now at smaller colleges in the NCAA DII, DIII, NAIA, & NJCAA.

Recently, many smaller schools have added women’s wrestling teams to increase the overall enrollment at their respective schools. As of this writing, there are 3 NCAA DI wrestling programs with the bulk of 70 or so women’s wrestling collegiate teams being represented by NAIA, NCAA DII & DIII, or NJCAA institutions. This is a great opportunity for smaller schools to increase their enrollment, balance Title IX issues, & offer more educational opportunities via adding women’s wrestling programs.

NCAA DI teams can also increase their enrollment, balance Title IX issues, & offer more educational opportunities via adding women’s wrestling programs in lieu of dropping men’s athletics programs.

Conclusion
The above observations, by the author, stem from these varying levels of wrestling coaching experience: 8 years of college women’s, 1 year of junior college men’s, 3 years of high school boys & girls, & 3.5 years of club boys & girls. The recent trend of hiring practices by many colleges also factored into the aforementioned observations. This paper was written to offer a qualified perspective so that women’s wrestling at the college level will reach its full potential — similar to women’s college softball, rowing, & soccer.