Where It Begins for Many Females: High School Wrestling Coaches
New York PSAL 2019 State Champions (clockwise from top left): Katie Moore, Riley Dalrymple, Tays Pascual, Esther Levendusky, Mia Macaluso, Sofia Macaluso & Kai Poux.
by Shannyn Gillespie
Gillespie is a guest columnist for AWW.
In the articles Open Letter to College Presidents & ADs: Women's Wrestling & NCAA DI Coaches for Women's Wrestling: Growth, strategies were conveyed to assist in the growth & development of female wrestling at the collegiate level. This article focuses on high school wrestling: what many call the grass roots of wrestling or where many female students will be introduced to wrestling via high school coaches. The author has identified 3 areas where high school coaches can impact the growth of female wrestling and they are: recruiting female wrestlers, female only high school competitions, female only high school practices. It appears that all high school wrestling coaches can employ those strategies immediately to grow our great sport in the most effective way…
Recruiting female wrestlers
Many female high school students may join wrestling if they are aware wrestling is for females too. So, a high school coach could recruit female wrestlers simply by adding a line like this to all current recruiting posters, flyers, etc.: “For Females Too”. This lets high school female students know: they are welcome. This gesture alone, may double if not triple the amount of female participants on many high school wrestling teams. Those same recruiting posters, flyers, etc. can also be posted on social media for a more robust effect. These days, many high school students are on their phones checking their favorite social media for texts, updates, & more — high school wrestling coaches can tap into this already uber popular phenomenon.
High school coaches can also recruit directly from other female high school athletic teams, PE classes, & high school events during the school year. This strategy sort of piggybacks off the above idea and seems to fortify recruiting efforts in this way… For one, the coach is working directly with and talking directly to the stakeholders who have arguably the biggest impact on female high school wrestling growth: coaches, teachers & students at the high school. Now, each female high school sport participant will, at the very minimum, be aware there is a wrestling team for high school girls at their high school. Secondly, many female teachers & coaches may also be recruited in this process. If and when this happens, now high school teachers & coaches may become part of the wrestling coaching staff. For certain, more coaches & teachers recruiting for high school females impacts the bottom line: growth of female wrestler participation.
As a byproduct of recruiting female coaches & female students, high school wrestling teams can use one of the most effective recruiting strategies known to humans: word of mouth recruiting. Word of mouth recruiting is similar to above strategies with these 2 important factors: the multiplier effect & peer approval. In other words, more people will buy-in if more people who they actually know are talking about joining or recruiting for the high school girls wrestling team. This word of mouth strategy has an everlasting impact on high school girls wrestling participants and will grow the girls portion of most high school wrestling teams annually.
Female only high school competitions
After high school coaches have secured girls on their high school wrestling teams, they can also add female only wrestling competitions. This requires the high school coach to communicate with many athletic directors & coaches which sort of spreads the word that female only competitions exist. At the moment, many high school athletic directors & coaches may be unaware of female only wrestling competitions even though they have existed since the 1980s… In fact, the first world championships for female wrestling was held in Norway in 1987. The first female high school national wrestling championships was held in Michigan in 1998.
High school coaches can create email lists of high school coaches in their respective states and send emails to all of the athletic directors & coaches (in their state) to secure female wrestling participants. This action alone will, again, indicate to other ADs & coaches that female only wrestling competitions exist. As mentioned earlier, the multiplier effect (awareness via word of mouth recruiting) will increase the amount of female wrestling participants each year at girls wrestling festivals, duals, & tournaments.
Stand alone female only wrestling competitions are likely more impactful…
However, if coaches already have a Frosh or JV tournament, they could also add a girls division to grow participation numbers. This will not only improve the participation numbers for that tournament, it probably will be more effective than adding a girls division to a Varsity tournament due to size & mat constraints. In other words, Frosh & JV tournaments usually are smaller and adding another division will only help the growth of that tournament (instead of the tournament being to big and difficult to manage).
High school coaches can also add a girls division to their home dual meets. Adding a girls dual division to their home dual meets is likely easier than running a girls only tournament or festival (round-robin competition). For maximum effectiveness, coaches could talk to coaches on the front end of the season, employ earlier strategies above, or talk to coaches on the back end of the season.
So, planning is a key ingredient to the growth of girls wrestling participation…
Female only high school practices
At first glance, most high school coaches will say “this is impossible because we do not have enough staff, space, nor time”. The author has added girls only training once or twice a week in this way: while boys are lifting weights, girls are wrestling and vice versa. This action makes the girls feel important which is critical to their health, development, & psyche. Girls need to feel like they are as important as the boys and they need attention just like the boys. In some cases, girl wrestlers may feel less than equal when participating on a boys team because they may not get the attention they need (read deserve).
Boy & girl wrestlers need attention to improve and coaches can get creative to get at least one training session per week where girls are the focus. Above describes one strategy and here are some others… While boys are running or doing sprints — girls only training. When boys are competing at tournaments & most competitions — girls only training. Many high schools have early morning training and this is also an option for splitting training sessions up. Or, girls could be training in the morning once per week while the boys are training in the afternoon. And, the same strategy could be reversed if coaches feel their girls need 2 female only training sessions per week.
All of the above ideas have been used by the author — and they work.
Final thoughts
At this writing, there are 19 states with a sanctioned high school girls wrestling state tournament. This means 19 states have a girl only high school season & postseason competition. The author applauds these listed states and their constituents, stakeholders who made their girls only wrestling season & sanctioned high school state tournaments possible: Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, & Washington. The above article was written to high school wrestling coaches, in part, to help their states join the above list.
Many states will say “we do not have enough girl wrestlers in our state to have a girls only wrestling state tournament” which sort of goes against Title IX and giving high school girl wrestlers opportunities in our great sport. Especially, if states consider that there are over 70 colleges that currently offer women’s wrestling at their institutions. Again, the author applauds the below 72 colleges & universities, who at this writing, offer a collegiate women’s freestyle wrestling program:
Adrian College | https://bit.ly/2I5z0LA
Alderson Broaddus Univ. | https://bit.ly/2HTIRVP
Augsburg University | https://bit.ly/30NyxpQ
Baker University | https://bit.ly/2XfASrz
Brewton-Parker College | https://bit.ly/2WwZJd8
Campbellsville University | https://bit.ly/2wuqUGS
Carthage College | https://bit.ly/2KI3bv6
Central Christian College | https://bit.ly/2Xhs7gu
Central Methodist Univ. | https://bit.ly/2EJoatX
Colorado Mesa Univ. | https://bit.ly/2HM6W10
Concordia Univ. | https://bit.ly/2qC4gwH
Corban University | https://bit.ly/2LW0WVe
Univ. of the Cumberlands | https://bit.ly/2Kc3jmw
Davenport Univ. | go.teamusa.org/2VXpdw9
Delaware Valley University | https://bit.ly/2WyLc0C
East Stroudsburg Univ. | https://bit.ly/2XdSzaQ
Eastern Oregon University | https://bit.ly/30UgO06
Elmira College | https://bit.ly/2lbluPe
Emmanuel College | https://bit.ly/2XaiJLH
Ferrum College | https://bit.ly/2JMa1QG
Fontbonne University | https://bit.ly/30Wf3Q7
Gannon University | https://bit.ly/2VX8VTW
Grand View University | https://bit.ly/2HKs5IC
Grays Harbor College | https://bit.ly/2KeFqdW
Hastings College | https://bit.ly/2NdOsbh
Indian Hills CC | https://go.teamusa.org/2mHs3co
Indiana Institute of Tech | https://bit.ly/2wv7h1z
Iowa Wesleyan University | https://bit.ly/2KdmRHi
University of Jamestown | https://bit.ly/2HMDnfO
King University | https://bit.ly/2wpSoh1
Lackawanna College | https://bit.ly/2xFwKWv
Lakeland University | https://bit.ly/2VYnqa8
Lincoln College | https://bit.ly/2n7DgmN
Lock Haven University | https://bit.ly/2JVGMKA
Life University | https://bit.ly/2Z0LTO2
Life Pacific University | https://bit.ly/2JJtce9
Lindenwood University | https://bit.ly/2Wvlg5V
Limestone College | https://bit.ly/2VXEygd
Lyon College | https://bit.ly/2W4IcEN
MacMurray College | https://bit.ly/30SxVzk
McKendree University | https://bit.ly/2Xf3XTR
Menlo College | https://bit.ly/2WAU4Tm
Midland University | https://bit.ly/2WvuwHn
Missouri Baptist University | https://bit.ly/2QCFhT0
Missouri Valley College | https://bit.ly/2Qyb7A9
Nassua College | https://bit.ly/2XfV2Sh
New Jersey City Univ. | https://bit.ly/35K1ULi
North Central College | https://bit.ly/2XdMo6x
Oklahoma City University | https://bit.ly/30E4MYp
Ottawa University | https://bit.ly/2EJ1rhn
Pacific University | https://bit.ly/2XjM3iU
Presbyterian College | https://bit.ly/2MhGHUk
University of Providence | https://bit.ly/2YWovRC
Santa Rosa JC | https://bit.ly/2QzePJS
University of Saint Mary | https://bit.ly/2Wx4m78
Schreiner University | https://bit.ly/2wrUqgx
Siena Heights Univ. | https://go.teamusa.org/2mUclLH
Simon Fraser University | https://bit.ly/2XfMTNv
Simpson University | https://bit.ly/2JMxOA8
Southern Oregon Univ. | https://bit.ly/30XZXJF
Southwest Oregon CC | https://bit.ly/2KjwJ2h
Southwestern College | https://bit.ly/2wt2cXt
Texas Wesleyan University | https://bit.ly/2YXVg0B
Tiffin University | https://bit.ly/2EIcgjW
Umpqua CC | https://bit.ly/2JIYhhO
Waldorf College | https://bit.ly/30YkH3U
Warner Pacific University | https://bit.ly/30Xit4U
Wayland Baptist Univ.| https://bit.ly/2Kf0m4D
Westminster College | https://bit.ly/30Yl12C
William Penn Univ. | https://bit.ly/2Zh9rls
UW-Stevens Point | https://bit.ly/2QzpPXA
York College | https://bit.ly/2Qz3ARy
For more from Coach Shannyn, please check out his Facebook page: http://facebook.com/uswomenswrestling.