Kansas High School Girls Wrestling

Lots of discussion on this issue in another topic.

Would like to see comments/recommendations (good/bad/indifferent) to this topic on this HS Forum--and yes I know there is a "Womens' Forum“ on the usahawks web page. This forum should focus on girls wrestling as a possible KSHSAA future sanctioned sport. The current Womens' Forum is all over the place on kid girls, bigger girls, and college womens' wrestling. Not enough focus on just a state HS girls program.

Need comments/discussion on many, many developmental, funding, program initiation, formats for meets, coaches/coaching-especially the availability of female coaches, referees 9male and female, rules peculiar to girls, facilities-practice/meet/tournament--and facilities if boy and girl meets/tournament are conducted jointly at same facility at the same time, etc, etc. Need lots of ideas, plus a sense of support from girls, parents, high school administers and coaches, community, church, etc.,etc. Probably need a girls wrestling group/committe to work with KSHSAA.

Lets see your comments!!!

I posted this subject about 5 years ago and received mostly laughs. I do feel that a high school girls program would be very beneficial to young girls as it has for the boys that participate. Even though I am not a teacher, nor have I ever wrestled ( not even thought of for girls in the 70s) I would consider assisting with coaching if we could get KSHSAA to consider it. Even if we started in just 1 school district as a pilot program.

I wonder if this would be eligible for some of the millions available in grants to promote physical activity and wellness in high schools- looks like there are some opportunities out there.Wrestling is also a sport that promotes healthy eating along with activity

I think the best way I can see it as viable at this point in time is to have both seasons coincide at the same time, same coaches, same rooms. That way the girls get the same quality instruction as the boys, coaches don't have additional practices. Just create sanctioned events that happen at the same time as the boys competition.

Yep seems quite eazy to me.They have a girls state going on the 24 of Feb.That sucks for any girls that did make it to state.

I know schools try to make every thing they can hard.But it seems eazy to me every thing is already in place.We just need to let more girls know it would be out there for them.To start a round robbin may be the way to go,when the boys are doing duels.I know that would give the girls more mat time.


Charles Bradford

My daughter wrestled all through high school and all is now wrestling in college. We would have supported her never having to wrestle against boys if it could have been done and Donedidit is right on the approach I think would need to be taken. I fear though it would be harder to implement in the smaller classes like the 321 A's. My daughters college team though is riddled with wrestlers from Texas and California where they do have girls wrestling programs in high school so it obviously helps in the development of and the growth of the sport for females.

This topic was brought up last year as well. Some of us even emailed some Kansas colleges about adding a women’s program to promote women’s wrestling. We pretty much got laughed at. I have 2 nieces that wrestle, and my oldest niece has set her goals extremely high. She has repeatedly said that she wants to wrestle in college, and then the Olympics (hopefully wrestling is in the Olympics). I wish KSHSAA would think about adding it as a sanctioned sport, as said before it would promote, healthy living, and discipline for women, just as it has done for men over the years.

I think there are some great ideas on this topic. We could start a committee that would include men and woman from all of the Kansas regions, apply for grants and funding to start a 3 to 5 year pilot program for girls wrestling teams in the high schools in the state of Kansas (there's a deadline coming up for one this Friday that fits this criteria - see http://www.sparkpe.org/grants/grantfunding-resources/ and look for "Grants for Sports Programs"), and discuss ways to incorporate boys and girls practice times, the cohesion of tournaments, find and recruit coaches, etc. I think it's time to try and make this a reality.

Myself personally don’t feel that recruiting coaches or finding practice times will be an issue. At least at the beginning anyway. If the girls division would grow big enough to cause space problems, then something could be addressed at that time. Many boys and girls basketball programs make this work by only using one gym. (I know they have 2 sets of coaching). I think Christine is correct it is time to try to make this a reality.

Could take a while to get high school wrestling for girls, maybe pave the way by promoting club wrestling and a state championship in Topeka same weekend with kids or at the park city tourmanment. Could qualify the girls using the same district format already in use? Anything that brings exposure would be helpful to getting the girls closer to legit HS teams. Feel free to shoot holes in this if anyone has a better idea on getting the ball rolling.

Each year there has been growth in the number of girls who initially go out for wrestling. This year I believe the number was over 80. If it is to truly grow, the KSHSAA membership needs to setup an ALL CLASS GIRLS STATE tournament starting with 7 weight classes used in international competition until growth commands more. There will be no true growth in this sport in Kansas until we make it a gender specific sport. Make the goal a total number of girls participating and not schools. Coops would make sense until it grows.