Fastest Growing NE HS Sport = Girl's Wrestling

[SickOfPractice]

I must live under a rock. Not having any interest in any kind of wrestling probably contributes to my ignorance as well. I had no clue girl's wrestling was becoming this popular. Well, good for these kids that are paving the way in a sport they enjoy.

"Since 2021, the number of girls competing in wrestling ballooned from about 700 to more than 2,100."

How the fastest growing high school sport in Nebraska continues to break down barriers heading into state

Girls wrestling is the fastest growing Nebraska high school sport in the last four years, according to the Nebraska School Activities Association. The state championships start Tuesday.

nebraskapublicmedia.org

 

[TruHusker]

It has taken off and the quality of wrestling is quite good. When I was HS principal back around 2003-2004 the girls had to wrestle boys. There were only a handful of girls in our league but they definitely had an impact. They were smart, agile and strong enough to compete with boys. Boys obviously did not like wrestling girls, especially when they got beat.

 

[Lincoln100]

It has taken off and the quality of wrestling is quite good. When I was HS principal back around 2003-2004 the girls had to wrestle boys. There were only a handful of girls in our league but they definitely had an impact. They were smart, agile and strong enough to compete with boys. Boys obviously did not like wrestling girls, especially when they got beat.

Not a chance that they could regularly compete. I don’t doubt that a girl could beat a boy, but it would be a very rare occurrence, where she has been training for a long time and he is fairly unskilled, and then probably only at relatively young ages.

 

[HuskerInCarolina]

It has taken off and the quality of wrestling is quite good. When I was HS principal back around 2003-2004 the girls had to wrestle boys. There were only a handful of girls in our league but they definitely had an impact. They were smart, agile and strong enough to compete with boys. Boys obviously did not like wrestling girls, especially when they got beat.

I did not like wrestling girls. As a puberty aged boy, it was very weird. I also didn't like it because the difference in talent level between boys and girls was very obvious at the HS level, especially in the 2002-2008 time frame I would have the opportunity to run into females. And it felt wrong how easily I was able to overpower most of them. I only wrestled a handful of matches against females in my entire career, maybe 6 matches. I won all of them but 1. I was very embarrassed and pissed I lost this match at the time. What I felt most upset about it was that it was like a 17-15 match. We both put up points. It wasn't until many years later I was found out that girl went on to become a member of the women's national team and now coaches collegiate wrestling. I went on to have a good career myself, nowhere close to her level of success and nothing I would brag about. My wife wrestled in high school and was a manager of my wrestling team in college, which is how we met. My young daughter has really gotten into wrestling and we've introduced her to a youth club. I think it has been really awesome to see women's wrestling grow the last 20 years. Wrestling brought me my greatest gifts and taught me most of my biggest lessons. I'm forever grateful to this sport and I hope it continues to grow and thrive, for boys and girls, and men and women.

 

[oldjar07]

Girls are turning into boys, and boys are turning into girls. What a world we've created.

 

[Tuco Salamanca]

Girls are turning into boys, and boys are turning into girls. What a world we've created.

Nothing wrong with athletic girls and women.

 

[Walleye79]

Girls are turning into boys, and boys are turning into girls. What a world we've created.

Girls wrestling becoming popular wrestling other girls is not girls turning into boys.

 

[Dean Pope]

Girls are turning into boys, and boys are turning into girls. What a world we've created.

".... if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls' sports, such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such." - Homer J. Simpson

 

[scarletred]

Girls are turning into boys, and boys are turning into girls. What a world we've created.

Which party are you.

 

[PeliniTheCrutch]

It has definitely gotten better, but it also had nowhere else to go.

Key is having a couple coaches on staff that are all-in.

 

[Harry Caray]

Don't understand wanting to do a sport where you grope and get groped (especially by people of the same sex)....but good for them

 

[PeliniTheCrutch]

Don't understand wanting to do a sport where you grope and get groped (especially by people of the same sex)....but good for them

Don’t ever have your daughter go to college.

 

[huskerfan1414]

Well of course its the fastest growing, its the newest. It makes sense to have girls wrestling, I'm also very glad they have their own championships now instead of trying to do it along with the boys. It
made no sense to have girls wrestle boys. Shame on anyone who helped make that happen. Kudos to the real men who refused to wrestle girls, even if it meant a forfeit.

 

[scarletred]

Well of course its the fastest growing, its the newest. It makes sense to have girls wrestling, I'm also very glad they have their own championships now instead of trying to do it along with the boys. It
made no sense to have girls wrestle boys. Shame on anyone who helped make that happen. Kudos to the real men who refused to wrestle girls, even if it meant a forfeit.

AMEN!

 

[V-Doub]

It has definitely gotten better, but it also had nowhere else to go.

Key is having a couple coaches on staff that are all-in.

I was about to say the same. It’s the fastest growing HS sport because it was basically non-existent 20 years ago. If you have 20 female HS wrestlers in a district and over a few years it’s 100, that’s a 400% increase despite the fact that 100 wrestlers is still a pretty small number. It will plateau off (growth percentage) fairly soon.

 

[scarletred]

I was about to say the same. It’s the fastest growing HS sport because it was basically non-existent 20 years ago. If you have 20 female HS wrestlers in a district and over a few years it’s 100, that’s a 400% increase despite the fact that 100 wrestlers is still a pretty small number. It will plateau off (growth percentage) fairly soon.

Girls basketball was the fastest growing sport 48 years ago.

 

[V-Doub]

Girls basketball was the fastest growing sport 48 years ago.

 

[cruelhalo]

Don’t ever have your daughter go to college.

The man speaks da troof.

 

[TruHusker]

You would have to define “regularly” I suppose. In the very light classes where technique was importantly and the muscle mass difference not as dramatic, there were some fun matches to watch. NW KS was a hotbed of boys wrestling and you had some young ladies whose fathers were excellent wrestlers in their day. Really not much different than me hitting ground balls or shooting baskets with my daughter.

So no, the ladies could regularly dominate the boys but they occasionally would win and showed well at other times so it wasn’t like they got stuck every time out.

 

[RedBaloneyPony]

Girls basketball was the fastest growing sport 48 years ago.

A bi-product of girls wrestling now is that basketball is declining somewhat in smaller schools, girls who were role/bench players are now giving wrestling a go, don't blame them but it is definitely hurting GBB with lack of bench depth.

 

[Lincoln100]

You would have to define “regularly” I suppose. In the very light classes where technique was importantly and the muscle mass difference not as dramatic, there were some fun matches to watch. NW KS was a hotbed of boys wrestling and you had some young ladies whose fathers were excellent wrestlers in their day. Really not much different than me hitting ground balls or shooting baskets with my daughter.

So no, the ladies could NOT regularly dominate the boys but they occasionally would win and showed well at other times so it wasn’t like they got stuck every time out.

Fixed it, and sounds like you pretty much completely agree with what I posted, except you changed a few words from your original post for some reason.

 

[PvilleHuskerTim]

A bi-product of girls wrestling now is that basketball is declining somewhat in smaller schools, girls who were role/bench players are now giving wrestling a go, don't blame them but it is definitely hurting GBB with lack of bench depth.

Grand Island HS, a Class A school, did not field a varsity girl's basketball team for the 2024-25 school year due to declining numbers. A news article I saw mentioned there were no juniors or seniors out for BB. The GIHS girl's wrestling team currently sits in 6th place at state.

 

[Bugeater]

When I was in high school there were more than a few girls I would have loved to grapple with!

 

[Mrs.Jeans15]

More girls acting like men. That's what we need...lol

 

[TFrazier]

A bi-product of girls wrestling now is that basketball is declining somewhat in smaller schools, girls who were role/bench players are now giving wrestling a go, don't blame them but it is definitely hurting GBB with lack of bench depth.

Girls basketball is declining in many areas including the suburbs because of club volleyball, girls wrestling, and now with lacrosse. Many sports do not want their players participating in other sports which also doesn’t help.

In my area many high schools are struggling to field some teams below the varsity level. And of course the varsity teams are hurt because some of the best athletes are playing other sports.

 

[salsa red]

Nobody wanted to wrestle a girl in HS. If you lose you look absolutely horrible, if you win you beat a girl. Never saw a girl win though.

 

[V-Doub]

Grand Island HS, a Class A school, did not field a varsity girl's basketball team for the 2024-25 school year due to declining numbers. A news article I saw mentioned there were no juniors or seniors out for BB. The GIHS girl's wrestling team currently sits in 6th place at state.

This isn’t an issue with girls wrestling hurting girls basketball at all. And I’m a huge basketball fan and couldn’t give two shits about wrestling. There’s more girls at Grand Island HS than there were 5 year ago, and 5 years ago there were more girls in HS than the 5 years before that. The issue is declining % of girls playing sports overall. The number girls in HS has increased year by year.

We know that overall, the percentage of HS kids (nationally) playing sports have declined more rapidly in the last 20 years. We also know that many schools across the country (Nebraska schools specifically) have had anywhere from a 10% to 40% (depending on the school) increase in Latino students. And Latino women don’t play sports, as a generalization. I play cards with a bunch of teachers/coaches and/or husbands of teachers. Seems like everyone in the group is connected to education except me. Nevertheless, they say you might get a couple/few Latina girls playing soccer or maybe softball, but otherwise they just don’t play sports overall.

 

[V-Doub]

Nobody wanted to wrestle a girl in HS. If you lose you look absolutely horrible, if you win you beat a girl. Never saw a girl win though.

I never wrestled, played basketball and football, but I would’ve been terrified of such a prospect. 😳 I know myself, so I would’ve ruthlessly kicked her ass, but I would’ve hated doing it and hated being forced into such a situation.

 

[SeaOfRed75]

Don't understand wanting to do a sport where you grope and get groped (especially by people of the same sex)....but good for them

Costanza?

 

[PvilleHuskerTim]

This isn’t an issue with girls wrestling hurting girls basketball at all. And I’m a huge basketball fan and couldn’t give two shits about wrestling. There’s more girls at Grand Island HS than there were 5 year ago, and 5 years ago there were more girls in HS than the 5 years before that. The issue is declining % of girls playing sports overall. The number girls in HS has increased year by year.

We know that overall, the percentage of HS kids (nationally) playing sports have declined more rapidly in the last 20 years. We also know that many schools across the country (Nebraska schools specifically) have had anywhere from a 10% to 40% (depending on the school) increase in Latino students. And Latino women don’t play sports, as a generalization. I play cards with a bunch of teachers/coaches and/or husbands of teachers. Seems like everyone in the group is connected to education except me. Nevertheless, they say you might get a couple/few Latina girls playing soccer or maybe softball, but otherwise they just don’t play sports overall.

Good info. I didn't mean to suggest that wrestling was the sole reason for lack of participation in BB at GIHS. It probably is a contributor on some level. I just found it interesting that a school of that size is unable to put 10-12 girls on a BB court to be able to compete. The way I phrased my comments probably made it sound like that was the only reason, which wasn't my intent.

 

[V-Doub]

Good info. I didn't mean to suggest that wrestling was the sole reason for lack of participation in BB at GIHS. It probably is a contributor on some level. I just found it interesting that a school of that size is unable to put 10-12 girls on a BB court to be able to compete. The way I phrased my comments probably made it sound like that was the only reason, which wasn't my intent.

I didn’t mean to make it sound like you were trying to blame girls wrestling. I just thought I’d expand on why I believe we such things happening with HS girls sports. 👍🏻

 

[huntered]

next thing you know the girls will be wanting to play flag football

 

[Huskers123456]

Grand Island HS, a Class A school, did not field a varsity girl's basketball team for the 2024-25 school year due to declining numbers. A news article I saw mentioned there were no juniors or seniors out for BB. The GIHS girl's wrestling team currently sits in 6th place at state.

I would imagine there is a coach issue somewhere in that program.

 

[Mrs.Jeans15]

next thing you know the girls will be wanting to play flag football

They want to be men so bad.

 

[mwulf]

Wrestling is the toughest sport to compete in. Nothing but respect to those who participate.

 

[RedBaloneyPony]

Girls basketball is declining in many areas including the suburbs because of club volleyball, girls wrestling, and now with lacrosse. Many sports do not want their players participating in other sports which also doesn’t help.

In my area many high schools are struggling to field some teams below the varsity level. And of course the varsity teams are hurt because some of the best athletes are playing other sports.

Yep, and players that should be getting lots of JV time don’t get to play because they don’t have hardly enough to play jv, further hindering their development. It is what it is though. The town I live in has had some decent girls bb teams and some of the best players dads/brothers were big into wrestling. Wonder if this had started 10 years ago if those girls would’ve been drawn to wrestling because of family

 

[king_kong_]

Finally a sport @SomedayHusker couldve lettered in

 

[BTF69]

It has taken off and the quality of wrestling is quite good. When I was HS principal back around 2003-2004 the girls had to wrestle boys. There were only a handful of girls in our league but they definitely had an impact. They were smart, agile and strong enough to compete with boys. Boys obviously did not like wrestling girls, especially when they got beat.

Ahhhh, no.

I coached HS wrestling around that time and the girls sucked vs the boys.

The boys were also in a no-win position. It was horrible for them.

 

[BTF69]

I was about to say the same. It’s the fastest growing HS sport because it was basically non-existent 20 years ago. If you have 20 female HS wrestlers in a district and over a few years it’s 100, that’s a 400% increase despite the fact that 100 wrestlers is still a pretty small number. It will plateau off (growth percentage) fairly soon.

20? it is 5 years old.

 

[BTF69]

It has definitely gotten better, but it also had nowhere else to go.

Key is having a couple coaches on staff that are all-in.

This is the hardest part, finding girl coaches to coach the girls that are super into it.