When most people think of women’s sports, they’ll usually think of volleyball, cheerleading, or even softball. Recently however, girl’s wrestling has been taking the U.S. by a storm.
“Girl’s wrestling has become the fastest-growing high school sport in the country,” Mike Levy, a journalist for the Associated Press, said. “Sanctioned by a surging number of states and bolstered by a movement of medal-winning female wrestlers, parents and the male-dominated ranks of coaches and administrators who saw it as a necessity and a matter of equality.”
The sport, which can be described by some as daunting, has traditionally attracted very few girls, but that seems to be changing. Nationally, the number of girls wrestling teams has almost quadrupled over the past decade, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In the last year alone, the number of girls participating in wrestling has gone up by 60%.
“I wrestled here at Robinson high school as a student, and I got into coaching in college,” Coach Thomas Montero said, who has been coaching wrestling at Robinson for almost 33 years. “We had, at first, one or two girls here and there, but they had to wrestle the boys. In the last two years- I think there’s going to be a third year of sanctioned girl’s wrestling in Florida.”
And it seems like it’s not just high schools that have seen an expansion in girl’s wrestling- colleges increasingly have clubs and teams for women to join. Across the U.S., there are now 146 college programs dedicated to women’s wrestling, and 77 with their own wrestling clubs, according to the American Women’s Wrestling Association.
“Colleges at every level are giving girls scholarships right now,” Coach Montero said. “It’s something that girls should probably get into, if they want to go to the next level. There’s a lot of opportunity right now for young ladies to go to college and get it paid for.”
A lot of people tend to think of wrestling as dangerous, but while the sport can be physically challenging and is less widely followed than soccer or football, it has benefits of its own.
“You learn a lot of self-discipline when you’re wrestling,” Girl’s Wrestling Captain Arianna Houghtaling (’27) said. “You have to maintain your weight, you have to learn the moves, you have to be accountable before and after matches; know what [things] you did wrong, so you can fix them.”
Because it is a one on one individual sport, wrestling can also teach you to confront and accept your own mistakes, which can easily determine the result of a match.
“It’s more than just wrestling,” Coach Montero said. “It’s not about the wins and the losses, so much as the experiences and the journey of becoming a better person.”
Even though the number of girls wrestling has gone up exponentially over the last few years, there are still huge discrepancies in the number of boys teams and girl’s teams in the U.S. At Robinson, there are around 20 boys who wrestle, but only four or five girls. Even if it’s not most people’s first choice for a sport, both Coach Montero and captain Houghtaling urged more girls to join.
“Just give it a try,” Coach Montero said. “We have a great staff here at Robinson, from the administration to the coaches. We’ll show you everything you need to know, and it’s fun. We have a great family environment.”
