Takedown Report

Why Shouldn’t All Girls Have the Opportunity to Benefit From Wrestling?

By Shannyn Gillespie
As a former U.S. Olympic Education Center (Marquette, MI) women’s wrestling coach, the author’s charge was to ready & develop female wrestlers for the U.S. Olympic Training Center (Colorado Springs, CO), Jr. World Championships, & the World University Championships. This task was challenging largely because, at the time in 2005, there were only 2 sanctioned high school girls wrestling state championships to recruit from (most recruits were noticed at junior national championships). Fourteen years later, there are 6 sanctioned high school girls wrestling state championships…

To be certain, female wrestling worldwide and in the USA is slowly growing (around 17,000 US high school female participants) even though there are a low number of sanctioned high school girls wrestling state championships (6 as of 2019; 7 to add for 2020) or female only wrestling leagues (38+ college teams included in WCWA & NAIA). Despite this inequity, many females do wrestle and thrive in the sport. This article lists some of those successful female wrestlers who are also pioneers. These pioneers have added their perspective on how and why females deserve their own wrestling leagues plus girls-only wrestling state championships in the USA. Rest of the story and timeline at https://news.theopenmat.com/womens-wrestling/why-shouldnt-all-girls-have-the-opportunity-to-benefit-from-wrestling/72509?mc_cid=6106e1abe5&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

April 5, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized