Women’s and Girls’ Wrestling Is Ready for Its Modern Era
rom 204 high school wrestlers in 1989 to record-breaking numbers today, the sport’s long-overlooked revolution is now impossible to ignore—just in time for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
If you were to ask 100 random Americans what the nation’s fastest-growing high school sport is, few would come up with the correct answer: girls’ wrestling.
The release of the documentary All American, which chronicles the challenges on and off the mat of three wrestlers, Naomi, Jo and Arham, arrives at a pivotal moment in the trailblazing journey of girls’ and women’s wrestling in the United States.
Today, a record 47 state high school associations will crown girls’ wrestling champions, with more states adding full-team competitions every year.
At the collegiate level, participation has surged. Earlier this year, the NCAA officially named women’s wrestling as its 91st championship sport. The number of college programs offering women’s wrestling has ballooned—as evidenced by the fact that the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics will soon hold its fourth national championship for women’s wrestling.
At the youth level, USA Wrestling’s iconic Fargo tournament drew more than 2,200 girls this year—a number that would have been unimaginable a generation ago. Team USA’s women are now global powerhouses, routinely medaling in world and Olympic competitions.
To the observer or new fan, girls’ and women’s wrestling seem like a sudden marvel, but the road to our current apex is filled with a long history of resistance, sacrifice and struggle. For years, even after the passage of Title IX in 1972, wrestling remained male-dominated, with opportunities for girls on the mat scarce and resistance to our inclusion supercharged.
For so many girls and women on the mat today, our story dates back to 1989, when five American women—Afsoon Roshanzamir, Asia DeWeese, Marie Ziegler, Janet Trussell and Leia Kawaii—traveled to Switzerland for the Women’s World Freestyle Championships, the first ever Women’s World Championship in which a U.S. team entered. Despite winning three medals during that tournament, they had no financial or organizational support, no national recognition, or parades; yet they persisted, representing a country whose wrestling gatekeepers had little interest or belief in our participation. Despite the hostility, their courage to compete at that time sparked the enduring flame of women’s wrestling in the United States that still reverberates.
Back then, a tiny fraction of girls wrestled in high school. In 1989, the National Federation of State High School Associations—the main body that governs high school athletics—reported that only 204 girls were wrestling at 25 schools nationwide, with virtually all of them on boys’ teams. Yet word spread about the women who had competed in Switzerland and what their example meant.
The following year, in 1990, the first official U.S. Senior Women’s World Team Trials event was held in Vallejo, Calif., with the winners qualifying for the World Championships in Tokyo, Japan. The dominant theme of that weekend was not competition but gratitude and community after years of isolation. Girls who had long been alone in wrestling swapped their stories and techniques, molding a foundation for the sports that continued long after that tournament. That sense of community has remained at the forefront … more at … https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/26/womens-girls-wrestling/
Caleb Smith unlocked potential he didn’t know he had
Editor’s Note: This article appeared in WIN’s Volume 32 Issue 4, the Late December Issue.
By John Klessinger
After losing two straight matches as the No. 5 seed at 125 lbs. in the 2023 NCAA Division I Championships, Caleb Smith decided he needed a change. He already graduated from Appalachian State with a degree in marketing. With the COVID year, Smith had two remaining years of eligibility.
Smith recognized at App State he needed to grow. Before his sophomore season, he and two-time All-American Jonathan Millner trained every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6 a.m. “I had to be uncomfortable,” said Smith. “I hated waking up early. The time was one way to do that,” he added.
With two more years of eligibility and a disappointing result at the NCAAs, Smith prayed a lot and decided Nebraska was the place he needed to go. He loved Mark Manning and his staff. Smith spoke to Olympic gold medalist and two-time NCAA champion Jordan Burroughs before going to Lincoln about wrestling for the Huskers.
Burroughs told Smith there is a standard at Nebraska. “There is an expectation that you are to work towards being the best version of yourself every day. Not only wrestling, but in everything,” Smith said. Almost immediately, Smith experienced something he didn’t feel at Appalachian State. Being in the Big Ten and a high-ranking program, everything felt bigger than him. He’d go to a store, and people knew who he was. “Nebraska was the most fun I ever had. I loved the training, the competition and the fans. It is special,” said Smith.
The transition, though, didn’t come with immediate success. Wrestling in the Big Ten was not the same as the Southern Conference. Smith lost a bunch of matches early. He struggled with his confidence. He took a lopsided loss to Minnesota All-American Patrick McKee. It changed his career. After that match, a teammate said to him, “If you are doing this for God, why does it matter if you win or lose?” remembered Smith. That realization, along with Manning’s mindset, helped Smith slowly come to believe in himself. “Manning told me to look in the mirror every day and say five times, ‘I am the best,’” said Smith. “I didn’t necessarily believe it, but every time I looked in the mirror, I said it,” he added.
Before the final match of the 2024 Minnesota dual, heavyweight Harley Andrews looked at Smith and said, “I got you.” He was talking about Smith’s loss to McKee. Anderson went out and sealed the dual with an 11-7 victory over Bennett Tabor. “I learned those guys have my back. If I’d fight for them, … more at … https://www.win-magazine.com/2025/12/26/caleb-smith-unlocked-potential-he-didnt-know-he-had/
NCAA D1 Wrestling Week 9 Roundup: Best Of 2025
We called an audible! This week’s Roundup consists of a look back at the biggest NCAA college wrestling stories FloWrestling covered in 2025!
Greetings and saultations wise and learned wrestling fans! Because of the extreme dearth of D1 college wrestling events during week 9 of the 2025-26 season, we’re going to call an audible, and instead of discussing the noteworthy happenings of the last seven days, we’re going to look back at the entire 2025 calendar year and highlight the biggest and best stories, events, and social posts that FloWrestling covered. How very!
Week 8 Rankings | Week 8 Box Scores
Roundups: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8
So what will that entail, exactly, you ask? I will tell you. I have reviewed all our metrics, tallies, and key performance indicators and will list those entries that produced the highest numbers.
Some of the data is from social media, which I will include. Other data will be from internal sources with which I will be more coy. Now, without further ado, the envelopes, please.
FloWrestling’s Best of 2025
Let’s start with the good stuff (because it’s been statistically proven that a mere fraction of the people reading this sentence will reach the end of the blog).
The Top Twitter Posts of 2025
We’re starting with Twitter (ok, fine, X), posts because I can embed Tweets in this blog but not Instagram posts, even though our IG posts get far more engagement. Just one of the fun quirks of blogging in the wrestling media capital of the world! … more at … https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/15057007-ncaa-d1-wrestling-week-9-roundup-best-of-2025
2025-26 Top 40 National High School Wrestling Rankings – Dec. 24, 2025
Notre Dame Green Pond moves into the Top 20; Green Farms Academy (Con.) jumps 10 spots to No. 26; Grassfield (Va.) and Nazareth (Pa.) join the Top 40
Happy Holidays!
With the Beast of the East completed over the weekend, we head into the holidays with several major national high school wrestling events complete, offering us a road map for where the 2025-26 season may go. Of course, there is still a ton of great action ahead of us, including some special holiday events. With that said, here is our latest Top 40 Team rankings, as you continue your holiday celebrations and prepare for a bright New Year! Enjoy
1-Faith Christian Academy, PA
Previous No. 1
Idle
2-Buchanan, CA
Previous No. 3
Won their own Zinkin Classic Tournament over Clovis and Clovis North.
3-Blair Academy, NJ
Previous No. 4
Won the team title at the Beast of the East over Lake Highland Prep by three points.
4-Lake Highland Prep, FL
Previous No. 2
Second at the Beast of the East.
5-Delbarton, NJ
Previous No. 5
Was 4-0 at the Fab 50 Duals with wins over Massillon Perry, 41-23, and Greens Farms Academy, 51-6. They did not wrestle Wyoming Seminary, which left the event without a champion as both were 4-0. The two squads have a dual meet scheduled at Seminary on February 6th, so it seems they passed on this meeting in favor of the upcoming one.
6-Malvern Prep, PA
Previous No. 7
Finished third at the Beast of the East.
7-St. John Bosco, CA
Previous No. 6
Captured the crown at the Reno Tournament of Champions, finishing ahead of Poway, Gilroy, and Allen.
8-Bishop McCort, PA
Previous No. 8
Landed in fourth of the Beast of the East team standing. … more at … https://www.si.com/high-school/wrestling/2025-26-boys-high-school-wrestling-national-rankings-dec-19-2025-01kcwn9fq30e
Maximus Konopka: On the road to greener pastures
Editor’s Note: This article appeared in WIN’s Volume 32 Issue 4, which printed Dec. 19, 2025.
By Tristan Warner
There are 490 miles that separate Greens Farms Academy in Westport, Conn. from Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
That journey was made by Jack Conroy’s squad … well, the seven student-athletes who caught an invite, that is … to the 2025 Ironman Wrestling Tournament.
What if you were told that 2025 Ironman champion Maximus Konopka, the first ever representing a school from the state of Connecticut and now the nation’s No. 1 ranked wrestler at 215 lbs., logged over 400 miles per week, in his own right, just to get to school? You read that correctly.
The Simsbury, Conn. native made the offseason move to Greens Farms Academy just before the start of his junior school year in search of the best training opportunity in the Constitution State. He does not have to go it alone, though. In fact, the future Virginia Tech Hokie’s longtime personal coach, TJ Silva, made the move as well. The two commute approximately 160 miles round trip daily to GFA for school, practice and then home.
Getting to go to tournaments like Ironman made the move worth it, Konopka says. “Simsbury High School is five minutes from my house, and Greens Farms Academy in Westport is an hour-and-a-half drive every morning,” Konopka explained. “It is a big change, but it has been worth every second. This was the decision I had to make to keep developing academically and athletically and be ready to start as a freshman and hopefully win four NCAA titles.”
Silva, who has coached Konopka since he was in the elementary leagues, saw something special in him from day one. He has continued to serve as his mentor, both on and off the mat, to this day, even cornering him in the Ironman finals where Konopka outlasted Faith Christian (Pa.) senior Cael Weidemoyer, 9-5. “When we had the opportunity to make the jump, … more at … https://www.win-magazine.com/2025/12/29/maximus-konopka-on-the-road-to-greener-pastures/
TDR blog
After 20 seasons of publicizing wrestling The TakeDown Report’s (TDR) focus has changed to the collecting of college coaching records from North America since 1903. We will continue to recognize and reward successful wrestlers in eastern North Carolina (east of Raleigh & Fayetteville), assist with schools in starting or re-starting a team and this blog. Join us on our FaceBook Page – “The TakeDown Report” for photos and news. Please send results, stories, links and news to pass along. E-mail us at takedownreport@gmail.com
Martin Fleming, Editor
Takedown Report
Takedown Report 