High School Wrestling’s Comeback: Participation, Opportunity Reach All-time Highs

Wrestling is making a comeback in high schools across the United States. After a decline in participation during the 1990s and unsteady growth throughout the 2000s and 2010s, the 2020s have seen a surge in high school wrestling participation, with the most recent school year reaching record numbers.

The annual NFHS Sports Participation Survey for the 2024-25 school year revealed that 374,278 students participated in high school wrestling nationwide, including 74,064 girls. The results marked the first time in the survey’s 56-year history that wrestling participation surpassed 370,000 total athletes and 74,000 girls.

Several leaders in high school wrestling say multiple factors have contributed to the sport’s rising popularity, but the rapid growth of girls wrestling programs has driven the most significant gains.

“The growth we’re seeing at the high school level, especially among young women, is one of the most exciting developments in our sport’s history,” USA Wrestling Executive Director Rich Bender said. “It speaks to wrestling’s unique ability to welcome anyone willing to work hard and build character, confidence and community. More young people stepping onto the mat strengthens the foundation of our sport and ensures a bright and sustainable future for wrestling at every level.”

Due to a more sophisticated information gathering system figures beginning with the 1979 system are generally lower than surveys for the previous four years. No true comparisons can be made between the 1979 survey and surveys prior.

Girls Wrestling Growing at Record Speed
About five years ago, Krista Semkiv took a job as a social worker at Palatine High School in Illinois and joined the wrestling coaching staff after spending several years helping with junior high programs.

There was just one female wrestler on the high school team when Semkiv was hired, but that didn’t last long as the program began focusing on creating a girls-only team. Now, heading into the 2025-26 season, nearly 30 girls are signed up to participate.

Palatine’s growth in girls wrestling participation mirrors the trend seen at many high schools nationwide over the past decade and particularly the last five years.

Semkiv, entering her sixth season as head coach of Palatine’s girls team, said she believes several factors are driving participation increases in Illinois and beyond. Chief among them, she said, is that more schools are offering girls-only programs, and most states now hold state championships separate from the boys.

High school wrestling has been a male-dominated sport for decades. While some girls wrestled after Title IX passed in 1972, participation stayed low for years, as most girls were forced to practice and compete on boys teams – if they were even allowed to join at all. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that a significant number of girls-only programs began to emerge.

The Texas University Interscholastic League held the first girls-only state wrestling championship in 1998, and Hawaii followed in 1999. California (2011), Washington (2013), Massachusetts (2015) and Tennessee (2017) were next. By 2021, a total of 26 states offered state championships for girls.

During the 2024-25 school year, a record 40 girls state wrestling championships were held across the country, with 8,100 schools offering the sport. Just a decade ago, 11,496 girls participated in high school wrestling – compared to more than 74,000 last year – and there were only 1,806 girls teams.

With more high schools and state associations creating space for girls wrestling, participation has soared over the past five years — including an additional 9,807 participants from 2023-24 to 2024-25.

Semkiv said one of the main draws for girls to join her program is the inclusivity wrestling offers and the self-discipline that comes with being part of the team.

“It’s a very inclusive sport, which is one of the reasons I love it,” Semkiv said. “On our team, and a lot of teams in our area too, it’s a no-cut sport. So any girl, no matter your size, can join the team, which I think is huge. In girls wrestling, you start at 100 pounds, or even 90, and it goes up to 235. We almost need girls of all different sizes, which I think is really empowering for them.”

Semkiv, now in her second year on the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee, said goals for leaders in the sport moving forward include creating more girls-only tournaments and increasing the number of female coaches leading programs.

Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, said one of the NWCA’s priorities is helping former high school wrestlers stay involved in the sport after graduation.

“One of our priorities is getting to a point where we have separate, dedicated coaches for the boys’ and girls’ teams,” Moyer said. “We’ve got research that shows when you have separate, dedicated coaches, the health of the rosters is generally much greater. We need to do a lot more educating of school administrators to help them understand that if they really want to maximize these opportunities, this is the way to do it.”

Experts also said the rise of women’s wrestling in the Olympics, which was added to the Games in 2004, has played a significant role in the sport’s growth. Student-athletes can now follow and be inspired by their favorite athletes more easily than ever.

While wrestling hasn’t cracked the top-10 yet for most popular high school girls sports, it’s closing in on lacrosse, which had 99,292 participants last school year.

Boys Participation, Number of Wrestling Officials Rising, Too
High school boys wrestling participation also continued its upward trend over the last decade, recording a year-over-year increase of 8,340 to surpass 300,000 for the first time.

Around 40 years ago, the sport appeared to be moving in the opposite direction. From 1979 to 1995, the number of high school boys participating in wrestling dropped by more than 60,000 – all the way down to 216,453 male student-athletes in ’95.

Moyer said that between 1972 and 1999, more than 550 college wrestling programs were eliminated, which led to a downstream effect at the high school and youth levels. Since 2000, the NWCA has helped launch more than 466 men’s and women’s intercollegiate programs, fueling the sport’s resurgence, he said.

Over the past 20 years, participation from boys has continued to grow each year for wrestling. In 2024-25, it ranked sixth-most popular behind football, track and field, basketball, soccer and baseball.

While many high schools are struggling to find officials for contests, wrestling is a different story for many state associations.

An NFHS survey found there were 9,011 wrestling officials in 2024-25 — a 12% increase from 2023-24 and up 22% since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Beau Rugg, Ohio High School Athletic Association director of officiating and sport management, said wrestling has seen an uptick in the number of officials, unlike some other sports.

In Ohio, the NFHS survey showed 1,013 wrestling officials for 2024-25, up from a low of 680 during the 2020-21 school year.

Moving forward, Rugg said one of his goals is to recruit more female officials, noting that more than 200 schools in Ohio now offer girls wrestling. While there has been an increase in officials overall, he said there’s still plenty of work to do as the growth of girls’ programs and events.

Anthony “Tony” Clarke, Illinois High School Association wrestling rules interpreter and former chair of the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee, said schools are figuring out how to make separate girls and boys programs work in terms of coaches, practices and competitions, and that the wrestling community remains uniquely close-knit.

With more individuals getting involved in wrestling, the hope is they come back as a coach or official in the future.

“We’re the oldest sport on the planet, so that helps,” Clarke said. “But really, with wrestling, people are a family. We’re a cohesive unit off the mat. And we’re very unique, because it’s not easy to wrestle. We accept everybody.”

Jordan Morey is manager of communications and media relations at the NFHS.