Sort of like the satirical images portrayed on television of a high school dance, the boys and the girls will now be at opposite ends of the gymnasium.
After having to compete against the boys, girls wrestlers across Arizona high schools will now have their own wresling mats since the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s Executive Board voted to add girls wrestling starting in the 2018-19 year.
“It’s a big step forward for wrestling, it helps us grow our sport, which we always want,” said Klint McKean, Mingus Union High School’s head wrestling coach. “We’ll still always have the female wrestlers competing with the boys, but now they get to be on a level playing field, which for them is something that they’ve needed for a long time.”
After a presentation by a member of the the AIA’s wrestling advisory committee, the AIA Executive Board voted at its meeting on Monday, May 21, to include it as an “emerging sport” to run concurrently with the boys in the winter.
Girls have wrestled against boys during official competition, but that has not stopped some from qualifying for the state tournament. Along with the fact that they will have their own state tournament, it alleviates the potential anxiety generated by coed wrestling, not only for the wrestlers themselves but their parents.
“I hope it does and I think it’ll also help ease the anxiety the parents might have as well,” McKean said. “Not only parents might have anxiety of their daughters being injured by boys, but even just because of the close contact with boys, some parents are kind of squeamish of that.”
McKean also runs the Mingus Mountain Wrestling Club offseason program that includes elementary- to high-school aged grapplers. He said there were two girls this past year, and at one time had up to four.
Mark Showers, Camp Verde High School’s athletic director and Conference 2A’s representative on the AIA Executive Board, said there had been talks over the last couple of years of including it, and the board voted on it for the first time this year.
According to a press release from the AIA, there is expected to be an individual bracketed tournament at the conclusion of the season that will run in conjunction with the boys state championships.
“It’s something we’ve talked about before, but it hasn’t been officially presented,” Showers said. “There wasn’t any real something specific that made us go ahead and change it. It was presented by the advisory committee, and we said, ‘Yeah, the nation is going in that direction and it’s something that is probably long overdue, so let’s go ahead and approve it.’”
According to the press release, Arizona joins a group of less than 10 state associations to have girls wrestling.
Mingus senior-to-be Danni Schulz was the school’s lone varsity girl wrestler last season. Schulz competed against the boys, and won the unofficial 182-pound state championship at the 2018 Arizona All Girls Club Wrestling Championships at Camp Verde High School in March. Later that month, she was runner-up at the Rocky Mountain Nationals in Colorado.
“It’s pretty neat that the girls are being recognized in our state now,” Schulz said. “Back in the states over on the other coast, it’s more known, the females have a better wrestling program over there, and here in Arizona it’s kind of struggling. But I’m glad they finally made it an actual association with the schools.”
Both McKean and Schulz agreed that making girls wrestling its own sport would likely increase the amount of interest and number of girls who come out for the team at Mingus. For a seasoned wrestler like Schulz, who has been wrestling for the last six or seven years, it does not change her attitude or mentality, but acknowledged that competing against boys has been one reason why more girls do not participate.
Schulz, who said she has aspirations of competing in college, said she actually does not like the idea of wrestling against girls.
“I think me, personally, I wouldn’t want to join a girls team,” Schulz said. “Because wrestling girls doesn’t make you better. They may make you more comfortable, but you have to be out of your comfort zone in a male-dominated sport I believe.
“… That’s why I dominate more at the girls-only tournaments, because I’m more used to wrestling the guys and I can more show the technique that I have instead of trying to out-strength them, which I obviously can’t against the males, but against the girls I definitely show up.”
As of press time, it was unclear if Mingus Union High School is planning on adding a girls program for the upcoming season.
