Wrestle Like a Girl- My Title IX Rant

Title IX- Unintended Consequences

According to the Department of Education Title IX was put into place to make sure that there was equality in College opportunities for those receiving financial assistance.

While I wholeheartedly agree with this concept it is unfortunate that instead of increasing opportunities for women, many Universities have opted to cut opportunities for men.

For example, a University might be in danger of violating this provision if they do not add 30 female athletes. What often happens next, instead of adding more women to their scholarship programs, they instead cut a men’s program.

This is an unintended consequence as Universities seek to maintain the highest profit margin possible.

Levels of Competition

Colleges and universities must provide opportunity for intercollegiate competition as well as team schedules which equally reflect the competitive abilities of male and female athletes. An institution’s compliance in this area may be assessed in any one of the following ways:

the numbers of men and women participating in intercollegiate athletics are substantially proportionate to their overall enrollment; or

where members of one sex are underrepresented in the athletics program, whether the institution can show a continuing practice of program expansion responsive to the developing interests and abilities of that sex; or

the present program accommodates the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

In considering equivalent opportunities for levels of competition, compliance will be assessed by examining whether:

male and female athletes, in proportion to their participation in athletic programs, are provided equivalently advanced competitive opportunities; or

the institution has a history and continuing practice of upgrading the competitive opportunities available to the historically disadvantaged sex as warranted by the developing abilities among the athletes of that sex

Women’s Wrestling in the USA

Women’s wrestling is beginning to take off in the USA. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations there were over 2,000 schools with and almost 15,000 girls competing in wrestling in 2016-2017.

I had the opportunity to chat with Ashley Sword about women’s wrestling. Ashley is a former Florida High School Wrestler out of West Palm Beach, Lake Worth High School to be exact!

Before I get into our discussion, I would like to tell you a bit about her.

Ashley Sword is a Senior National Team, 2 time University National Champion. A Bronze-Medalist at the Pan-Am Championships and qualified her weight class for the 2008 Olympic Games.

However, I have found that Ms. Sword was being modest. She is an extremely accomplished wrestler and coach.

Here is more:

She served as an assistant coach with both the Team New York Junior National Team in 2003 and Team Texas Junior National Team in 2004 and 2006.
She qualified the 72 kilogram weight class for Team USA to compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and was a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center from 2003-2007.
She was a 10-time All-American in her career.
She is a two-time University National Champion (2005, 2007).
She was WCWA National Runner Up in 2008, and was named Outstanding Wrestler at the NCWA National Duals that same year.
She is the current head coach of Life Univeristy’s Women’s Wrestling Team. You can also follow the women’s wrestling team on Facebook.

I found Coach Sword to be intelligent, driven, honest and personable. I could not have written this piece otherwise.

Here are some of the things Coach had to say:

300 girls competed in the Florida Girls State Championships this year (A non-sanctioned open tournament)

About 15,000 girls wrestle in high school across the country.

Team USA agrees with Coach Sword. In 1990 there were 112 girls who participated in High School Wrestling, today the number has grown to 14,587.

With the growth in the sport, then why not add Women’s wrestling to fulfill the intent of Title IX?

Is it because the men lack participation?

Men’s Wrestling Participation in Florida

Once again NFHS.org gives us some insight to High School participation numbers by sport.

In 2016-2017 there were roughly 240,000 boys participating in High School Wrestling in the USA.

Comparatively speaking, here is how they rank among the more popular sports Nationwide. (Keep in mind there are roughly 70 High School Sports, this is how wrestling compares to just the most popular)

(Rough numbers)

Football- 1 Million+
Track and Filed- 600k
Basketball- 550K
Baseball- 490k
Soccer- 450k
Cross Country- 266k
Wrestling– 244k
Tennis- 158k
Golf- 141k
Swimming- 138k

In Florida alone, where the weather is fantastic all year round here is how wrestling compares to some very “Florida like” sports.

(Boys numbers only)

Wrestling– 8k
Swimming- 7.5k
Tennis- 5.2k
Golf- 4k

Bring the Women UP Instead of Bringing the Men Down

I am not trying to single out any program. After all, the more sports we have for our children to participate in the better.

I just wanted to point out how sports, even those with roughly half the High School participation of wrestling, have College options right here in the state of Florida.

The UF Gators have official NCAA Division 1 programs in:

Swimming
Tennis
Golf

All three of those sports have lower high school participation numbers than (boys) wrestling. In fact, Golf has roughly half the numbers that wrestling does in the Sunshine State.

I would be willing to bet that many other schools in Florida have some, most or all of those same teams available on a NCAA Division 1 level. With less homegrown athletes to choose from!

If Title IX is one of the culprits then it is time that we looked at what is happening to women’s wrestling in the US and within our state.

ashley sword wrestling team — Life U Women’s Wrestling

Helen Maroulis

The United States got it’s first ever Women’s Olympic Gold Medal. Helen Maroulis is her name!

If you do not believe that women’s athletics, including wrestling might be feasible, take a look at her search volume on Google alone.

Helen Maroulis is averaging 4,400 searches a month just for her name. Roughly 50,000 opportunities a year for whoever lands on her page to see her training, her equipment, her mentors and yes….. The COLLEGE she wrestled for before becoming an Olympian.

With the influx of young ladies into the sport I don’t presume the US will get worse, they will only get better. The more women that compete and place will result in more young women working to get to the same place.

With mixed martial arts being very wrestling heavy, even those with no interest in International styles might seek out wrestling.

For a frame of reference, Ronda Rousey (Judo Black Belt and former MMA Champ) gets roughly 1 MILLION searches a MONTH!

Back to the Beginning

Florida SHOULD and COULD have a Division 1 Men’s wrestling program.

If the issue is how to offset the scholarships, then create a Women’s program too! In fact, I encourage that anyway!

We cannot be short sighted as a community of fans, athletes and supporters. Furthermore, as an Athletic Director in a billion dollar University, you cannot have blinders on either!

Women are empowered, they are athletic, many become famous through their athletic accomplishments.

Don’t you want to be the School and the PERSON who opened the door to the next Helen Maroulis or Ronda Rousey?

Don’t you also want to be the School (and person) that brought Division 1 College Wrestling back to Florida?

One of the reason you probably accepted a position at a Florida University is to have access to the best athletes in the whole country. Who by virtue of our amazing conditions can train all year long.

Why not innovate? Become a legend? Bring more accolades (and funding) to your school?

Like Coach Sword said:

For the high school girls looking to go to college, so often they are they only one (only girl) on the team, the family they find is important.

Especially since like the men, most female wrestlers in college are first generation college students.

Coaches, Athletic Director’s… Do you want to be the guy that creates that legacy?

“My mom wrestled for UCF, UF, FSU… My dad wrestled for FIU, Miami.. That’s where I am going to go….. “

For generation after generation… Tuition, Merchandise, Recruits…. Think about it. Don’t be short sighted.

Just my thoughts.

What do you think?

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