Girls wrestling will become a sanctioned state championship sport beginning in the 2021-22 season, making Florida the 24th state in the nation to adopt it.
The Florida High School Athletic Association board of directors heard the final proposal to sanction girls wrestling Tuesday and made the decision by a unanimous 13-0 vote.
Proponents of the sport hoped it could become sanctioned this upcoming school year. But a number of board members on Tuesday expressed concerns that school districts have already set budgets for 2020-21 and many of those plans would not include coaching supplements and other expenses related to girls wrestling.
Board member Lauren Otero, an assistant principal at Tampa Plant, said it would not be fair to hold a FHSAA state championship next year given that not all schools would have the opportunity to field teams. Otero will become the first female president of the board of directors at the association’s next meeting, which is now set for September.
The decision to start in 2021-2022 was endorsed in the operations committee meeting on Monday, where it passed with a 5-0 vote.
Tallahassee Lincoln wrestling coach Mike Crowder and Lynzie Doll, girls wrestling coach for Freedom High of Orlando, both addressed the board on the topic of starting in the upcoming school year.
“All of the infrastructure is in place and ready to go including the state championship hosts who are ready to go,” Crowder said.
“We are going to keep wrestling anyway and we will continue with whatever the decision is,” Doll said. “My concern in waiting another year is how many more states are going to pass this before we even get a chance to compete and then are we limiting college opportunities for our kids in Florida because we waited?”
Despite having to wait a year to become official, the acceptance of the sport on this level has been a long process and will be celebrated across the state.
“For the almost 800 girls and 100 plus schools that are already doing this, they are already prepared and they’ll do what they have to do, even if they have to wrestle with boys for one more year, they are down to do that.” Crowder said. “I assume our numbers will grow astronomically, even this year.”
As a sanctioned sport, girls will still be able to wrestle boys throughout the regular season, but will have their own postseason.
On Tuesday, the board of directors also approved the addition of girls sand volleyball as a spring sport, giving it a recognized sports status in 2021-2022 and then becoming an official sanctioned sport the next season.
The request was recommended by FHSAA executive director George Tomyn during the group’s annual meeting that was held via videoconference this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The addition of girls wrestling and sand volleyball will give the FHSAA 14 girls state championship sports, which matches the number for boys. Competitive cheerleading is comprised mostly of girls but is the one coed sport.
