Myth 1: Title IX has killed wrestling
Reality: High school wrestling participation has remained at a plateau for the last 25 years and the sport is showing signs of rebounding at the collegiate level
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), participation by males in high school wrestling in 1969-70 was 226,681. It went up to a peak of 355,160 in 1975-76, but was back down to 245,029 by 1980-1981. Since then, participation has fluctuated between 216,453 and 256,107 boys each year. In 2004-05, the figure was 243,009, good for a ranking as the 6th most popular sport for high school males, and that's without a pro league and big time marketing.
On the collegiate level, the number of NCAA wrestling programs has stabilized over the last five years or so. The NCWA – a Title IX-free wrestling alternative for post-high school institutions – currently boasts a whopping 118 programs. Factor Real Pro Wrestling into the mix and the only certain impact of Title IX in the long-term appears to be that it has merely succeeded in reducing the NCAA's role in the sport of wrestling.
Myth 2: Iowa, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania are the most restling-dominated states in the country
Reality: Are we talking college or high school?
Any casual sports fan is aware of wrestling powerhouses like Iowa, ISU, Oklahoma, and OSU, and even UNI has been a perennial top 20 team for the last several years. Iowa also has far and away the nation's best NCAA Division 3 conference, the IIAC, and the Central Oklahoma is a top NCAA Division 2 team. Pennsylvania does it with brute numbers at the NCAA level, with about 1/6th of all NCAA wrestling teams hailing from there.
When you go to the high school level, however, the picture gets murkier. The ratio of high school male wrestlers to male basketball players in all three of these states is in the bottom half of the nation: Iowa is 26th; Pennsylvania is 36th; and Oklahoma is 37th. They have similar rates when you look at male wrestlers as a percentage of total high school athletes (Iowa at 16th, Pennsylvania at 34th, and Oklahoma at 37th).
Myth 3: Southern states are obsessed with basketball, not wrestling
Reality: This is true for a few states, but North Carolina has the has the third-highest ratio of wrestlers to basketball players in the country
The Deep South does have stretches which are almost devoid of wrestling. Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Kentucky all rank in the bottom eight for states with lowest proportion of male wrestlers to male basketball players at the high school level. Collectively, they have about 11.3 hoops players for every wrestler in these six states.
But the other half of the story is stunning for wrestling and basketball fans alike.
Below are the states which had the fewest male high school basketball players per male high school wrestler in 2004-05:
1. Utah (1.1 basketball players/wrestler)
2. Maryland (1.2)
3. North Carolina (1.3)
Virginia comes in a respectable 8th place in this category, with 1.5 basketball players per grappler. The collegiate level is just as telling: fully 16 teams, more than 1/6th of all NCAA Division 1 wrestling teams, are located in the "basketball hotbeds" of Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Myth 4: Hockey is bigger than wrestling in the USA
Reality: More than six times as many American high school boys participated in wrestling than in hockey in 2004-05
The 37,004 males who participated in high school hockey in 2004-05, are dwarfed by the 243,009 who participated in high school wrestling that same year. Only three tiny states (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont) saw more high school boys play hockey than wrestle. Even in the NCAA, where hockey is sometimes considered a "revenue sport," there are just 133 men's hockey teams compared to 226 programs sponsoring men's wrestling.
Two factors come into play here that will help to digest this unexpected statistic. For one thing, the NHL may be somewhat over-hyped in the United States -– a lot of its fan base is in Canada –- and the long-term viability of several of it franchises in "The States" are in question. Second, hockey has a unique structure of clubs that operates outside of high schools and colleges. While this is probably truer in hockey than any other sport, it's unlikely that even this accounts for the yawning gap between hockey and wrestling.
Myth 5: There are no major areas of intense wrestling interest west of Iowa
Reality: The Rocky Mountain states have -– by far -– the highest rates of male wrestlers as a percentage of total high school athletes in the USA
The top states, in terms of number of male wrestlers as a percentage of total high school athletes in 2004-05:
1. Utah (6.6%)
2. Wyoming (6.4%)
3. Alaska (5.9%)
4. Nebraska (5.9%)
5. Nevada (5.8%)
6. Oregon (5.3%)
7. Washington (5.2%)
8. Idaho (5.2%)
9. Arizona (5.2%)
10. Indiana (5.0%)
11. South Dakota (4.9%)
12. South Carolina (4.9%)
13. Kansas (4.9%)
14. Illinois (4.8%)
15. Montana (4.7%)
16. Iowa (4.6%)
We kept going until we got to Iowa, and as you can see, it took awhile. All of the top 9 wrestling states in terms of male wrestlers as a percentage of total high school athletes in 2004-05 were located west of Iowa. Okalahoma came in 37th by this measure, which put them behind every state western state except for Texas and Hawaii.
On the collegiate level, Utah Valley State, Northern Colorado, SDSU, and NDSU will all either compete at or be transitioning to the NCAA Division 1 level in the newly-minted Western Wrestling Conference (WWC) in 2006-07. Based on this data, the American West looks to be wrestling's biggest growth region going forward.
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