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    Mark Palmer •

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    Florida officially sanctions girls wrestling for 2021-2022

    Competitive opportunities just became brighter for young women wrestlers in the Sunshine State, as the board of directors of the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) voted to officially sanction girls wrestling as a state championship sport on Tuesday.

    The vote was unanimous: 13-0.

    While the move towards sanctioned girls wrestling in Florida seemed to move at lightning speed (first proposed by the FHSAA in late April this year), some student-athletes hoping to be able to wrestle in Florida's first fully-sanctioned girls state championship next spring in 2021, the FHSAA answered concerns from some schools who had already set their budgets for girls' wrestling programs for the next school year, so the executive board approved as one to have the first girls' wrestling season to take place during the 2021-2022 school year.

    It appeared to be a winning schedule for high school girl wrestlers throughout Florida, whether at brand-new girls-only wrestling programs, or for schools still in the process of setting up new girls-only programs right now, so, in the meantime will have girls compete on existing boys teams.

    "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." Tallahassee Lincoln wrestling coach Mike Crowder told the Orlando Sentinel. "I assume our numbers will grow astronomically, even this year."

    To back up Coach Crowder's sentiment ... girls wrestling continues to grow exponentially in recent years, with no signs of letting up. As recently as the beginning of 2018, six states had six separate state championships: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington State. Two-and-a-half-years later, Florida just became the 24th state to fully sanction girls championship wrestling. That means nearly half of all states will now have girls wrestling.
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