High school wrestling participation down for 2014-15

Participation in high school wrestling and football was down for the 2014-15 season compared to the previous year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations in a report issued Thursday.

NFHS -- the organization which tracks high school sports participation on a nationwide and state-by-state basis, among other responsibilities -- reported there were 11,306 fewer participants in wrestling across the country last season, while 11-player football saw 9,617 fewer participants. In reporting these NFHS stats, USA Today offered its own reasons for declines in these sports, stating that football may be taking a hit over concerns about concussions, while claiming that wrestling "has seen a precipitous drop in college scholarships." (Over the past 40 years, there has been a significant decline in the overall number of NCAA Division I wrestling programs, resulting in fewer individual scholarships.)

Because fewer male athletes took to the wrestling mat and football field this past season, the NFHS' overall participation numbers indicate 8,682 fewer boys participated in high school sports overall in 2014-15, while the number of girls athletes increased by 20,071. Looking at overall participation levels for boys and girls combined, more athletes than ever are participating in high school sports, with 7,807,047 high school athletes in the last school year across the U.S., an increase of 11,389 from the previous school year, according to the latest NHSF statistics.

This year's reported drop in the overall number of high school wrestlers bucks a long-running trend of increasing numbers of participants in the sport over the years. Wrestling remains a popular high school sport, with a total of 269,704 boys and girls participating, and 12,403 schools offering the sport nationwide.

In addition to providing overall numbers, the NHSF also breaks down statistics by sex. For boys, the sport ranks eighth in terms of the number of high schools, with 10,597 schools offering wrestling for boys ... and sixth in numbers of male participants, with 258,208. Every state in the nation has boys participating in high school wrestling ... even Mississippi, which is the one state that does not have a sanctioned state championship; however, according to the NHSF report, two schools in that state have a total of 25 wrestlers. In terms of the numbers of individual male participants, the top five states are California (26,374 male wrestlers), Illinois (15,036), New York (13,668), Texas (11,139) and Ohio (11,114). In counting the number of high schools that offer boys wrestling, the top five states are California (848 schools), Ohio (585), New York (497), Pennsylvania (493), and Michigan (445).

According to the NFHS, a total of 11,496 girls wrestle at 1,806 schools in 38 states. In terms of number of individual participants, Texas is tops with 3,977 girl high school wrestlers, followed by California (2,747), Washington state (1,210), Michigan (593), and Hawaii (498). The states with the most high schools that have at least one female wrestler: California ranks No. 1 with 523 schools, followed by Texas (259), Washington state (197), Alaska (102), and Maryland (85).

The NFHS report also provides a big-picture look at overall high school sports participation going back more than four decades. Overall participation among boys and girls has nearly doubled from 1971-72 (the first year of the survey) to today, with 3,960,932 student-athletes in 1972 vs. 7,807,047 participants this year. The number of male athletes has grown by 852,395 since 1972, while the number of girls participating in high school sports has grown more than ten times in that same timeframe.

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High school wrestling participation down for 2014-15

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