Wrestling participation tumbles 44% in the past decade.

[Big Mike]

http://shine.yahoo.com/team-mom/lacr...203700673.html


Just going off of what the artical says.

[Tony Rotundo]

Interesting.

Maybe there's hope:
http://themat.com/section.php?sectio...rticleID=23991

MMA could be helping to swing our numbers back around.

[TwoDogs]

growing up in the Midwest, I always noticed the similarities between hockey players and wrestlers. Both groups tend to be physically stocky, both need to be in real good physical condition, both tend to be pretty tough, you know like in a street fight, both groups have a certain ****yness about them. Seems to me that Lacrosse players/hockey players/wrestlers will all be drawing away from each other. Im thinking this only because I feel that Lacrosse is similar to Hockey in needing to be in good physical condition, and physcially tough, with all of the checking and such.

Maybe wrestling isn't necessarily down 44 percent in the high schools, but probably is down amongst all age groups, including younger kids.

It's interesting that we were all discussing ways to increase participation in our sport about a month ago. Most people seem to fight against change, but if you don't try to keep up with the others, you tend to fall behind. Hopefully the MMA thing helps out.

[Gator]

I think it takes us back to more Division's at the state meet Div 1 Div 2 Div 3. More wrestlers, more press, more kids in the sport. Just JMHO.

[Bill Grant]

Regarding the stats from the Yahoo resource, I think it's important to not always believe everything you read in the newspapers or on line and do your own research. Check out the 2011 High School Athletics participation survey conducted by The National Federation of State High Schools Association. Comparing the numbers of schools and participants in high school wrestling across the USA for the past 30 years, the NFHS reports the following for boys wrestling: In 1981-82 there were 8,869 schools that fielded wrestling teams and 256,107 participants. In 2010-11 there were 10,363 wrestling high schools and 272,890 participants...clearly not a 44% decline in schools or participants. Additionally, California currently leads the nation in numbers of high schools that field boys wrestling teams with 816 and 27,833 participants...followed by Illinois, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. California girls currently lead the nation with 1,910 participants. Seems high school wrestling is alive and well in California!

[ljp1946]

There are three kinds of lies: LIES,DAMNED LIES & STATISTICS. Just a thought.

[TwoDogs]

Regarding the stats from the Yahoo resource, I think it's important to not always believe everything you read in the newspapers or on line and do your own research. Check out the 2011 High School Athletics participation survey conducted by The National Federation of State High Schools Association. Comparing the numbers of schools and participants in high school wrestling across the USA for the past 30 years, the NFHS reports the following for boys wrestling: In 1981-82 there were 8,869 schools that fielded wrestling teams and 256,107 participants. In 2010-11 there were 10,363 wrestling high schools and 272,890 participants...clearly not a 44% decline in schools or participants. Additionally, California currently leads the nation in numbers of high schools that field boys wrestling teams with 816 and 27,833 participants...followed by Illinois, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. California girls currently lead the nation with 1,910 participants. Seems high school wrestling is alive and well in California!

looking at those numbers I wonder where the article got it's stats from. Only thing that I think is interesting is that, according to the stats presented, in 1981-82 the average number of wrestlers per team was 29, in 2010-2011 the average number of wrestlers per team is now 26, again according to the stats. So I'm going to make an assumption that the increase in the number of schools participating is due to population increase. If wrestling had just maintained it's numbers from 1981-82 with no growth whatsoever, according to these numbers there should be 299,249 kids wrestling in 2010-2011. Again, I'm not going by actual population growth, I was just going by how many schools there are now that have wrestling and how many in 1981-82. Just FYI.

[TwoDogs]

According to NFHS, the number of wrestlers in the 2009-2010 season was actually 272,890. Also, according to NFHS the number of wrestlers in 1980 was actually 273,326. So I'm going to make a comparison to those same dates because the 10 year census also correlates to those dates.

In 1980 there were 226,545,805 people living in the United States. In 2010 there were 308,745,538 people living in the United States. Now if we take the total population, and divide it by the total number of wrestlers in the US at those times we will get a ratio of number of wrestler to population. In 1980 there was 1 wrestler for every 828.85 persons in the US. In 2010 there was 1 wrestler for every 1131.39 persons in the US. So looking at those numbers 1/828.85 (1980)vs. 1/1131.39 (2010). If there was no growth in the sport of wrestling, what I mean is no growth as average number of wrestlers per population. So if in 2010 there was still 1 wrestler for every 828.85 peoples we would currently have 372,499 high school aged kids wrestling in the United States.

I used the NFHS stats and the US Census from 1980 and 2010. So wrestling isn't going anywhere any time soon, but it's not actually growing either. Maybe LaCrosse and Hockey or some other sport is taking it's toll? I don't know. Whatever it is, it probably needs to be addressed.

[TwoDogs]

I think it takes us back to more Division's at the state meet Div 1 Div 2 Div 3. More wrestlers, more press, more kids in the sport. Just JMHO.

Gator, I too thought that maybe divisions would increase the number of participants, but that would only occur in California, even if it did cause more participation, it would only be in this state. These numbers that I just came up with are Nation wide. So California, by itself can't bring the total number of participants back to where it once was. So something else is happening here. Maybe divisions would increase the numbers in California, but most states have divisions, and they always have had divisions; still the numbers across the country are down overall. I have no research to back up this statement, but it may be a rural thing? The rural communities are dwindling across the country. Think of your home state SD and mine ND. How many little towns across those two states used to have very competitive high school wrestling teams, and now they have combination teams, where like 3 little towns combine together to make one team? Divisions in California may increase local interest around here, but it's not really going to put a dent in the national loss of wrestlers across the country.

[cen-cal wrestling]

this may seem rediculous but there isnt alot of posting lately so here goes... i am a pe teacher and i see something that makes some kids a lot lazier, video games. kids ditch school to play video games, some kids dont go out for sports so that they can go home and play games after school. how many games were around in 1980, how many are around in 2010??? im not saying thats the 44% but i bet it helped out