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Osceola High junior Kealoni Vega, who won All-America honors at the 2021 United States Marine Corps Junior and 16U Nationals this summer, will get a chance to wrestle for an FHSAA State Championship in March. (PHOTO JIM BIRD/OHS)
It took more than a year to gain final approval, but the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) has finally voted to make girls wrestling a sanctioned high school sports beginning in 2021-22.
The state board’s vote from last week creates a state wrestling tournament for females, which will be conducted in March at Kissimmee’s Silver Spurs Arena, which will also host the boys’ tournament at the same time.
The push to add girls wrestling to the FHSAA varsity sports lineup has been on-going for more than a decade. In June the FHSAA Board voted 13-0 to approve the sport but then backtracked and tabled the subject before giving its final approval this past week. That action means female wrestlers will finally be able to compete for a sanctioned FHSAA State Championship.
Prior to this year, female high school wrestlers had two options – compete against the boys and/or participate in a third-party, girls-only season-ending invitational tournament neither affiliated with or recognized by the FHSAA.
Osceola High School Athletic Director Jim Bird, who doubles as the school’s wrestling coach, has built a Hall of Fame career in the sport. For 15 consecutive years, his boys’ team has finished in the top six at the state tournament and he has produced at least one state champion in each of those years. In all, Kowboys wrestlers have won 29 individual state championships.
All the while, Bird has also been a major advocate of girls wrestling. His girls’ teams have produced 40 individual state champions, and Osceola has also won five girls’ team state titles, including four consecutive (2003-06).
Bird has openly welcomed female participation in both his high school and Kissimmee Attack club programs and currently has several outstanding girl wrestlers, including Kealonie Vega, who wrestled boys’ varsity in more than a dozen matches last year as a sophomore and compiled a winning record. Against female competition, Vega earned All-America status this July by finishing in the 100-pound weight class at the United States Marine Corps Junior Nationals in Fargo, N.D.
Vega, and those like her, is one of the reasons Bird has been one of the leaders in pushing the FHSAA to sanction girls’ wrestling.
“It’s about time, it’s something a lot of wrestling coaches have been fighting for and advocating for a long time,” Bird said of the FHSAA vote. “In my opinion, there is no good reason why this was not approved years ago. These young ladies work as hard as the guys and absolutely deserve a chance to compete for a recognized state championship. There is no question this decision will also increase participation in wrestling and help grow the sport.”
Bird added that the ruling has had an immediate impact. “Every year we would have a handful of girls in our program. When it was announced that it was going to be officially recognized, we had more than a dozen girls show up for voluntary workouts in the first day,” he said. “I’m really happy for the girl wrestlers in this state but I am especially happy for the juniors and seniors because they will finally get a chance to win a sanctioned state title before they graduate.”
He added that it should also present more opportunity for college scholarships for female athletes in the future.
“Iowa, who has long been a powerhouse in college wrestling, announced they were going to start a women’s wrestling program. And as more states add programs at the high school and college level, it is going to be the start of tremendous growth for girls’ wrestling,” Bird said.
Harmony wrestling Coach Vic Lorenzano said he had a significant number of female wresters participating at St. Cloud High -- including one state champion – when he coached there. Although he has not had a lot of female participation since taking over the Harmony program, he expects that to change now that the sport is officially recognized.
“To date, we had limited interest in wrestling from girls at Harmony but that was probably due to the fact that we have had a tremendous girls weightlifting team here and that is a sanctioned sport that also competes in the same season,” Lorenzano said. “But when the approval came out, we had a meeting to determine interest and we had a terrific turnout. This is a great move by the FHSAA and will do a lot to promote the sport of wrestling.”
On the same day as the vote for girls wrestling, the FHSAA also expanded postseason brackets for flag football, lacrosse, water polo and boys volleyball beyond just district champions. At-large slots will be filled based on Maxpreps computer state rankings.
