Timely Updates for
Takedown Scoring and Stats Users
High School Wrestling Participation
It was a very good year.
A company friend suggested we revise our annual look at high school wrestling participation to include the 2022/23 data.
Good idea! We did that.
Wrestling overall is doing better and the girls are a big contributor. Total participation is at an all time high and average boys team size reversed a disturbing downward trend.
Take a look at the data and draw your own conclusions about the health of high school wrestling.
The Chart for Every Practice Room Wall
How important are takedowns?
We looked at over 2,000 matches for 63 wrestlers from six high school programs spread across the country and found that scoring more takedowns than your opponent is
How Important are Takedowns?
We looked at over 2,000 matches for 63 wrestlers from six high school programs spread across the country and found that scoring more takedowns than your opponent is highly correlated with having a winning season. Each wrestler had a minimum of ten matches and we considered only varsity events.
Winning Percentage v. Takedown Percentage
Thirty wrestlers scored on average the same or fewer takedowns than their opponent per match. Of these wrestlers, only three (10%) wrestlers had winning seasons. In contrast, thirty three wrestlers scored more takedowns, on average, than their opponent per match. Of these wrestlers, thirty one (94%) wrestlers had winning seasons.
The data supports what we instinctively know: takedown proficiency is critical to becoming a successful competitor. Next time an athlete says "prove it!", just post this graph on the practice room wall!
Statistics courtesty of Takedown Scoring and Stats app users.
Originally published October 2015.
Emerging from the Darkness: High School Wrestling Participation 2022-2023
NFHS wrestling participation for 2022-2023. Coming out of the COVID darkness and into the light, boys rebounding to 2014-2015 levels. As expected, strong growth in girls programs with one concerning metric.
The NFHS recently released their high school sports participaton data for 2022-2023. Total wrestling participants was 305,593, a record in this millenia, representing 16% growth from the previous survey year. This growth far outpaces the year-year growth in total high school sports participation which was 3.1%.
Overall, boys wrestling rebounded to levels not seen since 2014-2015. While the number of boys teams has remained roughly constant, the number of participants increased by 11% to 256,466.
Girls wrestling continues to grow like a weed with 49,127 participants in 6,381 programs representing year-year growth of 55% and 33%, respectively. One in six high school wrestlers was a girl in 2022-2023. One cloud for girls wrestling is the anemic growth in average team size which was reported at 7.7 wrestlers per team. At historical growth rates, the average girls team won’t be capable of filling a minimum dual meet roster for another 20+ years.
Among high school sports participants, wrestling’s popularity has increased a bit. Wrestling’s share of all high school sports participants edged up slightly from 3.5% to 3.9%, with boys at 5.7% and girls at 1.5%.
Click on any chart to enlarge.
Number of Wrestling Programs
Number of Participants
Wrestlers Per Team
Wrestling Share of High School Sports
How Fat Are High School Wrestlers?
Periodic look at the weight certification data for high school wrestlers. States include California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, …
As with college, every once in a while we drill down into the high school weight certification data.
For this past season, 2019-2020, we looked at data for 80,209 male wrestlers rostered for 3,127 teams in seven states: California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, Washington and Nebraska. This data is is from February 2020.
You can explore the data on your own here.
In all states except Pennsylvania, roster size by school year declines from freshman (Fr.) though senior (Sr.) year. In aggregate, Pennsylvania freshman are 22% of the total roster whereas in all other states freshman account for 30-32% of the total state roster.
Average roster size varies considerably in this group from a low of 19.5 (Nebraska) to a high of 31.1 (Texas) wrestlers per team.
Weight Related
Except for 113 pounds, wrestler count by minimum weight class (MWC) is relatively flat from 106 to 145 pounds and then declines steeply from 152 to 285 pounds.
At certification, average body fat percentage ramps from 14.3% at 106 to 23.4% at 220 and then declines a bit for 285.
Roughly 32% of the wrestlers had an assessed body fat of more than 20%.
In this sample, 73,871 wrestlers had a certification weight exceeding their MWC. On average, this group had to drop 9.7% of their certification weight to reach MWC.
Excluding 220 and 285, If all wrestlers in this group dropped to their respective MWC, average body fat is 7.9% with a narrow range of 7.5% (138 MWC) to 9.1% (106 MWC).
Which State is the Fattest?
You decide.
High School Wrestling — Fat % by State
LevelChanger Presents at California Coaches Clinic
Fresno State wrestling head coach Troy Steiner invited us to the California Coaches Clinic. Here’s what we talked about.
Invited to present at the California Wrestling Coaches Clinic in Fresno this past weekend. Here’s what we talked about.