Girls Wrestling Head Coach Jessica Lister holds her child while posing with the 2022-2023 Girls Wrestling Team at Hood River Valley High School. In April, the Oregon School Activities Association unanimously approved sanctioning girls’ wrestling as an official high school sport.
Jessica Lister
Earlier this month, the Oregon School Activities Association unanimously approved making wrestling an officially sanctioned sport for girls.
Beginning in the 2023-2024 school year, girls’ wrestling will become a sport in its own right, with female high school wrestlers competing statewide.
The last time OSAA added a new school sport was nearly 45 years ago when softball was added in 1979.
Trent Kroll is the athletic director at Hood River Valley High School and has 25 years of experience coaching both girls and boys wrestling. In January, he petitioned OSAA to change the status of girls’ wrestling. He hopes the move will result not only in more resources for girls’ wrestling, but also greater gender equity for schools that choose to develop it further.
“We gave school districts permission to create separate programs if they so wished, which would then be a separate schedule… a separate coach, maybe even a separate workout, and really put the girls’ wrestling program on an equal footing with the boys’ treat wrestling,” said Kroll.
According to Kroll, more than 1,100 athletes competed on Oregon’s girls’ wrestling teams during the season that ended in February — an increase of about 25 percent from the previous season. The sport, which is listed as a division of high school wrestling in Oregon, is growing in popularity statewide, according to a 2021-2022 National Federation of State High School Associations survey that showed a 50 percent increase in participation in just four years.
Sarahi Chavez, a sophomore who competes on McKay High School’s girls’ wrestling team, won a match by pinning her Century High School opponent Ashley Hernandez Moreno at the Oregon Wrestling Classic Tournament in January 2023. April saw the Oregon School’s activities The association approved wrestling for girls to become an officially sanctioned school sport.
Courtesy of Alyssa Fiebranz, @fiebranzphotography
Sarahi Chavez is a sophomore and a member of the girls wrestling team at McKay High School.
She was first introduced to wrestling at the age of 5 while watching her older brothers and uncle compete at a club in Keizer. Chavez often had to wrestle boys in middle school due to a lack of female opponents. The occasional animosity she experienced during fights from boys and their parents motivated her not only to win but to make a statement that resonated off the wrestling mat.
“I just wanted to beat him and prove them wrong because I knew a girl could … beat a boy in a sport,” she said.
Chavez ended the season with a record 27 wins and three losses. In February, she narrowly lost – by a point – to win her first state title in the 100-pound weight class, which she competed in.
At Hood River Valley High School, Jessica Lister is the head coach of the girls’ wrestling team. Lister finished her high school wrestling career in 2015 as a four-time Oregon state wrestling champion and a three-time college All-American wrestler.
Back then, however, girls’ wrestling was recognized as an exhibition sport by the OSAA, and the medals presented to Lister and other female state champions had the word “Exhibition” on the back.
Lister applauds OSAA’s decision to elevate the status of girls’ wrestling, whose popularity at Hood River Valley High has grown since she was an athlete at the school less than a decade ago.
“When I was in high school, I think there was a total of four girls on the team,” Lister said. “(The) incoming class we have this year is about 15.”
As the sport appeals to more and more girls, it creates a larger pool of opponents who not only match in size but also in gender. And that, according to Lister, makes the sport more appealing, especially to some athletes who may be scared of stepping on the mat for the first time.
“A lot of girls don’t want to train with the boys or compete against the boys, and they don’t have to,” Lister said. “Well, when I was in high school, that was the only way I could compete against the boys in Oregon. “
There are now 38 states in the US, including Oregon, that hold separate wrestling championships for girls and boys
Kroll believes it will be some time before Oregon catches up with states where the sport is more established, including Washington, which was among the first in the US to sanction wrestling for girls more than 15 years ago.
“There are many unanswered questions,” Kroll said. “So there will be some growing pains. But I think now is the time to do it instead of waiting 10 years.”
Meanwhile, high school wrestlers like Chavez are busy training, practicing, and encouraging more of their classmates to try out a sport that focuses on competition and rewards performance in ways other than a game-winning goal or basket to achieve.
“It’s just a really fun thing … and unlike any other sport out there when you’re in the middle of a game,” Chavez said. “I forget there are even people around. It’s just me and my opponent, but I just say to myself, stay positive and do what I can.”
Sarahi Chavez, Jessica Lister and Trent Kroll spoke to Think Out Loud host Dave Miller. Click play to listen to the full conversation:
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