Grand state championship banners line the walls of the Crisp Gym—basketball, cheerleading, football, track and field, swim and dive, volleyball, baseball, and more—boasting in green and gold the great accomplishments of Shorecrest athletics.

     Shorecrest offers a multitude of different sports to students, including several unique options that other schools don’t have, but one sport is missing from the lineup: wrestling.

     Wrestling isn’t as uncommon as one might think. The sport is incredibly popular, especially in recent years. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, varsity wrestling was the sixth most popular sport for high school boys nationally, with a whopping 291,874 male participants.

     To put this into perspective, more high school boys participated in wrestling during the 2023-2024 school year than cross country, tennis, golf, and swimming.

     And wrestling isn’t just a sport for boys; it’s for everyone. Girls’ participation has been on a “historic” rise in the past few years. In fact, according to the NFHS, during the 2023-2024 season, 64,257 women competed in high school wrestling in America, an astonishing 102 percent increase since the 2021-2022 season.

     Since the sport is so popular across the nation for all genders, I was curious as to why SPS doesn’t have its own wrestling program, so I asked the athletic department about it. Imagine my surprise and delight when Athletic Director Anthony McCall told me that we used to have a wrestling team.

     Unfortunately, the team had to be discontinued several years ago. McCall said, “I just think [lack of] interest [was the reason], from the information that I got when I arrived—there were just not enough people interested. I’m not sure if it really made a big splash while it was here.”

     It’s incredibly unfortunate that this happened. Wrestling is such a fascinating and engaging sport when you learn more about it. Unfortunately, I think most people are not aware of that.

     In fact, there’s a lot more to wrestling than meets the eye.

     Besides being fun to do or watch, wrestling and grappling also have an insane amount of personal benefits. It develops incredible athleticism. According to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, the sport teaches strength, body awareness, coordination, and balance. 

     Additionally, according to the US Wrestling Foundation, it is the “perfect foundation for all other sports.” However, what I think no one expects is that, according to the Berlin Brothersvalley School District, “A fully conditioned wrestler is the most anaerobically fit athlete of any sport.” 

     Above all, wrestling teaches discipline, both mentally and physically. According to the Wolverines Wrestling Club, wrestlers forced to “make weight” – reaching a specific weight for a competition – when done correctly and healthily, gain a crucial understanding of nutrition and the discipline that comes with controlling one’s diet.

     Wrestling can also benefit the school community. Junior Georgia Kurland said, “I think that more club opportunities and spaces where people can come together make the community stronger. I think that there’s no harm in creating more space for community, sports, and friendship.”

     However, people fear the sport might be “too dangerous” for students. “I think that, possibly, people are gonna think that it’s too violent, which I disagree with because I think all sports have contact within them,” Kurland said.

     I completely understand the concern that wrestling might be too dangerous for students. Students’ health and safety are absolutely the top priority. However, according to the Lexington Medical Center, the injury rate for high school wrestling is 2.36 per 1,000 athletic exposures. In contrast, high school football is 3.96 per 1,000 and girls’ soccer is 2.65 per 1,000.

     This means that wrestling is, shockingly, statistically less dangerous for teenagers than both football and soccer–two popular sports that Shorecrest already offers students.

     Before Shorecrest can think about adding a new team to its roster, though, McCall said four main things need to be considered: the competition, the current focus of the athletics program, the space restraints for practices, and the general interest of the students.

     “One thing we really have to examine is who would be our competition,” said McCall. “As far as I know, Northside Christian has a team, but since that’s something that we haven’t offered, we’re not sure who else besides them has a team.”

     It turns out that other private schools in our area have varsity wrestling teams of their own, including Canterbury, Admiral Farragut, Northside Christian, Carrollwood Day School, Bradenton Christian, Berkeley Prep, Clearwater Central Catholic, Tampa Prep, and Bishop McLaughlin. These schools are all less than an hour away, which would make for fast travel. 

     The next struggle is finding the time to start a new wrestling team. The athletic department is currently focused on starting another new team: lacrosse.

     McCall said, “I wouldn’t think [adding a wrestling team is feasible] just because of the numbers right now… What you want to be careful of is not adding too many layers at one time. Right now… my focus is solely on lacrosse. We really want to make a splash for that, and we’re doing all we can to build that and make it as strong as we can before we try to take on a new sport.” 

     McCall also worried about available space. “You have to consider space. It’s a winter sport, and we already have 6 basketball teams… We’ve got to consider how we manage the space to accommodate all of our basketball teams and the rest between those things. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen; I’m not saying it’s impossible. But those are some of the factors.”

     Starting a new team definitely wouldn’t be easy, and, once possible, it likely wouldn’t happen right away.

     While we’d have to overcome significant hurdles to start a team from scratch, the benefits of having a wrestling team would outweigh the initial difficulties. Yes, Shorecrest currently has its sights set on other things, but hopefully, there will be enough interest in the sport so that someday, Shorecrest might consider bringing wrestling back into its sports lineup.