When Will Iowa Schools and Colleges Offer Women's Wrestling?

The State of Iowa Has Some Of The
Best Wrestling In The World
(Some Women Compete Against Males)

Missouri Baptist University, a small Christian liberal arts institution, is starting a team this fall. Oklahoma City University, the alma mater of three Miss Americas, began a program in 2007. And Menlo College in San Francisco, which specializes in business management and where nearly two-thirds of the students are men, has had a women’s wrestling team since 2001.

The growth of such an unconventional women’s sport at these small, private institutions has little to do with the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX and everything to do with their bottom line. Officials at tuition-hungry colleges say women’s wrestling is an untapped market of prospective students, one that has curiously been all but ignored by bigger universities.

The inclusion of women’s wrestling in the Olympics beginning in 2004 provided a huge boost to the sport’s popularity and credibility. Five thousand girls nationwide wrestled in high school in the 2006-7 academic year, yet only eight colleges offer it as a varsity sport. Three of those eight programs are starting this fall.

Rosters fill up nearly as quickly as colleges create teams. “When we can get so many girls to come here for a first-year program, that’s 20 to 25 extra students who normally wouldn’t have looked at Jamestown College,” said Cisco Cole, the women’s wrestling coach there.
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Wrestling Sports Women Iowa