Any time during the next three days, there could be 1,000 wrestlers inside the Mizzou Arena in Columbia.
With the addition of girls competing on their own for the first time alongside four classes of boys, the place will be bursting at the seams.
Officials for the Missouri State High School Activities Association worked until late Wednesday setting up computers, laying down mats and configuring the floor for the state tournament.
When MSHSAA decided to add girls wrestling last year, there were 176 competing against boys. By the time this season got underway in November, 970 were certified for competition. Because the officials decided to hold the girls state matches at the same time and same venue, there’s no more down time between sessions.
That’s a good thing for fans, who have always paid separately for each of the three sessions on Thursdays and Fridays. That’s changed. Now a $9 ticket on those two days allows fans to watch all the sessions. The girls have been folded in between the boys’ sessions, thereby giving each fan three rounds for the price of one.
Jason West, communications director for MSHSAA, said the state will hand out an additional 48 medals and hired more referees to avoid wearing them out over the course of three days.
“If there’s going to be wrestling for 13 straight hours, one of the solutions was to add officials,” West said.
West said he expects a whole new crop of wrestling fans to attend this year’s event because of the addition of the girls. The state offset some of its costs for extra medals and officials because each wrestling team has to pay a registration fee.
It’s too early to tell what kind of financial impact the influx of fans and wrestlers will have on the Columbia economy, but the city’s restaurants and hotels are frequently overflowing during the three days.
One of my traditions when I cover the state tournament is to eat at Shakespeare’s Pizza on Ninth Street after the finals. The original of the three Shakespeare’s in Columbia is usually packed, even after the state tournament ends. I always order the double pepperoni and pepper jack cheese pie.
When the state announced last spring that girls would wrestle separately from the boys, the original plan was to have one class, two districts and two state qualifiers from each weight class. As girls continued to join the ranks of schools across the state, officials made a controversial decision – they expanded the girls competition to four districts and added a third state qualifier for the 12 weight classes.
What looked like a move of inclusion was met with disdain from coaches and parents after the four district tournaments were held Feb. 1-2. Supporters of the girls who finished fourth immediately cried foul because four boys advance from each weight class at every district tournament.
All of the girls from Jefferson County competed in District 1 at St. Clair. Nine county girls are competing for state medals this week, but four from the Leader coverage areas who lost in their third-place matches were left home. Seckman senior Sarah Murray (103 pounds), Festus freshman Kirsten Klein (110), Northwest junior Summer Smith (121) and Eureka freshman Skiyah Martin (187) had to be content with their fourth-place medals.
MSHSAA has enlisted a committee to review and perhaps reclassify many of the sports it administers. Until that group completes its work – perhaps by this spring – the way the state is running the girls wrestling tournament will remain in place.
If the number of girls who wrestle in the state continues to climb, West said they might have to be split off from the boys. Right now, the state is under contract with the University of Missouri to hold both tournaments at Mizzou Arena in 2019-2020.
“Right now, we’re at the seams with eight mats,” West said. “I can also see outgrowing the Mizzou Arena depending how reclassification works out. If we’re adding another class to the boys and the girls, now we’re looking at seven classes. At the same time, we may not have as many classes. We could use the Hearnes Center. We could look at expanding (state wrestling) to four days instead of three.”
West said MSHSAA did the best it could to meet the needs of a new, obviously growing sport for the girls.
“We wanted this to be something very special,” he said. “We’re getting a new group of parents and participants who’ve never been to a state championship.”
Scott Cutbirth, the women’s director of Missouri USA Wrestling for 2 1/2 years, said he wasn’t surprised by the number of girls who wanted to wrestle.
“This is about the number I anticipated,” he said. “There have been outlines that indicated that starting a new winter sport for girls would be good because all they had was swimming and basketball. It’s a chance to earn a state medal in a new sport and ultimately go to college. I don’t think MSHSAA thought it would be this much this quick.”
Cutbirth, who lives in Lee’s Summit, wrestled in high school and college and has been coaching freestyle wrestling for five years. Over the summer, he coached De Soto sophomore Jaycee Foeller, the top-ranked wrestler in the state at 167 pounds.
Cutbirth said there wasn’t anything the state could do about adding one more state qualifier in each weight class.
“If you add a fourth qualifier, you add 84 more matches,” he said. “That’s another eight hours of wrestling. They’re squeezing the girls in between the boys’ sessions. Two years from now, it could be its own stand-alone event.”
Cutbirth said between 60 and 70 percent of the girls wrestling in Missouri this year are new to the sport. They flocked to it after being separated from the boys.
“Women are competitors, too,” Cutbirth said. “Once boys hit puberty, they are stronger and faster. Girls had to change how to compete by changing their style. The boys are taught to love and respect women and (they were) being told to impose their will on them.”
Aside from making room for more girls, most of them are being coached by the men who already coach the boys. Some girls are wearing boys singlets, which don’t fit properly.
As you can tell, there are many improvements to be made so that girls wrestling is on equal ground with the boys. But you can trust that MSHSAA will work to get it right.