December 11, 2024 • 46 mins
MatStats does its second annual assessment of HS wrestling numbers. We analyze the participation numbers and growth of wrestling. Part 1 deals with the National Federation of High School (NFHS) participation numbers over the years. Part 2 analyzes the state survey and questionnaire that the NWCA sent to all 50 states. A play on the Beach Boys famous song, MatStats is true to our schools' numbers and provides in depth analysis.
Slideshow for this Episode: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/slideshow38.pdf
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
Slideshow for this Episode: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/slideshow38.pdf
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's episode thirty eight of the Matt Stats Show. Jason
Bryant here along with Glenn Gormley and Kevin Hazard, and
this the money Ball of Wrestling. We're gonna be diving
into statistics as we always do here on the Matt
Stats Show, but today our annual look into high school
participation numbers. So not just today, but also the next
two shows we are going marathon here. Thirty eight and
(00:23):
thirty nine are going to be diving into the National
Federation of High School State Associations the NFAHS, even though
that acronym doesn't quite work with the amount of words
that they have in their title, but in FHS is
the moniker. That's the statistics we're using, also from the
nwca's high school surveys that Glenn will get into a
little bit here, But been a while since we did
a show. We're going to be talking high schools participation.
(00:45):
This is the numbers that I geek out about. It
also is the stuff that we can get into that
that what ifs, well, why is this? Why is this?
And that those are the questions we answer again at
NWCA Matt Stats if you've got a question for future episodes,
But Glenn, Kevin, we got stats, we got high school stuff.
And granted it's been since the Lincoln administration that both
of you guys were in high school, but you know,
(01:06):
back in the day, we just had boys. Now we've
got boys and girls. We're gonna be looking at those
numbers too. But this is something that that it's a
lot of a lot of data to dive through, and
we're going to do that today.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yes, it's I'm really I was really excited to do
all this analysts for this stuff. I think it's an
important topic that people realize the state of high school
wrestling twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, Kevin, you've you've been a high school coach a
lot more recent than Glenn has. And of course I've
never been a high school coach. I don't think anybody
wants me coaching, although I do have my USA Wrestling
Bronze Certification coaching card in case I need to coach
at the World Team Trials. I've got that checked. But
from you know, from a high school perspective, you know,
getting people out for the wrestling program. Your son Brian's
the first year he's not coaching high school in decades,
(01:52):
so you know, high school wrestling has been near and
dear to your family for a long long time on
the coaching side, so these numbers are always important to
coaches as well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Absolutely, And we did have a pool about how fast
Brian would get back into the room. I lost because
I thought it would be December fifteenth. He actually went
into his new room yesterday. He said it's only a
one time thing, but we don't believe that.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, wrestling coaches can never ever stay retired. I don't
know why the NWCA has a group called the Retired Coaches.
Jack Childs has been a big part of that. But
none of those coaches, like they retire and the next
thing you know, they're in the room again. I'm like,
wait what I remember when I when Steve Martin first
got the job at ODU and Keith Laurance had been
(02:38):
retired from high school coaching. I'm fourteen or fifteen times
by that point i walk in there's Keith Laurance in
the room. I'm like, are you what?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
What?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
How?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Anyway, But yeah, wrestling coaches never retired. And of course
my announcing partner is Kevin's son. Brian has ord he's
spent I don't know twenty almost thirty years what thirty
years coaching at his alma mater, Robinson. Second, they're right
across the street from George Mason University, where you know
he went to college, and now it's at South County,
so a different high school situation for him. So and
(03:09):
not coaching. So I text him frequently to see how
things are going. And of course, you know, wrestling coaches
and wrestling people never stray that far away from the
sports as it stands. But Glenn, we are going to
dive into and you are just you pull this nerdy
music stuff out. And of course when this this slide
came up, as it comes up on your screen now
(03:29):
and as always, if you are listening to the show,
we have the accompaniment slide show at mattokonline dot com
and NWCA online dot com for the show notes to
follow along with this this PowerPoint slide show that you
will be watching on screen, and if you're not watching again,
you can flip along with your phone as you listen
on your favorite podcatcher of choice. But also we're doing
this a little bit behind. We're not in November right now.
(03:52):
We're recording this on December fourth. Hence Kevin's reference of
Brian getting into the wrestl room before December fifteenth. But
be true to your school even I know that one,
having sit in the car and trips to Grandma's and
oldies ninety five to seven playing this stuff. So I'm
giving you this one, this one. I know, this one.
I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, this is back from uh you mentioned the Lincoln administration.
This is back probably from the Johnson administration, not the
Johnson after Lincoln, the Johnson after Kennedy. Be true to
your school.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
You vote for that Johnson too, I think Kevin did.
I did the one after Lincoln, of course.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, that's the of the politics on this show. By
the way, people, no more voting talk. We're good.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was just an insult being Kevin's
a He's not a political thing. Okay, So be true
to your school. As an old beach boys saw it
back from when Kevin and I were young. But I
thought it fit well since it's a high school thing
and we all went to high school somewhere, and uh,
you know most of the people watching the show actually
wrestled somewhere in high school. So anyway, uh, this show
(05:01):
talking about old high school days. Trip Davis and I
went to high school together. He's now the CEO of
LD Davis Clues and Adhesives. They're the ones that helped
keep William and Mary stuck together in the old days.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Okay, nice pun.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yes, all right. Then when you look at the show
like the Jason shows, it's the in this episode in
case you want to scroll through quickly. Okay, why are
we here? Mike Moyer approached the three of us and
wanted a library in the NWCA Matt Stats website. And
(05:40):
this is what he wanted. He wanted some people that
were diving to stats. And of course Jason's very good
as announcer and knows so many things about it. He
doesn't even need to be He is a library for us. Okay.
So that's why Matt's Stats is here to help educate
people on statistics and nothing to do with the moves
of the sport. Okay. Uh. Then of course we have
(06:03):
I feel like a number normal stuff, the eight, six, seven, five,
three oh nine that we say every show, And then
I have to say the opinions expressed on this show
do not necessarily reflect any policies or opinions of the
NWCA nor do Gormley Bryant, Howzard always agree with each
other on everything we say when it's opinion.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
And also remember, I know rebroadcast retransmission of this may
be permitted without the express written consent of Major League Baseball. Yes,
thank you, thank you helping me to say.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That I voted too.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah yeah the candy bar, right.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah yeah from Grover Cleveland. Okay, Matt SAT's is the show.
The revolves are our stat stat opinions, et cetera. Okay,
so let's get into this. We normally start the show
with how many four year NCAA and nai A schools
there are? There are now five hundred and eight. Jason
does an unbelievable job of keeping track of who drops,
(07:05):
who adds everything. A couple of schools announced they were
going to add that we had on the last show,
and of course Jason reminded me not all these schools
about it, and some of the just chosen not to
add due to COVID budget whatever reasons. So these are
updated as of eleven twelve of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Four, and not on this sheet is junior college is
because through the research that I've discovered is that has
been the biggest ebb and flow of our programs historically.
So we had a school Colorado Northwestern announced last week
it was going to be bringing back its program. It
used to have a program up until the mid nineties.
And of course, as we started the show today are recording.
(07:45):
On December fourth, news broke that one of Kevin's alma
maters was then known as Keystone Junior College. Keystone College
announced it's closing. So one of the things that we
are losing is not dropping programs, it's just the way
the economic system works today. The expensive colleges, we're losing
programs because whole schools are shutting down. We saw that
in COVID and unfortunately Keystone is another one of those victims.
(08:08):
So sadly, Glenn, next time we do an update on
this one, we're gonna have to knock a knock a
knock a team off of this list. As Keystone College
announced it's it's closing its doors like this week, I
mean and a semester, it's done. So Kevin, real quick,
before we talk about just you went to Keystone before
heading to William and Mary. And there's there's been some
notable wrestling people that are that are Keystone alums and
(08:29):
went the junior college route before going the four year route.
And uh, we don't talk a lot about junior college
wrestling here, but I feel like it's relevant as we
go from that bridge, that high school gap to that
college gap. Something like Keystone was perfect for you.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It was perfect I had. I went up and I
went up in May, and I almost didn't go because
it was snowing as I went up to Keystone College
in north east Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Might as well be in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
But I had Larry Foornicolo as a coach, who was
of course of NCAA champion Penn State, and we had
a during my time there. We had two national champions,
Dick Keith who went on to wrestle for Penn State
and Neil Duncan who went on to wrestle for Hofstra.
And of course, you know, most of the wrestling world
knows Neil from his work with you know, Resulte and
(09:16):
just his Wrestler of the Year. He's just he's been
a phenomenal presence and a great friend over the years.
And and we had we were you know, we won
our region the number of years and we you know,
had number of I think you said there were fourteen
national place winners of Keystone, So it's a big loss.
It's it's it makes me very sad.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, they were a Division three school. Now they a
lot of these bigger two year schools have become four
year schools in Keystone and currently was a Division three school.
So that's where they sit now. So Glenn, of course,
unfortunately have to have to dump the cheerios out of
your bowl. There there's another term we want to use,
but probably won't say it all on this show here,
but we'll have to update those next time with Actually
(09:59):
that's more of some breaking news because that happened about
fifteen minutes before we recorded the show. So moving forward, Glenn,
where are we at with our numbers?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Moving forward? I'll give you some good news after the
bad news about Keystone. In twenty twenty four, there were
more male NCUBA wrestlers than at any time since eighty
one eighty two. Okay, and I did make this prediction
on a couple of shows a couple of years ago
that by twenty twenty five we would have that. This
is a great stat to know, guys. So anyone who's
(10:30):
saying like we're losing the sport is wrong. This is
the most anybody who's younger than me.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The every day missing you.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, just about one guy on this show is not okay,
so anybody younger than me. There are more NCAA male
wrestlers right now than they're everwhere when you wrestled.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So that's a great stat again, as you said, more
male wrestlers and NCAA recorded history.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Kevin, Yeah, that is really great news. You know, anybody
younger than Gormes and I know that they wrestled at
a time where they were you know, more NCUBA male
wrestlers than twenty twenty four. But now, what can you
tell us about the numbers prior to eighty one A
(11:17):
two since Nancy Doublea changed the recorder, how they recorded
those numbers?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Well, okay, thank you Kevin on Sly thirteen that Jay
set us up right now you can see it was
in five year increments. Okay. Dancy Doublea now reports it annually.
They only did every five years then, and in seventy
one seventy two, which was a year after Kevin graduated
from Willeman Berry, they reported three hundred and ninety three
(11:43):
teams and ninety four hundred wrestlers. Okay. However, on the
NCUBA website on their sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates record,
their exact quote is as follows. Between nineteen fifty six
and fifty seven and nineteen eighty one, eighty two participation
(12:06):
rates were collected in five year intervals. The data for
these years was not collected in the same manner as
data from eighty two to the present and includes recreational programs. Therefore,
these data are not directly comparable to other data in
this report. This information is meant only to provide provide
(12:30):
an historical view. So my thought processes. People that are
a little bit older than me are somehow their memories
are going or they're just imagining there were more teams
there than they really were. Jason is hard at work
trying to figure out exactly how many quote unquote varsity
(12:52):
teams the NCAA had back then. It's going to take
up some work, so I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I guess this also doesn't include AIA and junior college
teams and California Community college teams, so this number is impacted.
So the number I'm getting So I'm looking right now,
So I got so far, I'm through it. Looks like
nineteen sixty eight, No, nineteen sixty seven completely, I found
(13:19):
four hundred and sixty schools, but that includes twenty four
junior colleges, eighteen community colleges, and then two hundred and
eighty seven schools that I still haven't identified whether they
are NCAA or NAIA, and some of those schools are duplicates.
So we're getting into that. And then we get into
the three division platform in nineteen seventy four, so again
(13:41):
we were it's terminology and semantics really is what needs
to shape the argument. Because we had this many well
we had this many D one teams. Well, no, because
D one didn't exist until seventy three seventy four, we
had seven hundred you know, eight hundred nine hundred. No,
we never did. We've had that many total, But there's
been ebbs and flows. Schools have loosed, schools have merged,
(14:02):
junior colleges have become four year schools, the names have changed,
and the recording processes of win schools dropped have also
changed through that course of history. So again I'm getting
into the minute she hear about college so I can
dig more on this, but just to give you an update,
I'm still looking to confirm we've maybe got counts that
I need to just eliminate duplicates that do. I think
(14:23):
we did have over five hundred at one point, but
to be confirmed, the biggest number I have without cleaning
the data is four hundred and sixty right now in
nineteen sixty seven, which as we have here since three
thirty two, and a lot of those are not in
CAA schools or they're reporting Like at one point, Texas
had you know, five or six colleges, big name programs
that were only competing against themselves and they were NCAA schools,
(14:46):
but they weren't competing in an NCAAA schedule. You'll even
find those results in Amateur Wrestling News. So that is
the thing. We're looking forward to clean that data to
get real numbers prior to eighty one eighty two, and
that is not easy. So that's where we're at again,
Little mind show. We don't need to repeat this every episode,
but just in case you're coming in and you see
these numbers, you're like, wait a minute, what are we
talking about. That's what we're talking about, and it is
(15:07):
it is the last time I look through I updated
about October twenty ninth, So I need to go through
I think I need to go through the amateur restlus again.
I'm taking the the NCAA guides from the Hall of
Fame and I'm taking the Amateur restl News and just
trying to combine every team I can and then eliminate them.
And not every team wrestled the postseason. Like Yeshiva, for example,
which dropped a couple of years ago. That's a Jewish
(15:29):
school in New York City. They didn't compete on Saturdays,
so well, they're not gonna have a postseason because you're
not going to wrestle on Saturday. But they had a
team going back to coaching Henry Wittenberg. So those are
there's those schools. There's there's like the Marinatha Baptists of
the World that existed that for a long time. They
were in the NCCAA. So again we're diving into a
tangent that's not not focused on high school but just
(15:51):
to give you an update on where these numbers come from.
So I will check this off the off the box
to explain for the next three or four shows, so
you won't have to hear this again for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Interestingly enough, I think you could probably track how the
methodology changed and how it became more exact with the
with the rise in computing. You know, they've you know
it just it got more and more precise as computers
became more stronger and more you know, more people had
(16:26):
and more people could do it, more people could check.
And I think that's why our numbers are much better
today than they were, let's say, back when I was
in school and we did everything with a you know,
quill and ink.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And I'm also going to bring this up to again
while we're talking about it. I don't want to lose
this idea because I think it's a good one to
consider again. For years, the doomsday word and run wrestling
was the term was the term title nine. To Kevin's
point here, the reason I believe we track this stuff
now is there was of course, it was passed in
nineteen seventy two. It really didn't start getting hammered down
on the athletic side, I thinks till nineteen seventy nine,
(17:00):
when the NCAAA started to sponsor women's sports and overtook
the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. The ai a
W which was really the precursor for all these the
dynastic women's basketball programs, and of course there's programs like
a Maclata and then you know, the power programs like
Tennessee were born out of that league and old Dominion
where I went to school. We look at you know, okay,
(17:21):
now we have to bound how do we count this?
How do we know? So it kind of forced, in
my opinion, the stats to be counted. So how do
we know we're even or uneven? Well, you got to
start counting. So three years after the law really starts
getting enforced on the college side, then we have participation numbers.
So I feel like that this is something I didn't
think about until recently. It's like, wait, that makes sense
(17:42):
of why they track it now, because now now you
have something to measure. So again, numbers was what would
boil down when we look at things like you usually
got to go to the numbers. So that's an interesting
byproduct of what I believe is you know that law
is like, well, now we have the stats because we
have to compare. So something also to consider, again not
related to the show, but something it just popped up
into into my head. As we were talking about it
(18:03):
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Episode thirty eight is on the high school wrestling participation numbers. Okay.
This was done at the request of the NWCA, which is,
you know, the parent company of Batsize. So they wanted
us to review and analyze take a look at all
fifty states in DC. So the first thing I had
to do, and as Jason said earlier, this is from
(18:25):
the National High School Federation numbers. Okay, the first thing
we had to do is look at the numbers overall,
and then episode thirty nine deals with the surveying questionnaire
we sent out. Okay, so on this in twenty twenty four. Okay,
the past season there was two hundred and ninety one
(18:47):
thousand boys high school wrestlers and sixty four thousand girls.
Obviously the girls were the most ever, and the boys
also had eleven thousand high school teams. These boys' numbers
are the highest in the last ten years, and we've
grown eight point three percent on the boy's side in
(19:10):
participation in ten years now. There was a big spike
from twenty three to twenty four in these things. Anytime
I see a spike or an anomaly, it piques my interest.
It does for stotch people. Okay. I immediately called doctor
Jackie Piquett, Mike Bowyer's right hand woman at the end WCA,
(19:33):
and she called the NA n FHS. This sounds like
alphabet soup.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Here it is alphabet soup.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Iterations of high school methodology did not change from twenty
three to twenty four and you can see it that
in the other sports, all of them. On SLY twenty one,
you can see that all the boys' sports only went
up two point four percent from fourteen to twenty four
we went up eight point three percent. So we're doing
(20:05):
something better in wrestling than the overall sports are doing. Okay, now,
what about the population growth? Well, from fourteen to twenty
four America's population went up five point six percent. Boys'
growth went up eight point three percent. Obviously girl's growth
is far exceeding that because it's a growth business. But
(20:30):
what I'm saying here is the boys are doing better
than the population and sports overall. Somebody is doing something
really well, and it's a lot of somebody's. You can
see on the chart the explosive growth of the girls
from twenty fourteen to twenty four Okay, Now girls wrestling.
(20:52):
Where does girls wrestling stand? It now stands thirteenth in
all high school teams. There are more girls high school
wrestlers then there are girls field hockey players. That's a
staggering thought, guys. And probably when we get the numbers
for twenty twenty five, we're going to pass into our
(21:12):
track and we'll soon pass golf.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
That is Glenn. I want to I want to speak
up here too, because I've also learned this growing up
on the East Coast and we all were we're East
Coast people, and we're very familiar with field hockey because
it's it's super popular in the Northeast and mid that
mid Atlantic region, whereas you know, there's no high school
field hockey in Minnesota. Yet you know, Iowa, for example,
has the Division women's field hockey team. So field hockey
(21:36):
is one of those sports that it's immensely popular in
a swath of the country, but yet some places it's
still foreign. So a lot of our where we're wrestling,
like boys and girls wrestling. Say, let's take Kansas, for example.
I cannot confirm they have field hockey off the top
of my head, but that's a sport where. Okay, you
know wrestling, you know what's field hockey. So we have
to also understand that some of our listeners you may
(21:58):
not be understanding what field hockey its reach is and
lacrosse the same way, because you know, there's these programs
in the Midwest that's start these field hockey programs. Where
are they going. They're going to Pennsylvania, They're going to Maryland,
They're going to New York in the northeast. So bill
hockey is exmensely popular in the Northeast too. It's a
regional sport, but those are also the population centers. So
(22:18):
that's one reason you have such good numbers with field hockey.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Died you Jason. Okay, Now, one thing I want to
say here is we're going to spend more time on
boys than girls because there's not as much doeted to
pass for girls. When I say this, this is a
business term. It's nothing emotional or physical. Boys wrestling is
a mature business. Women's wrestling is a growth business. Okay,
(22:42):
the women will have higher growth rates than men. Where
do men stand in the list? The ranking of high
school boys sports wrestling is eighth. Okay. The growth rate
from fourteen to twenty four. L we talked about in
the number of teams is four point five percent. Okay,
(23:03):
in the number of SI Now, one of the interesting
things is that the number of teams, the three smallest
growth are football, basketball, and baseball, the big three sports.
So so many people here at the Nationals in Philly
(23:26):
in twenty twenty five will be well, football, basketball, baseball
is getting everything. That's not the truth of the number
of high school teams on the boys' side. Okay, the
high school numbers, I went all the way back to
nineteen seventy okay, twenty twenty four. The two hundred and
(23:47):
ninety one thousand is the most I found that at
any time since nineteen seventy eight. They used to do
it every other year. Back then they had three really
high spy or what does I call anomalies or spikes. Okay,
So right away this just peaked my interest. What why
(24:08):
did it drop from three hundred thirty eight to two
hundred and eighty one thousand from seventy eight to seventy nine. Okay,
So I went and looked for this stuff and try
to find out what's going on. So what happened when
I noticed this anomaly from seventy eight to seventy nine.
Nobody can dig out anything better than Jason Briant Ken,
(24:30):
So Jason sent me this link from the National Federation
High School Sports. Note. Due to a more sophisticated information
gathering system, figures beginning with the nineteen seventy nine NFSH
participation survey are generally lower than surveys of the previous
(24:52):
four years. The main factors resulting in this decrease include
the listing of the United States school only and listening
of senior participation only. Previous survey figures included some Canadian
high school participation and some US junior high school participation.
No true comparacy could be made between seventy nine survey
(25:17):
and the surveys after that. Now, guys, that is two
nice big hunks of information we've given you on this show.
One about the NCAAA, how those numbers were changed, and
we talked about how we all of a sudden realized
we had to get them, and how it's changed in
the high school stuff after seventy nine. I'll give you
(25:39):
a perfect example of this guy. This guy, since we
already mentioned Trip Davis earlier in the show, in seventy eight,
Tripp was in middle school. In seventy nine, he was
a freshman at my high school. Okay. So in other words,
in the seventy eight survey, he would account at wrestling
in middle school. Okay. Then seventy nine, of course he
would count because he was in high school then. So
(26:00):
there is an example and pretty topical since you already
mentioned that in the show of how that's changed. So
once again, guys, anybody who thinks that they wrestled back
in the glory days, okay, there's nothing wrong when we wrestled. Okay.
There's more wrestlers now high school males than there's ever been.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Okay, So twenty twenty four we've got the most boys
high school wrestlers. You're saying with confidence to use in
reliable NFHS stata, we saw more high school wrestlers this
year than ever before. But what can you tell us
about the state by state breakdown?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Certainly, Kevin, Okay, on this list year, we have the
state rankings for all high school wrestlers. That means boys
and girls. I'm not going to read out the fifty
one states because we count DC as one of them,
but it goes California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois for total. Then
we go to boys, okay, and the boys goes California, Texas, Illinois,
(27:04):
Ohio Okay. And then Pa and the girls goes California, Texas. Oh.
Are you starting to get a trend here?
Speaker 1 (27:12):
How about number four? Though? With the girls Iowa, it
did not take them long to go from no high
school wrestling to an unofficial saying unofficial term to the
girls high school union sanctioning it to hit numbers that
are fourth in the country. Big props to how they
did to you know, the state association. It took them
(27:32):
a while. Now there's two athletic unions. There's there's one
for the boys and one for the girls in Iowa.
But like it just it that's awesome. I love that because,
you know, getting Iowa high school girls wrestling, it was
it's just it's a thing. I mean, it's just wrestling
in Iowa's religion. We know that. But like just to
see Iowa sitting there fourth in five years, it took
them from zero to sixty and you know, five years yep.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So the next slide shows state rankings of boys growth
rates in participation. Now I mentioned earlier about the difference
to growth in a mature sport. Mississippi and Alabama lead
the pack on this, followed by Arkansas. Those are newer
states to the game. Okay, where down near the bottom,
how you find New York in Illinois which are very
(28:19):
mature rustling states.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And also Glenn. One thing to look at like if
you look at Vermont, you know down x amount. Well, again,
when the smaller sample size you have the difference of
ten wrestlers impact ten wrestlers is not going to affect California.
Ten wrestlers are going to impact Vermont based on just
the number of athletes in those schools. So I don't
want to say grain of salt because we're stats guys,
but you know Mississippi went from no high school wrestling
(28:42):
sanctioned tournament three years ago to now you know, all
states have a high school state tournament plus DC. So
again growth versus whatever. But also keep an eye on
outliers in smaller data sets that will sometimes skewer percentage.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yes, exactly exactly. So what we moved to next is
correlation one oh one. I just want to explain this
to everybody who hasn't seen this show before. Correlation does
not prove causation. Correlation is measured by what we call
the person coefficient. The coefficient goes a positive one to
negative one. Positive one would be a direct positive little
(29:19):
inter correlation. Zero there is no correlation. Negative one means
there's a negative correlation. A good way to look at
negative correlation. Jason's in Minnesota. I'm in Knoxville. It's freezing
cold here, so I'm sure it's called in Minnesota. The
lower the thermostat goes, the more clothes you wear. Okay,
(29:42):
that's a negative correlation, all right. Now, So let's look
at some of the correlations that we learned by the
boys participation of the girls participation. The largest the major
reasons that some states are more rustlers than another. There's
three major reasons, popularly population and population. Okay, the boy's
(30:03):
population and participation rate in twenty four the correlation is
point nine positive, the girls is point eight. Okay. That
is as big as a correlator as you can get, basically. Okay,
so there's a reason that California's number one. And then
what Jason brings out Iowa with the girls. We'll get
(30:24):
into that later. It's very interesting. There is no correlation
between boy's growth rate and population growth rate, which is
really interesting. Since there is a correlation between population and participation,
you would think that would also follow suit. But what
(30:46):
you can assume here, guys, is the states that are
growing there's more to it than just population. Iowa girls
being the perfect example of that. No correlation between population
growth and least that somebody's doing something. Well, that's what
we just talked about there, Okay, Kevin, Okay, so.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
High high correlation between population and participation, no correlation between
growth and population. So there's something else that play. Can
we look at the states and per capita and look
at the state rankings and see if we can pick
up anything from that?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, sure, Kevin. I did the state rankings for boys
and girls, combining boys and then boys common girls. Okay. Interestingly,
it was smaller states that are way up at per capita,
and because it's per capita, it's still interesting with this.
It goes Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Idah,
(31:50):
South Dakota. You get my point here. It's smaller states
that are doing it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
It is funny, Glad you bring this up because every year,
every year when we talk about best rest states, and
you're looking at number of all Americans at the D
one Championships. I love Iowa wrestling fans, whether it be
Iowa State, Northern Iowa, University of Iowa, whether it be
all those D three schools. The state of Iowa's wrestling
fans are very passionate. We talked about how it was
religion earlier, but you cannot have a conversation about numbers
(32:19):
without Iowa High school fans or Iowa College fans in totality.
Bringing up per capita, it just yeah, Pa is the
most all Americas. Yeah, but what about per capita? So
this comes as no surprise that Iowa is near the
top when it comes to per capita in our mat
stats show They're right, They're right. Per capita, Iowa was
(32:40):
up there always.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I'll be a big celebrity in Iowa with the national tournament.
Give you this information. Okay, now the chart on the
thing if you want to look at them, because we're
not going to read out all fifty one states for
the three.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Again, we have boys and then we have girls girls
per ca. But okay, there's your coefficient or whatever? What
is what do these numbers mean? Just real quick.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Okay, this is for the boys girls that combined. It's
girls' high school rustlers per one thousand state population. Okay, Iowa,
Iowa point nine girls rustlers per one thousand state populations,
not the state population of the high schools, the total
state population.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Okay, all right, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
There is no correlation between participation numbers and per capita. Okay,
which is interesting. Next, here's something very interesting I found
out about Iowa girls and PA boys. We did the
per capita Iowa girls per one thousand is zero point
(33:50):
nine to one. PA boys is zero point nine to three. Okay,
think about this for a second, guys. If Iowa plays
Penn State and football, and they play at a neutral site,
so there's even mount of fans Iowa fans and Penn
State fans and a random distribution of fans, there will
(34:14):
be as many girls high school wrestlers at that game
from Iowa as boys high school wrestlers from PA.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That's and interesting to Jason's point, how fast the Iowa
girls has brought their number up to where they're they're
you know, it's a significant part of their population are
now wrestling. The girls are Yeah, all right, so we've
(34:47):
got six states. Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota.
North Dakota lead the way in per capita participation and
it's the same states and all three they're all smaller
population states. And the questionnaire we sent out did not
ask any question that Mike help us, you know, learn
(35:10):
why this is. Is there any way in the future
that we could ask questions that might help us learn
why these particular states states lead in per capita participation?
And let's talk about more information you uncovered from the
state numbers from the National Federal of High School States.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Okay, the next thing I found out there was a
very large correlation between boys and girls participation numbers. But
this is no surprise because the biggest correlator is the population. Okay,
but it's still good to see there's a strong correlation there,
zero point eighty six. If any guys are recording per
Son coefficients.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
You might be the only one.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
I might be the only one. Okay. There is no
correlation between boys participation numbers and four year colleges with
boys wrestling, but there is a moderate one for girls.
This is very interesting. It could be once again because
girls is a is a growth industry. But the fact
(36:19):
that there's no correlation with all the teams at the
State of Pennsylvania house on the boy's side and the
number of boys participation is is really mind blowing that.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
I have a question about that though because we look
at that or this is not necessarily question is more
of a discussion topic because that seems to defy logic
because as we know, it's like the the people that
wrestle at these colleges. That's kind of been one of
our speaking points. Okay, you go, you wrestle, then you
go back, then you stay in your state, you teach
at your high school. Then you you're you're, you're, you're
(36:52):
coaching the next group, you're you're coming the hallways, and
it's the brothers now and then now the sisters, uh
that are that are wrestling because their coach wrestled in there.
There's this pe teacher that wrestled at say Waynesburg or
or wrestled at Teal or something like that that are
staying in the community. So I'm trying to wrap my
head around. Okay, so the fact that there's all these
college wrestling programs in pas or insert state here has
(37:17):
no impact on the number of high school wrestlers. So
you're saying there's no correlation there.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
None whatsoever. I was very I was very surprised at
this that there was none whatsoever. My best guess on this,
and this is a gas, guys, is that the largest
states by population California, Texas, Florida do not have nearly
(37:41):
as many colleges or tradition as Pa, Ohio, New York do.
So a lot of these young men and women are
going out of state from those large states. But there
is a moderate correlation on the woman's side, which leads
me to believe there's not a tradition of women's wrestling
(38:02):
in colleges because it just started recently. Okay, so that's
my thoughts on that, guys.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Interesting and also, I mean Jason brought it up earlier.
We looked at the Vermont numbers and ten Con skew
the results and they're sore. There's so many less women's wrestlers.
Maybe that's also part of the equation.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Very well, Kenny Kevin, Yeah, very well, very well. Could
be oh I slide fifty four.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
All right, boys and girls for your colleges and team size,
we really can't link a correlation between boys and girls
participation numbers, since population is a driving force not no
correlation between high school participation and numbers of four year
schools for boys moderate for girls could be a mature
(38:58):
versus growth issue, and boys high school participants in team
size had a drop in correlation from twenty twenty four.
And what do we know about the growth of boys
high school wrestling and population growth?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Okay, what I did there is I put a slide
together to see the real growth. You know, when you
control for population growth. I sub took the growth of
fourteen to twenty four for the states the percentage, and
then subtracted the growth of that state population once again Mississippi, Alabama,
(39:32):
Arkansas or anomalies from Mono on the other side is
an anomaly because they have such small numbers. But this
week can really see by and large what states are
growing in relation to their population states, and we get
Kevin mentioned earlier about a questionnaire for our annual show
you Know in twenty twenty five, we can specifically get
(39:55):
some questions and ask some of these states specifically, like
why is oklahom home are really growing on this? Why
is New York Illinois? Minnesota? Not that are traditionally really
strong wrestling states. Okay, now I'm going to go into
(40:17):
something else here, guys. That's called a skew. A skew
is when you look at a graph, for example, when
when the mean When I say mean, that's what you
guys call average, the arithmetic mean. Okay. The median is
a number when there's as many numbers above as there
(40:38):
are below me in mode. You got it. Mode is
the most common one. Okay. If the if the mean
is less than the median, we call this a left skew,
So there's a left tail on the graph. If the
mean is above the median, it's a right I'll give
(41:01):
you a good example of this, guys. An easy one
would be income. If you technically you can make more
than zero dollars in a year if your corporation stuff.
But if you're an individual you could make wrestling. Yeah yeah, yeah,
believe me. I'm still suffering from the negative money I made. Okay.
(41:22):
So when you go from zero dollars a year income
to all the way on the on the right hand side,
which will be the super billionaires, the elon Musks of
the world, Okay, that causes a right hand skew. Okay,
because the mean is higher than the median, could because
(41:44):
Elon musk is income, will skew the whole graph. Now,
what usefulness does this do? Well? What I found out
is where there's the mean is greater than the median,
where boys are high school participation, girls, I score participation,
et cetera. And I found out that these are right
release kewed drafts. And we can use this data to
(42:07):
help us ask some questions, specifically what states are to
the left and to the rights of these.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So we're going to do follow up questions for certain
states in our twenty twenty five survey. We want to
find out even more information we need for our MATTSATS
show in twenty twivey five. We need to ask more
questions to help us grow wrestling and send them to
the twelve states mentioned previously. We're working right now to
(42:35):
formulate those questions for the twenty twenty five survey, and again,
if you're listening and if you can think of questions,
you know, send them in they I think that would
help us and tune the next year and we'll go
in with more in depth answers for this.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
And again to jump in on that with those well
on ACCE at NBCA matt Stats Glenn, you've got an
email address for the show too.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Right and WCS gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
All right, so yeah, NBCA mat stats at gmail dot
com or at NDWBCA mat stats on the socials that
one specifically to access, so we can get that one.
So if you've got those questions and these again, as
you watch along or listen along, they're like, well, wait,
what about that drop a drop a note? Tell us
right now, because we'll log them in and we'll put
them together.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
So I think I think something pretty interesting we could
do with that. If you're in a state that has
the high growth and you know the high growth numbers,
tell us who who there's usually when you see that
you've got a really strong organization, and who's the driving
(43:41):
force on this there there's usually a couple of people
that drive that kind of growth or you know whatever
the things that stays are doing, well, let us know
who those people are. Maybe we could go talk to them.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I think that would be a really yes, all right, Glenn,
I think it's time for Kev's notes.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Right, Yes, it is roll the drum, okay, Kepnes for
episode thirty eight. There are currently more NCAA male wrestlers
that at any time since at least nineteen eighty two.
The NCWA has gone from fifty nine teams in twenty
(44:18):
twenty four to eighty six teams in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
That's up. That's women's teams, women's team.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
In twenty twenty four, there are eleven one and forty
nine high school boys teams and two hundred and ninety
one almost two hundred ninety two thousand high school boys
participants big numbers. There appears to have been a change
in the methodology at the NFHS from nineteen seventy eight
seventy nine there five Matt Studts believes that there are
(44:46):
more high school male wrestlers in twenty twenty four than
ever boys participate. High school petition numbers grew at eight
point three percent from fourteen to twenty four. This exceeds
the population growth five point six percent and the growth
of all the boys high school sports two point four
So big numbers for the boys number six in twenty
(45:10):
twenty four, sixty four thousand plus girls high school wrestlers.
That's more than field hockey, now the number one thirteen
most popular girls high school sport. Five hundred and fifty
percent growth rate for the girls high school wrestling in
the last ten years. That's a that's just off the charge.
The top states for a participation per capita for wrestling
(45:33):
are Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, and the North Dakota and Wyoming.
Population is the single biggest correlation. As Glenn said, three
biggest stub is population, population and population. And we're going
to do this study again in twenty twenty five and
(45:53):
Pat Matt Stats will have additional grassroots questions for the future.
Questionare see why some states grow and others do not.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Thank you, Kevin, And just to wrap up show thirty eight. Okay,
Part two of this show is Wednesday, Deceber eighteenth, three
pm Easterystan enterd Time and tune in next month, same
Matt time, same Matt channel. Next month we go into
dive deep into the state surveys and questionnaires that the
(46:23):
NWCA sent out to all the states. Speaking for Jason
and Kevin, we're signing off. See you next month from OUTSATS.
I'm Glenn Gormley.
It's episode thirty eight of the Matt Stats Show. Jason
Bryant here along with Glenn Gormley and Kevin Hazard, and
this the money Ball of Wrestling. We're gonna be diving
into statistics as we always do here on the Matt
Stats Show, but today our annual look into high school
participation numbers. So not just today, but also the next
two shows we are going marathon here. Thirty eight and
(00:23):
thirty nine are going to be diving into the National
Federation of High School State Associations the NFAHS, even though
that acronym doesn't quite work with the amount of words
that they have in their title, but in FHS is
the moniker. That's the statistics we're using, also from the
nwca's high school surveys that Glenn will get into a
little bit here, But been a while since we did
a show. We're going to be talking high schools participation.
(00:45):
This is the numbers that I geek out about. It
also is the stuff that we can get into that
that what ifs, well, why is this? Why is this?
And that those are the questions we answer again at
NWCA Matt Stats if you've got a question for future episodes,
But Glenn, Kevin, we got stats, we got high school stuff.
And granted it's been since the Lincoln administration that both
of you guys were in high school, but you know,
(01:06):
back in the day, we just had boys. Now we've
got boys and girls. We're gonna be looking at those
numbers too. But this is something that that it's a
lot of a lot of data to dive through, and
we're going to do that today.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yes, it's I'm really I was really excited to do
all this analysts for this stuff. I think it's an
important topic that people realize the state of high school
wrestling twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, Kevin, you've you've been a high school coach a
lot more recent than Glenn has. And of course I've
never been a high school coach. I don't think anybody
wants me coaching, although I do have my USA Wrestling
Bronze Certification coaching card in case I need to coach
at the World Team Trials. I've got that checked. But
from you know, from a high school perspective, you know,
getting people out for the wrestling program. Your son Brian's
the first year he's not coaching high school in decades,
(01:52):
so you know, high school wrestling has been near and
dear to your family for a long long time on
the coaching side, so these numbers are always important to
coaches as well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Absolutely, And we did have a pool about how fast
Brian would get back into the room. I lost because
I thought it would be December fifteenth. He actually went
into his new room yesterday. He said it's only a
one time thing, but we don't believe that.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, wrestling coaches can never ever stay retired. I don't
know why the NWCA has a group called the Retired Coaches.
Jack Childs has been a big part of that. But
none of those coaches, like they retire and the next
thing you know, they're in the room again. I'm like,
wait what I remember when I when Steve Martin first
got the job at ODU and Keith Laurance had been
(02:38):
retired from high school coaching. I'm fourteen or fifteen times
by that point i walk in there's Keith Laurance in
the room. I'm like, are you what?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
What?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
How?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Anyway, But yeah, wrestling coaches never retired. And of course
my announcing partner is Kevin's son. Brian has ord he's
spent I don't know twenty almost thirty years what thirty
years coaching at his alma mater, Robinson. Second, they're right
across the street from George Mason University, where you know
he went to college, and now it's at South County,
so a different high school situation for him. So and
(03:09):
not coaching. So I text him frequently to see how
things are going. And of course, you know, wrestling coaches
and wrestling people never stray that far away from the
sports as it stands. But Glenn, we are going to
dive into and you are just you pull this nerdy
music stuff out. And of course when this this slide
came up, as it comes up on your screen now
(03:29):
and as always, if you are listening to the show,
we have the accompaniment slide show at mattokonline dot com
and NWCA online dot com for the show notes to
follow along with this this PowerPoint slide show that you
will be watching on screen, and if you're not watching again,
you can flip along with your phone as you listen
on your favorite podcatcher of choice. But also we're doing
this a little bit behind. We're not in November right now.
(03:52):
We're recording this on December fourth. Hence Kevin's reference of
Brian getting into the wrestl room before December fifteenth. But
be true to your school even I know that one,
having sit in the car and trips to Grandma's and
oldies ninety five to seven playing this stuff. So I'm
giving you this one, this one. I know, this one.
I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, this is back from uh you mentioned the Lincoln administration.
This is back probably from the Johnson administration, not the
Johnson after Lincoln, the Johnson after Kennedy. Be true to
your school.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
You vote for that Johnson too, I think Kevin did.
I did the one after Lincoln, of course.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yes, that's the of the politics on this show. By
the way, people, no more voting talk. We're good.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was just an insult being Kevin's
a He's not a political thing. Okay, So be true
to your school. As an old beach boys saw it
back from when Kevin and I were young. But I
thought it fit well since it's a high school thing
and we all went to high school somewhere, and uh,
you know most of the people watching the show actually
wrestled somewhere in high school. So anyway, uh, this show
(05:01):
talking about old high school days. Trip Davis and I
went to high school together. He's now the CEO of
LD Davis Clues and Adhesives. They're the ones that helped
keep William and Mary stuck together in the old days.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Okay, nice pun.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yes, all right. Then when you look at the show
like the Jason shows, it's the in this episode in
case you want to scroll through quickly. Okay, why are
we here? Mike Moyer approached the three of us and
wanted a library in the NWCA Matt Stats website. And
(05:40):
this is what he wanted. He wanted some people that
were diving to stats. And of course Jason's very good
as announcer and knows so many things about it. He
doesn't even need to be He is a library for us. Okay.
So that's why Matt's Stats is here to help educate
people on statistics and nothing to do with the moves
of the sport. Okay. Uh. Then of course we have
(06:03):
I feel like a number normal stuff, the eight, six, seven, five,
three oh nine that we say every show, And then
I have to say the opinions expressed on this show
do not necessarily reflect any policies or opinions of the
NWCA nor do Gormley Bryant, Howzard always agree with each
other on everything we say when it's opinion.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
And also remember, I know rebroadcast retransmission of this may
be permitted without the express written consent of Major League Baseball. Yes,
thank you, thank you helping me to say.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That I voted too.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah yeah the candy bar, right.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah yeah from Grover Cleveland. Okay, Matt SAT's is the show.
The revolves are our stat stat opinions, et cetera. Okay,
so let's get into this. We normally start the show
with how many four year NCAA and nai A schools
there are? There are now five hundred and eight. Jason
does an unbelievable job of keeping track of who drops,
(07:05):
who adds everything. A couple of schools announced they were
going to add that we had on the last show,
and of course Jason reminded me not all these schools
about it, and some of the just chosen not to
add due to COVID budget whatever reasons. So these are
updated as of eleven twelve of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Four, and not on this sheet is junior college is
because through the research that I've discovered is that has
been the biggest ebb and flow of our programs historically.
So we had a school Colorado Northwestern announced last week
it was going to be bringing back its program. It
used to have a program up until the mid nineties.
And of course, as we started the show today are recording.
(07:45):
On December fourth, news broke that one of Kevin's alma
maters was then known as Keystone Junior College. Keystone College
announced it's closing. So one of the things that we
are losing is not dropping programs, it's just the way
the economic system works today. The expensive colleges, we're losing
programs because whole schools are shutting down. We saw that
in COVID and unfortunately Keystone is another one of those victims.
(08:08):
So sadly, Glenn, next time we do an update on
this one, we're gonna have to knock a knock a
knock a team off of this list. As Keystone College
announced it's it's closing its doors like this week, I
mean and a semester, it's done. So Kevin, real quick,
before we talk about just you went to Keystone before
heading to William and Mary. And there's there's been some
notable wrestling people that are that are Keystone alums and
(08:29):
went the junior college route before going the four year route.
And uh, we don't talk a lot about junior college
wrestling here, but I feel like it's relevant as we
go from that bridge, that high school gap to that
college gap. Something like Keystone was perfect for you.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It was perfect I had. I went up and I
went up in May, and I almost didn't go because
it was snowing as I went up to Keystone College
in north east Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Might as well be in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
But I had Larry Foornicolo as a coach, who was
of course of NCAA champion Penn State, and we had
a during my time there. We had two national champions,
Dick Keith who went on to wrestle for Penn State
and Neil Duncan who went on to wrestle for Hofstra.
And of course, you know, most of the wrestling world
knows Neil from his work with you know, Resulte and
(09:16):
just his Wrestler of the Year. He's just he's been
a phenomenal presence and a great friend over the years.
And and we had we were you know, we won
our region the number of years and we you know,
had number of I think you said there were fourteen
national place winners of Keystone, So it's a big loss.
It's it's it makes me very sad.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, they were a Division three school. Now they a
lot of these bigger two year schools have become four
year schools in Keystone and currently was a Division three school.
So that's where they sit now. So Glenn, of course,
unfortunately have to have to dump the cheerios out of
your bowl. There there's another term we want to use,
but probably won't say it all on this show here,
but we'll have to update those next time with Actually
(09:59):
that's more of some breaking news because that happened about
fifteen minutes before we recorded the show. So moving forward, Glenn,
where are we at with our numbers?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Moving forward? I'll give you some good news after the
bad news about Keystone. In twenty twenty four, there were
more male NCUBA wrestlers than at any time since eighty
one eighty two. Okay, and I did make this prediction
on a couple of shows a couple of years ago
that by twenty twenty five we would have that. This
is a great stat to know, guys. So anyone who's
(10:30):
saying like we're losing the sport is wrong. This is
the most anybody who's younger than me.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The every day missing you.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, just about one guy on this show is not okay,
so anybody younger than me. There are more NCAA male
wrestlers right now than they're everwhere when you wrestled.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So that's a great stat again, as you said, more
male wrestlers and NCAA recorded history.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Kevin, Yeah, that is really great news. You know, anybody
younger than Gormes and I know that they wrestled at
a time where they were you know, more NCUBA male
wrestlers than twenty twenty four. But now, what can you
tell us about the numbers prior to eighty one A
(11:17):
two since Nancy Doublea changed the recorder, how they recorded
those numbers?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Well, okay, thank you Kevin on Sly thirteen that Jay
set us up right now you can see it was
in five year increments. Okay. Dancy Doublea now reports it annually.
They only did every five years then, and in seventy
one seventy two, which was a year after Kevin graduated
from Willeman Berry, they reported three hundred and ninety three
(11:43):
teams and ninety four hundred wrestlers. Okay. However, on the
NCUBA website on their sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates record,
their exact quote is as follows. Between nineteen fifty six
and fifty seven and nineteen eighty one, eighty two participation
(12:06):
rates were collected in five year intervals. The data for
these years was not collected in the same manner as
data from eighty two to the present and includes recreational programs. Therefore,
these data are not directly comparable to other data in
this report. This information is meant only to provide provide
(12:30):
an historical view. So my thought processes. People that are
a little bit older than me are somehow their memories
are going or they're just imagining there were more teams
there than they really were. Jason is hard at work
trying to figure out exactly how many quote unquote varsity
(12:52):
teams the NCAA had back then. It's going to take
up some work, so I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I guess this also doesn't include AIA and junior college
teams and California Community college teams, so this number is impacted.
So the number I'm getting So I'm looking right now,
So I got so far, I'm through it. Looks like
nineteen sixty eight, No, nineteen sixty seven completely, I found
(13:19):
four hundred and sixty schools, but that includes twenty four
junior colleges, eighteen community colleges, and then two hundred and
eighty seven schools that I still haven't identified whether they
are NCAA or NAIA, and some of those schools are duplicates.
So we're getting into that. And then we get into
the three division platform in nineteen seventy four, so again
(13:41):
we were it's terminology and semantics really is what needs
to shape the argument. Because we had this many well
we had this many D one teams. Well, no, because
D one didn't exist until seventy three seventy four, we
had seven hundred you know, eight hundred nine hundred. No,
we never did. We've had that many total, But there's
been ebbs and flows. Schools have loosed, schools have merged,
(14:02):
junior colleges have become four year schools, the names have changed,
and the recording processes of win schools dropped have also
changed through that course of history. So again I'm getting
into the minute she hear about college so I can
dig more on this, but just to give you an update,
I'm still looking to confirm we've maybe got counts that
I need to just eliminate duplicates that do. I think
(14:23):
we did have over five hundred at one point, but
to be confirmed, the biggest number I have without cleaning
the data is four hundred and sixty right now in
nineteen sixty seven, which as we have here since three
thirty two, and a lot of those are not in
CAA schools or they're reporting Like at one point, Texas
had you know, five or six colleges, big name programs
that were only competing against themselves and they were NCAA schools,
(14:46):
but they weren't competing in an NCAAA schedule. You'll even
find those results in Amateur Wrestling News. So that is
the thing. We're looking forward to clean that data to
get real numbers prior to eighty one eighty two, and
that is not easy. So that's where we're at again,
Little mind show. We don't need to repeat this every episode,
but just in case you're coming in and you see
these numbers, you're like, wait a minute, what are we
talking about. That's what we're talking about, and it is
(15:07):
it is the last time I look through I updated
about October twenty ninth, So I need to go through
I think I need to go through the amateur restlus again.
I'm taking the the NCAA guides from the Hall of
Fame and I'm taking the Amateur restl News and just
trying to combine every team I can and then eliminate them.
And not every team wrestled the postseason. Like Yeshiva, for example,
which dropped a couple of years ago. That's a Jewish
(15:29):
school in New York City. They didn't compete on Saturdays,
so well, they're not gonna have a postseason because you're
not going to wrestle on Saturday. But they had a
team going back to coaching Henry Wittenberg. So those are
there's those schools. There's there's like the Marinatha Baptists of
the World that existed that for a long time. They
were in the NCCAA. So again we're diving into a
tangent that's not not focused on high school but just
(15:51):
to give you an update on where these numbers come from.
So I will check this off the off the box
to explain for the next three or four shows, so
you won't have to hear this again for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Interestingly enough, I think you could probably track how the
methodology changed and how it became more exact with the
with the rise in computing. You know, they've you know
it just it got more and more precise as computers
became more stronger and more you know, more people had
(16:26):
and more people could do it, more people could check.
And I think that's why our numbers are much better
today than they were, let's say, back when I was
in school and we did everything with a you know,
quill and ink.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And I'm also going to bring this up to again
while we're talking about it. I don't want to lose
this idea because I think it's a good one to
consider again. For years, the doomsday word and run wrestling
was the term was the term title nine. To Kevin's
point here, the reason I believe we track this stuff
now is there was of course, it was passed in
nineteen seventy two. It really didn't start getting hammered down
on the athletic side, I thinks till nineteen seventy nine,
(17:00):
when the NCAAA started to sponsor women's sports and overtook
the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. The ai a
W which was really the precursor for all these the
dynastic women's basketball programs, and of course there's programs like
a Maclata and then you know, the power programs like
Tennessee were born out of that league and old Dominion
where I went to school. We look at you know, okay,
(17:21):
now we have to bound how do we count this?
How do we know? So it kind of forced, in
my opinion, the stats to be counted. So how do
we know we're even or uneven? Well, you got to
start counting. So three years after the law really starts
getting enforced on the college side, then we have participation numbers.
So I feel like that this is something I didn't
think about until recently. It's like, wait, that makes sense
(17:42):
of why they track it now, because now now you
have something to measure. So again, numbers was what would
boil down when we look at things like you usually
got to go to the numbers. So that's an interesting
byproduct of what I believe is you know that law
is like, well, now we have the stats because we
have to compare. So something also to consider, again not
related to the show, but something it just popped up
into into my head. As we were talking about it
(18:03):
a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Episode thirty eight is on the high school wrestling participation numbers. Okay.
This was done at the request of the NWCA, which is,
you know, the parent company of Batsize. So they wanted
us to review and analyze take a look at all
fifty states in DC. So the first thing I had
to do, and as Jason said earlier, this is from
(18:25):
the National High School Federation numbers. Okay, the first thing
we had to do is look at the numbers overall,
and then episode thirty nine deals with the surveying questionnaire
we sent out. Okay, so on this in twenty twenty four. Okay,
the past season there was two hundred and ninety one
(18:47):
thousand boys high school wrestlers and sixty four thousand girls.
Obviously the girls were the most ever, and the boys
also had eleven thousand high school teams. These boys' numbers
are the highest in the last ten years, and we've
grown eight point three percent on the boy's side in
(19:10):
participation in ten years now. There was a big spike
from twenty three to twenty four in these things. Anytime
I see a spike or an anomaly, it piques my interest.
It does for stotch people. Okay. I immediately called doctor
Jackie Piquett, Mike Bowyer's right hand woman at the end WCA,
(19:33):
and she called the NA n FHS. This sounds like
alphabet soup.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Here it is alphabet soup.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Iterations of high school methodology did not change from twenty
three to twenty four and you can see it that
in the other sports, all of them. On SLY twenty one,
you can see that all the boys' sports only went
up two point four percent from fourteen to twenty four
we went up eight point three percent. So we're doing
(20:05):
something better in wrestling than the overall sports are doing. Okay, now,
what about the population growth? Well, from fourteen to twenty
four America's population went up five point six percent. Boys'
growth went up eight point three percent. Obviously girl's growth
is far exceeding that because it's a growth business. But
(20:30):
what I'm saying here is the boys are doing better
than the population and sports overall. Somebody is doing something
really well, and it's a lot of somebody's. You can
see on the chart the explosive growth of the girls
from twenty fourteen to twenty four Okay, Now girls wrestling.
(20:52):
Where does girls wrestling stand? It now stands thirteenth in
all high school teams. There are more girls high school
wrestlers then there are girls field hockey players. That's a
staggering thought, guys. And probably when we get the numbers
for twenty twenty five, we're going to pass into our
(21:12):
track and we'll soon pass golf.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
That is Glenn. I want to I want to speak
up here too, because I've also learned this growing up
on the East Coast and we all were we're East
Coast people, and we're very familiar with field hockey because
it's it's super popular in the Northeast and mid that
mid Atlantic region, whereas you know, there's no high school
field hockey in Minnesota. Yet you know, Iowa, for example,
has the Division women's field hockey team. So field hockey
(21:36):
is one of those sports that it's immensely popular in
a swath of the country, but yet some places it's
still foreign. So a lot of our where we're wrestling,
like boys and girls wrestling. Say, let's take Kansas, for example.
I cannot confirm they have field hockey off the top
of my head, but that's a sport where. Okay, you
know wrestling, you know what's field hockey. So we have
to also understand that some of our listeners you may
(21:58):
not be understanding what field hockey its reach is and
lacrosse the same way, because you know, there's these programs
in the Midwest that's start these field hockey programs. Where
are they going. They're going to Pennsylvania, They're going to Maryland,
They're going to New York in the northeast. So bill
hockey is exmensely popular in the Northeast too. It's a
regional sport, but those are also the population centers. So
(22:18):
that's one reason you have such good numbers with field hockey.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Died you Jason. Okay, Now, one thing I want to
say here is we're going to spend more time on
boys than girls because there's not as much doeted to
pass for girls. When I say this, this is a
business term. It's nothing emotional or physical. Boys wrestling is
a mature business. Women's wrestling is a growth business. Okay,
(22:42):
the women will have higher growth rates than men. Where
do men stand in the list? The ranking of high
school boys sports wrestling is eighth. Okay. The growth rate
from fourteen to twenty four. L we talked about in
the number of teams is four point five percent. Okay,
(23:03):
in the number of SI Now, one of the interesting
things is that the number of teams, the three smallest
growth are football, basketball, and baseball, the big three sports.
So so many people here at the Nationals in Philly
(23:26):
in twenty twenty five will be well, football, basketball, baseball
is getting everything. That's not the truth of the number
of high school teams on the boys' side. Okay, the
high school numbers, I went all the way back to
nineteen seventy okay, twenty twenty four. The two hundred and
(23:47):
ninety one thousand is the most I found that at
any time since nineteen seventy eight. They used to do
it every other year. Back then they had three really
high spy or what does I call anomalies or spikes. Okay,
So right away this just peaked my interest. What why
(24:08):
did it drop from three hundred thirty eight to two
hundred and eighty one thousand from seventy eight to seventy nine. Okay,
So I went and looked for this stuff and try
to find out what's going on. So what happened when
I noticed this anomaly from seventy eight to seventy nine.
Nobody can dig out anything better than Jason Briant Ken,
(24:30):
So Jason sent me this link from the National Federation
High School Sports. Note. Due to a more sophisticated information
gathering system, figures beginning with the nineteen seventy nine NFSH
participation survey are generally lower than surveys of the previous
(24:52):
four years. The main factors resulting in this decrease include
the listing of the United States school only and listening
of senior participation only. Previous survey figures included some Canadian
high school participation and some US junior high school participation.
No true comparacy could be made between seventy nine survey
(25:17):
and the surveys after that. Now, guys, that is two
nice big hunks of information we've given you on this show.
One about the NCAAA, how those numbers were changed, and
we talked about how we all of a sudden realized
we had to get them, and how it's changed in
the high school stuff after seventy nine. I'll give you
(25:39):
a perfect example of this guy. This guy, since we
already mentioned Trip Davis earlier in the show, in seventy eight,
Tripp was in middle school. In seventy nine, he was
a freshman at my high school. Okay. So in other words,
in the seventy eight survey, he would account at wrestling
in middle school. Okay. Then seventy nine, of course he
would count because he was in high school then. So
(26:00):
there is an example and pretty topical since you already
mentioned that in the show of how that's changed. So
once again, guys, anybody who thinks that they wrestled back
in the glory days, okay, there's nothing wrong when we wrestled. Okay.
There's more wrestlers now high school males than there's ever been.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Okay, So twenty twenty four we've got the most boys
high school wrestlers. You're saying with confidence to use in
reliable NFHS stata, we saw more high school wrestlers this
year than ever before. But what can you tell us
about the state by state breakdown?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Certainly, Kevin, Okay, on this list year, we have the
state rankings for all high school wrestlers. That means boys
and girls. I'm not going to read out the fifty
one states because we count DC as one of them,
but it goes California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois for total. Then
we go to boys, okay, and the boys goes California, Texas, Illinois,
(27:04):
Ohio Okay. And then Pa and the girls goes California, Texas. Oh.
Are you starting to get a trend here?
Speaker 1 (27:12):
How about number four? Though? With the girls Iowa, it
did not take them long to go from no high
school wrestling to an unofficial saying unofficial term to the
girls high school union sanctioning it to hit numbers that
are fourth in the country. Big props to how they
did to you know, the state association. It took them
(27:32):
a while. Now there's two athletic unions. There's there's one
for the boys and one for the girls in Iowa.
But like it just it that's awesome. I love that because,
you know, getting Iowa high school girls wrestling, it was
it's just it's a thing. I mean, it's just wrestling
in Iowa's religion. We know that. But like just to
see Iowa sitting there fourth in five years, it took
them from zero to sixty and you know, five years yep.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So the next slide shows state rankings of boys growth
rates in participation. Now I mentioned earlier about the difference
to growth in a mature sport. Mississippi and Alabama lead
the pack on this, followed by Arkansas. Those are newer
states to the game. Okay, where down near the bottom,
how you find New York in Illinois which are very
(28:19):
mature rustling states.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And also Glenn. One thing to look at like if
you look at Vermont, you know down x amount. Well, again,
when the smaller sample size you have the difference of
ten wrestlers impact ten wrestlers is not going to affect California.
Ten wrestlers are going to impact Vermont based on just
the number of athletes in those schools. So I don't
want to say grain of salt because we're stats guys,
but you know Mississippi went from no high school wrestling
(28:42):
sanctioned tournament three years ago to now you know, all
states have a high school state tournament plus DC. So
again growth versus whatever. But also keep an eye on
outliers in smaller data sets that will sometimes skewer percentage.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yes, exactly exactly. So what we moved to next is
correlation one oh one. I just want to explain this
to everybody who hasn't seen this show before. Correlation does
not prove causation. Correlation is measured by what we call
the person coefficient. The coefficient goes a positive one to
negative one. Positive one would be a direct positive little
(29:19):
inter correlation. Zero there is no correlation. Negative one means
there's a negative correlation. A good way to look at
negative correlation. Jason's in Minnesota. I'm in Knoxville. It's freezing
cold here, so I'm sure it's called in Minnesota. The
lower the thermostat goes, the more clothes you wear. Okay,
(29:42):
that's a negative correlation, all right. Now, So let's look
at some of the correlations that we learned by the
boys participation of the girls participation. The largest the major
reasons that some states are more rustlers than another. There's
three major reasons, popularly population and population. Okay, the boy's
(30:03):
population and participation rate in twenty four the correlation is
point nine positive, the girls is point eight. Okay. That
is as big as a correlator as you can get, basically. Okay,
so there's a reason that California's number one. And then
what Jason brings out Iowa with the girls. We'll get
(30:24):
into that later. It's very interesting. There is no correlation
between boy's growth rate and population growth rate, which is
really interesting. Since there is a correlation between population and participation,
you would think that would also follow suit. But what
(30:46):
you can assume here, guys, is the states that are
growing there's more to it than just population. Iowa girls
being the perfect example of that. No correlation between population
growth and least that somebody's doing something. Well, that's what
we just talked about there, Okay, Kevin, Okay, so.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
High high correlation between population and participation, no correlation between
growth and population. So there's something else that play. Can
we look at the states and per capita and look
at the state rankings and see if we can pick
up anything from that?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, sure, Kevin. I did the state rankings for boys
and girls, combining boys and then boys common girls. Okay. Interestingly,
it was smaller states that are way up at per capita,
and because it's per capita, it's still interesting with this.
It goes Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Idah,
(31:50):
South Dakota. You get my point here. It's smaller states
that are doing it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
It is funny, Glad you bring this up because every year,
every year when we talk about best rest states, and
you're looking at number of all Americans at the D
one Championships. I love Iowa wrestling fans, whether it be
Iowa State, Northern Iowa, University of Iowa, whether it be
all those D three schools. The state of Iowa's wrestling
fans are very passionate. We talked about how it was
religion earlier, but you cannot have a conversation about numbers
(32:19):
without Iowa High school fans or Iowa College fans in totality.
Bringing up per capita, it just yeah, Pa is the
most all Americas. Yeah, but what about per capita? So
this comes as no surprise that Iowa is near the
top when it comes to per capita in our mat
stats show They're right, They're right. Per capita, Iowa was
(32:40):
up there always.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I'll be a big celebrity in Iowa with the national tournament.
Give you this information. Okay, now the chart on the
thing if you want to look at them, because we're
not going to read out all fifty one states for
the three.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Again, we have boys and then we have girls girls
per ca. But okay, there's your coefficient or whatever? What
is what do these numbers mean? Just real quick.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Okay, this is for the boys girls that combined. It's
girls' high school rustlers per one thousand state population. Okay, Iowa,
Iowa point nine girls rustlers per one thousand state populations,
not the state population of the high schools, the total
state population.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Okay, all right, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
There is no correlation between participation numbers and per capita. Okay,
which is interesting. Next, here's something very interesting I found
out about Iowa girls and PA boys. We did the
per capita Iowa girls per one thousand is zero point
(33:50):
nine to one. PA boys is zero point nine to three. Okay,
think about this for a second, guys. If Iowa plays
Penn State and football, and they play at a neutral site,
so there's even mount of fans Iowa fans and Penn
State fans and a random distribution of fans, there will
(34:14):
be as many girls high school wrestlers at that game
from Iowa as boys high school wrestlers from PA.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That's and interesting to Jason's point, how fast the Iowa
girls has brought their number up to where they're they're
you know, it's a significant part of their population are
now wrestling. The girls are Yeah, all right, so we've
(34:47):
got six states. Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota.
North Dakota lead the way in per capita participation and
it's the same states and all three they're all smaller
population states. And the questionnaire we sent out did not
ask any question that Mike help us, you know, learn
(35:10):
why this is. Is there any way in the future
that we could ask questions that might help us learn
why these particular states states lead in per capita participation?
And let's talk about more information you uncovered from the
state numbers from the National Federal of High School States.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Okay, the next thing I found out there was a
very large correlation between boys and girls participation numbers. But
this is no surprise because the biggest correlator is the population. Okay,
but it's still good to see there's a strong correlation there,
zero point eighty six. If any guys are recording per
Son coefficients.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
You might be the only one.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
I might be the only one. Okay. There is no
correlation between boys participation numbers and four year colleges with
boys wrestling, but there is a moderate one for girls.
This is very interesting. It could be once again because
girls is a is a growth industry. But the fact
(36:19):
that there's no correlation with all the teams at the
State of Pennsylvania house on the boy's side and the
number of boys participation is is really mind blowing that.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
I have a question about that though because we look
at that or this is not necessarily question is more
of a discussion topic because that seems to defy logic
because as we know, it's like the the people that
wrestle at these colleges. That's kind of been one of
our speaking points. Okay, you go, you wrestle, then you
go back, then you stay in your state, you teach
at your high school. Then you you're you're, you're, you're
(36:52):
coaching the next group, you're you're coming the hallways, and
it's the brothers now and then now the sisters, uh
that are that are wrestling because their coach wrestled in there.
There's this pe teacher that wrestled at say Waynesburg or
or wrestled at Teal or something like that that are
staying in the community. So I'm trying to wrap my
head around. Okay, so the fact that there's all these
college wrestling programs in pas or insert state here has
(37:17):
no impact on the number of high school wrestlers. So
you're saying there's no correlation there.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
None whatsoever. I was very I was very surprised at
this that there was none whatsoever. My best guess on this,
and this is a gas, guys, is that the largest
states by population California, Texas, Florida do not have nearly
(37:41):
as many colleges or tradition as Pa, Ohio, New York do.
So a lot of these young men and women are
going out of state from those large states. But there
is a moderate correlation on the woman's side, which leads
me to believe there's not a tradition of women's wrestling
(38:02):
in colleges because it just started recently. Okay, so that's
my thoughts on that, guys.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Interesting and also, I mean Jason brought it up earlier.
We looked at the Vermont numbers and ten Con skew
the results and they're sore. There's so many less women's wrestlers.
Maybe that's also part of the equation.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Very well, Kenny Kevin, Yeah, very well, very well. Could
be oh I slide fifty four.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
All right, boys and girls for your colleges and team size,
we really can't link a correlation between boys and girls
participation numbers, since population is a driving force not no
correlation between high school participation and numbers of four year
schools for boys moderate for girls could be a mature
(38:58):
versus growth issue, and boys high school participants in team
size had a drop in correlation from twenty twenty four.
And what do we know about the growth of boys
high school wrestling and population growth?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Okay, what I did there is I put a slide
together to see the real growth. You know, when you
control for population growth. I sub took the growth of
fourteen to twenty four for the states the percentage, and
then subtracted the growth of that state population once again Mississippi, Alabama,
(39:32):
Arkansas or anomalies from Mono on the other side is
an anomaly because they have such small numbers. But this
week can really see by and large what states are
growing in relation to their population states, and we get
Kevin mentioned earlier about a questionnaire for our annual show
you Know in twenty twenty five, we can specifically get
(39:55):
some questions and ask some of these states specifically, like
why is oklahom home are really growing on this? Why
is New York Illinois? Minnesota? Not that are traditionally really
strong wrestling states. Okay, now I'm going to go into
(40:17):
something else here, guys. That's called a skew. A skew
is when you look at a graph, for example, when
when the mean When I say mean, that's what you
guys call average, the arithmetic mean. Okay. The median is
a number when there's as many numbers above as there
(40:38):
are below me in mode. You got it. Mode is
the most common one. Okay. If the if the mean
is less than the median, we call this a left skew,
So there's a left tail on the graph. If the
mean is above the median, it's a right I'll give
(41:01):
you a good example of this, guys. An easy one
would be income. If you technically you can make more
than zero dollars in a year if your corporation stuff.
But if you're an individual you could make wrestling. Yeah yeah, yeah,
believe me. I'm still suffering from the negative money I made. Okay.
(41:22):
So when you go from zero dollars a year income
to all the way on the on the right hand side,
which will be the super billionaires, the elon Musks of
the world, Okay, that causes a right hand skew. Okay,
because the mean is higher than the median, could because
(41:44):
Elon musk is income, will skew the whole graph. Now,
what usefulness does this do? Well? What I found out
is where there's the mean is greater than the median,
where boys are high school participation, girls, I score participation,
et cetera. And I found out that these are right
release kewed drafts. And we can use this data to
(42:07):
help us ask some questions, specifically what states are to
the left and to the rights of these.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So we're going to do follow up questions for certain
states in our twenty twenty five survey. We want to
find out even more information we need for our MATTSATS
show in twenty twivey five. We need to ask more
questions to help us grow wrestling and send them to
the twelve states mentioned previously. We're working right now to
(42:35):
formulate those questions for the twenty twenty five survey, and again,
if you're listening and if you can think of questions,
you know, send them in they I think that would
help us and tune the next year and we'll go
in with more in depth answers for this.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
And again to jump in on that with those well
on ACCE at NBCA matt Stats Glenn, you've got an
email address for the show too.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Right and WCS gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
All right, so yeah, NBCA mat stats at gmail dot
com or at NDWBCA mat stats on the socials that
one specifically to access, so we can get that one.
So if you've got those questions and these again, as
you watch along or listen along, they're like, well, wait,
what about that drop a drop a note? Tell us
right now, because we'll log them in and we'll put
them together.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
So I think I think something pretty interesting we could
do with that. If you're in a state that has
the high growth and you know the high growth numbers,
tell us who who there's usually when you see that
you've got a really strong organization, and who's the driving
(43:41):
force on this there there's usually a couple of people
that drive that kind of growth or you know whatever
the things that stays are doing, well, let us know
who those people are. Maybe we could go talk to them.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I think that would be a really yes, all right, Glenn,
I think it's time for Kev's notes.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Right, Yes, it is roll the drum, okay, Kepnes for
episode thirty eight. There are currently more NCAA male wrestlers
that at any time since at least nineteen eighty two.
The NCWA has gone from fifty nine teams in twenty
(44:18):
twenty four to eighty six teams in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
That's up. That's women's teams, women's team.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
In twenty twenty four, there are eleven one and forty
nine high school boys teams and two hundred and ninety
one almost two hundred ninety two thousand high school boys
participants big numbers. There appears to have been a change
in the methodology at the NFHS from nineteen seventy eight
seventy nine there five Matt Studts believes that there are
(44:46):
more high school male wrestlers in twenty twenty four than
ever boys participate. High school petition numbers grew at eight
point three percent from fourteen to twenty four. This exceeds
the population growth five point six percent and the growth
of all the boys high school sports two point four
So big numbers for the boys number six in twenty
(45:10):
twenty four, sixty four thousand plus girls high school wrestlers.
That's more than field hockey, now the number one thirteen
most popular girls high school sport. Five hundred and fifty
percent growth rate for the girls high school wrestling in
the last ten years. That's a that's just off the charge.
The top states for a participation per capita for wrestling
(45:33):
are Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, and the North Dakota and Wyoming.
Population is the single biggest correlation. As Glenn said, three
biggest stub is population, population and population. And we're going
to do this study again in twenty twenty five and
(45:53):
Pat Matt Stats will have additional grassroots questions for the future.
Questionare see why some states grow and others do not.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Thank you, Kevin, And just to wrap up show thirty eight. Okay,
Part two of this show is Wednesday, Deceber eighteenth, three
pm Easterystan enterd Time and tune in next month, same
Matt time, same Matt channel. Next month we go into
dive deep into the state surveys and questionnaires that the
(46:23):
NWCA sent out to all the states. Speaking for Jason
and Kevin, we're signing off. See you next month from OUTSATS.
I'm Glenn Gormley.
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