Girls wrestling takes off in Alaska high schools

Less than a decade ago, high school wrestling in Alaska was a coed sport that saw only the occasional female student-athlete compete in a male-dominated sport.

When Alaska became the fifth state to sanction girls wrestling in 2014, that started to change.

“Up until recently, you had just a couple really tough girls that had to wrestle boys and they were super tough,” Palmer head coach Dan Graham said. “They’d go on to wrestle in college and qualify for the Olympics, but there just weren’t many out there. Over the last four or five years, there is no longer just two or three girls around the state. Every team has a couple of really tough girls.”

The sport has been growing in both popularity and participation among young women throughout the country for years, and numbers in the 49th state have been climbing as well.

The Alaska School Activities Association counted 167 girls participating in 2013-14. By 2018-19, numbers peaked at 343 after five straight years of increasing participation.

While they were down to 224 girls last year, ASAA executive director Billy Strickland attributes that to a dip in participation partly to COVID-19. He also said girls wrestling moved to spring for the year, which forced some girls to choose between it and other traditional spring sports like soccer and track. This year, participation figures bounced back to 283.

“Once they created a separate girls division, it encouraged way more girls to start participating,” Graham said. “The last three years, we don’t have a single weekend when the girls wrestle boys. It’s not really a thing anymore.”

The creation of a girls division acted as a supernova, triggering growth at all age levels and opening up more opportunities at schools all over the state.

“They gave girls wrestling their own separate state tournament and that’s what grew it right away,” South High head coach Randy Hanson said. “Now it is the clubs statewide that are promoting it, schools and a lot of different organizations that are spearheading growing girls wrestling in Alaska and nationwide, and girls are getting really better in a fast way.”

The Wolverines had the largest contingent of girls competing at the Cook Inlet Conference tournament Saturday, but Hanson isn’t satisfied.

“We still got work to do,” Hanson said. “I think there are a lot of girls at this school that we can still get out on the mat.”

Not surprisingly, some schools’ programs grew at a faster clip. But as participation has increased, parity has as well.

At Lathrop High in Fairbanks, head coach Wes Bockert has 13 girls on the team and qualified seven for state.

“Immediately, there was some domination by certain teams that were really into it and a lot of teams didn’t really understand how to build it yet,” Bockert said about the inception of the girls division. “In the past, there was just one school that was dominating, but now every year there’s another school peaking with the right groups of girls.”

Hanson admits that the best recruiting tool is word of mouth from friends and classmates. However, he also believes that the next step is integrating coaching staffs with full-time female assistants and head coaches.

“I think getting a woman’s head coach is a big step because then they’ll have a female coach that helps them out a little bit,” Hanson said.

At Colony High, which qualified eight girls for state, there are two female coaches on staff. Lera Ritz brought experience coaching middle school level, and Roxanne Makamson is the women’s director of the Alaska USA club season. Palmer also has a pair of women coaching on staff.

Colony head coach Todd Hopkins said he’d like to see opportunities for women in head coaching positions. Currently the girls and boys programs are generally combined under a single head coach.

“It would be nice if they were recognized and had the same opportunities that the male coaches have,” said Hopkins. “As of right now, they are still getting paid assistant coach stipends since there are no official girls head wrestling coaches, even though in essence, that is the position they fill.”

South’s goal is to eventually have enough girls at different weight classes to fill an entire team, like some other school programs around the state.

The closest that the Wolverines have to a female coach on their wrestling team is booster club vice president Joy Thammavongsa. Not only is she a proud mother to standout freshman wrestler Jessailah Thammavongsa, but she is very knowledgeable of the sport and can often be seen cheering and instructing from near the coaching corner for every South girl who takes the mat.

“I like my mom being a mom-coach because she’s really helpful with everybody,” Jessailah said.

Jessailah has been working with Hanson and wrestling since she was in elementary school, participating in the Avalanche club, which she described as a feeder program to the Wolverines high school team.

“When she became a freshman, we decided it was only right for her to continue training and being coached by Randy, so we came over to South and we’ve been involved ever since,” said Joy Thammavongsa.

One of the best selling points for recruiting wrestlers to the mat is the opportunity to compete at the collegiate level as an avenue to postsecondary education.

Colleges across the country are recruiting more girls to fill out their teams, Thammavongsa says, as evident by the fact that South has had two female wrestlers advance to the next level in each of the last two years.

Shelby Ottum and Jayleen Sekona were star wrestlers for the Wolverines. They graduated from South in recent years and are shining examples of what the sport can offer young women. Ottum graduated in 2020 and attends North Central College in Illinois, where she competes in the 143-pound weight class. Sekona graduated in 2021 and attends Colorado Mesa University, where she competes in the 191-pound weight class.

“They let our girls know that if you set your intentions, stick with the program and trust the process, you can continue this career past high school and there are big opportunities out there,” Thammavongsa said.

Jessailah was one of eight South wrestlers to finish in first place at regions after she pinned teammate Aaniyah Mills in the final seconds of the third period in their championship bout. She is currently ranked in the top six in the 160-pound weight class — a long way from where she was just a year ago in middle school, when she was competing against boys and losing most of her matches.

“I told her that if she just sticks with it that it would click in high school, when she’d be wrestling girls,” said Joy Thammavongsa. “Her perseverance to stick with the program and believe in herself and all that hard work that she’s put in is paying off this season.”

She was originally inspired to take up the sport when she used to watch her older brother wrestle from the bleachers and has been in love with it ever since. She wants to continue destigmatizing the negative narrative around girls wrestlers by inspiring others with her success.

“I really wanted to try it out and I want to build up this program for girls so more girls can start wrestling and winning matches,” Jessailah said.

One of the best pound-for-pound wrestlers, male or female, in the entire state is Jamiezon Garcia of East High. She finished in first place at the regional tournament as well by dominating the 103-pound girls bracket and is projected to excel at this weekend’s state tournament.

“I’m really confident,” said Garcia, who finished as runner-up at last year’s state tournament. “I believe I can get it this year.”