How La Serna Parents Built a Girls' Wrestling Program From the Ground Up
Girls' wrestling is one of the fastest-growing high school sports in the country. La Serna's team has grown from six athletes to 17 over the past year.
A year ago, La Serna's girls' wrestling program had no proper uniforms, no practice space of its own, and no program structure built around what it needed. So a group of parents built one from scratch, one fundraiser and one phone call at a time, and a program that started with a handful of girls now has 17.
La Serna's growth is a small piece of a much larger shift. Nationally, girls' wrestling participation has grown from just over 3,000 in 2000-01 to nearly 89,000 today, with participation up 19.9% in the most recent school year alone, according to survey data from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Earlier this year, USA Today reported that California leads the nation in girls' wrestling participation. Measured against that scale, La Serna's program is still just getting started.
