With girls’ high school wrestling on the increase across the county, the National Federation of State High School Associations has announced a couple of rule changes, among several overall, that are part of a concerted effort to accommodate the growing number of female wrestlers. The high school wrestling changes for the 2020-21 schoo year are headlined by significant adjustments to weigh-in protocol and appropriate hair length requirements.
The weigh-in procedure was altered through a combination of changes. Following an amendment to the legal uniform rule, which now permits female wrestlers to wear a form-fitted compression shirt, the rule was rewritten to require that a legal uniform be worn during weigh-in and that no additional weight allowance be granted. An additional clause prohibiting shoes and ear guards during weigh-in was also written into effect.
With the institution of the legal uniform (one-piece singlet or two-piece), male and female wrestlers are now able to weigh-in together in the same lineup, allowing gender-specific language to be removed from all three rules. Additionally, the form-fitted compression shirt offers females a more suitable uniform for post-weigh-in skin checks, which are typically done by male officials.
Significant changes to the hair length rule were also linked to the committee’s focus on inclusion. Previously, a wrestler’s hair could not “extend below the top of an ordinary shirt collar” in the back, below earlobe level on the sides or below the eyebrows in the front. Those confinements, along with the requirement that a hair cover be used for hair that exceeded said limitations, were deleted. Considerable support for this rule change from coaches and officials was generated by an initiative of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, which successfully experimented with relaxed hair restrictions this past winter.
Based on the hair length rule change, the rule which addresses unnecessary roughness, was edited to include “pulling an opponent’s hair” as an additional example of the offense.
Another modification to the wrestling uniform was made in order to curtail participants from intentionally lacing their shoes too loosely to cause a stoppage in the action and potentially thwart an opponent’s scoring opportunity. A technical violation will be assessed in any instance where a shoe comes off, and the injury clock will be started to correct the situation.
Another rule change was that a match will now automatically be stopped and restarted in the event a wrestler commits a fourth stalling violation. Previously, if the offender was called for a fourth stall of the match while in the defensive or neutral position, there was no guarantee his or her opponent would be awarded choice of position through a restart if the violation occurred during the third period.
Finally, a new article was added to the rule dealing with participant injuries. The rule has been designed to discourage wrestlers from requesting injury time from the official as an attempt to stop an opponent from scoring. If the referee determines a wrestler would have scored had the injury time–out not taken place, the injured contestant will be charged an injury time–out and applicable points will be awarded to the non-injured party.
According to the 2018-19 NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey, wrestling is the seventh-most popular sport for boys with 247,441 participants in 10,843 schools. In addition, the number of female wrestlers increased by almost 5,000 participants in 2018-19, as 21,124 girls competed in 2,890 schools.
