Where’d State Go??

As a former high school wrestler and current female wrestling coach at a local high school, I highly encourage my girls to participate in the Arizona Girls State Wrestling Tournament. This state-wide tournament brings together girls from all over Arizona to compete girl v. girl rather than girl v. boy for the title of Female [insert weight class] Arizona State Wrestling Champion. Although not nearly as large as Boys State, this tournament has rapidly grown in numbers from approximately 54 girls my Freshman year of high school to 109 girls my Senior year.

Typically, Coach (and good friend) Dave Severn hosts the State tournament at Deer Valley Middle School sometime in late February, early March. He’s had special guests come and speak to all the female wrestlers attending such as 4x World Champion Tricia Saunders and 2004 Olympics Silver Medalist Sara McMann .

Picture from amateurwrestlingphotos.com

Despite all the excitement however, I have recently heard that this State Tournament, which was scheduled for March 13, 2009 this year, has been canceled and I have no idea why! Many other states have their Championships scheduled except Arizona now.

My girls are distraught, I’m pissed and it really comes down to, is this a lack of funding once again for the girls program? We’ll see.