SMACK. The sound of victory rings through her ears. A sense of accomplishment and pride is felt throughout her whole body. Varsity wrestling senior Erin Meymarian’s coach pats her on the back as she walks off the mat with her head held high. She wants this moment to last forever.
Meymarian has been wrestling since the eighth grade and hopes to see the growth of female wrestling on the school’s team in future years.
The traditionally male-dominated sport of wrestling has achieved recognition as an official female sport starting in 2020 per the National Wrestling Coaches Association due to its rising popularity among young girls. Since 1994, the number of women in wrestling has grown exponentially from 800 to 50,000 in the U.S. This growth in popularity is now evident in the school’s wrestling team.
Meymarian believes the sport has the potential to make an individual stronger, both physically and mentally. The lack of girls did have some impact on Erin when she went to states last year.
“At girls-only tournaments, like states last year, I had no one from Chantilly, so I had to sit with the Westfield girls,” Meymarian said. “More girls should join wrestling because it’s a really good community, and you have this entire population of people who just have your back.”
Wrestling coach Mark Weader has been coaching wrestling since he graduated from George Mason University after being a collegiate wrestler himself.
“This is my fifth year coaching in school, and across those five years, I have seen the number of girls on the team grow,” Weader said. “It is refreshing to see this change from the typically male majority.”
In recent years, the climb in female popularity is becoming a common occurrence in high schools, so speculations regarding the Virginia High School League (VHSL) sanctioning girls wrestling as its own sport have come about.
Weader believes that steps taken by FCPS would be the big factor in propelling the success of women’s wrestling in Virginia high schools.
Additionally, the Virginia Wrestling Association (VWA) has started to craft a proposal to pitch to VHSL. This motion would include endorsing women’s wrestling in the state wrestling community as a category separate from the boys. Apart from the proposal, a petition to support the proposal and encourage VHSL to sanction girls wrestling has been made to move forward the sanctioning of girls wrestling.
Junior Amala Elangoven is among the girls who joined the JV team. She believes there is no reason girls should be scared or intimidated to join, in spite of the fact that the majority of the team are boys.
“Honestly, you don’t even notice that you’re in a room full of guys because when you’re actually practicing, your body hurts so much you don’t even notice who’s in the room,” Elangoven said.
The wrestling team’s first meet is on Dec. 2 at Independence High School in Ashburn.
