Source: IHSAA
STATEWIDE–Boys volleyball and girls wrestling are now fully sanctioned by the Indiana High School Athletic Association. Boys volleyball will be played in the spring and girls wrestling will be a winter sport.
“I’ve had a few people tell me that it should have happened a long time ago, but it didn’t. So we found a mechanism to make it work,” said IHSAA Commissioner Paul Niedig.
Niedig says there has been a lot of growth in both sports, which made it easy to get the conversation going.
“This past year we had over 1,400 girls representing 177 different high schools in this state. Boys Volleyball teams have now climbed to more than 100,” said Niedig.
With full recognition, an IHSAA state tournament will now be established for both sports. The Indiana Boys Volleyball Coaches Association has been administering its state tournament since 1994 while the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Association has been conducting a girls wrestling state tournament since 2017. The IHSAA worked with both of those organizations to make this possible.
“It was all about love for the sport, wanting to grow it, and be able to have kids to have the opportunity to do what they love to do,” said Niedig.
In 2022, the girls wrestling and boys volleyball were added to the IHSAA’s Emerging Sport Process, where they held matches in the same respective seasons. Niedig says the process begins with at least 20 schools in Indiana participating in the sport and there have to be letters of support from schools. They also have to agree to certain bylaws of the Association when it comes to academic and health and safety rules.
“Once they agree, we look for growth. To make the next level after emerging, we have to have 100 teams in the state participating in a sport. When we have 100 teams, then they can be considered a fully recognized sport. Then we can start offering a state championship,” said Niedig.
Niedig said it would be difficult to offer a state championship if they only had 20 or 30 schools in that particular sport.
A measure that would have added Girls Lacrosse to the Emerging Sport Process was tabled to the June Executive Committee meeting.
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