[cheering] ANNOUNCER: Wrestling fans, welcome to the Giant Center for this inaugural and historic moment in time as we wrestle, for the first time ever, for the girls division of the PIAA wrestling championships.

[music playing] Being here in the Giant Center this year, it's unreal.

It's like, wow, we're really here.

This huge arena, sold out tickets, It's crazy.

I'm so excited.

To see this in motion, the planning and all the dreams that so many people had, it's been an incredible weekend.

We finally got it to where we want it to be.

It's just very satisfying to be here and wrestling with the boys.

This whole season has been really surreal.

Wrestling is now a real possibility for any girl in this state, and that's just incredible.

[music playing] JAEL MILLER: Come on, Roxy.

Bring the stick.

I live in a really rural part of the state.

There's not a whole lot around.

As a person, I'd say I'm pretty closed off.

I don't talk to very many people.

I kind keep to myself.

I'm definitely not a social person.

But wrestling has taught me how to be around people.

When I already have a connection with someone through wrestling, I don't feel pressured to be someone I'm not.

I can just be myself, so it's a lot easier for me to open up.

I live on a farm.

The farm has been in the family for six generations.

We've had it since the 1860s.

All of us kids help out on the farm, and we have since we were little.

We all know the hard work that's needed, and we all do it.

When I first started traveling more and going bigger places with wrestling, it was kind of hard for me to handle.

Where I have grown up, it's completely different from the competitions that I go to.

It's just a completely different world.

I got into wrestling at five years old.

I have two older brothers, and both of them wrestled, and so I tagged along to the practices and was just watching.

And then one day, I was just like, dad, I want to sign up.

Once I really found a love for it and was like, I want to be dedicated to this, my dad was like, OK, we'll try and get as much as we can to help you achieve it.

[music playing] So that's my first trophy for my first ever tournament, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Tournament that they used to hold at the high school.

And then this little teddy bear is actually a trophy, technically.

It was the award for first place at a tournament, I believe, in Clarion.

I think I probably have over 30 wrestling medals, which I think is quite a lot.

In the state championships of 2023, I ended up losing in the finals and placing second, and that was really hard.

Before the match, I had gone undefeated for three years and had won states the three years before that.

So I had such a high expectation of myself.

I think if I'd be able to win a state title, seeing as it's the first year with the PIAA and suffering a loss last year after coming back, I think it would really matter because I'd be like, OK, I'm not knocked down.

I'm still going.

This year I have the goal of being on top of the podium.

We are just 15 minutes down the road from the Giant Center where the boys had their state championship the past few days.

And today is an opportunity for all the girls to compete for their state championship.

[upbeat music] This tournament is run by Pennsylvania USA Wrestling in my house and then Sanctioned PA, which is a non-profit organization working to grow opportunities for girls wrestling in the State of Pennsylvania.

The State of Pennsylvania's tradition-rich in wrestling.

It's part of the fabric and the culture of being Pennsylvanian.

And so now to have that opening up for the girls is just a tremendous sight to see for me.

And I'm honored to be a part of it.

My name is Terry Steiner.

I'm USA Wrestling's Women's National team coach in charge of our world and Olympic teams.

For a lot of years, it wasn't people outside the sport holding our sport back.

It was people inside the sport.

Coaches have been our biggest assets and sometimes our biggest detriment because of change-- change of mindset, change of heart-- and maybe fear, fear of how do I coach a girl.

They're not used to that.

I think it was just a matter of people kind of opening their minds and just being able to see that, oh yeah, girls belong here too.

And yeah, girls are wrestlers.

And this makes sense.

TERRY STEINER: We have a room full of pretty tough girls, and they said, we want to wrestle.

We fell in love with the sport just like you did as a young boy.

And we fell in love with it because our dads were coaches, and our brothers were wrestlers, and we're going to do it.

And so now it's just getting coaches on board.

ROB WALLER: I'm Rob Waller, and I run the All-American Wrestling Club in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

Wrestling is my passion, and I've been coaching for 50 years.

I have an athlete here today.

Her name is Jael Miller.

ANNOUNCER: At 170 from Punxsutawney, Jael Miller.

She's athletic.

She's coachable.

And most importantly, she's a great person.

When you bring it up, slide your knee up, cinch it.

Remember, cinch it and back over.

Boom, knuckle down.

There it is.

Now to make you cry for your mama.

I've been training with Coach Rob Waller for roughly four years now.

It's a wonderful place.

He treats you like family, and he truly does care about the kids.

Good job, Blasko!

Polish power.

Good to see you, buddy.

Haircut of the year, guys.

Hey, haircut of the year right here!

Every kid's different-- different body styles, different personalities.

Not every one's a state champ, but everyone can be a better citizen and adult when they leave here.

That's really our job.

Wrestling's the means by which we do it.

JAEL MILLER: They will chew you out for something you did wrong, but then they will help you fix what you did wrong.

And I really like that.

And they push you very hard.

As I pick it up, guys, I want to take it at a 45-degree angle here.

And as I pick that leg up, I'm going to throw that same hip to the mat here.

On 2, 1, 2.

ROB WALLER: If you come in here, male or female, standard is the same.

You want to do this, so get your butt out there.

And Jael responds just fine.

She epitomizes what an athlete should do.

[music playing] JAEL MILLER: When I first started, he was a little wary about me coming.

I was reluctant at first.

I'm an old-time guy.

JAEL MILLER: But then his granddaughter decided that she wanted to wrestle too.

My daughter goes, Gianna wants to wrestle.

I went, no, no, no.

Come on.

She would poke at my dad and say, Granddaddy, I want to wrestle.

He would say, OK, honey, sort of shrug it off.

ROB WALLER: My first feeling was, this is ridiculous.

Why are they doing this?

This isn't even ladylike.

But my daughter said you coach all these years, and you won't coach your granddaughter.

Anyway, I'm coaching her and now a bunch of girls.

Now I enjoy it.

They're extremely coachable.

They don't choose to debate with you like boys do, and they work hard.

Now, when I see the pride in my dad's eyes with his girl athletes and especially, his granddaughter, it's one of the most beautiful transformations I can see.

ROB WALLER: This is not a fad.

This is taking off.

So I can't be an old hardheaded hillbilly and say, no.

Come on in, girls.

That he came around to it with his old school mentality, I couldn't be more proud of that, and I'm just thankful.

If you'd have said to me 10 years ago-- I said, there ain't no girl coming in here, and look where we are today.

So we change.

We evolve.

Attitudes changing about wrestling has really been extraordinary.

Wrestling has always been seen as a sport that only males can do.

It's really aggressive.

It's really mean.

It's really tough.

It's gritty.

It's dirty.

It's all these things.

And girls are not suited for it.

But girls and women are changing what a wrestler is, what a wrestler looks like.

And over time, people have begun to realize that wrestling is designed to be a sport for all.

[upbeat music] The sport has definitely evolved from a few girls here, a few girls there to teams of full girls like we're seeing today.

When I first started wrestling, there were only a couple of local girls, but there weren't really many.

We got so many little girls.

It's amazing.

1, 2, 3, [inaudible].

In the last 10 years, we have witnessed an explosion of girls high school wrestling across the country.

The first big moment was in 1998 when Hawaii said we're going to have an official girls championship.

Then five other states followed.

TERRY STEINER: The growth has been unbelievable.

Really, most of that growth came after 2016 when we had our first Olympic champion.

And I think what that gold medal did for the state of women's wrestling in the US is probably immeasurable.

Suddenly, everyone got pointed in the same direction.

And the next thing you know, we started to see this increase in state associations saying yes to girls wrestling.

And when this happens, when a state sanctions, the growth will double or triple.

In the State of Missouri, they had 200 girls.

When they sanctioned, they went to 900.

And the next year, they were at 1,500.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: Last season, 65,000 plus girls turned out for high school girls wrestling across the country.

Once you give girls the opportunity to wrestle, they won't just come by the hundreds.

They'll come by the thousands.

Sanctioning and having that girls' championship is everything.

It's the single biggest way we can actually grow the numbers.

You can start to see the numbers growing on a national level.

But Pennsylvania, one of the richest wrestling states in the nation, was just lagging behind.

All right, good elbow is going to be in that kind of club position, shivered in there.

Lazy elbow is going to be popped up.

You should just post that sucker and take your shot.

All right 3, 2, 1, go.

I'm the head girls wrestling coach for JP McCaskey high school.

Beat the Streets, Lancaster supports us.

So I'm the head girls coach for Beat the Streets as well.

What I'm looking for, is it here or here?

If it's here, pass.

If it's here, post.

I've been teaching and coaching for 30 years.

Back in the late '90s and early 2000s, our current athletic director here, Mr. John Mitchell, got behind several teams of girls.

Unfortunately, the infrastructure didn't support it.

But as time moved on, we could see that there were girls here that wanted to wrestle.

John kept saying, we just need one school.

We don't need 30.

We need one school to break that ice and be the first.

So in March of 2020, McCaskey approved.

They were the first district in the State of Pennsylvania to approve an all-girls team.

We had six girls the very first year, and we've grown considerably since then.

In our second year, we had 12 girls.

And then this year, we had 25 girls on our team.

So we've pretty much doubled every year.

Entering the season, there was only nine schools in the state that were up and running.

By the end, it was in the teens.

And on February 14, 2023, we hit our 100th school.

And so that made us eligible for a vote for sanctioning.

SCOTT MARTIN: Pennsylvania-- and I say this with great pride-- is the epicenter of wrestling in this country and around the world.

And there was one component missing from that equation.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

And I'm so happy to say today that that piece of the puzzle is now complete, and we are now going to have sanctioned PIAA girls wrestling in Pennsylvania.

Today, the PIAA passed the inclusion of girls wrestling in the PIAA program, meaning that from here on out, we will have a state championship and that it will be a recognized sport.

So we're here celebrating.

It's been our group.

It's been Sanctioned PA.

But it's been wrestlers.

It's been parents.

It's administrators.

It's coaches that had girls walk in and want to wrestle and that worked with them to make that happen.

The vindication for me are those coaches that used to give me a hard time when I first started coaching girls who are now open to the idea and have seen the growth.

Now to see those same guys coaching their daughters and granddaughters is a huge change.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: I think I have heard thousands-- not hundreds anymore.

It's thousands of men saying, I was that guy.

I didn't want girls.

I didn't want to coach girls.

I didn't want them anywhere near our sport.

But everyone is realizing that everything gets better when you include girls and women.

ELISA LACKEY: On a given week, I probably dedicate four to five hours per day to wrestling, and that is in various capacities, so either as a wrestling coach, or as the Pennsylvania USA Wrestling women's director.

When I applied for the position, I knew that it was kind of getting closer to the season, so I just decided to throw my name into the pool because I wanted my kids to have a team.

So I applied, and then I found out that there was only two applicants, me and one other person.

[laughs] So we formed the team.

Hi, ladies.

Hey, how are you?

I was raised in a wrestling room, essentially.

My dad was a youth wrestling coach.

My brothers all wrestled, all three of them.

And I was the State High wrestling manager for all four years while I was in high school here.

So I'm very familiar with the program, and it's just really cool to see that my Alma mater has a program now for girls.

When you're trying to get loose, you need to make sure that this hip is out so that you're pushing.

Hip out, hip out.

Go, go, go.

Good job.

You were doing this.

It will be under and over.

You can't lock hands just in general before she stands up.

The group of girls that we have in the room right now, in a nutshell, are new.

They're brand new to the sport.

The explosion that we're seeing, so many of them are first-time wrestlers.

And it's really challenging.

This is a really hard sport.

There's a whole new vernacular.

It's physically rigorous.

It takes time to develop our strength and our stamina.

There you go.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: It can be really rough out there to be a new girl in wrestling.

We did this fall tour of all of our sports, and we drove around to see if we could drum up interest.

I was at field hockey, and they came over to us.

And I remember I was so excited.

I actually started jumping up and down.

I've always just had a love for wrestling.

And I've always wanted to try it out, but there's never been a girls team.

So whenever they finally made one, I was like, finally!

And I was so excited to join.

There you go.

Good job.

ISABELLE DUBLER: I've been to a bunch of Penn State matches, and I've always loved it and thought it was really cool.

I have a dog named Bo Nickal after the Penn State wrestler.

He was my favorite wrestler, so I named my dog after him.

And I've been begging my parents to get a second one to name Zane Rutherford after the other Penn State wrestler.

ELISA LACKEY: We're super lucky to have just the dedication.

Girls come in every single day.

They're practicing for two hours a day, and they do a really good job.

They might not win, but they learn each and every time, which has been really cool to see.

You want to drive far enough with your knee so we're getting to the hips.

Girls are harder to get to the hip.

They have a really good core, but that's our goal, to get them to the hip.

For this one, I can tight waist and make the transition.

Then knee in the butt, and then you want to twist at an angle.

Over the past few years, I've turned wrestling into, I would say, my life.

I go to school here and wrestle.

On the weekends, I wrestle.

My diet consists around wrestling.

I hang out with my friends who wrestle.

At my old school, I was viewed as different, a try-hard almost, for putting in the extra work.

But here at Bishop McCort, no matter what you choose to do, from theater to basketball to chorus to wrestling, they're going to help you with whatever you want help with.

And I love that.

The relationship that we have with our teammates is definitely like family.

I couldn't imagine a better group of people to spend most of my time around.

Here, I feel like we really are one big group, but I feel like also you're your own person.

You're your own wrestler, so you can be whatever you're going to push yourself to be and not to set a limit based on other people.

That was good, Lane.

That was good.

[music playing] Here at McCort, we practice with each other.

But then as soon as this is done, we go the compound.

[upbeat music] We have world team members.

We have a world champion.

We have multiple national champs.

I don't think any club trains like how we do.

We spend about five or six hours a day training.

Everybody has the same goal.

Everybody wants the same thing.

So we all push each other to be better and achieve that goal that we all want.

It's like an iron sharpens iron type of situation.

They work from 5 o'clock in the morning all the way up till 9:30 at night.

So they're very, very hard workers, and they're definitely changing the sport of wrestling in this area for girls.

Time.

Very nice.

OK, bring it in.

We're going to model what this is going to look like.

Back up.

Back up.

I think for how amazing wrestling is for the guys here in the state and how much of a powerhouse it is, we were a little late to the show, but I think we're catching up.

The boys here at McCort are very welcoming.

They support us, and we support them.

Excellent, excellent.

I know for some girls, it's not been the best situation for them, but we train with a group of very mature men, I like to say.

ALYSSA FAVARA: They don't treat it like wrestling a girl.

There's no special treatment.

It's like, OK, you want to be a national champion, OK, you're going to train no different.

When I started wrestling junior year, there wasn't any girls on the team.

I always practiced with boys.

Usually, I'm the only girl in the wrestling room.

My high school team was an all-boys team.

I was the only girl for a pretty long time.

There was not a lot of opportunities for me to wrestle girls.

As a kid growing up on the youth circuit, I just remember the girls wrestled just in the boys brackets.

My wife wrestled, and when she got into middle school, she got tired of wrestling the boys, and she decided she wanted to run track and field.

So I look back, and I'm like, man, if women's wrestling was a thing, we would be in a parallel path right now.

We would both be doing the same thing, chasing our goals together.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: So many girls were dropping out of wrestling before high school.

It really was train and compete against boys or find something else to do.

At my old school, it was not welcoming.

The boys made me feel like I wasn't a part of the team.

I'd always be the person left out.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: The wrestling community was not shy about letting me know that I wasn't welcome, that I wasn't wanted, that my participation was not considered appropriate, and that this was not a place for girls.

I actually stopped wrestling for a whole year because I was tired of being the only girl I felt really alone.

JAEL MILLER: Training with the boys can be difficult.

Sometimes, I'll go someplace new, and the boys are very wary about practicing with me.

And then I get frustrated with that.

Boys definitely do not take it easy on the girls.

There's still that stigma.

They don't like to lose to a girl.

Sometimes, there's boys that will be mean to you at practice or whatever because they don't want you to beat them up because you're a girl.

It's a little tough when it's a girl in the way society is.

What the boys don't like is when she whips them.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: What gets so difficult as we get into the high school space is the ability for girls to find success when they are always competing against males.

That's not the way Scholastic Sports are supposed to work.

Also, we're placing a really heavy social burden on the boy.

If he beats this girl, this is not an accomplishment for him.

Why?

Because society has defined that she is less than.

If he loses to her, he may actually quit the sport and not return.

That's not what we want in high school sports.

We want girls to have a pipeline to success if they choose it.

If I turn out for wrestling, and I want to be a state champion, I should have a pipeline for that.

And my best chance for that success is going to be against other tough female wrestlers.

My senior year, I went to the school board and presented the proposition to get a girls' team, and it went through, and now we got a girls team.

We were so persistent on trying to get a girls' team, and I was not harassing, but being very persuasive to my principal, the athletic director.

We ended up creating the first ever girls' team in our school district in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

I told my coach, you actually have to put effort into recruiting other girls and making this happen.

And he did.

We recruited five, six girls.

I wasn't alone anymore.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: Oftentimes, it is one girl that steps into the wrestling room saying, I want to wrestle.

And she might get a coach that's like, great, I'm happy to coach you.

And that coach takes the initiative and says, I'm going to start a girls team, and we're just going to get this started, and we'll figure it out and build it as we go along.

That's where the magic has really been happening.

It's really nice to have a women's team that I'm on and actually competing against women.

It's a lot more fun, and I feel a part of a community.

I wouldn't be where I am without training with the guys, but I do love to have my girls to train with.

[music playing] I really miss the beach.

I really miss the beaches.

As silly as that may sound, I really miss-- there are some things that I would do with my friends on the weekends like being able to just go out and drive around or being able to go to the beach or being able to go to the mall.

There was a lot to do in Naples where I used to live.

Johnstown is definitely not like that.

Our fun is going to Walmart and seeing how long we can go before we get kicked out.

But when it comes to my goals, missing out on those things, all that seems really small compared to what I'm trying to do.

It was just my mom and I that came up here.

I left my dad, my cousin, my grandma.

I left my whole family to come up here and chase this dream that I have.

So that definitely took a toll on me.

I miss my family a lot.

I try to get down there as much as I can, but I think it was well worth it.

Hey, Remington.

Hi, puppy.

Oh my goodness.

Who's in there, bud.

CHRISTINE HESCOX: [inaudible] Alyssa.

Mother.

I miss you.

CHRISTINE HESCOX: I miss you too.

This is my puppy, Remy.

He's not really a puppy.

He's four.

But we got him when he was a puppy, and he's a little bit nuts, but he's my best friend in the whole world.

He's really cute.

Mom and I, we're Cuban.

We're Latina.

So that's from my quinceañera.

That's when I turned 15.

This is from one of my first ever tournaments, and that was an edit that-- CHRISTINE HESCOX: That was the first-ever tournament.

That was my first-ever tournament.

So it's like the brawn and the beauty.

I feel like it goes good together.

She's always had these goals, and she's always known what she needs to get there.

And part of that entailed up and moving to Pennsylvania in two weeks.

People here in Pennsylvania, they're a little bit more like-minded when it comes to what they want to achieve.

In Florida, you get a handful of people who want to be great, and you get a handful of people who just do it to do it.

In Pennsylvania, it's like everybody does it to be great.

And I think it's really important to surround yourself with how you want to be.

So if I wanted to be great, I needed to go where the great people are, and that's Pennsylvania.

The idea had been brought up, and I was given a week to think about it.

And I just thought about if I don't do this, am I going to spend the rest of my life thinking I could have-- I could have been great.

I could have made this sacrifice, made that decision, and it would have changed the course of my life.

So I just remember, I said-- I was like, yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it.

Let's move.

The minute that we crossed into the Pennsylvania border, I just felt this weight lift off my shoulders because I was like, I made the right decision.

That's when I knew this is what I want to do.

I'm serious about this.

I'm going to take this as far as I possibly can.

Wrestling, it's not something that I do.

It's who I am.

I don't do wrestling.

I am a wrestler.

[music playing] All right, let's start over on this side.

We're going to work our way down the line and then back.

So get over there.

Get in the line.

Pack in over here.

Everybody's over this side.

Slide down, slide down.

Right foot, left foot.

You got to be on the balls of your feet.

Everything's real quick-- all the way down.

All the way down the line.

All the way down the line.

All the way down the line.

Lancaster County is a very unique county.

Most people know it for the Amish.

But what they don't realize is you get right smack dab in the middle of the county, and you have a city that has about 60,000 residents.

It was one of the more friendly locations for immigrants that were displaced from warfare.

So over the last 30, 40 years, you've had a huge influx of people from Latin America and other spots around the world.

You'll see stores where you have Latin food.

You've got African-American communities.

And then you have an Amish buggy roll down the streets.

The district is a minority district, and the overall student population is about 90% poverty rate.

We definitely feel it within the wrestling program.

We're up against other districts that don't quite have the same limits with what their finances afford them.

All right, let's go, everybody over here real quick.

Every district, you have your fair share of students that have a lot of heavy stuff they carry.

But you get into a district in an urban environment or maybe a rural district where there's heavy poverty, and those types of life issues just grow exponentially.

[music playing] You've got people that can just snap their fingers, and mom and dad will offer up $2,000, $3,000 for them to travel to national tournaments like Fargo or the junior duals.

We have to do a lot of heavy fundraising on the front end to try to help that be obtainable for some of them.

I don't think there's a girl on the team that doesn't have some things-- troubling things going on at home right now.

A lot of kids have issues with money, family members not being a part of their lives.

They're always dealing with these problems and then having to come in here and perform to their best ability.

At a different district, a more suburban type of district, you come in-- expectation, you're going to practice every day.

We have girls that literally have to work because they're helping chip in with the rent.

They have to stay home because mom had to go to work, and there's no one to watch younger brothers or sisters.

So my minimum attendance is set at 60%.

I mean, that's low.

But do you punish a kid for life experiences that they have no control over?

I had to really readjust some of those expectations to meet them where they were at and not have them in a place where sports become unattainable.

This room, these girls, Coach Franklin, they're all my safe space.

And I can tell talking to other girls too, watching them progress that this has developed into their safe space too.

Coming here, we got to be together and be kids and just do something we love.

Wrestling really brings you away from negative things in your life, and it's just a way that you can open up and just be yourself.

Keep repping, keep repping, keep hipping those reps-- finishing through, finishing through.

One of the things I figured out real early-- everybody who said wrestling is wrestling, you just coach wrestling, whether they're boys or girls.

And if you've coached girls for a minute, you realize that's not the case at all.

The relationships are different.

They need some time to decompress and socialize with each other.

The team bond is just crazy.

It's a family bond.

Everyone's just supportive of each other.

It's so fun.

I've done a lot of sports in my life, and I feel like this is just truly different.

Where's the story end?

I've not had a single coach like Coach Franklin.

He really cares for the girls, not just as wrestlers, but as individuals.

What's you got on you shirt?

Huh?

What you got on your shirt here?

Whoop, made you look.

The girls love him.

And they see him as a father figure.

They call him Coach Pop-Pop.

We got a few things to talk about.

Have a seat.

I need everybody's undivided attention, please.

What I think has been the most rewarding this year is to see them accelerate like they have and truly being successful as one of the better teams in the State of PA and now beginning to realize, hey, we are doing well.

In these closed doors, when there's no other sets of eyes watching, are you content with the efforts that you gave?

Are you proud of what you were able to do this season?

We have girls now talking about, I want to do this in college, Coach.

And the opportunities are there.

It's not a pipe dream.

I'm telling you, believe in what you guys can do.

And I truly believe that can be transformational if they're able to use this to assist them to that next level of education and begin to dream really big, not just about what they could accomplish on the mats, but how that can parlay to all phases of their lives.

[inaudible] on 3!

1, 2, 3, [inaudible]!

That was so loud.

Any louder?

My ankle still hurts.

Hey, guys.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Are you ready?

[laughs] [music playing] PROFESSOR (ON COMPUTER): So what are we doing today?

I'm going to put you into your groups here in just a second.

Almost everybody has drafts, so thank you very much for doing that.

I'm currently a freshman here at Lock Haven on the women's wrestling team.

I am one of the first college students within my immediate family, and without wrestling, I wouldn't be here.

Black, green, black.

Growing up, I never really had, I'd say, a stable home.

My mom was a single mother of four kids.

We didn't have much money.

We were always moving around.

At times, we were homeless-- thank you-- or living at family members' homes, friends' houses with my mother's, which was also very difficult because you can never really have sleepovers and invite somebody to a home that isn't mine.

When I was younger, I was one of those kids that looked like they had sugar every five seconds.

I was interested in gymnastics and dancing, but we didn't have enough money to put me in dance class or put me in gymnastics.

I started wrestling when I was 16.

At first, I was a little intimidated, but I was like, you know what?

I can do this.

It was hard in the beginning, but every time I was on that mat, it was like this sense of love and passion, and I never received that in any other sport.

Coming to college has been such a blessing, but currently I am not wrestling, unfortunately, due to an injury.

I have slightly torn my anterior labrum along with my rotator cuff being swollen and a AC joint sprain within my shoulder.

I'm at that point where I think I need surgery, so a lot of adversities, but I've been persevering through.

It does get very difficult knowing that you can't do something that you love that has helped you in so many ways and feeling like, this is your freshman year.

This is a fresh start to continue on being successful, and then an injury comes in and knocking everything down.

It's been very frustrating that I can't be around my teammates to grow and get to know them more.

I miss being covered and drenched in sweat and having my lungs blown out from going so hard and intensely.

It was part of my identity.

But just because I'm not wrestling doesn't mean I'm not a wrestler.

Because being a wrestler doesn't just mean being on the mat.

It's more than that.

It's being courageous and brave and overcoming obstacles, especially as a woman.

All right, bring it in.

Bring it in.

OK, I know it's the last session of camp, right?

Everybody's a little tired, a little sore.

Hopefully, you've all had a good time, had fun, made some new friends, had a good experience here.

We just finished up my first women's wrestling camp as head coach here at Lock Haven University.

Our goal here is really to have these ladies have a good experience, get them excited about wrestling, and want them to continue on and continue to grow the sport here in the future.

From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot that you're all here.

We're trying to grow numbers.

We're trying to get more people involved.

We're trying to get more females excited about the sport.

And it starts with you guys, right?

It starts with-- I've spent a lot of time around women.

I do have four daughters myself, and I always joke that I've been training for this their whole lives.

And now I'm in a position of influence where I cannot only help grow the sport for my daughters, but I can help grow this team and this University and help put us on the map here at Lock Haven.

Sometimes, you try to do something, and they sit out, and they squirt away from you.

Put the clamp on them.

With the growth of women's wrestling and all the programs coming up, there's a huge demand for coaches right now.

Good.

Put that shoulder in her back.

But not only do we need coaches, we need female coaches.

So I wanted as many female leaders as possible at that camp this year.

Suck it back.

Go back!

There you go!

These girls, they're not trying to be a 42-year-old gray-haired man.

They want to look up to these college athletes.

They're the ones doing it.

They're the ones paving the way.

Get your half in.

Look for your half.

We had a really good turnout, close to 70 girls, I think.

It's really awesome to see this many girls wanting to get better and being able to have these opportunities.

Yes, yes!

Bring your head to her knee, head to her knee.

I do coach these girls periodically throughout the summers, and I've traveled with a lot of them before.

Tough ride here-- 30 seconds.

Try and get a set, power up.

Power up.

I lose my voice every time I coach.

It happens.

Good job.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: It's really important that young girls have an experience with a female coach so that they can see that this is a normalized role for women to take.

Women will make some of the best coaches the wrestling community has ever seen.

[inaudible] only push outs.

No shots for right now.

There you go.

Good job.

Reversal!

Pop out back door!

Good job.

My whole goal by the end of my life is to coach, to pass on my knowledge and my passion and my love for this sport.

I just want to be the best role model that I can for younger girls coming up.

Perfect, thank you.

I love working with kids, and I want to be a really good influence on them.

I want to be able to show them that it doesn't matter how long you've been wrestling or how much technique you know.

It's a matter of how determined you are, how much you push yourself.

As soon as I can no longer physically compete, I want to coach.

I want to give girls the same experiences and this same feeling of belonging that I've felt.

I feel sort of like one of the founding fathers of the sport within the state.

And I've been trying to do everything I can to advocate for the sport and grow it.

Whenever I'm out there speaking or being interviewed, I'm doing it for the future generations.

We're serious as female athletes in a male-dominated sport.

We're not going anywhere.

And that fills me with a lot of pride.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: Girls and women right now really are the change agents of sport.

And that is especially true for wrestling.

Wrestling has needed a way to reach more young people.

And the answer to that has always been girls.

This and every other camp all over the country is continuing to help our sport grow.

And the more it grows, the more opportunity and the happier we are.

[peaceful music] ANN PEERY RITTER: I always loved wrestling.

My brothers taught me how to wrestle.

I always wrestled with my brothers.

I got beat up several times, many times.

But I loved every minute of it.

It was a time when they weren't really bringing women into wrestling.

They felt that only boys should be wrestling.

If I had had the chance to wrestle, I probably would have been wrestling every day.

So this was at the NCAA championships for Ed, his third national championship, and you.

And I was sure he was going to get beat right there, or I wouldn't have been like that.

[laughs] And the article was, "The Royal Family of Wrestling."

ANN PEERY RITTER: I learned early that wrestling was a Peery thing.

My dad was a three-time national champion in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

And my two brothers were also three-time NCAA national champions at Pitt.

And I was a cheerleader.

[laughs] My dad ended up being the varsity coach here at Pittsburgh.

I always sat on the bench with wrestlers, and my dad never yelled at a wrestler.

So he'd have me yell at the wrestler.

"She's like an animated Jack in the box, a loud one.

She jumps up and down and peers around the legs of the people who stand in front of her."

I was very loud when I yelled.

I was forever cheering for my brothers and my dad, and I enjoyed doing that, but I just always felt like I was kind of left out and not invited in.

After you've been exposed to it, you realize it's hard to give it up, so you're going to stay with it.

So I got involved, and that led to me staying involved.

[peaceful music] I enjoyed doing that, and it did keep me busy.

But it also helped a lot of young women become more interested in wrestling.

I think that was in 2021.

Yep, that would be right.

This was the same year that you were inaugurated into the Hall of Fame, correct?

Yes.

[music playing] It was thrilling for me.

It was also very humbling for me, very humbling for me.

And I wish both my parents could have been there.

[music playing] I'm probably most proud of the fact that I tried to step up and help other young ladies become wrestlers.

We needed to have that.

And I felt if I kept encouraging them and being part of that, they would succeed.

And now I'm happy that a lot more girls are wrestling.

And I wouldn't change that for anything.

I just think it's great that women can wrestle now too.

[music playing] I don't want to get out there and wrestle anymore, but I used to love it.

Today, I'd be afraid I might break something.

[laughs] (SINGING) Oh say can you see By the dawn's early light What so proudly-- Here at the state tournament, one of the most emotional moments was when they let the girls out on the mat for the first time.

(SINGING) At the twilight's-- And all these girls just rush out onto these mats that they weren't allowed on for so long.

(SINGING) And the rockets' red glare And then the audience burst out in applause and cheers for them.

(SINGING) The bombs bursting in-- When we first ran out and everyone started cheering, I got goosebumps.

I just felt this electricity inside me grow because it was like, wow, we're really here.

It's amazing.

(SINGING) And the home of the [cheering] [upbeat music] Being in the high school last year, it was very small, very intimate.

It felt like any other tournament that we'd gone to that season.

But this year, we're here wrestling in the middle mats right next to the guys.

The growth of the sport, you can visually see it happening.

At first, it didn't feel real.

And then I wrestled my first match down there under the lights and with the crowd, and it's insane.

That's the only word I can describe it.

It's just-- it's insane.

Look at this.

Look at all these girls.

I mean, there's some athletes out there.

They mean business.

Today's the medal round, so we have two wrestlers that are still going.

Jurelys Peguero Del Rosario is in the fifth and sixth place match.

And Journie's in the finals that starts later this afternoon.

I'm competing in the state finals in three hours.

I've won all of my competitions by pins except for one yesterday.

In the semi finals, I pinned my opponent in about a minute.

All three of my teammates, me, Jordan, and Lane, have advanced to the finals, and we're actually second for the team race right now.

In finals, I'll be wrestling Haylie Jaffe.

She's number one in the country.

I'm the underdog.

And I like to challenge myself, so I've been looking for this match-up for a long time.

I've been wrestling super hard, and I feel better than I have all year.

So I think I've got this in the bag.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: So many young boys have said, one day, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to make it to state, and I'm going to have this moment.

[music playing] And now, so many little girls, that's their dream.

They're like, I want my name up on the wall.

I want to inspire other girls.

I want to do big things for my community.

I want to change the sport.

I want to be legendary.

[music playing] 20 years from now, you'll be walking through the gym, and you'll see banners for girls wrestling side by side with the boys wrestling, and you'll have the moms that first massive generation cheering their daughters on and helping coach and officiate.

Doesn't that sound cool?

Doesn't that make you excited to think you were part of the front end of that?

Straighten your arm.

Put your foot down.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: We're finally having this paradigm shift.

The light bulb is coming on.

Wow, girls and women, there's so much potential here.

They are really great athletes.

They are their own sports product, and this is a good sports product.

We should invest in this.

We should get excited about this.

Wrestling just teaches you grit.

And if you can learn to do hard things, you get better at doing hard things, and you do more hard things.

This sport's doing that for my daughters.

It's doing that for everybody out here.

They're learning to fall, and they're learning to get up, and they're learning to move forward.

And that's life.

The lessons that you learn from wrestling, the discipline and the want to be better, that drive, translates to everything else in your life.

[cheering] Wrestling is the only thing that has made me feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

ANNOUNCER: From [inaudible], Alyssa Favara!

[cheering] ALYSSA FAVARA: I want wrestling to be in my life forever.

JAEL MILLER: The confidence that wrestling has given me has definitely changed my life.

Wrestling, you have to put in the work if you want the results.

There's no getting around it.

So I can walk around with the confidence that I know how to put in that hard work, not only in wrestling, but in life too.

ANNOUNCER: And your first-ever girls 170-pound champion, winning by fall, Jael Miller.

[cheering] [inaudible] the sport builds confidence.

It builds self discipline.

I think every kid needs wrestling.

When I did win states and they raised my hand, I knew that all my hard work paid off.

And I just remember Coach Franklin being at the sides, always coaching me and supporting.

It just made me feel happy.

[music playing] I think I'm most proud to see the girl smiling and enjoying every phase of it.

ANDREA YAMAMOTO: It's hard work to create change, and it's hard work to create change in a sport that has been so, not only male dominated, but very closely guarded.

I'm incredibly proud to have been a part of it, but I want the girls' work to speak for itself.

If they're out there winning big tournaments, then what do I have to say?

They did it.

I'm not sure if the girls totally comprehend every part of that.

I think it's very hard to see your place in history when you're in it, but to know that they get to experience that, that's all we ever wanted, for them to have that opportunity.

I think the thing that gets me excited is normalizing it, that we're not having these conversations anymore.

The uniqueness has worn off, and you're just a good, talented athlete that happens to wrestle, and you're a girl.

You know what I mean?

Nobody asks the boys, how does it feel being a boy that wrestled?

So that's what I look forward to.

[music playing] NARRATOR: Funding for this program has been provided by Ron Bowes, Steve Capoferri, AquaPhoenix Scientific, Phil Sieg, the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and viewers like you.