High school wrestling participation numbers are down across the country, but not every state is seeing declines. In recent years, several states are bucking the trend and seeing explosive growth in high school wrestling. 

We took a look at the last ten years of data provided by the National Federation of State High School Associations to see where wrestling is seeing growth, and where it is losing participants. 

The graph below charts the number of high school wrestlers reported by each state, first in 2007 and then in 2016.



Total participants are down 6,593 in the last ten years for which we have data. There were 257,246 high school wrestlers reported for the 2006-2007 season. By the 2015-2016 season there were 250,653.

Illinois saw the biggest drop in numbers, at 2,849 fewer wrestlers from 2007 to 2016. Michigan had second largest drop at 2,689. Ohio, California, Washington, New York and Wisconsin also all saw their high school wrestling numbers fall by over 1,000. 

Balancing those drops were huge gains made in Texas and Oklahoma. Texas added a staggering 4,653 new wrestlers over the last ten years. Oklahoma added 1,285. Both southwestern states saw gains of over 5% a year.

Also of note is Arkansas, which gained 839 wrestlers. While that is by far not the highest total, it is coming from a previous count of zero. In 2007, Arkansas was the only state to not report any wrestlers. Now all fifty states (and the District of Columbia) are represented. Even Mississippi reported 25 wrestlers in 2016, despite the state not officially sponsoring the sport. 

California leads the way in total high school wrestlers, with 23,945. Illinois comes in second with 14,223 reported wrestlers in 2016.

A heat map of total participants by state can be found below.



We won't try to speculate what might be causing the various states to see their participation numbers either rise and fall, at least not yet anyway. And we will also set aside further analysis of the numbers, for now.

In the meantime, you can check out the raw numbers in the table below and make your own guesses on the hows and whys in the comments. 

STATE	2007 SEASON	2016 SEASON
California	25896	23945
Illinois	17072	14223
New York	12879	11521
Texas	6674	11327
Ohio	13098	11114
Pennsylvania	8946	9780
Michigan	12085	9396
New Jersey	8933	9070
North Carolina	8744	8645
Florida	8269	8297
Georgia	7275	8171
Minnesota	7957	8135
Indiana	7904	7156
Wisconsin	7781	6667
Missouri	7082	6636
Washington	8258	6570
Iowa	7313	6512
Virginia	6867	6415
Arizona	5474	5400
Colorado	4828	5052
Kansas	5020	5008
South Carolina	4114	4763
Nebraska	4655	4543
Maryland	4633	4469
Oregon	4659	4320
Massachusetts	4615	3986
Tennessee	3739	3904
Oklahoma	2500	3785
Utah	2995	3421
Alabama	1940	2719
Connecticut	2902	2439
Nevada	2240	2420
Idaho	2325	2392
Kentucky	1680	1880
Louisiana	1224	1725
New Mexico	1488	1608
West Virginia	1573	1500
Alaska	1216	1469
Montana	1529	1382
South Dakota	1423	1333
Wyoming	1078	1153
Hawaii	1135	1107
Delaware	1148	1039
North Dakota	933	903
Arkansas	0	839
Rhode Island	955	781
Maine	1136	701
New Hampshire	747	641
District of Columbia	0	205
Vermont	290	161
Mississippi	19	25