Over the years, girls and women’s wrestling has gained popularity and support around the world and at CHS.  In 2018 Oregon recognized and added girls wrestling as a separate division and had a separate state qualifier which allowed the Centennial program to grow even more.

Tatzu Lee, known as Taz, the CHS girls wrestling coach said that this popularity increase started in “2004 when women’s freestyle wrestling was added as an Olympic sport and the Greco Roman wrestling in 2016 which led to the US promoting women’s wrestling.”  As a result of this, colleges added women’s programs along with high schools.

Four years ago, two girls wanted to wrestle.  The following year there were seven girls which was the start of a team forming.  Last year CHS had 19 girls and took 15 girls of them to the state qualifier. The program always had one or two girls in the past.  Before the program was made, a few girls had to compete against boys. This was because there was no separate girls division.  

Taz has enjoyed watching the girls wrestling program grow.  He is looking forward to the season that is coming up. Taz talked about his hopes for the next season, “I hope to have around 30 to 40 girls in the program this year.  I also hope to win a team title in the upcoming division.”