Scholastic wrestling in America, kindergarten through Senior in High School, also referred to as folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling. Of note folkstyle wrestling is not collegiate wrestling (style of wrestling in colleges and univeristies in the United States). Collegiate wrestling will be defined in a different section. Scholastic (folkstyle) wrestling is practiced in 49 of the 50 states in the United States. When practiced by wrestling clubs of younger participants, off school season, scholastic wrestling is referred to as "folkstyle".
The national governing body of all school wrestling is the National Federation of State High School Associations. The NFHS publishes the the season dates, rules, referee rules and certifies the coaches. Currently boys' wrestling ranked eighth in terms of the number of schools sponsoring teams, with 9,445 schools participating in the 2006–07 school year. Also, 257,246 boys participated in the sport during that school year, making scholastic wrestling the sixth most popular sport among high school boys. In addition, 5,408 girls participated in wrestling in 1,227 schools during the 2006–07 season.
WRESTLING IS:
A match competition between two individual wrestlers of the same weight class. The match consists of three periods totaling 4.5 minutes at the middle school level, 6 minutes at the high school level.[22] with an overtime round if necessary if the score is tied at the end of regulation. High school matches are one minute shorter than college and university matches - not having collegiate wrestling's three-minute first period.[23] Additionally, college wrestling uses the concept of "time advantage" or "riding time",[24] while high school wrestling does not. Junior varsity and freshmen matches may be shorter than varsity matches in some states. Any differences in the length of time are explained by the fact that junior varsity and freshmen wrestlers are presumed to be younger, less skilled, and possibly in poorer shape than varsity wrestlers, though this may not always be the case. Period lengths vary for age groups below high school and are different from state to state.
The main official at the wrestling match is the referee, who is responsible for starting and stopping the match; observing all holds; signaling points; calling penalties such as illegal holds, unnecessary roughness, fleeing the mat, or flagrant misconduct; and finally observing a full view of and determining the fall.[25] There can also be one "assistant referee" (especially at tournaments) that helps the referee with making any difficult decisions and in preventing error.[26] Also, a scorer with assistant scorers are there to record the points of the two individual wrestlers. Finally, a match or meet timekeeper' may be present to note the match time, timeouts and work with the scorers.[27]