High school girls wrestling has tripled in popularity over the last ten years, and the sport is gaining even more international recognition and respect in the run-up to its second showing at the Olympic Summer Games. More college women actually wrestle today than compete in archery or equestrian, which the N.C.A.A. has classified as "emerging sports."

So... why isn't wrestling "emerging"? Because only one N.C.A.A. member college, Oregon's Pacific University, bothers to offer the sport.

Some critics are blaming this on the Title IX law, which aimed to level the playing field when it comes to the cash poured into girls' and boys' respective sports. Title IX only says that equal resources must be used, not that the whole operation has to be remotely fair or even logical. So women's wrestling, with its small roster of players, gets screwed. Why have a wrestling team of two dozen women when you could have a crew team of six dozen (which will offset the cost of your baseball team's new uniforms tidily)?

(But I think you also kind of have to wonder about the public image of women's wrestling compared to the photogenic femininity of a girl riding a pony...)

Thus most truly committed lady wrestlers either end up toughing it out on the men's team (because they are seriously hXc) or bypassing the N.C.A.A. altogether and choosing small, private schools that at least offer club and varsity teams (because those guys are so hungry for tuition dollars). And now small schools like Missouri Baptist University and Jamestown College have become the unlikely homebases of legions of ladies who could most definitely kick your ass.

All's I'm saying is by the next Olympic games in the summer of 2012 these girls had best have more athletic opportunities and a better public image than the divas of the WWF or there will probs be hell to pay...