The Greene County School Board approved a new athletic program to give female students an additional opportunity to compete.

At their January meeting, the Board unanimously approved to start middle and high school girls wrestling next school year. Superintendent Brett Abbotts says the Board wanted to know some key factors before deciding to move forward with starting a new athletic program, which included the financial impacts, the ability to find coaches, developing a schedule of tournaments and meets and sustainability by looking at the younger grades in the youth wrestling program.

Abbotts points out that the estimated cost for everything including one head coach and one assistant at each level, transportation and tournament entry fees were a total of $30,000. He talks about a comparison to put that kind of money into perspective.

“The way one of our board members put it was a little over half the cost of a teacher(‘s salary). So just thinking in just in scaling things and how we might put that, it’s like, we could absorb that fairly readily. So it was a good thing on the financial side.” 

Abbotts notes the money would come from the general fund for the coach’s stipends and transportation, while equipment and tournament fees are from the activity fund. He adds that there was significant interest from girls in 6th through 12th grades already and the Board felt really comfortable to approve it and start it up for the 2026-27 school year.