Ditching the Singlet Take 2

Jason Bryant, founder of Mat Talk Online and the Mat Talk Podcast Network, remembers his first year of wrestling. He was 16. "I was portly to say the least and I didn’t want to wear the singlet," he recalls. And because Bryant knows first-hand about going out on the mat to compete and feeling uncomfortable in his uniform, he's on board with the sport moving away from the traditional singlet to an alternative option.

He's not alone. A National Wrestling Coaches Association survey of 8,500 coaches from last fall found "overwhelmingly support" for moving to an alternative uniform option, to both retaining wrestlers and grow the sport of wrestling. What we found was that the singlet was definitely a barrier to entry into the sport," says Mike Moyer, Executive Director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association. "This was especially an issue with first-year wrestlers, and at the middle-school level.”

Wrestling traditionalists often dismiss the singlet as a barrier to entry. After our September article on this topic, one response we received was: "Changing the singlet is not what is best for the highly competitive wrestler."  Another commented: "With all due respect to my colleagues who were interviewed for this article, clothing has not been and unlikely will be the primary reason why a child doesn't participate in an organized sport like wrestling."

But there is plenty of evidence to prove that the singlet is a barrier to entry. Bryant featured Sara Levin as a guest in one of his February podcasts. Levin previously worked in positions with USA Wrestling and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and started wreSTL, a youth wrestling center in St. Louis to help expose the sport of wrestling to a new generation of people. The club includes numerous kids being introduced to the sport. During her interview, Levin said she saw that the singlet truly was a deterrent to kids joining the sport.

One longtime club coach agrees. He says he was and remains a fan of the singlet, but that he was always fit and confident about his body growing up. So if wearing a tight-fitting singlet is make or break for a newcomer to the sport, he says why not give kids the option of a tight shirt and compression shorts to help grow the sport? Another youth wrestling coach, in response to our earlier singlet article, argued that making uniform requirements more flexible can only help wrestling: “Purists need to realize that it is no longer about them and what they did it as a wrestler, it’s about retention and growth of a truly remarkable sport.”

Michael Doyle, head wrestling coach at Independence High School in Iowa, says he'd prefer the singlet remain as the standard uniform for high school competition, but that younger competitors be given alternatives. "I think we offer student-athletes a choice and see where it goes at the lower levels," he advises. 

As for those who say that kids who don't want to wear a singlet aren't tough enough to be wrestlers in the first place, Bryant says that’s a self-defeating attitude. "I don’t know too many eight-year-olds who are just naturally tough,” he notes. Kids build that resiliency over time, he adds. “You can’t simply look at a kid who doesn’t want to wear a singlet and say ‘We don’t need him or her in the sport because they will quit anyway.'"

Wrestling traditionalists also complain that tight-fitting singlets prevent injuries. Yet, wrestlers actually spend more time practicing in loose fitting t-shirts and shorts than they do competing in a singlet, Bryant points out. "So you run the risk of fingers getting caught more in practice than you would in a hypothetical match with a tight-fitting compression uniform.”

Growing the sport is in everyone’s interest. And, going forward, one of the simplest ways to do that involves growing the options for what wrestlers wear in competition. And wrestling isn’t the only sport facing this issue. Competition uniforms are evolving in other sports too. College and professional basketball players now routinely wear tight-fitting compression clothing, sometime under their jerseys, sometimes as their jerseys. And many basketball programs now feature shirts with cap sleeves, ditching the traditional tank-top look. Tradition is strong in those sports too, but the uniform has successfully evolved and the sport hasn’t suffered. It's time for wrestling to do the same, and evolve from singlet only to other options.

"The world will not come to an end if wrestling ditches the singlet," says Joe Russell, head coach at George Mason University. Ditching the singlet won’t ‘save’ wrestling either, Russell adds, but there is enough evidence now, he says, that the move would benefit the sport.

"Change is difficult, but even those who grew up wearing a singlet can still identify with the sport if competitors wore shorts and a shirt," Russell says. "Let’s make the change."