Nick Rausenberger is a former wrestler, a father and also the coach of one of Nassau County’s most unique high school sports teams.
Rausenberger is the head coach of the women’s wrestling team at MacArthur High School. Women’s fully freestyle wrestling was approved for New York State High School Athletics back in October of 2024, prompting the school to pick up the sport.
“This sport is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States, and there were a few other girls in our school district that were interested in wrestling.” Rausenberger said about the formation of a women’s-only team. “I know that the biggest problem that the girls were having was none of them felt comfortable going into a wrestling room in a male-dominated sport.”
The team is made up of 15 girls from six different school districts. Seven of the wrestlers attend the Levittown Union Free School District, three are from the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, two from the Seaford Union Free School District, one from the Herricks Union Free School District, one from the Farmingdale School District and one from the Syosset Central School District. Students range from grades 8-12.
Women’s wrestling has vastly grown in popularity among high school athletes. The National Federation of State High School Associations reports that the sport saw more than double its participation from 2023-23 to 2023-24, with more than 64,000 girls wrestling last year. Male participation jumped to 291,874 students in 2023-24, making it the sixth-highest played high school sport. Wrestling did not make the top 10 for high school women’s sports.
The Levittown, Farmingdale, and Bellmore-Merrick school districts have all formally signed paperwork for the joint team. The other districts have yet to adopt them as of Jan. 13. Levittown Superintendent Todd Winch says that the documentation is more of a formality as the season began in November for the team.
“We didn’t want to wait,” he said. “We just thought that this was such a good thing to do for our girls that we wanted to move and be able to do this this year, so we worked to develop these agreements. We didn’t want to prevent students from participating while we waited on approving agreements.”
The documents mainly sort out legal aspects for joint decisions like where the team practices, bussing, finances and more.
To accommodate for the broad reach of the team practices are held at the same time from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday except when there are matches. There is also a group chat for all of the wrestlers, as well as one for the parents. Rausenberger also mentioned that the members of the team were together during Christmastime and celebrated New Year’s together.
It has become bigger than all of us,” Rausenberger said. “These girls have grown. They are officially a team. They have bonded very organically without any kind of force from myself or any other coaches for that matter.”
Some 80 girls will compete in the Nassau County Championships on Feb. 2 at Bethpage High School, including all 15 from the combined team. The sport’s State Championships will take place on Feb. 27 in Albany.
