Ned Sparks, the longtime executive director of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, remembers a time when female wrestling was unheard of. Then, sometime in the 1980s — he can’t place exactly where, when or who — a Maryland high school girl started wrestling.

A father of four daughters, Sparks recalled his own reaction: “No way.”

“Some people thought it was something scandalous,” he said.

My, how times have changed.

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Last year, 51 girls wrestled in Maryland, according to MPSSAA records, and 70 did so in 2004-05. Nationally, female wrestling has been growing since 1990-91, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, which reported 132 participants nationwide that year. By 2004-05, the last year statistics were available, participation had increased to 4,334 girls. (In contrast, 243,009 boys wrestled in 2004-05.)

Texas and Hawaii offer girls wrestling as a varsity sport with all-girls state championships, and other states such as California, Michigan and Washington are starting to support it more. In 2004, women’s wrestling became an Olympic event in the Athens Games.

Female wrestlers aren’t just multiplying — they’re winning. Last year, Michaela Hutchison of Skyview High in Alaska made national headlines when she became the first U.S. girl to beat a boy in a state championship (at 103 pounds).

But the sport still has a steep climb to respectability, in both numbers and perception. Currently, only five U.S. colleges offer it as a varsity sport. And if you view the issue in any major wrestling Web site’s chat room, you’ll see that chauvinism is still alive and well in the wrestling community.

“After the Olympics, there was a little bit of a surge, but not as much as USA Wrestling or the U.S. Olympic Committee would have liked,” said Shannyn Gillespie, the women’s wrestling coach at the U.S. Olympic Education Center at Northern Michigan University.

In Maryland, female wrestling is far from becoming a sanctioned varsity sport. Judging by last year’s figures, there’s far fewer than one female wrestler per public high school (186) in the state.

“The numbers can’t justify that,” Sparks said.

That’s fine with Nicole Woody. Arundel High’s star 103-pounder would rather wrestle boys. She said she’d never want to compete in places like Texas or Hawaii.

“Honestly, I don’t think they’re good wrestlers,” she said. “The coaches tend to say, ‘They’re girls. Be gentle on them.’ I totally don’t agree with that.”