When the NCAA recognized women’s wrestling as its 91st championship sport in January, Pacific University’s first women’s wrestler was overcome with emotion.

“I cried when I heard the news, because that was a dream I had for myself that never happened,” said Jill (Remiticado) Uyeda ’03, who first set foot in Pacific’s wrestling room in 1999 and was the impetus for creating the Boxer women’s wrestling program. “Now, college women wrestlers have a championship for themselves. They can realize the dreams of being an NCAA champion and beyond because the infrastructure is there.

“This is 30 years in the making. It’s just amazing to me.”

Twenty-six years after Uyeda first laced up her shoes at Pacific, and 24 years after the Boxers fielded their first team, women’s wrestling has blossomed into one of the fastest-growing collegiate sports in the United States. That growth led the NCAA to approve the sport for championship status for the 2025-26 academic year at its convention in January.

In its six years as part of the NCAA’s Emerging Sports For Women program, designed to create more athletics opportunities for women, women’s wrestling has grown from four sponsored programs in 2018-19 to 76 programs in 2024-25, including 46 teams at the Division III level. The NCAA numbers are in addition to the 37 collegiate teams that competed at the 2024 NAIA Championships.

While the sport has exploded in recent years at the collegiate level, Pacific recognized its potential early. When the university created its women’s wrestling program in 2001, just five other colleges fielded varsity teams. The Boxers immediately became a power with its roster of eight wrestlers yielding three U.S. Girls’ Wrestling Association college national champions and seven All-Americans.

Sally Roberts ’05, founder and chief executive officer of Wrestle Like A Girl, and one of the three national champions on that inaugural squad, is grateful that Pacific embraced the sport when many colleges would not.

“Pacific took a leap with adding women’s wrestling in a time of uncertainty, not really understanding the landscape of where the sport was going,” Roberts said from Wrestle Like A Girl’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Their belief and faith in the sport, in Title IX, and being able to provide equal access and opportunities was key.”

The development of women’s wrestling came at a time of transition for the men’s team, which, like the rest of Pacific’s athletic program, had just transitioned from NAIA to NCAA Division III membership. While the Pacific men won three regional titles in its first four years in the NCAA, the Boxers were still looking to prove themselves alongside long-established Division III powers.

When it came to adding women to the room, though, gender didn’t seem to matter. That is what Uyeda encountered when she first peeked her head through the wrestling room door in 1999. 

“The wrestlers on the men’s team at the time didn’t care about anything else,” said Uyeda, who wrestled in high school in Hawai‘i before coming to Pacific. “They simply said, ‘Where are your shoes? Go get them.’ I ran all of the way back to Walter Hall, to my room on the second floor, got my shoes and sprinted back to the wrestling room. I barely remember what I did that day, but I remember that ‘Yeah, come on in’ kind of feeling.

“The contrast I experienced — of reluctant permission in high school to unprecedented acceptance at Pacific — made all of the difference. My teammates made all of the difference.”

Uyeda hadn’t necessarily planned on continuing her wrestling career at Pacific, but the experience changed the trajectory of her life. One of only two four-time All-Americans in Pacific athletics history, Uyeda won three national titles at 121 pounds and was inducted into the Pacific Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011.

A native of Federal Way, Washington, Roberts came to Pacific after one season at the University of Minnesota-Morris. While she wrestled only one year for the Boxers before being selected for USA Wrestling’s residential training program (one of four members of that inaugural Pacific team invited), Roberts said Pacific helped her discover her purpose in both academics and athletics, potentially changing the direction of the sport in the process.

“When I was at Pacific, my love for wrestling got reinvigorated because I was around some tremendous student-athletes who were so passionate about what was happening there,” she said. “It was part of the culture that you didn’t sacrifice academics for athletics. You really wanted to do both. That helped me understand that there was this beautiful way to intertwine my life where previously I was so focused on wrestling. Pacific helped me understand how to start putting those two pieces together.”

It is not lost on Tela (O’Donnell) Bacher ’05, a member of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Women’s Wrestling Team, how many people connected to Pacific have helped women’s wrestling grow at the highest level and at the grassroots level.

“I run into so many of the women that were on that initial team at Pacific, giving back to the sport that gave so much to them,” said Bacher, a teammate of Roberts at Pacific and later a partner with her at Wrestle Like a Girl. “It was such a positive environment and such a great jumping-off point for our post-high school careers. It was a good group of people who continue to give back to the sport and want to be a part of it.”

Frank Johnson ’90, the first head coach of the Pacific’s women’s program, believes that the fire to fight for the sport was already engrained in the women by the time they reached Forest Grove. 

“These girls had to fight for everything,” he said. “They had such a high work ethic and were smart, but they had to fight. It’s pretty cool to see where it’s come from and where it is now and the fact that those girls are tied to Pacific.”

Even today, Pacific plays a role in women’s wrestling’s growth at its highest leadership. Director of Athletics Keith Buckley currently serves on the executive committee for the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships, which oversees a collegiate championship and was tasked with shepherding women’s wrestling through the NCAA’s emerging sport program.

The past and present influence is a point of pride for head wrestling coach Zach Binkerd ’14, MAT ’16, himself an alumnus of the Boxer men’s program. He regularly speaks to his current 13 women’s wrestlers about those who have come before them.

“They really respect that,” Binkerd said, pointing to banners displaying the names of Pacific’s 49 women’s wrestling All-Americans and eight national champions. “They see All-Americans on our wall going all of the way back. They can look up and see girls that were All-Americans in 1999. There’s an immense amount of pride that comes with that longevity.”

The history is also top of mind for Mikaila Takahashi ’26, a third-year member of the Pacific program who wrestled for Forest Grove High School and was the 2022 Oregon 5A/6A runner-up at 135 pounds.

“We see it every day that we step into the room,” said Takahashi, whose father, Guy Takahashi ’96, was a two-time All-American for the Pacific men’s wrestling program. “You see the Olympians on the wall. You see the past champions on the wall. We see the names of every All-American and every team that has placed at nationals. There’s always that feeling when we step in the room that that’s what we’re striving for.”

With women’s wrestling earning its long-awaited NCAA championship status, Binkerd acknowledges that the road to the title match will only get tougher. At February’s National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships Region 8 meet, Pacific faced 10 other teams from across the west, all from NCAA institutions. More opportunities will mean tougher competition.

“While the level that we are competing at theoretically doesn’t change, now that the NCAA has accepted the sport, we’re going to see more and more teams step up,” Binkerd said.

While Uyeda missed out on the chance to compete for an NCAA championship, she is grateful that as the sport continues to grow that the newest generations of women’s wrestlers won’t have to fight as hard for respect and acceptance.

“Being a girl is no longer a barrier for entry for wrestling, nor is there as much of a disparity of resources for women in the sport as there was 24 years ago,” Uyeda said. “I’ve grown with the wrestling community. I’ve coached girls at all levels since graduating from Pacific and encourage girls to wrestle in college. Seeing women’s wrestling so widely accepted and celebrated now is beautiful to me.”

READ MORE: Pacific's groundbreaking 2001-02 women's wrestling team produced three national champions, seven All-Americans and an Olympian. Read more about the first and second seasons of the Pacific program in these pages from the 2002-03 Pacific Wrestling Media Guide.