Jessie Beer-Altman has always had her head in the game.
She grew up playing soccer, attending the University of Georgetown as a member of its girls soccer team. But even after she graduated and began working as an independent documentary filmmaker and editor in Boston, she found herself loving sports-focused projects — especially their human elements.
“When I got the chance to work on anything sports related, I loved it,” she said.
As a videographer for Penn State’s PBS station WPSU-TV in 2023, Beers-Altman, 41, was looking for a story about women in traditionally male professions, occupations or hobbies. Someone suggested she look into girls wrestling in Pennsylvania.
That’s how “The Chance to Wrestle” was born. First released in November, the nearly hour-long documentary is a culmination of Beers-Altman’s research and interviews with more than 50 athletes about the emerging world of girls wrestling in Pennsylvania high schools. It will air on WQED at 8 p.m. March 27 and 4 p.m. March 28.
Girls wrestling as a sport was officially sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association in May 2023, becoming the 38th state in the country to do so. The organization had said it would consider the sport once 100 Pennsylvania schools had sponsored a team. This started with J.P. McCaskey High School in Lancaster in March 2020, right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite the pandemic, there were nine girls wrestling teams in the state by the end of 2020, 31 at the end of 2021 and 90 at the end of 2022. Finally, in February 2023, Pennridge High School in Bucks County became the 100th school to sponsor a team — just weeks before the last unofficial girls’ wrestling state championship in Harrisburg that March.
Several Western Pennsylvania high schools have built strong girls wrestling programs. On Feb. 15, five returning champions again won gold medals in their weight classes at the WPIAL Girls Wrestling Individual Championships at North Allegheny High School. Canon-McMillan sophomore Marlee Solomon won the 106-pound title at the PIAA girls state wrestling championships on March 8.
The 2023 state championship was where “The Chance to Wrestle” first began filming. Beers-Altman took a small crew to capture the event and interview the competing wrestlers.
“We shot just for the day. I didn’t have anything lined up. I didn’t know who anybody was. We just sort of winged the whole day and, from that, I put together a short 8- or 9-minute piece about the imminent sanctioning of the sport at the high school level in Pennsylvania.”
Though that piece did well in terms of views and audience feedback, Beers-Altman wasn’t finished. She was inspired to dive into her research even more, especially with her sports knowledge base.
“Somebody that didn’t have a background in sports could have made a project about this, but I think where I had an advantage is having a deep personal understanding of what sports can give you,” Beers-Altman said. “Obviously, that’s different for every person, so I don’t claim to know everything people can gain from sports, but I do have an overview of what that means, especially for girls.”
Over the course of the production, Beers-Altman’s numerous interviews included 50-60 girls between the ages of 10 and 18 who were involved in wrestling. Some directly introduced themselves to Beers-Altman at the 2023 unofficial girls state championship in Harrisburg. But connecting with others was a “little different.”
Beers-Altman talked to Jael Miller, now a senior at Punxsutawney Area High School and the top-ranked athlete in the PIAA girls rankings for her 170-pound weight class and eighth overall. Beers-Altman learned about Miller when speaking with her coach from the All-American Wrestling Club, Rob Waller.
Wanting to document the girls’ experiences, Beers-Altman wasn’t sure about including too many men. But she could tell Waller’s heart was “in the right place” as he spoke about Miller.
At the time of filming, he had coached her for four years. But Waller also talked about his initial reluctance to coach girls, until his granddaughter said she wanted to be on the team. Now he coaches numerous girls at the All-American Wrestling Club.
“He was a perfect representation of the old guard who came around, and he was funny and he was a jokester and all that,” she said. “But he was the one that said, ‘I have this female athlete here, Jael Miller, and she’s amazing and she helped change my mind.’”
Miller was an “animal” who “just destroys her opponents” on the wrestling mat, Beers-Altman said. But she was a “tough nut to crack” outside of it due to her quiet nature, though she did open up on camera about her experiences with wrestling and its importance to her. She started the sport at 5 years old, having grown up with two brothers who wrestled. In the film, she said wrestling taught her to be around people.
“When I already have the connection with someone through wrestling, I don’t feel pressured to be someone I’m not, I can just be myself, so it’s a lot easier for me to kind of open up,” Miller said in the documentary.
Beers-Altman said Miller was an interesting perspective for the film due to the contrast of her personalities in and out of wrestling. But through the process of finding Miller, Beers-Altman also realized there were a number of men who wanted girls’ wrestling to be recognized.
“It’s a beautiful example of what it means to be an ally,” Beers-Altman said. “The girls are the ones that were working hard to get the rights and the official status to participate in the sport, but they couldn’t do it on their own and they needed the support of organizers and coaches and athletic directors and mostly those roles are still filled by men.
“Whereas I sort of approached this project thinking I want to hear more from the girls, I really quickly found out that I would be doing a disservice to the story if I ignore the voices of all these male advocates.”
She also saw an “absence of negativity” around the subject of girls in wrestling while working on the documentary. Beers-Altman asked every girl she interviewed: ‘Have you gotten pushback from boys or men. Have you gotten people saying you don’t belong here?’
For the most part, the answer was no.
“I guess that was surprising, too,” Beers-Altman said. “I think of wrestling as being sort of a demographic of people that may be a little more conservative and traditional in terms of their values and their family structure, so I was expecting more of a bunch of dads having the attitude of ‘My girl’s not gonna do this. This is something for boys,’ and it was completely the opposite.”
Overall, she said the Pennsylvania wrestling community is incredibly embracing of girls participating in the sport.
“There’s very much a movement right now around women’s sports in general. I think this is part of that wave,” Beers-Altman said.
She believes the growth of women’s sports will continue at a fast pace.
“The high school movement is already unstoppable. So I think, fast-forward a few years and there won’t be any high schools that don’t have a girls wrestling program,” she said.
“I think that we’re gonna see that same momentum in the college wrestling space and that’s important because it’s not just about the sport. It’s about access to education as well.”
The film is available to stream on wpsu.org. It airs on WQED at 8 p.m. March 27 and 4 p.m. March 28.
First Published: March 23, 2025, 8:00 a.m.
Updated: March 24, 2025, 4:42 p.m.
