Minnesota Wrestling senior, and new National Champion, Jayson Ness has been bestowed the greatest honor in college wrestling, as the winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy, announced today (Mar. 26) by Wrestling Insider News Magazine (W.I.N.).

Stanford’s Nick Amuchastegui was named the NCAA’s Elite 88 award winner for Division I Wrestling it was announced today at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships.

ESPNU, ESPN and ESPN360.com will combine for expanded live coverage of the 80th annual NCAA Wrestling Championships on Friday, March 19, and Saturday, March 20, from the Qwest Center Omaha in Omaha, Neb. The Championships will be telecast entirely in high definition.

Kevin Ward, a four-year starter on Oklahoma State University’s NCAA Championship wrestling teams, has been named head coach of Ouachita Baptist University’s first-ever wrestling team.

The NWCA is excited to announce that Jake Herbert and Jeff Jordon will serve as clinicians for the NWCA Coaches Clinic at the NCAA Championships.

Kyle Maynard’s inspirational story along with FCA Wrestling’s ministry launch will highlight the 16th Annual FCA/NWCA “Champions” Breakfast, Friday morning, March 19th, 7:30 am at the Hilton Omaha right next to the Quest Center.

As many of you already know, one of our wrestlers (Sr. Danny Bishop) was seriously injured at the MAC Championships this past weekend. If you are interested in donating money to help Danny and his family, please click on the link below for pertinent information:

The NCAA will announce the 330 student-athletes set participate in the 2010 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships via a Web stream selection show on NCAA.com on Wednesday, March 10 at 6 p.m. ET.

Central Baptist College is excited to announce the addition of men’s wrestling and women’s golf to its athletic programs for the 2010-2011 academic year. This will bring the total number of intercollegiate sports programs offered at CBC to twelve.

The National Wrestling Coaches Association Staff and Board of Directors are pleased to announce The NWCA Dan Gable “America Needs Wrestling” Award recipient for 2009 is Jim Brown, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The NCAA has announced the qualifier allocations for the 2010 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships as listed in the chart below. Each qualifying tournament was awarded spots per weight class based on current year data. Each wrestler was measured on the following: Division I winning percentage; rating percentage index (RPI); and coaches ranking. A threshold of a 0.725 winning percentage, top 28 in the RPI and top 28 in the coaches ranking was established to allocate 284 of the 330 championships field positions.

This annual publication is dedicated to the pursuit and use of the knowledge surrounding the noble and timeless sport of wrestling. Each year, an annotated bibliography of the scientific research, published in English, during the year in review, will be compiled and shared with those who work in the wrestling community. It is my hope that this work will spark further research, along with helping to educate those who are in a position to apply this knowledge. I am proud to be affiliated with this great sport. Thanks to our national governing body - USA Wrestling. Thanks to the National Coaching Staff for the support that they have given to me. Rich Bender, Mitch Hull, Steve Fraser, Momir Petkovic, Ike Anderson, Terry Steiner, Vladislav Izboinikov, Shannyn Gillespie, Anatoly Petrosyan, Zeke Jones, Bill Zadic and Brandon Slay always respond. I am grateful for the chance to work with Ivan Ivanov and Jim Gruenwald and their outstanding wrestlers at the USOEC in Marquette, Michigan. That torch has now been passed to the able hands of Dennis Hall and Willie Madison.

My name is Ernest Ciaccio and I represent my fellow members of the Committee for the Preservation of California Collegiate Wrestling. I also know that I adequately express the feelings of hundreds of thousands of Californians who make up our current Wrestling community. These Californians are current and former coaches, competitors, and in many cases life long fans of Wrestling. I have spent the last nineteen years of my adult life amongst my wrestling brethren, and believe that they make up the greatest fraternal organization in the world. I have witnessed countless lives that have been changed as a direct result of Wrestling and the character traits that our sport helps to instill in its participants. While our sport has born Presidents, Politicians, Judges, Doctors, and many other successful members of society the opportunity to participate in Wrestling at the collegiate level has declined over the last forty years.

Iowa retains their No. 1 spot for the fifteenth and final week, with wins over No. 3 Ohio State and Northwestern.

Iowa retains their No. 1 spot for the fourteenth week in a row, with wins over Minnesota and Northwestern. This week’s top 10 remain steady: Iowa, Iowa State, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Minnesota, Cornell , Lehigh, Oklahoma, Maryland and Penn State. With the Division I season getting ready to begin their post season, there will be one more set of team rankings that will be released next week February 23, 2010 and then one set of tournament rankings that will be released in March.

Ongoing budget shortfalls continue to create severe financial difficulties for higher education in California. California State University, Bakersfield, is not immune to this reality. As part of campus–wide reductions to help deal with the on–going financial crisis, CSUB Athletics will be discontinuing men’s and women’s golf, tennis and wrestling as intercollegiate sports, effective with 2010–11 academic year.

West Valley College in Saratoga is about to drop wrestling which has been a part of the college since it opened in 1964. Jim Root has saved the program once, but now he will need even more help. Please read the attachments and follow up ASAP. We cannot afford to lose another wrestling program. The California Community Colleges are down to 21 programs. We are a struggling sport. I am not sure what the magic number is, but if we fall too far, they could conceivably drop the sport all together.