Threats and Culprits

Threats to Amateur Wrestling:  Despite the very encouraging “vital signs” listed above, amateur wrestling is most threatened at the college level as evidenced by the following:

• 474 teams have been eliminated at all collegiate levels since 1972. Many other Olympic sports have also been devastated. For example, men’s gymnastics only has 15 college teams remaining (in all divisions).
• Eight teams have been eliminated just in the Spring of 2009.
• Currently, there are only 323 intercollegiate remaining to accommodate nearly 267,000 high school wrestlers.
• States like Washington, Texas, Georgia, and Florida each have over 300 high school wrestling teams without having a single college wrestling team in their state.

Culprits: While there are a variety of reasons that have led to the elimination of so many college teams, the primary culprits are as follows:

• Current interpretation of Title IX resulted in wrestling being an early target for elimination because it did not have a female counterpart.
• At the Division I level, NCAA member institutions are only required to sponsor 6 men’s sports and 8 women’s sports. At the Division II and III levels, schools must only sponsor 5 men’s sports and 5 women’s sports (in the larger enrollment schools, D-III schools must sponsor 6 men’s sports and 6 women’s sports). 
• Consequently, there is very little incentive for colleges to sponsor broad based intercollegiate athletic departments and in fact, the current economy has accelerated a downsizing trend across the nation. 
• The annual allocation of state monies to public colleges has been reduced over the years. The budgetary shortfall has resulted in the elimination of many teams.
• Many Olympic sport coaches (sports other than football and basketball) do not have the necessary CEO skills to protect their programs, particularly in a bad economy (fundraising, marketing, promotions, public speaking, etc.).  

Ramifications of 466 Discontinued Teams: Historically, our intercollegiate wrestling teams have been the training grounds for future generations of high school, middle school, and elementary school teachers and wrestling coaches.  Simply stated, we need to establish more college teams so we can replenish the depleted pool of teachers and coaches at all scholastic levels across America.