A worst nightmare for college athletes participating in a low-revenue Olympic sports is the cancellation of their program.
For members of the Slippery Rock wrestling team, that nightmare has become a reality.
On Jan. 31, officials at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania announced eight sports would be cut after the 2005-06 school year, affecting 122 athletes and saving roughly $350,000 in the first year.
All of the athletic programs affected are all Olympic sports: men's and women's swimming, men's and women's water polo, women's field hockey, men's golf, men's tennis and wrestling.
The Rock wrestling squad is just one case of a growing number of varsity collegiate wrestling programs that are eliminated each year.
I think that wrestling is always looked at first
Rock coach Derek DelPorto said. It's a low-revenue sport; we don't get a lot of people at the matches and people just don't give our sport a chance.
Despite finishing with the most dual meet wins in program history, - 14 - since 1972-73, the Slippery Rock wrestlers will have to find a new forum to compete in come next year, whether it be at another school or a club organization.
DelPorto summed up the situation rather easily.
The wrestling community simply does not want to lose another wrestling program he said.
In 2004, the NCAA released a summary of sports sponsorship and participation rates data related to the decline of Olympic sports between the 1988-89 and 2003-04 seasons.
During that time span 106 wrestling programs have been lost across all three divisions, outnumbering any other men's or women's Olympic sport. The same is true for Division I schools, which have dropped 45 teams. Currently there are 226 NCAA wrestling teams, 87 in D-I, 42 in D-II and 97 in D-III.
The Mid-American Conference has had its share of schools drop wrestling programs, the most recent being Miami after the 1998-99 season and Toledo after 1993-94. Ohio is one of only six current MAC wrestling teams along with Kent State, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Northern Illinois.
We have a very proud wrestling tradition here at OU with many conference-winning performers and All-American performers
Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt said, noting that the Ohio program is not in any jeopardy.
Toledo, like many other schools that have lost varsity wrestling, now has club teams fueled solely off the athletes' dedication to the sport. Many teams are organized more by the wrestlers themselves than a coach.
The Rockets are part of the 116-team National Collegiate Wrestling Association, an organization that helps build and promote wrestling programs at the collegiate level.
Michael Sousaris has been the coach of the Rockets' club wrestling team for six years after originally being one of the group's student leaders. He said the commitment of club wrestlers is not lacking.
I try to promote awareness
he said. We are here
and we aren't dying because we are succeeding at other levels shows people that there is a passion - that there is a commitment to the sport and that's something that the common public doesn't see.
Slippery Rock noted budget cuts as part of its decision to eliminate the sport, but DelPorto does not believe that is a legitimate cause and said a wrestling program is pennies of an entire university's budget when compared to the number of athletes who will transfer to other schools due to the cuts.
He estimates more than half of his wrestling team will leave the university, taking their tuition money with them.
According to the Office of Post Secondary Education Web site, www.ope.ed.gov, a division of the U.S. Department of Education, the total operating expenses of the Slippery Rock wrestling team was $20,534 for the 2004-05 season, behind only golf, field hockey and tennis for the lowest operating cost.
You can make arguments that none of the big schools drop it
like the Big 12 schools or the Big 10
because obviously they have more money in their athletic budgets
Ohio coach Joel Greenlee said. They could have found a way to save it though; it doesn't cost anything. They aren't saving any money not having wrestling. It's frustrating.
Of the five MAC wrestling programs with data available, Northern Illinois and Eastern Michigan had the lowest operating expenses at their respective institutions, while Ohio and Kent State were second to lowest.
Title IX compliance is another main reason wrestling sponsorship has been falling in the past decades. In the MAC, Miami's club wrestling team was among the plaintiffs in an unsuccessful suit against the university challenging the decision to eliminate men's teams to achieve gender equity.
Wrestling has always been on the chopping block because there is no women's equivalent
and when you focus on Title IX men's soccer has women's soccer and baseball has softball ... there just isn't anything to match up with wrestling
DelPorto said.
