DH

I posted this on the Save ASU Wrestling Facebook page, I hope it clarifies why the other programs that have been cut (Fresno and Oregon) have been unsuccessful in advocating the women's wrestling program route.

We need to figure out a way to get women's wrestling to be recognized by the NCAA as an emerging sport, and what we need to to get 20 DI coaches on board with supporting women's club teams. I can speak from personal experience that being the lone girl on a college men's d1 team and trying to start a competitive club program by yourself is quite possibly one of the most difficult things I (unsuccessfully) attempted to do.

JB and Fanforlife, I know you are busy, but is there any way for the NWCA to put together an initiative to help D1 Coaches start women's wrestling club programs and maybe have their volunteer asst coaches help out? This could potentially help reduce the amount of programs cut if we can get women's wrestling as an NCAA DI Emerging Sport.

Anyways, here is what I posted:

Hey guys,

To clarify, it's not that easy to add a women's wrestling program at a DI school, as I have found from advocating it for the Fresno State and Oregon.

Basically, to add a team, a sport must be sanctioned by the NCAA or considered an emerging sport. Unfortunately, women's wrestling is neither.

If you click on the criteria link on this page: http://www1.ncaa.org/membership/membership_svcs/emerging_sports/home.html you will see that there need to be 20 club programs among NCAA division 1 schools for a sport to be considered "emerging." While women's wrestling has a ton of college teams and clubs, there are very few (only 4) at NCAA Division 1 schools. http://thewomensmat.com/colleges.asp

So that is why it's so difficult to start women's wrestling programs, although it would seem like the perfect solution.

What we need is more female wrestlers to attend DI schools and start clubs, which is a difficult process (I tried for years to do it in college).