Eastern Illinois Drops Wrestling

Eastern Illinois discontinues wrestling


DATE: 5/17/2007 1:56:00 PM Charleston, IL By Richard Moser
Eastern Illinois University

Eastern Illinois University Director of Athletics Dr. Rich McDuffie announced Thursday (May 17) that intercollegiate wrestling will be discontinued, effective immediately.

“For the past three years, the NCAA has collected academic performance data and implemented its new Academic Performance Rate (APR). Due to wrestling’s academic performance over the past few years, the sport has received NCAA penalties in scholarship reduction and further penalties could include post season competition restrictions and/or recruiting restrictions.

“Therefore based on wrestling’s academic performance as per the NCAA’s new Academic Performance Rate, the discontinuation of the wrestling program was regrettably a decision that had to be made,” said McDuffie.

Current coach Ralph McCausland will be retained by the University and reassigned to a position yet to be determined.

“We are indebted to Ralph for his long service and contributions to the University and its student-athletes. We hope he will choose to remain a staff member,” said McDuffie.

Eastern will also continue its scholarship commitments to current wrestling student-athletes including those who have signed National Letters of Intent to attend the University this fall.

EIU’s academic services and compliance staff will assist any wrestlers who choose to transfer. Based on their academic standing, they could be immediately eligible at any other institution.

Eastern will now have 11 women’s sports and 10 men’s sports. With 21 sports, EIU still offers more sports than any other institution in the Ohio Valley Conference, which is its primary conference affiliation.

http://www.intermatwrestle.com/news/...y.aspx?ID=5301

Very sad... they are blaming it on poor APR ratings.

As I said on the other board, 184-pounder Greg Perz was All-Academic with a 3.73 in Industrial Technology.

Working on getting ahold of Matt Hughes on this.

Hughes might hurt someone!

I think this is the start of a lot of teams dropping the sport on the DI level...poor grades and poor on mat performance don't do much for a college.

Heart-breaking. SIUE gains wrestling, EIU drops it.

You'd think they would have tried a regime change before just dropping, if the team wasn't performing in the classroom.

Seems too convenient

On the recent list of underperforming academic schools, there was only one wrestling team, and Eastern Illinois wasn't it.

One thing about the APR is it only counts scholarship athletes, and if there's a school that's not fully funded, one or two kids failing out or transferring out after being ineligible can really hose a team's APR.

I've spent the last two days researching the APR regarding EIU. The number looks horrid, but there's got to be more to it. I'm hearing conflicting reports on the actual number of schollies that EIU has.

if they are failing academically and the coach is the one recruiting the wrestlers how does he retain his position? just a thought.