Enrollment-driven schools are key to starting new programs
Traveling nearly 2,000 miles to Fargo, N.D., to get discovered by a college wrestling coach wasn’t too unusual wrestlers from Florida. It actually prepares them for similar treks they will make if they are good enough to wrestle in college.
Just ask David Craig, who could be one of the most recruited wrestlers in the country this fall … and understands that he may never compete before his hometown family and friends in Brandon, Fla.
“I’ve grown up all life knowing that,” said the 18-year-old Craig who was born well after the varsity programs — Florida, Jacksonville, Florida International, Stetson and Central Florida — within the Sunshine s
tate had been discontinued. “But if there was (a college program in Florida) it would be great because we have a lot of talent coming through there.”And the young Floridians certainly proved their value in Fargo, where they had more champs than Pennsylvania in the ASICS Vaughan USAW Fargo Junior Nationals. But unlike their wrestling brothers from the state of Pennsylvania, which offers nearly 40 different college programs for its nearly 9,000 high school wrestlers, the almost 8,000 high school wrestlers in Florida have no place to wrestle on a varsity level while attending a college within the state.
Fl
orida is actually one of ten states, which have high school wrestling, but no collegiate opportunities.“It’s a governmental thing,” said Brandon High School coach Russ Cozart, coming up with another phrase to how Title IX interpretations in the 1980s hurt opportunities in men’s sports while trying to makes better opportunities in women’s sport. “The government took wrestling away from the south and the government has to do something about it. The government has to loosen up everything that has to do with Title IX.”
The southern United States was especially hit hard, including Florida, which must send its sons to compete thousands of miles away. That includes Cozart, whose son, Rocky, will wrestle at Michigan State this fall.
“I always thought the South would have wrestling again by the time my son graduated from high school and that was over 20 years ago,” said the elder Cozart. “That’s amazing.”
But what makes this even sadder is that many in the state see no changes in that status quo. Cozart believes he will never see a college program in Florida in his lifetime.
“I think it’s dead in the pan,” said Cozart.
And that attitude is what upsets the likes of Dan Gable, the former legendary Iowa coach who has been trying with the National Wrestling Coaches Association to generate interest in new college programs.
“I disagree with Russ,” Gable said. “He’s probably a little discouraged and has been shut down a hundred times. But you know what, he should go to the next one. Take a 101st or 102nd try. You don’t stop trying.”
“Where we are seeing the most success right now is in small private enrollment-driven schools like NAIA schools,” said NWCA director Mike Moyer, who said he sees more positives than negatives — literally, as he pointed out that no programs were lost over the past year — when it comes to reversing the trend of discontinuing college programs.
“The bigger schools have much more of a spotlight on them when it comes to Title IX. It’s a lot harder for them,” he said. “The smaller schools are more under the radar and willing to take a chance because it is a business decision.
“They have to figure out how to get not just more students but more quality students. So why not take the sixth-most popular boy’s sport in American. You know you are going to attract quality students. You know you are going to be competitive and you know you are going to bring in numbers.”
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