By Mike Finn

Over the past four years, the NCAA’s APR — an acronym for Academic Performance Rating — has provided an unsettling cloudy period for many Division I wrestling programs.

            Because of the APR’s measurement of athletes’ eligibility and retention within a sport, wrestling ranked among the bottom of men’s sports sponsored by the NCAA. And many programs that failed to reach the NCAA’s standard of 925 — the percentage of athletes who remained academically eligible and did not transfer — lost scholarships.

            Based on the NCAA’s latest APR information, which measured a four-year period through the 2007-08 academic year, there appears to be sunnier days ahead. Wrestling, which ranked 10th among the 13 men’s sports last year, has also moved up to No. 9 on that list this year as wrestling’s combined APR (962) rose nearly 15 points from last year’s 947.4.

            Also, only six programs will lose scholarships, compared to last year when 15 were penalized. Of the 84 Division I programs measured by the NCAA, 51 turned in higher averages than a year ago, including most notably West Virginia (up 38 points), Cal Davis (+37), Eastern Michigan (+29), UT-Chattanooga (+27) and Oklahoma (+27).

            (The Sooner program, which ranked 19th in overall APR, turned in a 971, up 64 points from the 907 that Oklahoma recorded in the first year (2006) the NCAA announced its academic reform and APR.)

            Mike Moyer, the executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, believes coaches have learned how to better distribute their 9.9 scholarships among multiple wrestlers.

            “Our sport is so tough. When a kid gets to college his freshmen year and things are not going that well and he’s getting $1,000 from the scholarship but paying $15,000 out of his pocket, there is not much incentive for him to stay,” Moyer said.

            “And if you lose a guy who was getting a $500 scholarship, it counts as much as a guy getting a $20,000 scholarship. Now if coaches give out a scholarship, they have to be certain this is someone who will stay in school and graduate.”

            The NWCA put together a blue-ribbon panel of administrators and hired Mark Gumble, a former Binghamton wrestling coach and current academic advisor from Central Florida, to reach out to troubled programs.

            “When we get the attention of the coaches, who buy into the help that we are providing, amazing things can happen,” Moyer said.

            But there is still a lot of work to do as only 14 programs ranked in the upper 50 percent among their school’s men’s sports. And much of wrestling’s problems stem from the problems that freshmen face in their first semester.

            “What no one can explain is that the academic profiles of our incoming freshmen are above average,” Moyer said. “But at the end of their freshmen year, our freshmen routinely finish last (among other sports) with regards to eligibility and retention.

            “By mid-October of their freshmen year, a freshman probably loses more matches in the first three weeks (of practice) than he has lost in his whole life. Then there is the weight certification window and you have mid-terms. All those things converge right about the same time. It explains why we have these otherwise solid students come to campus but they are in quicksand by the time they get to mid-term in their first semester.”

            Moyer calls it “the perfect storm” and believes this problem may actually lead to changing wrestling to a one-semester sport, which would begin after Christmas, end after basketball’s March Madness and give freshmen a chance to adjust to … and stay in … college.

            “It is going to be the cornerstone of our convention,” said Moyer of the annual event that will be held Aug. 6-9 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. “We are going to pull out all stops.”

            Moyer said many of the conference coaches have endorsed the idea.

            “We really have some momentum and it ties back to this whole academic situation,” Moyer said. “There is this ground swell of support and the economy is making everyone look at it. Even the bigger conferences are trying to determine how to cut back. The opportunity has never been better and could be imposed on us (by the NCAA) even if we don’t do it.”

            Moyer is strongly suggesting all coaches attend this year’s conference and even found a sponsor to create scholarships to help as many as 30 financially-strapped programs attend the event where the NWCA is actually creating a coaching academy where every element of leading a Division I program is taught.

            “We need our most experience coaches to be there to help mentor our younger inexperienced coaches who are in quicksand and don’t know it,” Moyer said.

            “At the end of the day, wrestling problems need to be solved by wrestling people. People outside of wrestling will try to solve our problems by eliminating the teams.

            “The APR is a perfect example of what we are capable of when we put our minds to it.”