It was just brought to my attention by a very reliable source(My father, a memeber of the PCC board) that the Pratt Comm. Colege Beavers will be adding a wrestling program in 2006-2007 season. This is great for the commuity of Pratt (my home town) and for us here in Kansas.
We always stress the importance of keping Kansas wrestlers in Kansas, well now we have 4 commuity colleges with programs. I encourage any Sr. to give Pratt a chance it is a great town (7 to 8 thousand people)only 70 miles from Kansas' largest city, Wichita. It will be a personal mission of mine to ensure the success of this new program. Pratt has a great wrestling history and will be looking for new recruits this year.
Congrats to the city of Pratt and a thank you to the Pratt Community College Board for approving the greatest sport man ever invented.
You can go to prattribune.com for more details.
Coach Brown

Absolutely GREAT news!

One would have to wonder about coach, recruiting, etc. but it will be a GREAT chance for some of the guys from the area that would have had to go to a school farther away... My son's situation is looking up as now he can wrestle in the home town again, so I am liking it a bunch!

According to many people this will allow many of those kids from South Central Kansas a great opportunity, I had to go to Labette which is a great distance from Pratt. Mr. Fairleigh my father, Ken Brown, says your kid is an animal, I wish we could match up against Pratt High sometime but it is way too long a drive from Sabetha. THis is going to be awesome for Pratt, a city that has grown alot since I graduated in 94.

Mr. Brown, I'm sorry to inform you that Denis Fairleigh tore his ACL this year and will not be competing in his senior year. Although I have a feeling that with the addition of a CC in his hometown adding wrestling, not to mention him having a good shot at being varsity I believe you may see him on a Pratt wrestling mat before he's done.

well bronco you better be transfering to pratt so you will have a chance to wrestle a college match.swish

if only Dodge city and Garden city would re-instate thier programs, it would be just like to good-ole days! i wrestled for Dodge when they still had their program, i was back for a visit sometime back about 6 years ago, dodge still had their mats and were using the old wrestling room as a storage room.

I concur. it was really cool to have Graduated in the seventies if you were a wrestler. If you were truly a warrior of epic proportion, you could wrestle for Fritz at Kstate, and if you were just average or better you could wrestle at one of five jucos. there was also NAIA competition to be had at Hays. Now there are 4 Juco programs available, and Neuman added to the small college experience, but there are SO many more wrestlers vying for those oppurtunities from elsewhere that it is still a pretty tough draw if you are just average in Kansas. I remember that when you had a Juco tourney you would see Tonkawa, Ok. , Oscar Rose out of Okla. City, Mesa and Sterling out of Colorado, mcCook Ne. and JV teams from Air Force and School of Mines. With the exeption of MESA (now a 4 year school)and the latter teams, the others are gone, leaving all those potential spots to look elsewhere, like here in Kansas. I have frequently let myself in for considerable abuse from others for believing that the principal commitment of a Ks. Juco, (which is funded by resident county and state taxes) should be to the young men or women residing in those areas that pay the Much higher tax levies required to host a Juco, but it is a fact that Kansas is becoming a very positive state for its number of post-high school wrestling oppurtunities and we should all feel fortunate that those spots are available here, no matter who ends up filling them. I would add WSU to the "if only" list, as they have no Football program so would have a better time balancing their male/female scholarship balance dictate...

I'm excited to hear that there will be another wrestling program in the state. I've heard of PCC several times and it is getting it's name out there. But to say that pratt has a "great wrestling tradition" is a bit of a stretch. You have produced several great wrestlers in the last couple the years, the Prater (spelling? sorry) boys. pratt's history could not hold a candle to the traditions of schools like St. Francis, hoxie, colby, norton, Ark City, Abilene.
But a big thumbs up to the people that pushed to start a program and i hope to see it thrive.

This might perk some ears up. I know several wrestlers from the good ole' days, back when all classes competed in one big tourney, talking about getting a program re-established at k-state. these are older guys who have wrestled for k-state. the only trouble is title 9 and find a female sport to add.

I would have to say that Title 9 is the worst thing to come out of the women's movement, especially for wrestling. There should be a by-law added to exclude wrestling because most programs are cut because of having to balance male and female sports. And i'm not bashing the women's movement, i'm just saying.

This is great that Pratt is adding a junior college program. It gives more post high school wrestling opportunities for our Kansas wrestlers. Hopefully Johnson County Community College and Kansas City Kansas Community college will follow Pratt's example. Let's keep this momentum going. Who knows maybe we will see the day that KSU and KU start up NCAA Division I programs again.

I would think women's softball would be the way to go at KSU since Kstate and Colorado are the only 2 programs in the Big XII without that sport.

However their is a women's upcoming (emerging) sports deal on the NCAA website which has Women's Rugby listed but not women's wrestling. I wrote a letter asking why women's wrestling wasn't included especially with wrestling being an olympic sport now for the ladies.

One issue could be, the next D1 school to add women's wrestling ... will be the only D1 school with women's wrestling.

Yea but NCAA on the whole how many schools DI down to DIII have rugby which is an "emerging sport"?

Also look at the #s for equestrian, not many of those programs nationally.

I'm glad to see the program coming back at Pratt. I wrestled there as a proud Beaver in the 74-75 season before going on to Ft. Hays. I remember we lost our coach during the season and we had a coach by the name of Stoner come in from some small private school in Pratt, so we could keep the team going. I can't remember if that was the last year or not. In the 70s though, there were lots of jucos in Kansas where you could get some good competition, like JCCC, Ft. Scott, Dodge City, Garden City, and more. It would be nice to see them all come back. I think the talent base in this state could support it.

Randy Hill
Wamego Red Raider
Pratt Beaver
Ft. Hays State Tiger

I think Pratt needs to name a coach soon, like no later than early February so kids know who is in charge there and recruiting can be a heck of a lot easier.