What a slap.. The first program outside the state of Oklahoma or Iowa to win a National Title. I quess it was 20 years ago now but still that program was consistently cranking out some very solid kids. I am sure Bobby Douglas feels real good about it. All the fing money these schools have for the football and basketball programs, makes me sick how everyone seems to be controlled by the almighty dollar and not about the kids.

What is this world coming to ? I remember my Senior year of H.S> 20 years ago who the Div 1 Champs were- The Sun Devil program led by Bobby Douglass. I never would have envisioned how in the world a program with such prominence can end up on the chopping block. This would be like the Texas or CornHusker program cutting Football.

It sure makes it awful hard for states like ours desiring a Div 1 program within our borders to win over Universities to our cause when once proud and prominent programs like ASU are cutting theirs.

On a good note though, It is excellent to see that Baker has added a program and I definitely look for them to rise up through the ranks quickly.

Arizona State Assistant Coach

Zach Roberson

Position:
Assistant Coach

Experience:
1st

Zach Roberson, a three-time All-American and 2004 NCAA 133-pound Champion at Iowa State, has joined the Arizona State University wrestling coaching staff Head Coach Thom Ortiz announced Tuesday. The second-ranked freestyle wrestler in the United States at 60kg (132 pounds), Roberson will work with the lightweights in the Sun Devil program while working toward his goal of representing the U.S. at the 2008 Olympics.

Roberson recently placed second at the Senior World Team Trials, falling to Mike Zadick in the Championship Final at the tournament in Las Vegas in July. The runner-up at 60kg in the first season of Real Pro Wrestling for the Iowa Stalkers team, Roberson placed fourth at the most recent U.S. National Championships in Las Vegas.

Recruited to Ames, Iowa, by then-assistant coach Ortiz, Roberson placed seventh at the NCAA Championships as a sophomore for his first All-America accolade before taking second as a junior and winning the national title as a senior by defeating Penn State's Josh Moore, 7-3, n the 2004 event. The 2003 Midlands Champion at 133 pounds and Art Kraft Champion of Champions recipient (best exemplifying the qualities of a champion) at the same meet, Roberson also placed third in the Big XII Championships before taking second place as a senior.

Prior to his arrival at ISU, Roberson was a four-time state champion in Kansas, claiming crowns at 103, 112, 119 and 125-pounds before taking runner-up honors at the 125-pound high school national tournament. A recipient of the Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award, which honors academic and wrestling excellence as well as community service, Roberson completed his prep career with an unblemished 153-0 record and won 109 of those bouts by pin fall.


Arizona State Wrestling

This sad situation at ASU is exactly why I strongly support the idea of Kansas D-II, D-III and NAIA school adding wrestling while by-passing the D-I schools. Look at it: WIthin days of Baker announcing that they were joining the ranks of NAIA wrestling, yet another D-I school drops it; the second Pac-10 school (along with Oregon) to drop wrestling in the las few months.

Couldn't you picture the rivalries that could develop within the MIAA, KCAC and HAAC schools around Kansas? Kansas schools filled with Kansas kids? It would be incredible! KU and K-State adding wresting has always been a pipe dream at best, but the smaller schools adding it certainly isn't.

D-I wrestling is becoming a regional sport. The only remaining D-I conference that has all of the teams in it still having wrestling is the Big Ten. Out of 12 (or is it 8?) Big 12 (or is it 8) schools, just five have it.

The way to go is the small schools. Forget KU and K-State. It's not going to happen.

I feel sorry for the 5 wrestlers that signed with ASU yesterday. I do not know what is going on there and hate to speculate, but that seems really unprofessional on the administration and coaching staff. One of Kansas best, Joe Cornejo signed just yesterday and what a way to celebrate and to enjoy your signing. You find out that the program has been dropped.

It is very sad for the wrestlers. Now they have to hurry up and try and find a new place, (with scholarship money) to go. Good luck Joe.

I find it hard to believe that the coaching staff could believe this would happen. Roberson is as good of a guy as you will ever meet and I know he would not lead someone on. I feel horrible for all involved.

What is sad about this is that D-I wrestling (by NCAA rules) only gets a total of 9.9 full scholarships per school; few if any wrestlers are on full rides. The same is true of most "olympic" sports. Most D-I wrestlers are paying for more than half of their college expenses out of their own pocket.

Title IX always gets the blame; and does carry part of the burden. But football is the biggest problem. The trouble is that it's the 800-pound gorilla in the corner that no one wants to take on.

Football gets what, 85 full scholarships per school? WHY? 85? How many of those kids will ever play? How many of those kids will leave early? How many will get kicked off the team or flunk out for never going to school or get arrested for doing something stupid?

If you cut football back to say 60 even, what effect would have on the sport we now see? If you cut football coaching staffs from 20 to 12, would the quality of the game suffer? Why can't the third-string right outside linebacker also play left outside linebacker? Can't the offensive coordinator also be the QB coach? Do special teams really need two coaches?

Think about it: those 25 scholarships that you could cut from football would have saved Oregon and Arizona State's wrestling programs, and probably swimming too. Title IX wouldn't have been effected and not one big-money booster would have even noticed.

You think Kerry McCoy from Stanford anticipated the sinking ship of the PAC 10 by taking the Maryland job this week?

This year it was fantastic to watch Anthony Robles kick butt at the D1 championships! The one-legged ASU wrestler had everyone on their feet cheering!

Huge mistake to drop the program.

ASU President Michael Crow's e-mail:

president@asu.edu

That ASU team that won it had a Kansas Boy on it, Shawn Tribioli from Derby was a part of that team. He did not get much mat time with them and ended up becoming a team manager but he said it was great being around those teams led by the great Bobby Douglas.
Shawn passed away a few years back but I'm sure he looking down and not liking this turn of events in Arizona..

Here is a response I received from ASU President, Michael Crow.


Eric:

Thank you for writing and for sharing your concerns regarding this week’s announcement about the ASU wrestling team. As a former student wrestler, I can relate personally to your thoughts regarding the need to discontinue our varsity wrestling program. The decision to do so was neither arbitrary nor desirable, but the unfortunate result of a complex combination of factors tied to the state’s current economic downturn, the program’s potential for competitive success, and its conference/regional support, among others. Lamentably, despite the recognized talent and dedication of its coaches and student-athletes, the program was unable to meet its fiscal responsibilities and, with the current dramatic budget cuts it is facing, ASU is simply unable to continue defraying these costs. To provide some additional context, it would take a $10 million endowment in order to keep the program in operation. ASU will, nevertheless, uphold its scholarship commitments to student-athletes who choose to remain at the university and facilitate the transition of other students who wish to continue their studies elsewhere.

As an institution that is deeply proud of its tradition of academic and athletic excellence, the decision to terminate any student program is always a last resort and, although I wish our current economic circumstances allowed for a different outcome, the reality is that they do not.

I appreciate your taking the time to communicate with me directly on this matter and for your advocacy on behalf of current and prospective Sun Devil student-athletes.

Michael M. Crow
President

$10 million???????

24/7

I would sure like to see the breakdown of costs for that 10M. Frankly I don't believe it and if it does take 10M then someone needs to learn how to establish a budget and find ways to cut costs.

Eric:
Would you mind sharing your original letter to President Crow with us? I'm always curious when a buearucrat answers a question as to whether or not they actually answered answered YOUR question; it's the journalist in me I guess.

24/7:
To be clear, that's not $10 million a season, and I can see that. The Carver Trust at the University of Iowa has about a $7-$8 million endowment for wrestling, and Hawkeye wrestling is actually a revenue sport. You always have to figure in equipment, travel, recruiting, marketing, and everything else that goes into it, and you have to figure in having several years worth of money on reserve. $10 million might be a bit high, but it's not out of line. That's why D-I schools are dropping out and why adding a program is so hard.

I think that number keeps going up because I have seen the number of $8 million on themat.com's college wrestling forum in several topics over the past week. I believe the athletic director used the $8 million endowment level in answer to someone on what would be needed.

Several topics on that forum are talking about the possibility of starting a National College Wrestling Endowment that would be for the purpose of preserving current programs and starting new college wrestling programs. The endowment fund would be administered by a wrestling credible organization, e.g. the NWCA. Money would be granted in the form of either loans or some type of match. For instance in this case maybe 4 million would be matched by the National Endowment Fund and ASU and its boosters would need to come up with another $4 million. Of course the wrestling community would have to donate to build the National Endowment fund. The basic idea would be to enpower wrestling with some financial clout to deal with college athletic departments in the future. Football and basketball do not seem to have to deal with proportionality and Title IX obstacles. I think we know that is due to the money they bring into universities. Maybe this would be a way for wrestling to get itself in position to bring money into universities making wrestling more attractive to them as a program.

What do you think about a potential National College Wrestling Endowment Fund?

Here is a link to an interesting article from a former ASU wrestler.
http://mmajunkie.com/news/4353/guest-column-c-b-dollaway-on-the-death-of-asu-wrestling2.mma

I started a topic on the high school forum on the proposed National College Wrestling Endowment. I truly think this could help preserve programs like ASU in the future.

Vince,

Your idea of a national endowment is a good one. I don't know all of the issues that would be associated, but it is a lot better than generating $10 mil per D1 university. I'm down to my last $10 mil and don't know if that's how I want to spend it.

It does seem that the trend at the D1 level is to cut olympic sport programs. There was a day when Football and Basketball programs did not make money. How did colleges survive back then??

When I was in Germany, there were a bunch of soldiers who were wrestling on German teams and getting paid (actually pretty good money). They had a club system there.

If I remember correctly, German high schools do not sponsor sports programs and I don't know about colleges. If you want to play sports you have to join a club.

I really appreciate our system of sponsoring sports in schools because it gives everyone a chance. You don't have to have rich parents to be an athlete in the good ol U.S.A.

The news of ASU dropping wrestling "for financial reasons" also makes me realize how much I appreciate the National Collegiate Wrestling Association. They have really developed a great organization that provides opportunities for wrestlers to compete from any size university. I'm sure the ASU wrestling community will be top contenders in the NCWA. Oh, by the way, the NCWA operates on a shoestring budget. I doubt that any of the over 100 teams has an endowment of even $1 mil.

Erik Hinckley

Hey, Erik:

Thanks for responding to my post on the proposed National College Wrestling Endowment Fund. I don't have $10 million lying around but this would be a national fund that would require participation across the nation from a lot of little guys like myself contributing on an annual basis amounts like $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000 or more for those who could afford it. The originator of the post on the national forum used this line of reasoning as to the potential donor base. The poster goes by the name SFRob on themat.com and pointed out that there are over 250,000 high school wrestlers in the United States and just think of all the former wrestlers and their families. You are talking about probably over one million people with current or past ties to wrestling. If you could get a million people to contribute a $100 on an annual basis you would generate $100 million. I realize that you are not going to get them all to do that but many would be willing to give a lot more than $100 a year to a National College Wrestling Endowment fund that they felt could make a long term difference. Obviously some big pocket donors would also be necessary to make it happen. SFRob is putting out a goal of $100 million in four years.

Erik, I also still very much believe in the building of college wrestling at all levels including the NCWA. There is a possibility that if my son wrestles that it might be at that level, but even if he does wrestle club for a school like KSU or KU in the future I would still support a national college wrestling endowment because I think it would give national college wrestling the best chance to grow and survive.

If you agree with me at all on this, I would encourage you to get on the topic that I started on the high school forum and post that you would financially support such a fund either on it or on the national forum. I have linked the national forum topics on the high school forum topic.

Good luck to your son today at the Park Hill Duals. I look forward to working with you to promote college wrestling programs in Kansas at all levels.