Do not confuse Utah Valley State with Utah State. Utah Valley which added wrestling two years ago, has NO football program. Utah State has football and NO wrestling.
This will never be a political solution to adding D-1 wrestling in Kansas but rather a financial solution. You find the money and you can have a program tomorrow.

Back to why I resurrected this topic a couple of days ago, everyone who wants a NCAA Division I program to develop at any of our Division I Kansas schools WSU, KSU or KU should consider signing up to become part of Ted Witulski's plan to make that happen. You can find his invitational letter under the Breaking News Section of the Home page or by clicking on the site that included on my Feb 5th post above. Ted is asking for an army of 500 volunteers because he believes in strength in the numbers.

Not having a football program can actually be a hinderence. Wrestling will likely not be a sport that brings in a great deal of money to a university, therefore much of the funding for the program will come from other money drawing sports such as basketball and football. WSU is a bit of an anomaly because they have a good basketball program and a baseball program that makes money. I have a feeling that they have financial issues in the athletic department because they have no football. I would also think that no matter how much pressure they have to start wrestling I would think they have had much more pressure to bring back football. Plus they are kind of a commuter school where the average age of the undergrad student is around 25 years old and there is another 4 year University in town that just began a wrestling program. I'm not trying to poo-poo on the idea, I just wonder if WSU is that great a choice.

Personally, I feel that if a new college program is to be started in Kansas, it will be at KSU. The reasoning is simple: Kansas State does not have softball or wrestling. By adding both, Title IX is not a problem. I am not a big K State fan, but if they could pull that off, I would become one.

We need to band together and support the efforts to bring wrestling to a D1 program in the State of Kansas. It is a huge undertaking and will take the entire wrestling community working together.

We all have our own ideas on which school would be best suited to be the first but if we don't get on-board it will never happen regardless of location.

Clearly, it was an oversight of Ted's not to include Wichita State in the letter. Perhaps because he was thinking of the Big 12. I'm sure we can view this mistake as just that.

Let's get on board!

Absolutely, Randy. And the thing is that we not only need to get on board, we also need to get others on board. To make Ted's goal of 500 volunteers we need to recruit others. The more volunteers the better the chance of it happening. I hope we surprise Ted and get more than 500. So everyone not only sign but encourage your friends to do the same.

I think everyone has interesting ideas, but discussing them on a board in and of itself won't get anything accomplished. It sounds like Mr. Witulski has a plan and, at this point, needs bodies willing to help. I'm sure he has as much or more experience and contacts as many who have posted.

Lets get him his numbers and then we'll all be working together and in a posture to get as much accomplished as is possible. When people are all working together there's always an opportunity to tweak a plan if someone has a good idea or contact to make use of.

I've responded to Mr. Witulski, have you? Can we get a headcount so we know when we're getting close? Please reply. I may not be the first, but I'll be 1 for headcount purposes. Who's next?

When his plan doesn't include WSU I am not too sure how well thought out it is, and it gives me cause to question his experience.

What's up with the mayor of Wichita pushing for football to return to WSU? It will require 3 women's sports to be added and in turn put WSU which is about $276,000 in the plus after expenditures into the negative! Wrestling wouldn't cost that much and it would be nice to see WSU have a wrestling team again.

I'm sure you mean football instead of wrestling in your first sentence.

The mayor is talking about a possible city referendum to help with the surplus costs, which would keep the revenue in the positive. He has also spoken about the potential economic impact that football would have for the city with the �thousands� of fans that would attend the games. Of course, they would come back in as a D1 AA program and build up to a D1 A program �assumedly.� What does everyone else think, is it a smart move and is there any hope for success. Honestly, I would enjoy a wrestling program at WSU, but I would also enjoy a football program at WSU. I guess we could ask ourselves the question; what would benefit WSU and the city more? Wrestling? Of Football? I would also ask would a referendum supporting football be likely to pass? Would you vote for it if given the opportunity? As much as I hate to say it, until we as fans can start getting our rears into the seats at Newman, Wichita State will never consider wrestling. They have to see it succeed before they are willing to take the chance.

Good Point Furches. Also, Coach Ed will have my head if I don't put that Women's Wrestling could be one of the women's sports and then we could work into men's.

I have at least one son that would love for them to have wrestling at WSU so he could take advantage of that and their great business and entrepreneurship program.

Ms. Jenni

Great point Ms. Jenni. It has been stated that WSU would have to add 3 women's programs in order to add football. I say use it as an opportunity to push women's wrestling, and if it were to succeed, then it would be easier to get men's wrestling.

It is my opinion that Mr. Witulski's plan DOES include WSU. The omission in his letter I feel was an oversight instead of an intentional act.

Whether he has the "experience" to me is not the question. He is a USAW staffer with lots of enthusiasm for the sport including getting wrestling at a Kansas D1 school.

Ted's efforts are to form an army. He has taken steps to see that it's done. Whether we accept his offer or not is an individual decision.

I'm on board!

My wife and I have both signed up so that is three. If you don't mind though I am going to start one of those polls in another topic to see if we can get a read from the forum users that way. We have to remember though that many of the people who might sign up might not respond to our informal survey. A lot of people do not use the forum or at least do not post on it. So don't get discouraged if these numbers do not show up as being big on this survey.

I have four Edisons signed on.

He mentioned in a letter his apologies for the omission of Wichita State and didn't mean anything by it.