I agree with this statement. There are definitely more college scholarships available in football which is the sport of the three Coach Westfahl mentioned that wrestling would draw the most athletes from, quite a few baseball players are wrestlers too. A lot of kids that go into basketball at early ages would be very good wrestlers. I do think that parents start directing their children more to football, basketball and baseball at early ages because they see more and larger scholarships in football, larger scholarships in basketball, and better potential economic opportunity in all three football, basketball and baseball.



I agree with Kale on the part about how most student athletes would be better to focus on their academics. My son has a good wrestling scholarship at Baker University but it only pays a little under 30% of the total expense at Baker University. This academic scholarships pay closer to 35% of the total. And If he had done better with his high school GPA and ACT score, the academic scholarship would have covered a lot more. Kale, that is great advice for any student and I think you are correct that for the average student athlete especially in so called non revenue sports like wrestling that there is more scholarship money available for strong academic performance and pursuits. I do believe though that it is possible for a dedicated student athlete to do both perform at a high level in both academics and athletics. It gets more difficult to do both the higher the educational ladder you go especially in college where other life distractions including growing independence occur but it is being done by very dedicated student athletes at both the high school and college level.

Kale, I do not agree with you though on your last statement that I firmly believe most of the time the parents are more interested in the athletic scholarship for bragging rights than for the actual monetary value. I really do not think that is true. Yes, there is a great deal of pride that a parent takes in their child earning an award or scholarship. And I know we all including myself like to toot our own horn to a certain extent. However, the number and amount of scholarships available in a sport definitely makes a difference to parents. I think we can all agree how important a college education is to a young person today. In this new global high tech economy a good college education is imperative. I believe it is only going to be more important in the future. The cost of college has escalated and that rising cost trend will no doubt continue. College expense is a major factor for most families and the parents and students strive for as much scholarship money as possible whether academic or athletic. I believe that the number and amount of college scholarship available for wrestling does influence parental support directed to wrestling at early ages. I truly believe parental support for wrestling even at the early ages would be stronger if there were better opportunities available in both the number and amount of college wrestling scholarships.

I think one of the reasons that the Iowa youth and high school wrestling programs are so strong has more to do with the availability of college wrestling opportunities available in Iowa. They have three D-I wrestling programs at the University of Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa. Iowa also has many college wrestling programs at the other levels (junior college, other NCAA divisions and NAIA). I firmly believe that all of this opportunity to further their young wrestlers academic and wrestling careers in college adds greatly to Iowa parental support for wrestling and just adds overall to a very vibrant wrestling community in Iowa. If Baker University had not added a college wrestling program, there is a very good chance that my son would be at a Division III or NAIA college in Iowa today.

Kansas has been fortunate in recent years that we have been actually adding college wrestling programs (new programs Pratt, Newman, Baker, NWKTC, Bethany and Benedictine to join older programs at Fort Hays State, Labette, Neosho, and Colby). We have gone from four to ten programs. This really increases the college academic and wrestling opportunities for the wrestling youth in Kansas. I have personally seen this growth in the last four years of compiling the list of High School seniors signing to wrestle in College. The overwhelming percentage of these young Kansas wrestlers are now signing to wrestle at Kansas colleges. I have also been able to see so many of these young former Kansas high school wrestlers wrestling at Open Kansas college tournaments, duals in Kansas and for two of the last three years at the Kansas Cup. It was very inspiring for me to be in attendance at the first dual about ten days ago between two new Kansas college wrestling programs at Baker and Bethany. It was well attended by Baker University students and there was also a Kids Club from Louisburg, Kansas in attendance. Many of these Baker University students are probably getting their first exposure to wrestling and they showed enthusiam for this new rivalry with Bethany and you know that will be true for a dual rivalry with Benedictine College too. All those people would not have been there without these two new Kansas college wrestling programs. How many of those former Kansas high school wrestlers on the Bethany and Baker teams would be attending college in states like Iowa today or maybe not even atttending college?

That is why I am so supportive of our Kansas College Wrestling Fund. We all know how easy it is for college athletic departments to drop wrestling. We were all shocked a year ago when UNO did that. A group of us worked with USAW-KS to establish a Fund so that we could prevent this type of UNO situation from happening to one of our Kansas college wrestling programs. We want college wrestling opportunities to grow not die in Kansas. It will be so much better for the Kansas wrestling community if these college wrestling programs can grow. We cannot depend on government assistance or legislation to make these college opportunities grow. The Kansas wrestling community has to support this ourselves. We have to do this from many revenue sources (individual donations, youth/high school tournament donations, fundraising efforts, and corporate donations). I personally believe that our strongest foundation has to be from annual individual donors. Think of all the thousands of families and former Kansas youth/high school & college wrestlers. This should be the base of contributors to this Fund for it to be successful. I know everyone is not position to donate, but I believe most of us could donate something whether it is $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000 or more. I believe what matters most right now is that alll of us in the Kansas wrestling community become donors in 2012 now matter what the amount is that we can individually afford. A lot of people are not working today so this is probably a good day to take some time and write that 2012 donation. Make an investment today in the future of Kansas college wrestling.

Make checks payable: USA Wrestling – Kansas, Inc./KCWF, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) entity.
Mail to: Mike Juby, Kansas College Wrestling Fund, 7208 Magnolia Way, Hutchinson, KS 67502