National News
Northeastern Oklahoma A&M to add equestrian and wrestling
December 7, 2011
Equestrian and wrestling are on the horizon at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College.
Equestrian will be added in the fall of 2012 and wrestling will make its return in the fall of 2013.
Both programs were approved by the Board of Regents of Oklahoma A&M Colleges during their Friday meeting at Guthrie.
“We look at it from a couple of fronts,” said NEO A&M President Dr. Jeff Hale. “When you have a program that is as good as we have in rodeo, equine judging and livestock judging and good people along with our history, it just makes sense to keep adding to the program options. We feel good about the people running it. We have a coach on campus and the facilities are already set up.”
“When you look at it overall on the equestrian side, there are just so many reasons to do it,” Hale said.
According to the website, the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) provides collegiate riders of all skills the opportunity to compete individually and as teams in equestrian competition. It was founded on the principle that any college student should be able to participate in horse shows regardless of his or her riding ability or financial status
The program is expected to add between 25 and 30 new students who otherwise wouldn’t be attending NEO.
“We will be the only community college in the State of Oklahoma, and among the few in the nation, that will have livestock, judging, horse judging, rodeo and now equestrian,” said Shannon Cunningham, chair of NEO’s Department of Agriculture.
The NEO equestrian program will be aligned with the IHSA, which has 373 member colleges and more than 8,000 riders. Competition is broken down according to experience levels. Riders have five minutes to get on the horse they have been assigned, make adjustments and then compete.
“They will ride a horse they have never shown before,” Cunningham said. “It truly is a test of their horsemanship skills.”
“We are looking for areas of growth, and it comes with little expense to us since we already are well established in our other programs,” Cunningham said. “Our facilities are one of our greatest assets. We already teach classes that revolve around horsemanship and riding. We will tie those to the equestrian team.”
Chelsie Huseman, an agriculture instructor at NEO, will coach the team.
Prior to coming to NEO, she was a graduate assistant and worked directly with the women’s equestrian team at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas. She also competed at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyo.
Cunningham said she doesn’t expect to have a problem with finding student-competitors.
Oklahoma State regularly has more than 200 applicants, she said.
“That raises the question: ‘where do the other 135 kids go?’” she said. “We’re hoping to pick up students that don’t go to OSU.”
She also hopes the program can draw from the four-state area.
Numbers also were a factor in the decision to bring back the Golden Norse wrestling program.
“When you look at the numbers, there are 275,000 high school wrestlers and only 300 college options. There are a lot of good kids in our four-state area, about 20,000 - and only 15 schools,” Hale said.
NEO fielded a wrestling team from 1975-1993, producing 24 NJCAA All-Americans, including four first-teams, and numerous placers at the national tournament.
Ray Judkins had established the program, compiling a 36-19-2 record between 1975-77 and then in 1984-85.
Bill Yocum was 24-13-3 from 1978-81 and Alan Lauchner was head coach from 1986-93. His teams were 45-26-1
“It adds to the uniqueness of NEO,” said Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Dale Patterson. “It adds to our athletic program. It gives us another choice. There are more than 3,000 Oklahoma wrestlers and no junior colleges.”
“It provides a need in the state of Oklahoma,” added Patterson.
The only collegiate wrestling programs in the state are at Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Central Oklahoma in Edmond.
“We think any time you can walk into a high school and say we are the only two-year school in Oklahoma that gives you this opportunity, then it gives us that kind of competitive advantage,” Hale said.
A number of wrestlers have been going out of state to compete in programs at Kansas community colleges: Labette, Colby, Neosho County and Pratt.
“This is a great program for NEO and a great program for the state of Oklahoma for us to do that,” Patterson said. “It gives us a chance to recruit some students we normally wouldn’t be able to recruit. I think it’s a win-win situation for everybody involved.”
It’s projected that there could be as many as 30 wrestlers on campus.
“We may be turning them away,” Patterson said. “I think 30 is a very conservative number. I think we could have 40 wrestlers very easy.”
There are still a number of things that must be worked out, including hiring a coach and finding an area for the team to practice.
Scheduling should be easy what with five Kansas schools (Northwest Kansas Technical College in Goodland) and Arkansas Baptist in Little Rock, Ark. There also will be tournaments.
Patterson said the wheels would start turning in the fall of 2012 with the program beginning competition in the 2013-14 season.
“You need to have a coach on line to start recruiting, building the program and overseeing some of the things that need to be done,” Patterson said. “I think if we get the right coach in here, we can be very, very competitive in a very short period of time.”
