Coach Jilka,

Something of Title IX does need to be brought up, but not as a negative but a positive! With the recent reforms in Title IX now allowing an "interest survey" in order to get an idea as to establish opportunities on the college level or not, why don't we try to create a 3-5 question simple survey to establish a program for men's wrestling and a women's sport as well?

Now the idea of women's wrestling doesn't sound bad, but frankly I don't think many schools are going to invest in the idea in our ultra conservative state, when we can't even get a DI men's program. I think our best targets for getting DI wrestling in the state are in the following order:

1. Kansas State- has had several All Americans on the club level and has had several quality wrestlers produced out of surrounding communities. Kstate lacks two sports that I think complement each other (when it comes to #s of players) and that is Women's Softball and Men's Wrestling.

2. Kansas University- they send at least 1 or 2 guys to Nationals each year, but don't seem as willing to travel as the KSU guys. (lack of funds perhaps/have to work?) What ever the case they do have a club team which is a step above the #3 school.

3. Wichita State- Now I was really wanting to put them in at #2 but they don't even have a club team established which is nuts to me! With all of the local high schools in the area, I'm sure someone would open their doors and allow a Shocker Wrestling Club to practice a few nights out of the week.

Wichita has a lot going for it in the the fact you have so many schools right in the area, plus WSU doesn't have football anymore, so in my opinion it would be more cost effective than say resurrecting football at that program.

Another thing that would be great for Wichita is the competitive recruiting and possible wrestling rivalry that would go on between WSU and Newman. I know some people would say DI would easily do better than NAIA Newman, but not so fast...there are a lot of DI teams that year in and year out are not on the same tier as the elite DIs and have a pretty good rivalry with "smaller schools".

That's my 2 cents from a soon to be old guy!