By By PATTI ARNOLD The Daily Sentinel
When wrestling was dropped at Mesa State College after the 1991 season, it created a rift between the wrestling community on the Western Slope and the college that never quite healed.
Let the healing begin.
The Mavericks will send a wrestling team back onto the mat for the 2006-07 season, the first men’s sport added at the college in years.
“It just makes sense for us to have a wrestling program,” Mesa State Athletic Director Nick Adams said Wednesday.
The topic has been on the front burner for several months, with a group of people from the college and the wrestling community discussing the feasibility.
After a campus interest survey last spring, women’s track was added for this indoor and outdoor season, women’s swimming has its first official practice next week, and now it’s time for wrestling.
There are several men on campus who want to wrestle, Adams said, and they’re being encouraged to start getting into wrestling shape.
“I had two young men stop by my office today,” he said.
By adding women’s track and swimming, Adams said the school has taken steps to meet Title IX requirements to afford equal opportunity for women, and can justify adding a men’s sport.
The Mavericks will be the 40th wrestling program competing in NCAA Division II, and will bring the number of teams in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference to nine. New Mexico Highlands is adding wrestling this season.
That gives the Mavs four home conference dual meets next season, and there are several early-season tournaments they can enter.
San Francisco State University is an affiliate member of the RMAC, as Fort Hays State will be when it leaves the RMAC after this school year for the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which does not sponsor wrestling.
Mesa State will immediately start a national search to hire a full-time coach, and Adams hopes to have someone hired by January to start recruiting.
He has sent letters to high school wrestling coaches across the Western Slope and has invited them and their families to attend the Mavs’ football game and tailgate party Oct. 22, where wrestling will be the topic of the day.
“We’ll draw kids from all over. High school wrestling programs stayed and college programs started disappearing,” Adams said. “It’ll be a well-staffed team. We’ve got a lot of kids interested.”
Funding the program will be a challenge. The college has $100,000 allocated by the student government to start new athletic programs.
Adams estimated that startup costs for wrestling, which include buying new mats, scales, uniforms, headgear, etc., will run about $50,000.
That doesn’t include an operating budget, the biggest portion of which will go to scholarships and travel, like every other sport at Mesa State.
The community group that met with college officials not only offered its support to revive the program, but also its help to keep it around.
“They’ve offered everything from financial support to grunt work to whatever we needed done,” Adams said.
“They’ve stepped forward financially, with their time, and they’re committed to seeing this program not only through the startup, but to staying here. That’s exciting.”
There’s still a lot to be done, though, with finances at the top of the list. To help that cause, the Mavericks have pulled off an impressive feat ” former NCAA and Olympic champion and 15-time national championship coach Dan Gable is coming to campus Nov. 12 for a dinner to benefit the program.
Gable, who coached the University of Iowa to 15 national championships, will speak about his career at the dinner at Liff Auditorium.
The National Wrestling Coaches Association is covering Gable’s travel costs, so all the proceeds from the tickets, $75 each, go to the program. Liff Auditorium seats approximately 300 people. Tickets are available by calling the athletic department at 248-1503.
Gable will conduct a wrestling clinic at 11 a.m. on Nov. 13 at Brownson Arena. The entry fee is $20 and registration forms are available at Saunders Fieldhouse, B&H Sports, Big O Tires or through Western Slope AAU wrestling representatives.
“When you think about wrestling, it’s impossible to think of college or Olympic wrestling and not think about Dan Gable,” Adams said. “To have him come in and speak, I’m almost speechless. He’s a legend.
“To have him say (he’s) excited that Mesa State College is starting wrestling and (he wants) to be a part of it and help is really cool.”
Patti Arnold can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].
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