This is an expanded version of the Q&A, which appeared the in the printed version of W.I.N.
Q College wrestling, unfortunately, has taken its fair share of hits over the years and sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of basketball “March Madness.” What is the NCAA’s feelings about this sport on a national level?
A I’ve been fortunate enough to work with the NCAA championships for seven years. It’s become a labor of love. Within our own NCAA system, it would be viewed by fellow championship administrators as one of the most complicated championships in which to administer; probably along with other individual team championships such as gymnastics and track and field. As for the overall structure, there are 88 NCAA championships and wrestling ranks in the top five in terms of revenue-producing championships. The last report was that it was the No. 4 revenue producing event.
Q What are the top three revenue producing events held by the NCAA?
A No. 1 is the men’s Final Four in Div. I basketball. No. 2 is the men’s (baseball) College World Series and related regionals and super regionals and No. 3 would be the men’s Frozen Four in ice hockey,
Q So you are saying the NCAA feels good about this sport and its future.
A I would say so, definitely. To be quite honest, the number of programs that are sponsoring the sport of wrestling has pretty much stayed consistent and now with the influx this year of Northern Colorado, North Dakota State and South Dakota State entering the Div. I ranks. We were around 85 for several years and now we are up to 88 and with Utah Valley State being a provisional member, that would give us 89 schools in Div. I wrestling.
Q Many people believe the NCAA controls everything, including the growth of the sport and number of programs and dealing with the Title IX dilemma. How much influence can the NCAA have on these matters?
A That’s more of an institutional decision in terms of what each institution feels is the right set of sports programs at their respective campus in terms of what’s the right mix of men’s sports and women’s sports. From what I do is administer the NCAA championships, including the East and West regionals, and make sure they run hopefully as smoothly as possible. As far as what schools sponsor what sports, that’s an institutional decision.
Q Regarding these Div. I championships, two things are always brought up. One is the number of qualifiers or how qualifiers are accounted for and the other is the site of the championship. Regarding qualifiers, 330 is the limit determined by the NCAA. How set in stone is that number and can it ever be increased?
A The number 330 is based on participation rates across all NCAA sports in Div. I and the number of student athletes who participate in the sport and the number of schools that sponsor the sport. As far as the number of qualifiers increasing or changing in the future, the current structure is such that the Div. I Championships/Competition Cabinet has to ask a sport’s committee to come forward with a bracket-expansion recommendation to try and increase the number of qualifiers. Until that happens, the NCAA wrestling committee can still try to look at ways of increasing the field and see if they can go about it. But under the current structure, that’s the way they need to go through the NCAA system.
Q Regarding how qualifiers are determined, it’s basically “elitism vs. socialism.” You have the bigger programs of the Big Ten and Big 12, which have a higher number of qualifiers. Then you have smaller conferences like the ACC, which has just 14. Those coaches complain that they can never grow because they can’t get enough qualifiers. How does the NCAA deal with that dilemma?
A I think the NCAA wrestling committee every year looks at the allocation of qualifiers. Those six individual committee members, representing the the whole sport of wrestling take into account the allocation of qualifiers criteria and the formula, which is in place and described in the championships handbook. Once they get all the information from the formula for the base number of allocation of qualifiers, then there are some discretionary qualifiers beyond the base and that is left to the discretion of the committee as to where to allocate those approximately 20 qualifiers.
Periodically, some conferences feel that they deserve more qualifiers. It’s a tough job that the committee has in terms of making those determinations as to how many qualifiers they award to each conference and regional qualifying tournament, but they do the best job that they can.
Q There has been some talk about going to a regional qualifying format. Is that possible?
A The NCAA wrestling committee is considering other alternatives to the current qualifier system and looking at a regional qualifying system. We’ve had discussions during this championship week with the Div. I wrestling coaches about various concepts that the committee receives from member conferences or other individuals who are interested. The committee continually reviews the criteria and makes the ultimate determination about what’s in the best interest of the sport.
Q When would be the soonest that any changes could be made?
A There would not be any changes made before next year. If anything were to go into the system, which has a budgetary impact, those would have to be reviewed by the Div. I Championships/Competition Cabinet at their September meeting. The NCAAs next bi-annual budgeting process is September of 2007 so if the wrestling committee feels that they can put something forward. which would involve a budgetary impact in anything, that would need to be submitted this September for consideration. The Championships Competition Cabinet would review those recommendations and make a determination if they approve or deny those recommendations. If they do approve, it would be one or two years, thereafter. At the earliest, any changes would take place in 2009.
Q The next two championships will return to St. Louis. There has been some speculation, if only from fans, that St. Louis should be the permanent site for the wrestling nationals, as is Omaha is for baseball’s Men’s College World Series. What are the possibilities of that happening?
A The championship sites for the next four years have been solidified. In 2008 and 2009, the championships will be in St. Louis. In 2010, the event will be in Omaha and in 2011, the event will be in Philadelphia. Most likely during the 2008 and 2009 academic year, the NCAA wrestling committee will make available for bid the 2012-2015 NCAA Div. I wrestling championships. At that time, probably in the spring of 2009 at the committee’s annual meeting, the committee will debate the pros and cons of going to a site on a more-than-once every four-year cycle. In the 77-year history of the NCAA wrestling championships, 2004 and 2005 marked the first time that the championships were held on the same site in consecutive years. The bar has been raised in terms of the hosts and what they are doing to promote the championships. The staff at the Detroit Metro Sports Commission, the University of Michigan and The Palace of Auburn Hills did a great job in doing the best job they could to make it a first-class student-athlete experience and that’s what we are about at the end of the day.
Q What were the positives that came out of having it at St. Louis in consecutive years?
A If you go to the same site for multiple years, operationally they know what needs to be done to run the event in a first-class manner. Then they can focus more on marketing initiatives and ideas to generate a definitive sell-out for the championships, year in and year out. For example in 2008, we are attempting ” for general public ticket sales ” to use Ticketmaster. That’s the first time we’ve ever done something like that. That was brought up by an initiative by St. Louis, which wanted to look at the upper deck tickets. Fans will know right off the bat where their seats will be and can purchase them.
If a site has not hosted before, we are more focused on the operational issues, at least in year one vs. the other things in terms of growing and making sure we get a sellout.
Q Is the biggest reason for moving the championships provides a chance to promote the sport elsewhere and make it grow?
A The flip side is the student-athlete experience. If you go to the same site every year, would that benefit the student-athlete vs. say a young man who is from California or Oregon and he has never traveled to the East coast. And then there is the matter of exposing the sport to other fans who may be interested.
Any site to get it for multiple years has to do a great job of putting their best foot forward and promote the student-athlete experience.
Q There has been some talk about moving the season and get away from the basketball “Madness.” How possible is that?
A That hasn’t been discussed in great detail with the committee. There was a brief discussion last year. Some coaches would like the sport to be contained to one semester during the academic year. Some coaches think it would be better if wrestling was a fall sport. Some think it should be a spring sport. Others think we should keep the same current structure and same time frame. It is something that committee could discuss down the road at one of their annual meetings in April. If they decide to make any recommendation on any change, that would have to go to the Div. I Championships Competition Cabinet for approval. I would think it would be very difficult for the championships to have any change prior to 2011 since we’ve already awarded the bids throughout that time frame.
Q ESPN is televising this sport live. What is it about this sport that they like to air the championships live?
A ESPN has said numerous times that the Div. I championships is the model all championships for cooperation and working with ESPN to try and promote their championships experience and provide a great television show for the fans. When I first started working with this championship, it was either tape-delayed or aired in the wee hours of the morning. I feel very proud of the fact that the wrestling committee and NCAA staff have worked hard in our partnership with ESPN to not only get increased coverage but for the first time we have live primetime coverage on the flagship station of ESPN. That is quite a feat. I think we have over 12 hours of live coverage and that is tremendous for the sport of wrestling. Hopefully fans out there will come through and watch in great numbers so things like this will continue to grow in the future.
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