Wrestling’s Last Frontier – The Inner Cities
How can a sport that does so much to provide lifelong skills for kids not be given an opportunity to gain access to mainstream America?
By Al Bevilacqua
Special to CollegeSports.com
Amateur wrestling was established in roughly 5000BC and the sport’s history has been well documented and its folklore vividly expressed by wrestling historian Mike Chapman.
Now, the last remaining frontier is America’s inner cities.
There have been several attempts to reach inside urban America, including an effort in the early 1970’s by the United States Wrestling Federation, but the fledgling organization lacked the resources to underwrite and promote such a major initiative.
Later efforts were made in Chicago, New York City and other cities encompassing nearly sixty percent of today’s population. But despite these pushes, with the exception of a few public and private schools in New York and Chicago, major cities today lack school wrestling programs. The absence of wrestling in the nation’s largest urban centers sharply reduces the visibility of the sport, with devastating consequences in terms of sponsorships and mass media communications.
To gain acceptance by the mass media and from corporate America, wrestling must penetrate large urban areas in a process known as mainstreaming. Only then can we secure sponsorships, advertisements, and the financial resources to attain the highest level of amateur sports.
The Metropolitan Wrestling Association (MWA) is a non-profit organization founded in 1985 by Setrak Agonian, a former boxer introduced to wrestling shortly after he immigrated to New York in 1971. Agonian was selected by USA Wrestling as its 2004 Man of the Year for his leadership at the successful 2003 World Freestyle Championships in New York. The event attracted 12,500 fans, the largest number to attend a World or Olympic wrestling championship. By contrast, fewer than 4,000 people (including me) attended the championship at the Athens Olympics.
To build on Agonian’s work, MWA must create a grassroots effort to institute Youth, Modified and High School clubs in New York City. Such an approach has been very successful with other sports like soccer and ice hockey. The latter has been successful in penetrating major Southwestern cities such as Los Angeles and Phoenix, which have professional teams. The NHL has become actively involved in community-based programs by providing funding, coaching and equipment for millions of inner city youths. The goal is twofold: to grow the fan base and to develop future stars.
Wrestling must launch such a program in New York City, and the MWA is committed to doing so. We’ve made tremendous inroads the past two years, developing local training centers for high school wrestlers in several boroughs. New York City has five boroughs with over nine million people. (If Brooklyn were a city, it would be the fourth-largest city in the United States behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.) 25 million people live within a one-hour drive of New York City — 15 million do not have wrestling in their schools.
Our business plan is basically the same as Bill Gates outlined for Microsoft in 1983. He invested well over 50% of his net worth to provide computers and Internet access to every school in America. He also brought in consultants to teach the teachers who in turn taught the kids who provided the market to make Microsoft what it is today.
The MWA is only ten new mats away from having thousands of kids take up wrestling. That would translate to thousands more USAW members, more uniforms, more shoes, more events, and more competition.
If successful, the second half of the business plan is to roll the program out nationally with “Beat the Streets “programs beginning in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Denver, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities with no wrestling. What potential for this sport! The opportunity is now!
The numbers of schools and students in those cities represent well over half of the total student population in the country. The inner city is our last Frontier and now more than ever, we need to conquer it. Only then can we become a mainstream sport in high schools and colleges.
We should ask ourselves why, of the numerous commercials aired everyday involving testimonials by athletic celebrities, none include wrestlers?
Why is wrestling aired only on cable television stations with less than 60% market penetration, aired in the wee hours of the morning or during weekday afternoons?
Why was wrestling at the 2004 Athens Olympics given such poor coverage?
These questions lead to the most important question:
How can a sport that does so much to provide lifelong skills for kids not be given an opportunity to gain access to mainstream America?
The answer lies in the inner cities. We can mainstream wrestling only if we bring the sport to our urban centers in a big way. To do this we need the help of wrestling people everywhere. Only then can we execute and deliver the PLAN!
The goal is difficult but straightforward: to market and promote this great sport to unimagined heights. We ask for your help and whatever financial support you can provide.
To follow our efforts or become a part of it please visit our website, www.mwausa.org.
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