Wrestling Blogs - Ben Askren

There has been a lot of talk on how to save college wrestling, here is my overall synopsis on the situation. Of course it will take a lot my than talk to get the job done, but to get somewhere we have to know where we want to go first. Here is a clear and distinct list of things needed to do to complete this process.

1. Start a national wrestling endowment
2. Keep fighting the title IX battle
3. Build college wrestling at lowers levels (specifically NAIA and NWCA)
4. Keep women’s wrestling growing
5. Have more wrestlers aspire to administrative positions
6. Create a recreational avenue for the sport
7. Create a professional wrestling league

Now while you most likely disagree with at least a couple of my points above I will explain to all of you why they are important to the future growth of college wrestling.

1. Start a national wrestling endowment
- a national wrestling endowment would take a while to build, but could become very effective and also a great source of pride within the wrestling community. This fund must have a very concrete strategic plan for its use or else no smart business man will want to invest. Also it cannot use sympathy as a means of getting donations rather promote the values of the sport. If we would like to use this fund for fighting the title IX battle and not just saving college wrestling programs we might want to join forces with other neglected college sports. To be effective this fund will have to reach somewhere near $50 million I believe it will take 5-10 years to raise this.
2. Keep fighting the title IX battle
- We need to find a new and creative way to attack the title IX problem. So a little history on title IX, when title IX was made in 1972 the word athletics appeared no where in the bill. It wasn’t until 1979 that athletics were included in title IX when the three prong emphasis was added (for more info check wikipedia). As recently as 2002 the three prongs were challenged. In 2002 the committee that reviewed it voted 8-5 to reverse the three prong emphasis, however their chairman then said this wouldn’t happen unless it was a unanimous vote and with feminists life Donna Di Varonna on the committee this was impossible. So in my mind this fight isn’t too far from being won, especially since the main emphasis of the original title IX bill, making the amount of males and females in college even, is now accomplished.
i. Possible new ways to attack title IX could be
1. HS-College participation rates
2. Equity of funding in mens and womens sports, especially extreme money losing sports.
3. Instituting cheerleading into the equation
3. Build lower levels of college wrestling
- It might just happen one day that Division one athletics decided they no longer want wrestling. In this case it is necessary to have a back up plan. My vote would be to build up NAIA wrestling, for a couple reasons. They can provide scholarships which would mean that our best high school wrestlers are still getting their college educations paid for. Secondly that they seem prone to adding programs. Lastly that the have the ability to have large rosters. I am not saying we jump ship, but there is nothing wrong with being prepared.
4. Increase female participation
- I would not always have been in favor of this but I have been better informed on the issue and have had a change of heart. Not only will this try to equal the title IX quotas without a athletics department having to build a new facility. Also wrestling is a very tight community and if you add a large female contingent it will only build and strengthen us.
5. Have ex-wrestlers aspire to administrative positions
- This is simple, if you hold the power you make the important decisions. The more people that have power and are sympathetic to our plight the more decisions that are made in favor of us.
6. Create a recreational avenue for the sport.
- Every popular sport in America has a large recreational following, wrestling has none. I know what you are thinking of course not it is just too damn hard. Well if a forty year old man can even find a place to try to start wrestling he will no doubt get smashed by guys who want to prove their toughness and will be unlikely to come back again. I think we can take notes from the sport of jiu-jitsu in this department which has a large adult participant base. Now this will be hard to do and hopefully you can understand that when you roll jiu jitsu you try hard, but maybe like 85% instead of 100% so that no one gets hurt. I think if wrestlers could pick this up and learn to do it then it would be possible for older people to do it recreationally. If more wrestlers could learn to do this it would be beneficial to them, it is something I do daily and have been doing for years.
7. Create a professional league
- I know this has tried and failed a couple times, but I think it can work by looking at the mistakes of the past. Two very important details that cannot be overlooked are market solely to the wrestling community, because they are the only ones that care and start small, because the money will never be big. I will provide more details on this later.

No obviously the most important thing is to take action as swiftly as possible. Hopefully this inspired somebody to get it going. Keep up the good fight.