NCWA Building Strength and Competitiveness : Speakers & Interviews

NCWA deserves alots of credit for what it has grown into. The bottom line is that if your not wrestling in division 1, why worry about where you are going to compete and what division? Wrestling is wrestling and if your a fan of the sport, you'll enjoy it no matter the division. P.S. I wrestle in the NCWA on a scholarship team and i pinned a d2 starter!

Interesting topic on themat.com about the ncwa. If about 20% of the ncwa schools already offer some type of financial assistance to wrestle for their program, I can see that number increasing. I only learned about the ncwa recently when watching some college kids at a college tournament and was informed about this division when I asked what conference a certain school was in.

I think Jim Giunta has vision for our sport and I also heard that ncwa also has womans wrestling. I have to admit, even this last move of womans college wrestling is already a step ahead of the ncaa. I intend to follow ncwa wrestling this year as I have already seen some decent wrestling (not great) from a few kids in this division.

About 20% of NCWA schools offer some sort of assisatnce in attending college and wrestling. Some offer full rides, like The Apprentice School, Williamson Trade, Navy, & Westpoint, while partials can be had at schools like Southern Virginia, Marion, Tennessee Temple & Mercer. Some club teams have ways of passing along funding as well, but the best way to find out what is offered is by contacting the coach directly, go to the NCWA web site..www.ncwa.net, click on teams, then the college you are interested in. the contacts tab on the left will put you in touch withe each colleges coach.

What NCWA schools offer wrestling scholarships? As far as I know it is pretty much a non scholarshop division similiar to D3. Again, I may be wrong, but if anyone knows list the schools in NCWA that gives wrestling scholarships.

I think that is why someone mentioned them...because even tho they didnt do very good at all this year they still beat one of the better teams in ncwa. That is why I bothered posting on this thread. I agree D3 really does deserve a lot more attention.

D3 GOT NO LOVE THIS YEAR FROM FLOWRESTLING!!!!! whats the deal??? ncwa and d2 no d3???? gimme a break. D3 is the rough tough go get'em division. No money no recognition just hard nose wrestling with some of the best college teams reguardless of division WARTBURG, AUGSBURG, WISCONSIN LAX, THE LIST GOES ON!!! i heard people mention mcdaniel earlier on in this thread. OMG they got crushed at the conference. My team nearly blanked em and we were ranked at best at d3 16th!!!! i dont believe mcdaniel even qualified one guy to nationals...

GV beating Wartburg is a big stretch. GV has beaten Olivet and other D3 and some D2 programs. The year OC placed 7th at the National duals GV beat them 3 weeks later. It has been said and needs to be again, these are wrestlers who still get to compete at colleges they feel comfortable at. Top vs Top wrestlers makes for a hell of a showdown. People are taking notice which is obvious by the length of this thread. Every year the NCWA will get better and better. Be happy for the state of wrestling. Both sides of the argument will have points and counter points, it is all settled on the mat. I know of NCWA wrestlers that have defeated d1 wrestlers and even d1 all Americans in the same year. I also know first hand that the NCWA has chumps that couldn't buy a win at the D3 level,. The fact is the NCWA is allowing wrestlers to compete. Go to a meet between the top programs and then make your judgment. My coach has been told by veteran officials at the nationals duals that until the 235's steeped on the mat, he couldn't believe that what he had witnessed was "club wrestling". The NCWA is making believers out of anyone willing to watch. Ask the guys who wrestled D1, 2, 3, NAIA and JUCCO and watched the NCWA placing rounds from the stands how it stacks up. Many wreslers are leaving NCWA and taking positions at other schools while other leave the higher touted programs and receive a rude awakening at the ncwa nationals.

I am all for wrestling and the talk of who is best, simply because of the division or league they are in can never be solved or disproved. Be happy that wrestling is expanding and providing more opportunities, or if your so determined to prove your right, set up a dual with some proven ncwa programs and prepare to have your mind changed.

Olivet(DIII) beat Grand Valley(NCWA champs) 26-18 this year. Wartburg beat Olivet 47-0. Olivet got 11th in the DIII tournament this year with 29.5pts compared to wartburg\'s 147pts.

125: Struthers(W) fall Donovan(GV) (6-0)
133: Helvey(W) mdec Schaaf(GV) (10-0)
141: Kelly(W) dec Mendez(GV) (13-0)
149: Naig(W) fall Legato(GV) (19-0)
157: Wernimont(W) mdec Correll(GV) (23-0)
165: Hanson(W) dec Richardson(GV) (26-0)
174: Kreman(W) dec Doherty(GV) (29-0)
184: Djoumessi(W) mdec Lanni(GV) (33-0)
197: Miller(W) dec Miller(GV) (36-0) for some reason your last name has to be miller to be good at this weight
285: Borchers(W) mdec McHugh(40-0)

if you include 235 than wartburg's back up heavyweight beats Kuzmicz

how does d2 stack up with d3 nwca juvo and naia

with the exception of D1 where every wrestler is legit - each division has its studs and ringers, just as they have their scrubs. between d3, naia, and ncwa, id say d3 has the least scrubs, but the number of studs and ringers is similar amongst the all three. we should all be happy there are more opportunities for wrestlers to compete in college, and perhaps promote more interdivisional competition

SOME schools give scholarships to their athletes. The team I am a part of receives ZERO dollars from the university and are entirely self-funded. We spend multiple weekends at various fundraisers before season as a team in order to get enough money to fund the team, which is well over $20,000. No easy feat.

Every one of our guys shows a level of commitment in practices (which are five days a week and not the least bit easy or relaxed) as well as in the weight room and running on our own, plus our off season programs, to show that we are for real. Anyone who actually is there to witness the work we put in to continue our careers beyond high school would see and admit that NCWA is a REAL program and produces very tough wrestlers.

NCWA isnt club, the schools give scholarships to their athletes.

Curtis Chenowith took 1st his freshamn year with a less than stellar record, finishing 4th at regionals, with some very good calls going his way in a very young weight class that year. There is no way in Hades that he would beat Caulley from Lindenwood, this years Champ.

Just because one guy from the NAIA took 7th, that doesn't mean that overall NCWA is tougher.Daniel Igali was an NAIA guy and he won a Gold Olympic Medal-and routinely beat DI guys, That in no way makes NAIA tougher than DI. I'm sure the NCWA is getting tougher, but Newman was an NAIA team that was on probation because of the division change- A lot of their guys left to wrestle for teams that were eligible for the post season. I completely support the NCWA and think that club wrestling is a positive- but let's not get carried away- not tougher than D3, not tougher than NAIA, It's club.

i have a hard time seeing Kalil breaking navy's line-up for a bit. Joey Boone a state champ from CALI at 130 was in the reserves for them this year not to mention 3 time NCAA qualifier Joe Baker both of which around 125-133. tough luck

zach sanford, who finished third at nationals, was 3rd at the Sunshine Open this season. Isnt that mostly D3 schools there?

Grand Valley routinely beats division 3 schools. Beat NAIA Notre Dame College last year.

As for myself, I beat several varsity d3 wrestlers this season and last season, up a weight class, and i wasnt able to place at nationals this past week.

As has been said, NCWA is definitely on the rise as far as overall competition. There are the fish kids that wrestle just to mess around and dont take it that seriously, but the ones that do take it seriously and bust their butts to succeed, can imo compete for a starting spot on the majority of D3 schools. Most of the kids in the top 4 or 5 in NCWA could make legit cases to be all americans at d3 schools for sure.

I think Kalil was pretty damn tough at 133. Remember, he's only a freshman. He was an excellent high school wrestler in New Hampshire, where he was a state champ. I bet you'll be seeing his name in the win column a lot for DI Navy in the next few years.

Curtis Chenowith of Newman was the 2006 NAIA National Champion at 174

Who was the NAIA champ that took 7th?

133 was weak in ncwa this year, i think the champ at 133 ran from hamilton of mmi and wall of newman at 125 to win it at 133. The past two years 133 was much tougher - the finalists at 133 were peterkin, mendez (4 time michigan champ) and amorociwicz (high school national champ / defeated sr. national champ). Check out Rebertus in the D1 NCAA next year (this years OW), he will be a guaranteed round of 12, possible AA as a Freshman. This is getting old tho, why cant we be like the old days, and let the champs of the lower divisions compete in the D1 nationals.

I saw the NCWA 133 pound champ wrestling 125 in the long island open and he failed to impress me. he took third. there were d3 guys at 25 that would stomp him

rollie peterkin wrestling NCWA is a fluke. you dont see alot of D1 guys wrestling in NCWA. D3 is tougher than NCWA overall...

Wartburg would OWN grand valley. not even close...

I'd really like to see an all-star meet between D3 and NCWA guys, but working out the logistics might be a bit difficult. The NCWA does compete right alongside the D1,D2,and D3 guys at national duals though.

No Question... Wortburg is always tough... but so is Grand Valley 3x National Champs, Would be a great dual.

wartburg is tough...thats all im gonna say

Lets not forget that Rollie Peterkin (PENN) was a NCWA National Champion his Post Grad Year for Blair Academy. And this weekend he is shooting for a NCAA Div 1 title. So would you say he is better than D3? Look at the past All-Americans and such then compare. Wrestling is wrestling we need to stop killing each other over the sport, and keep on growing it instead.

I believe you are both right. DIII undoubtly has more depth, the NCWA is a young league, and with age will come depth. It's great that wrestlers of all levels can compete in college, but with that opportunity will come many lower skilled athletes in NCWA in the bottom 50%... but as far as the top 20% in ether league it is a toss up. It may well be that NCWA is tougher at Nationals. it may be that NCWA All-Americans are tougher than DIII All-Americans, but who really knows. Lets Find Out.. I think we should solicite the NCWA and NCAA DIII to hold a Pre-Season All-Star match up in November like the "All-Star Classic" which is usually DI vs DI. This Event should be DIII best vs NCWA best... that would decide the issue of who's tougher. Isn't that where it is really decided anyway..on the Mat !!....jg

the truth is off, close....but off. Maybe DIII has more depth but it is harder to win an NCWA title.

The dual meet with McDaniel was during UMBCs month and a half long winter break. The team members who live far from the school could not attend due to the closing of on campus residence halls during that time. While UMBC has not defeated McDaniel in their annual dual, they did defeat their last division 3 opponent other than McDaniel, Elizabethtown of PA.

Agreed. NCAA DIII is definitely still better than the NCWA. I believe the elite of the two divisions are pretty even, with DIII being better. (The champions of either division would make it just fine in most DI wrestling rooms.) That said, DIII is still a much deeper, more established division. I always thought qualifying for the DIII tournament was incredibly difficult because there are around 100 teams and only 16 national qualifiers per weight class. So, just qualifying for DIII nationals is a huge accomplishment.

It's amazing how fast the NCWA is growing in skill level. Two years ago at the NCWA nationals, I saw quite a few wrestlers who had no business being at any national wrestling tournament of any kind. This year, I can count on one hand the number of NCWA national qualifiers who lacked skill in the sport. In fact, I saw several state champions and National Prep finalists get knocked out of the tournament in the early rounds.

Obviously, schools like Navy Prep, Army Prep and Blair Academy are packed with NCAA DI recruits (almost all state champs) and powerhouses like Grand Valley, Central Florida, Newman (they did get third, not second), Marion Military, Northampton CC, Apprentice School, etc., have studs at nearly every weight. Are there still "club" teams in the NCWA? Sure. There are teams that practice once a week and wrestle for fun -- and some of them have excellent wrestlers on those teams. But most of the teams I saw at the nationals were legitimate teams in every sense of the word: Organized programs; hard practices; good drill partners; experienced coaches; backed monetarily by their universities, etc. I don't think anyone can watch CJ Hamilton, Joe Mendez or Adam Murray wrestle and say those multiple-time NCWA champs aren't elite, top-level college wrestlers. They obviously are. (Also, just FYI, Alex Broadwater, who finished the season 23-4, had a winning record against NCAA DI wrestlers this year and was undefeated against NCAA DIII competition.)

I expect the NCWA tournament to only get tougher and tougher. Hopefully, it's increase in difficulty will attract more kids to wrestle in college, now knowing there is another strong division of college wrestling in which they can seek a legitimate, respected collegiate national title.

Division III Wrestling is tougher than NCWA. That is a given. The NWCA is an up an coming league, yet there are still tough guys at every weight class. The difference is depth. While the NCWA has a few tough guys at each weight, Division III has many tough guys at each weight. The NCWA is particularly light at the upper weights, but then again, most of the tougher weights are the light-middle classes. It appears Broadwater was the only UMBC wrestler to win vs. McDaniel by major decision but then again, looking at UMBC's roster, their team picked a few more guys after that dual meet.

It says on the ncwa website that newman got 2nd in the tournament...as for the ncwa debate, saying that it is better than d3 is just silly...im from md and I saw mcdaniel beat umbc 41-4 and mcdaniel got 7th out of 8 in their conference while umbc got 2nd out of 18 in their conference in the ncwa. Yes, there are a number of good wrestlers in NCWA and it is good that the NCWA exists, because wrestling desperately needs more college programs, but D3 is not worse than NCWA.

Hey this is real Funny........I wrestle in the Ncwa and my boy C.J Hamilton is a two time national champion...he posted a 43-1 Record this year His only loss was to a D-1 Kid 5-4........he smoked everyone pretty much....he won a D-2 tournament at carson neuman..shut up about the NCWA they are better than you think....

and thats the Truth

Broadwater was the starter at Messiah at 149 pounds as a true freshman. He won every wrestle-off by first-period pin. He also beat the kid who finished fifth in NCAA DIII last year. In high school, he was undefeated 36-0 going into the state semi-finals when he lost to Michael Cannon (now one of the top wrestlers at 165 pounds in NCAA DI). Broadwater left Messiah because (I believe) his older brother Luke got the head coaching job at UMBC, which now offers scholarships for wrestling. That's right. UMBC is offering wrestlers scholarships to attend school. That's much more than any NCAA DIII can offer. So, because of his wrestling skills, Alex gets a free college education and -- with hard work, and tons of practice -- wins a college national tournament empirically tougher than the NAIA national tournament and gaining on the level of NCAA DIII quickly.

"dan gable" your an idiot, you would never even been a NCWA champion. Good thing you stayed in the weaker NCAA div 1 for ur collegiate career. Seriously though Newman took 3rd and is going D2s next year, I think that speaks for itself. NCWA is getting tougher and tougher and its kinda cool because you can wrestle at schools like University of Florida or Georgia Tech.

broadwater did not cut weight this year, he simply lost muscle due to atrophy. that's what happens when you wrestle for an 'intermural' ncwa team.

Your comments make no sense. I looked on last years brackets, and Broadwater was a 157 last year, so he did cut weight, but what does that have to do with anything? Would you rather put someone down because you have no accomplishments of your own? Also, NCWA =! Club team( "=!" means "does not equal" for those w/o mathematics backgrounds). Many NCWA programs are fully funded by their universities, and some make the jump to the NCAA where they excel(see Newberry's performance in D2 this year)

hmmm .... so are you telling me broadwater does not have the mental strength to cut down to another weight? now wonder he got smoked by all those studs in high school.... now wonder he's wrestling for a club team. club national champ, yaaaaay, yaaaay.

Well Leadbeter from Navy that placed 3rd at that same weight class was a 2x state champ and 1x runner-up in Maryland I believe, so it's not like Broadwater didn't have good competition

did you know that derek moore wrestled in california? not sorry maryland

Did you know that Derek Moore of UC-Davis never placed higher than 5th in his high school state tournament? Did you also know that he was named last years NCAA Division 1 outstanding wrestler after tech falling Ryan Lang, a four time Ohio State Champion. High school means next to nothing once you start wrestling in college; or do you believe high schoolers should still be bragging about their junior league ACs.

Dear Know it all: You better get your facts straight. Broadwater was a starter for Messiah but was injured and had a staph infection for the majority of the season, keeping him off the mat. He even defeated an eventual D3 All American at Messiah. His senior year in HS he lost one match in the State Semi-finals to Mike Cannon, who is now ranked in the top ten nationally in D1 at 165 and was a match away from D1 All American last year. Broadwater then injury defaulted to 6th due to a seperated shoulder. D3 is getting a run for it's money and they don't like it.

know it all, joe mendez was a 4x Michigan state champ....how many of those do you see in d3? Plus michigan is a relatively tough state. kids blossom all the time maybe alex broadwater did as well

alex broadwater, the 149lb national champ for the ncwa did not even make the line up at messiah (d3), and did not even win the md state title in hs. there is no way he would been a national contender at d3.

some teams are student coached... many teams receive funding from their school and even offer scholarships.

can some one fill me on this division. what are the requirements to compete etc..

D3 is much tougher than NCWA!

The ncwa's attendance was crap, it was the wrestlers, their parents and a few locals. One reason may be the high cost of admission. There were 6 sessions which added up to $70 dollars overall.

There is much more parity in division 3 than the NCWA. That is because some teams in the NCWA give scholarships and have budgets 2 - 3x's what a d3 team allows for, while other teams make due with a $5000 SGA grant. Additionally, there are many more athletes registered/competing in the NCWA because of less stringent competition requirements (aside from the 2.0 gpa minimum). Because of this higher number of wrestlers, you will see more prime wrestlers, but also more "fish" than at d3. Both my teammate and I have earned NCWA All American status, and throughout the course of the season, wrestled and defeated D3 All Americans, as well as falling to a few. In anycase, I'd say that the whole of d3 is tougher, but the cream of each crop is about the same.

It seems that everyone is missing a major point. It doesn't really matter which level is tougher. What matter's is that, on a percentage basis, high school wrestlers have fewer opportunities to continue competing in college than ANY OTHER sport. NCWA is adding opportunities.

How was the attendance at the NCWA. Sometimes I think we may be better off at the collegiate level to break away from the NCAA & NAIA. We could modify our rules, make it more exciting, forget about the complicated weight assessment nightmare), and Title IX. just a thought.

why cant the ncwa merge with the naia or the juco's to gain some more validity

If Newman cant beat the 3rd string dudes from DIII they are in serious trouble on the DI level, but I bet they would mop the floor with those dudes.

The previous 2006 NAIA champ took 7th...he barely placed in this tournament. What are you talking about back up to D3 guys. NEWMAN took 3rd and they are going D1 next year.

Better wake up this league is better than you think.

Oh. And it doesn't take a genius to add the 235 class. Great move NCWA.

Listen. I never won an NCWA title. I tried 4 times, but I sure lost to Ricky Crone (Augsburg) 1-0, and beat SEVERAL Navy guys.

"JV's on D3 teams." Please.

"Don't have a chance to wrestle at NCAA programs?" Please

It's like the old statement that "you can't criticize your country and be a patriot". - I would rather go to UF and wrestle in the NCWA than go ANYWHERE else.

Yo actually think that NCWA is better than Div. 3 wrestling -LMFAO. Man - what cr@p@ss program did you come from. NCWA is a great way to keep wrestlers competing who don't have the chance to wrestle at NCAA programs - but come on. These guys couldn't beat the JV of most D 3 programs - nevermind your statement that they are better than D 3 - you are too funny - I really hope your statement was kidding.

I think that it is better than DIII wrestling.. but not as good as DII. I also think that it is weird that Newman who is going DI next year took 3rd!

What is the quality of coaching at this level? It seems to me that you have current wrestlers on the team coaching because they are not funded by the college and can't hire a full or even part time coach.