By Jason Bryant
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The clouds hanging over the State Capital building in Harrisburg, Pa., on Wednesday morning shrouded the city skyline and blanketed it with a damp chill.
There’s also been a damp chill shrouding college wrestling, not specifically in Pennsylvania, but nationwide. But the 34 college wrestling programs in Pennsylvania have not been devoid of being cut, as witnessed by Slippery Rock cutting its historic program two years ago.
Initially, Slippery Rock was to drop eight sports as a cost-cutting move, five men’s sports and three women’s sports, but after a Title IX complaint was filed, the school was forced to keep the three women’s sports while the men’s sports were left with nothing “including wrestling.
Joined by former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R) and former Iowa wrestling Coach Dan Gable, the National Wrestling Coaches Association met with the Pennsylvania General Assembly to discuss options for legislation to solidify the athletic opportunities that currently exist in the state.
Hastert, Gable, NWCA Executive Director Mike Moyer and a host of representatives met in the Majority Caucus Room in a meeting headed up by Rep. Todd Eachus (D), Chairman of the House Policy Committee.
Eachus’ son Nate won the Pennsylvania AAA state championship last season at 189 pounds as a junior at Hazleton High School.
Wednesday’s methodology was simple.
“The purpose of the meeting is just to raise awareness of the important role that intercollegiate sports teams play in developing the next generation of high school, middle school and elementary school teachers and coaches,” said Moyer. “We have a national shortage of wrestling coaches throughout the country and the best way to increase that depleted pool is by having more college programs.”
Hastert, who was honored after the meeting in the main house with a standing ovation, also pointed out the importance of intercollegiate sports as a building block for future mentors.
“Our primary purpose here today is to explain the important role that intercollegiate wrestling teams play in our state-funded schools,” said Hastert, a wrestling coach in Illinois for 16 years prior to joining Congress.
The target on Pennsylvania, specifically the 14 state universities that fall under the umbrella of the Department of Higher/Adult Education, was two-fold.
“We’re located in Pennsylvania and it’s a good place to start,” said Moyer. “Quite frankly, we’re trying to test the waters to find out what strategies would be the most effective that could be implicated in other states.”
The National Wrestling Coaches Association is headquartered in Manheim, roughly a half-hour away from Harrisburg.
“There’s 9,000 kids that wrestle in Pennsylvania and we’ve lost six (State System of Higher Education University) programs,” said Gable. “Six programs — various generations of mentors “¦ gone.”
“People have a lot of issues in life and making sure that they are aware of one that’s a pretty big issue to a lot of people,” said Gable. “Wrestling didn’t just start yesterday, there’s a lot of people involved in this. The educational process that took place in that meeting today will make people more aware there’s some things that are going on because there’s an agenda or there’s an easy way to get there or simply somebody has a preference.”
“Is it the right thing to do or have they done good homework and research to make sure it’s the right thing to do?” asked Gable. “Any time you already have something established, base-built, you want to continue to keep the structure and not have people leaving and going to other states that are a long ways away. It’s just the right thing to do. When you have something going, make sure it’s able to continue throughout its entirety.”
Eight of the 14 state-funded schools “known primarily as the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference “field wrestling programs. Of those, Edinboro, Bloomsburg, East Stroudsburg, Millersville, Clarion and Lock Haven field Division I wrestling programs.
Slippery Rock, noted earlier as officially eliminating five sports, is a member of the PSAC. A big point of contention for Hastert was there was little warning to the lawmakers and legislature that makes educational policy and appropriations.
“It has to be the state legislature that knows these state-funded institutions can’t slough off and lose these programs,” said Hastert.
Gable pointed to his youth and the decision he made between two sports was primarily because of a mentor, someone he trusted.
“I had to make a choice between swimming and wrestling, obviously I chose the right sport,” recalled Gable. “I had great people that mentored me along the way that made sure I could develop. My junior high coach was also a math teacher.”
The cutting of sports, especially Olympic sports, fired up the 21-time Big Ten champion coach. Gable pointed out that his home state of Iowa was known for two primary things “farming and wrestling.
“I don’t understand somebody would try to eliminate something when that’s the only thing that could get noticed,” said Gable. “Around the world, they know wrestling; they know Easton (High School) and coach Steve Powell. They know Jack Spates and the state of Pennsylvania.”
“They know Stan Dziedzic from Slippery Rock was a national champion,” continued Gable. “Stan Dziedzic was a world champion. That’s 144 countries that know who he is.”
“The most decorated U.S. wrestler of all-time in terms of world and Olympic medals, Bruce Baumgartner, is the Athletic Director at (state-funded) Edinboro,” said Gable.
Hastert also used Slippery Rock as an example, referring again to the importance that teachers and coaches have on developing minds.
“Fred Powell was the coach at Slippery Rock for years and years and created something, world-renowned wrestlers,” said Hastert. “He was gotten to by a math teacher and a guidance counselor. Because they had the coach, they were able to turn the key. Those are the ones that you lose.”
There is some light at the end of the tunnel after Wednesday’s meeting.
“One of the most important things I heard out of this meeting was the notion of putting together a legislative oversight to make sure that any future decisions about sports would first be taken to the legislature so they can be diligent before decisions like that are made,” said Moyer.
Eachus, whose spacious office had DVD’s of his son’s matches sitting near his television and his computer desktop decorated with Nate’s hand getting raised after his state title, spoke favorably of the ideas being presented.
“We need to create a framework to monitor these changes that might shut a program down,” he said. “With this bipartisan work group that we can focus on why we’re shutting these programs do, whatever the sport might be. With the amount of wrestling activity in the commonwealth, it couldn’t be a lack of interest.”
Several representatives had wrestling backgrounds, including Eachus, Sen. Bob Robbins (R), Rep. Mike Hanna (D), Rep. Rich Grucela (D), and former EIWA wrestling official Rep. Richard Geist (R).
As Gable railed off several Pennsylvania natives that have gone on to do great things, Grucela had a double fist-pump at one point.
“I taught at Easton for 30 years,” said Grucela, addressing Gable. “I know you know one of my former students was Bobby Weaver. Whatever we can do, I come from a school that’s rich in wrestling tradition like (Sen. Bob Robbins) here. I would do whatever, having been in the classroom.”
Grucela’s educational background within the state also was a plus and, according to Moyer, is something wrestlers have a knack for doing.
“Many of them (representatives) were born out of education and that education starts the Pennsylvania state-funded schools,” said Moyer. “It’s not about winning national championships, this is about broad-based opportunities so we can increase the teachers, coaches and mentors into the community. If Pennsylvania doesn’t do it, our best and brightest kids are going to go to other states and get trained in others states and they’re going to stay in other states.”
Moyer also brought up his own experience as a wrestler at West Chester, one of the 14 state schools referenced in the meeting.
“While there was a lot of talk about the recent loss of Slippery Rock University’s wrestling program, there needs to be more discussion about bringing back the intercollegiate wrestling program at West Chester University,” said Moyer. “Historically, West Chester University has a rich tradition of serving the sport of wrestling as evidenced by the following facts: one of the largest wrestling manufacturers in the country, Brute/adidas, is run by West Chester alum John Purnell. Several of our nation’s top high school coaches, such as Steve Powell at Easton, are West Chester alums.”
It’s the state-funded targets that will potentially lay the groundwork for state legislatures to get involved around the country, much like Georgia did with a house resolution this summer, New Mexico did to kickstart wrestling and women’s rodeo at New Mexico Highlands University and New York did to re-instate Binghamton’s wrestling program.
Pennsylvania’s the litmus test.
“There’s so much history with respect to wrestling,” said Moyer. “There’s not many sports where you can have this little state-supported school competing with the major Division I programs. Wrestling’s that entrenched in our sports culture. Could you imagine Edinboro playing Oklahoma State in football? It doesn’t happen and in wrestling it happens all the time.”
Gable concurred.
“Pennsylvania has the most (wrestling) colleges of anybody and they still have the numbers that say we have a small window of opportunity to stay within the state,” said Gable. “We want to solidify what we have and build from there.”
“We took away the Division II and III champs with the chance to go to the Division I championships, but they still have the ability to go Division I as a classification as a sport,” said Gable. “It takes the little guy and makes a big guy out of them. When someone from these smaller institutions and compete with the level, it makes national news. For example, Gregor Gillespie (Edinboro). It’s one of these things it just makes your school that much more famous, that much more news from a positive point of view. That type of publicity doesn’t hurt any institution.”
But it still came back to teaching and coaching and physical education.
“These wrestlers became the mentors, they became the teachers, the coaches for generations,” said Hastert. “When Slippery Rock closed the store, we lose generations of future mentors. We lose 16,000 kids on our street corners, neighborhoods and in the darkest rooms of our most affluent neighborhoods. When kids have something to do, something to point to, when they’re on a team, when they have an incentive to do bigger things. They don’t get in trouble. We need to have mentors, young people that are going to take a big part out of their life to help others. They’re the coaches, that’s what we lose when we lose these teams.”
“What do you do with your P.E. programs, your kids program to make sure kids are healthy?” asked Hastert. “You’ve really developed the idea of how to fight kids who are not in shape, who are obese. If people stay in shape, they learn that in elementary school. These are programs you are looking into and trying to put together.”
The battle in fighting childhood obesity is also affected. Who are the P.E. teachers “¦ mentors and more than likely, former college athletes.
“You have to make sure you protect all teams, not just wrestling, but all teams,” said Gable.
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