Matt Zimmer
\nmzimmer@argusleader.com<\/p>\n
The University of Sioux Falls is bucking a national trend by trying to start a wrestling program.<\/p>\n
The Cougars also may be opening themselves up to Title IX compliance issues.<\/p>\n
At the college level, wrestling is a declining sport. In the<\/p>\n
1979-80 season, there were 374 NCAA wrestling programs, according to themat.com, a sports reporting Web site. Last season, the NCAA reported 222 schools with wrestling programs. The NAIA has only 29 programs.<\/p>\n
Many of the lost programs were cut to help schools earn compliance with Title IX guidelines. Title IX is the federal law that mandates gender equity in college sports.<\/p>\n
But the Midwest still has several top wrestling programs, including those at Augustana, University of Nebraska-Omaha and Augsburg College in Minnesota. USF thinks it can tap into that ready-made market.<\/p>\n
“We felt like we could achieve two things by adding wrestling, “said USF athletic director Willie Sanchez. “We can get dedicated student athletes and we can enhance enrollment.”<\/p>\n
USF president Mark Benedetto estimates the cost of starting a program at between $100,000 and $150,000 plus yearly costs.<\/p>\n
Adding wrestling would give USF 10 men’s varsity sports compared with nine for women. Benedetto said USF only will add another sport if there is enough interest.<\/p>\n
According to the NAIA’s Title IX compliance rules, schools can meet requirements if they “demonstrate that the interests and abilities of the underrepresented gender have been fully accommodated.”<\/p>\n
USF has more female than male students, but officials believe the school’s sports programs currently meet the test.<\/p>\n
“It’d be silly to start another sport just for the sake of having it, “Benedetto said. “If there was interest that came from the students, there’s not a doubt in my mind we’d start an additional women’s sport.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Matt Zimmer mzimmer@argusleader.com The University of Sioux Falls is bucking a national trend by trying to start a wrestling program. The Cougars also may be opening themselves up to Title IX compliance issues. At the college level, wrestling is a declining sport. In the 1979-80 season, there were 374 NCAA wrestling programs, according to themat.com, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-n0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}