Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion Kids Folkstyle KU It Is Time To Add Wrestling!!!

Kansas University officially announced its $26.67 million deal for 8 years with adidas yesterday according to the Kansas City Star. With the new $40.2 million deal with ESPN that means about $67 million in revenue over the next eight years for its athletic department. I figured that it is going to mean about an extra $7 million a year over what their old contracts were. I was told by a Big 12 AD in an e-mail yesterday that a Big 12 wrestling program runs about $600,000 a year in expenses so this would be under 10% of its NEW MONEY coming in!!

We need to petition the KU AD and Chancellor ASAP or today if possible to add men AND women wrestling NCAA programs at KU. After them you might also consider contacting your state representatives in Topeka, maybe even the governor and Phil Kline our ex-wrestler attorney general. The thing is do something today or ASAP. The forces to stop this will be great, but we are wrestlers and wrestling families and they don't know how tough we can be. Contact others to do the same. Congratulate them on their new contracts but let them know you expect them to use a portion of it to add College Wrestling.

PLEASE do not drop this from this forum just because this topic is on other forums. We need to reach everyone NOW!

Smokeycabin, can you contact wrestlingmom to send out an e-mail appeal for individual petition letters from all our STA wrestlers and their parents to the KU AD and Chancellor?

The following link has email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses to contact anyone associated with KU athletics, including booster clubs and corporate sponsors!!!


http://kuathletics.collegesports.com/staffdir/kan-staffdir.html
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Posts: 461 | From: SEK | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged |

Besides the letters that you may be sending to the KU Chancellor, Athletic Director, legislators, Attorney General Kline, Other wrestling athletic directors, coaches, and former college or Olympic wrestlers for assistance in petitioning KU, we also need to mobilize somehow our other Kansas wrestling family members. I believe that Mike Furches was the one who pointed out that the overwhelming majority of them are probably off the forum and not paying attention. I am sure that is correct. We need to reach them as quickly as possible and tell them that they too need to send petition letters for the addition of men and women's wrestling at KU.

I think maybe what we should do is first contact the high school wrestling coaches to do that. They still have their wrestlers in school so they can get to them easier during the school day. Again I would suggest a petition letter to both the Chancellor and the KU Athletic Director from the team. In addition I also think the coach should suggest to the kids to write their own individual letters of petition to both the Chancellor and the KU Athletic Director. The high school wrestlers could ask their parents to do the same. The team and individual letters should be personalized so we will be giving them a variety of thoughts and personal appeals.

After that then I would concentrate on contacting Kids Clubs Directors and suggest to them to either get their kids to together to sign team petition letters (I think this will be difficult to do since the Kids are no longer in wrestling season) or to contact the wrestling families of their team and suggest for them to write individual letters.

So rally up into action first the high schools and then the Kids clubs. I think this is important to do because a few weeks ago when I wrote Larry Keating the Senior Associate KU Athletic Director about adding wrestling at KU, one of the things he mentioned in his reply was that there was just not enough interest. If they do not receive many petition letters or e-mails from us then that will confirm to them that there is not enough interest.

Has anyone did a state by state comparison of how Kansas kids wrestling stands up in numbers compared to say Iowa, Oklahoma or Missouri? I know theses states have big college programs and maybe if we are close in comparison, we could use that in our favor????

Mike Furches just did a post on this topic in the College forum that linked us to a post in the Lawrence newspaper forum. In that Mike made a post that said according to the USAW we have more youth wrestlers than any state in the country.

Richard Salyer in another topic quoted something from I believe the National Federation of High Schools that said in 2003-2004 that wrestling ranked 6th for boys in high school participants. I got on that organizations site and it appeared that Iowa had over 6000 wrestlers and they have 3 NCAA Division 1 teams. Kansas had I believe around 4700 high school wrestlers. I think Oklahoma only had about 2000 but they have two Big 12 teams. I am not sure about the number of high school wrestlers in Missouri or Nebraska the other two states with Big 12 wrestling teams.

Do not let them tell you there is lack of interest. These results from Brute/Adidas nationals speaks volumes of the Kansas high school kids in this region soon approaching college age. I'll be sending something off to the Brute/Adidas contacts. I am hope we can gain a little support from this organization.

Kansas Kids hold their own at Brute/Adidas in Nebraska
(High School Freshman, Sophmores, and Juniors)
Total Team Score all three grades
Kansas - 773.5
Missouri - 703.5
Nebraska - 411.0
Iowa - 345.0
Freshman Class Team Points
Iowa - 45
Kansas - 341.5
Missouri - 322.5
Nebraska - 165.5
Sophmore Class team Points
Iowa - 115.5
Kansas - 214.5
Missouri - 229.5
Nebraska - 138.0
Junior Class Team Points
Iowa - 184.5
Kansas - 217.5
Missouri - 151.5
Nebraska - 107.5

Dear Governor Sebelius,

Thank you for attending the recent Kansas Kids State Wrestling Tournament at the Topeka Expo Center. It has been said by some administrators at Kansas University that there is lack of interest in the Kansas Community for women and men's wrestling. I think you know that this is not true after attending or Kansas Kids State Tournament. There is a grass roots movement to include this population of kids and provide them the opportunity to earn a college education and compete for their home state on the Division I level.
Please support our efforts by writing a letter to the Administration and Athletic Department at Kansas University.
Below you will find some recent results from the Brute/Adidas 2005 National Tournament held at the University of Nebraska. Please support our efforts to keep some of the quality kids at home and help keep some of best Kansans' in the Labor Force.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Sean McCarthy


2005 BRUTE/ADIDAS NATIONALS RESULTS
Kansas Kids hold their own at Brute/Adidas in Nebraska
(High School Freshman, Sophmores, and Juniors)
Total Team Score all three grades
Kansas - 773.5
Missouri - 703.5
Nebraska - 411.0
Iowa - 345.0

Very good, Sean. I hope the Governor does exactly that. We may be getting a bipartisan effort because I also sent an e-mail to Phill Kline's communication director today for Attorney General Kline's attention. I got a reply that he would take it to the Attorney General and he knew that the Attorney General would be very interested in it. Phill is an old college wrestler like yourself, Sean.

I even sent Bill Self an e-mail today. I am very hopeful that he too will take our side in this endeavor. I agree with Mike Furches that Coach Self could be a very positive influence for us.

Mike Furches and Sean McCarthy, we need to get our group started. Mike Juby has given me an enthusiastic go ahead and offered help from the USAW Kansas if we need it. He has already started that by sending word out to all the Officers and Directors of our intention and desire to organize a group. I have already received an offer from one of the Officers to do that. So we need to set up an initial meeting. Mike, it might be best to have it in the KC area but I am open on this. I am sure Sean would be willing to travel for the meeting too. For that matter if the initial meeting is smaller less than 15-20 people, we could have it at my house in Overland Park on a Saturday or Sunday. Mike and Sean you two need to get in touch with me to tell me what is best for you on an initial meeting. If anyone else really wants to be part of this committee from the start let me know. Thanks, Vince

Everyone who has been posting on this topic and has expressed an interest in getting involved in the effort, please read Sean McCarthy's announcement of our first group meeting. The details can be found in the Breaking News Section of the Home Page.

Also if you are already in the process of writing petition letters to the various parties listed, please mail the letters as Sean suggests and send Sean a copy at the address provided. Yesterday I read this advice on writing a Congressman on themat.com and I think it would be applicable for the Chancellor or Athletic Department too. This advide is from Lawrence Rudner, Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation:

"Your letter should go to your Senator or Representative and should be no longer than one page: two brief paragraphs are best. Identify yourself, your affiliation, and your major concern in the first paragraph. You should describe why the concern is important and worthwhile in the second paragraph. End with your postal address. Keep it concise!"

ogw
Bronze Member
, USA
Total Posts: 248
Posted: 05/02/2005 at 08:34:07 am

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Hemenway chancellor at KU is on the board of directors of the NCAA in that postion he urged colleges not to adopted new internet survey on womens interest in sports.Yet Hemenway seem content to have a mens entertainment dept[7 sports ] and womens athletic dept [11 sports]at KU.I think it is an embarrassment that a major college with money has only 7 men sports and i think wrestling community needs to let KU KNOW IT IS TIME TO ADD WRESTLING.
KU Wrestling Fan
New Member
KS, USA
Total Posts: 19
Posted: 05/02/2005 at 09:28:02 am

I just e-mailed the below message to the person who the NCAA lists as heading their wrestling (Randy Buhr I believe). Maybe he or someone in the NCAA will put a little pressure on Chancellor Hemenway to add wrestling at KU. You got to be upset over some of these things. I believe there were around 152 Division I teams in 1979-80 and in 2001-02 there were only 86. I don't think it has increased since 2002 either. We Have To Reverse This Trend!

The message I sent to the NCAA:

"Kansas University has just signed a 40.2 million contract with ESPN for 7 years and a contract with adidas for $26.67 for seven years. These contracts replace other ones but I calculated that it would mean an $7 million increase annually for KU over the next 7 years. A group of us are trying to get influence KU to add wrestling. Will the NCAA join us in this effort?"

ionel and the naysayers on themat.com,

Do you realize that the ground under the buildings and the basketball arenas, football stadiums, and offices that these administrators work out of are owned by the tax payers of Kansas. How many athletic directors does a school need? Are they in compliance with Title IX - I would say most schools are way off that mark in the athletic offices. They may not want to listen to us - but they have to. There are some pretty healthy salaries, pension plans, travel budgets, meals and entertainment budgets, car allowances - that we the tax payer help pay for. If they want to have semi-pro basketball and football programs they can go build their own buidlings and find some new land to build them on. The Kansas Wrestling Community are not asking for planes to fly these kids to events. They will drive in vans and study along the way. We as parents are asking for the same educational - equal opportunities that others are provided in the state of Kansas. We want a few cookies out of the package not the whole box. There I said it as diplomatically as I could.

... and what a diplomat!

Here are the exact numbers and trends as reported on http://www.themat.com:

Number of NCAA wrestling teams, 1980-2001




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information provided by the NCAA

1979-80 - 152 Div. I; 72 Div. II; 150 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 374
1980-81 - 150 Div. I; 74 Div. II; 148 Div. III, total NCAA schools- 372
1981-82 - 146 Div. I; 68 Div. II; 149 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 363
1982-83 - 136 Div. I; 69 Div. II; 146 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 351
1983-84 - 136 Div. I; 62 Div. II; 144 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 342
1984-85 - 136 Div. I; 52 Div. II; 137 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 325
1985-86 - 133 Div. I; 51 Div. II; 133 Div. III, total NCAA schools- 317
1986-87 - 124 Div. I; 46 Div. II; 130 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 300
1987-88 - 121 Div. I; 41 Div. II; 127 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 289
1988-89 - 117 Div. I; 43 Div. II; 126 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 286
1989-90 - 112 Div. I; 44 Div. II; 122 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 278
1990-91 - 111 Div. I; 49 Div. II; 120 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 280
1991-92 - 110 Div. I; 48 Div. II; 117 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 275
1992-93 - 108 Div. I; 44 Div. II; 113 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 265
1993-94 - 107 Div. I; 49 Div. II; 108 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 264
1994-95 - 104 Div. I; 46 Div. II; 111 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 261
1995-96 - 98 Div. I; 48 Div. II; 112 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 258
1996-97 - 96 Div. I; 48 Div. II; 107 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 251
1997-98 - 96 Div. I; 42 Div. II; 101 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 239
1998-99- 94 Div. I; 43 Div. II; 101 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 243
1999-00 - 91 Div. I; 41 Div. II; 106 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 238
2000-01 - 90 Div. I; 41 Div. II; 104 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 235
2001-02 - 86 Div. I; 43 Div. II; 100 Div. III, total NCAA schools - 229

Hopefully we can stop and reverse this now. I can't think of a better place to make it go the other direction than in Kansas.

Please go to the College Forum and the topic:"KU It Is Time To Add Wrestling and read my post concerning the Rainy Day Fund topic on the Basketball Forum of this website:

http://boards.kusports.com/

I have posted this also on the high school forum and I hope the forum moderators will forgive this transgression. Thank you