National Collegiate Wrestling Association Mission Statement An NCWA wrestling team at Wichita State University is NOT new. During the 2007-2008 season Wichita State University, as well as Kansas State University and Newman University teams traveled to the NCWA National Championships hosted at The University on Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.
This past season Wichita State University and Kansas State University teams traveled to The Apprentice School in Newport News, Virginia for the NCWA National Championship Tournament.
Kansas State Universtiy, through the efforts of Beau Tillman (Pratt High School) and others, has for several years fielded an NCWA team and with lesser success K.U. has had a team.
The NCWA was established in 1998 and this past season hosted its eleventh (11th) national championship tournament.
From the NCWA Mision Statement:
"Despite the fact that wrestling is the fastest growing male interscholastic sport, colleges and universities have been unable to offer wrestling opportunities for these incoming students within their athletic departments. The NCWA helps to build programs under the student services or recreational sports departments of universities. We provide a national governing body for competition, communication and promotion of collegiate style wrestling.
The NCWA is committed to a vision that has at its core increased athletic opportunity for all students. We hope to provide a spawning ground for new wrestling teams. Teams that draw students who will chose an institution of higher education for its academic excellence. With college wrestling at its most limited level in history, and more wrestling athletes graduating from high school, many wrestlers are left to choose between continuing the sport they love and their first academic choice for schooling. The NCWA is designed to help solve this challenge.
Since the university is not adding members to its athletic department, but rather to its club sports department, it can properly balance opportunity ratios, and because NCWA teams are primarily funded by students themselves and outside community resources, there are no university budgetary concerns. If and when a school does have room for athletic expansion, it is our hope that since the wrestling program will be up and running, and in compliance with NCAA rules, that it will be a first choice for ultimate inclusion in the schools athletic curriculum.
The NCWA was founded with the student athlete in mind. We are composed of non-paid volunteers committed to helping our young people accomplish their goals and dreams, and to reach for excellence in everything they do. Through athletic endeavor, club leadership responsibilities and community involvement, NCWA students will leave college life to meet a competitive world head on. They will have been equipped through their academic involvement and athletic success to take the competition to the mat, score and emerge a champion."
