This article was published in the K-State Collegian today.
Wrestling team would benefit K-State, keep homegrown talent from studying out of state When you hear the name Bobby Lashley, what do you think of? For some of us, that takes us into Vince McMahon's empire of the World Wrestling Entertainment. Lashley wrestled for WWE from 2004 to 2008 and was a two time world heavy weight champion for McMahon's circus. After his departure from WWE, he joined Strikeforce and ignited a Mixed Martial Arts career, where he fights to this day.
Lashley is a natural-born freak of an athlete, a true competitor, and before all the fame, he was an incredible amateur wrestler at Missouri Valley College, where he was a three-time national champion wrestler and a four-time All-American. Why is this important? Because he is from Junction City, just 15 minutes down the road, and he had to leave the state to wrestle in college because K-State does not have a wrestling team. What an alumni Lashley would have been.
Lashley is not a Wildcat, however. He is a Missouri Valley Viking. He, along with droves of Division I wrestlers, leave the state of Kansas every year to wrestle in Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska and other states. K-State is allowing glory, exposure and national prominence to leave. How about we adopt a program that will allow Kansan athletes to participate in the fiercest form of competition at a D-I level? K-State needs to start a wrestling team now.
I used to not care about wrestling. I thought it was pretty lame, to be honest with you. Then my sister married this Terminator — no, not Arnold, but another guy by the name of Wayne James.
James' seasoned career in wrestling is long and industrious and filled with great accomplishments from the wrestling side to the coaching aspect of the sport. His accolades are too long to list in this space, but he has won multiple state and national titles and coached both men and women champions at Lindenwood University and Oklahoma City University. When he talks about wrestling, you can see the spark of passion in his eyes.
I recently asked him how K-State would benefit from a wrestling program and if he thought Kansas was a wrestling state. He said students would benefit from a wrestling program at K-State almost as much as the university would benefit from having then program and that Kansas is, indeed, a big-time wrestling state.
First off, K-State is in the premier wrestling conference in the country. Only five teams in the conference have a wrestling team, but all five teams are perennially in the top 20: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa State. Those five schools alone spit out more All-Americans than any other conference in the nation.
With an adoption of an all-inclusive, men's and women's wrestling program here, K-State would immediately benefit from mass exposure by participating in a conference with such national prominence. The first years would be tough, but Missouri started a new program only a few years ago and is already fighting for national title contention. Great competition breeds excellence and the Big 12 Conference is full of incredible competition.
In a time when K-State was seriously considering cutting the band, it would be financially beneficial to add another sports program. The $5,000 or so we'd need for the wrestling mats pales in comparison to the $12 million we just raised for the basketball facility. We already have a facility in Ahearn Field House which would facilitate the locker room and training space needed. A wrestling program is only allotted 9.9 scholarships, but has an average of 32 wrestlers on the team. All those extra men and women would be just making the school money.
Every year, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are gutting the wrestling talent out of Kansas. James said that with all the individual talent coming from Kansas, it would only take one or two good wrestlers at a K-State program to open up the floodgates and bring in multitudes of good wrestlers to this school. Everyone wants to be a part of an up-and-coming program.
For the student athlete involved, James said there is no better program to teach someone self-discipline, determination and set them up for the rest of their lives. So, come on, K-State, let's get a wrestling team here in the Little Apple. Who knows? It might just be our ticket to winning that elusive national championship.
Daniel Stewart is a senior in mass communications and journalism. Please send comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.