February 19, 2025 • 57 mins
MatStats does a shout out to the NCAA for approving women’s wrestling a championship sport. We do a quick history of women’s intercollegiate sports organizations. MatStats dives into the chronology of women’s national tourneys and the numbers in the 2024-2025 women’s teams, conferences and national tourneys. We also explain how you become an NCAA sport and the growth of NCAA women’s wrestling.
Slideshow for this Episode: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/slideshow41.pdf
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
Slideshow for this Episode: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/slideshow41.pdf
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a
batting average, a win percentage, correlations, and standard deviation. But
numbers aren't just for nerds. In life, decisions need data.
In wrestling decisions, projections and hypotheticals also need data. Here
(00:24):
on mat Stats, we take historical data, theories, and statistics
and apply it to the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Now to your trio of numerical nerd balls, Glenn Gormley,
Kevin Hazard, and Jason.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Bryant, it's the Match That Show, episode forty one. Don't
be bothered by the intro there. We're not going to
make you wait five minutes to hear from Glenn Gormley,
Kevin Hazard myself.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We're going to be talking.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
About wrestling real soon, real quick once again, episode forty
two of the Match That Show the Moneyball of wrestling,
along with the Grand Poobac Kevin Hazard and the Sultan
of stat Glenn Gormley, I'm Jason Bryant, and we are
getting into the postseason as we record this in February
of twenty twenty five. Postseason means a lot of things.
Now that could be the We've got conference tournaments showing up,
(01:13):
We've got regionals coming up, We've got the women's postseason,
which is our topic today. We'll be talking about women's
collegiate wrestling and the formation of those tournaments.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
We've got several of them to talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Flow Wrestling just recently did a piece by award winning
journalist Kyle Klingman explaining the regional breakdowns. But we're not
talking about this year's my new year. We're gonna be
talking about the foundations of it. But before we get
to those foundations, last show, we talked about the national duels.
A lot of moving parts to that. We've got dual
meet win streaks going on. As we record this. Penn
State just crossed win number seventy, so they are about
(01:47):
they are seven away from tying the NCAA record of
seventy seven set by Saint Cloud State in twenty twenty two,
or is it yeah, twenty twenty two. The Division one
or major college record is seventy six, except by then
Oklahoma A and M now Oklahoma State. So they've just
passed Iowa at sixty There was at sixty nine for
(02:07):
the Big Ten records.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So that's where we're talking about duel meets and win streaks.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But now Iowa women is also going to be a
topic of the discussion because we're talking women's wrestling, Glenn,
and this is one that we looked at the.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Notes pre show.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's like, yeah, this is something I feel like if
you don't know anything about women's wrestling and you want
to know about it, this is where you should start.
So this is why we do the show. We do
it as a library of sorts and aa archive of things.
But yeah, this is how we start to know the
history of women's collegiate wrestling.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
We can go back and talk nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Even in the eighties when it came to Fila the
artist formerly known as Fela with international wrestling, but we
wrestle freestyle in college wrestling, and Glenn, a lot of
stuff you dug into on this one.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah, thank you, Jason.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
First of all, I want to show I got to
grow women's wrestling shirt on here for the show.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
So what I wanted to do is I didn't know
a whole lot about.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
The history of women's wrestling despite doing the show fro
almost four years now and trying to help out women's wrestling.
So I try to do some research and break it
down so the average fan can just look at this
show as a library source and find out what's going on.
So what we're doing on this show is what Jason said,
It's an historical background, and then we are going to
(03:22):
get into you know, who's in how many schools and
what region, how many schools are NCAA and AI, etc.
And also the growth of women's wrestling, specifically the NCAA.
We're going to end the show on. So you know,
at home, as Jason tells you all the time, you
can pull up our PowerPoint show and the second slide
(03:43):
is always what's in this episode?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
And then Jason explained it real quickly. The reason we
do this is we're research thing. And of course I
have to say every time, the opinions expressed here do
not necessarily reflect all the opinions of the NWC, Nor
do Jason, Gormley and Hazard agree with each other all
the time.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Okay, slide numbers show.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You with your awful selection of hats. I disagree with that,
lean still do.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Forward.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Okay, I hope you like my hat.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
This time it's another baseball hat happens to be the
World College World Series Champions.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
It's orange, which surprises absolutely no one.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
Exactly matches the screens, Yes it does.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So okay, guys, Glenn picked this format for the show
notes by the way.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Yes, no surprise there. Okay.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
So Slide six shows you all the four year college
teams and the NCAA, n A, i A, n c
W as broken down by men and women in total.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Right now, we have seven hundred and twenty one.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Teams that are competing and do are already announced to
compete next year.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
Okay, So we're talking about the news, what's going on
and changes. We were going to talk about business and logistics,
and so we're going to another topic and is there
a good reason or a reason why or how do
we end up with women's wrestling this time?
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Okay, Well, there was two main reasons. We always do
a show in March on the preview of the men's division. One,
so we'd like to do February with the preview of
the women and some explanation about the women for equal time.
But with the big reason we bumped to the logistics
of business was on January seventeenth, twenty twenty five, the
NCAA approved women's wrestling as a championship sport, it becomes
(05:42):
the ninety first championship. I want to explain something to
people here though. For example, in men's wrestling, we have
three championships at NCUBLEA Division one, Division two, Division three.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
It's not three sports, it's three championships.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Okay, this will be a one championship for the women
right now, Okay, one day, it'll grow soon.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
We'll get back into that later in the show.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
I have, of course been hoping that the women's championship will
be in the same arena, same time, same place as
the men's. Don't know if that's ever going to happen,
but that's my personal preference.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Okay. And the NCAAA has been around for one hundred
and eighteen years, and now I'm taking it totally seriously
now that they have a men and women's championship.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Okay, so we're talking about women's championship. Let's do a
quick preview for this topic for the episode.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Certainly, Kevin, thank you.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
We have six main things we deal with on show.
A quick history of women's in collegiate organizations, a chronology
of women's national tournaments number three, the number of NCAA,
n AIA, and NCWA women's teams number four, the number
of conference quality of fires for those following organizations, number five,
(07:04):
How a sport becomes an NCAA sport, which I'm sure
a lot of.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
People have no clue. And then number six were a
match do show the growth of women's wrestling.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Now, I'll start your guys out with a quick history
of intercollegiate athletics. They were first formed on a national
basis in nineteen forty one. In nineteen fifty six, the
division of Girls and Women's Sports was three basically pe
organizations that joined together to form this in nineteen seventy one.
(07:38):
What we all know is the AIAW, the Association for
Intercollegiate Athletics for.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Women, was formed in seventy two. Seventy three.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
They had their first championship events in eight different sports.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Glad, I actually want to stop you real quick right there,
because you had said something. What you had said was
is as we all know, no, what we all don't
know because where I went to school. Yes, we know
what the AIAW is because of the great women's basketball
tradition there, but a lot of people don't know that.
Prior to nineteen eighty two, they weren't NCAAA Women's championships,
(08:16):
and this is where the AIAW is. So if you
are sometimes walking through some of these gyms that had
programs national championships, you will see banners for those teams,
usually hanging in those gyms, especially if it was an
indoor sport. You'll see again at that school in Norfolk,
you'll see like I believe it was, I think it
was seventy eight, seventy nine. It was somewhere in that
(08:36):
range because they won an NCAA title in eighty five.
But you go look, it's the AIAW and you'll see
that and you'll be like, what the heck does that mean?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
That's what it means.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So if you did not know, those of the certain
age like hmm and h will know what it means.
Somebody here in this age demographic probably don't because we
were kind of a lot of you just younger than me,
were just being born. I was born in seventy nine.
The AIW was a thing when I was born, but
at three years old when they the NCAA adopted it,
I didn't know what it was because I wasn't watching
(09:06):
any sports by then. So if you are basically my age.
You're younger, you may have it, you may have heard
of it. But if you're my age or older, you
you probably know it a little bit more if you
followed any any sort of women's sports. So I just
want to say, as we all know, no, there's there's
an age demo here because.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Hmm, are they're they're you know, they're the a little older.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So just want to clarify, yes, for the younger viewer,
the young in this case, the younger viewer is forty
five and below. In this case, yes, we're that mill
box on the demographic that you fill out in the survey,
if you get right.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Down to it.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
The reason we did the show is because not everyone
knows it right. So you I appreciate you for correcting me.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And I will make sure yes, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
I'll tell you one of the banners that's hanging in
that school No Folk. Uh, my freshman year at Tennessee
Old Dominion beat Tennessee for the women's ai AW women
basketball championship.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So that's one of the that's made a drive to
Rocky Top from that school in Norfolk, twelve hour drive
and heard that song probably about twenty two times. That's
probably why I hate the song, and because I had
to endure it. It wasn't like I had to I
had to endure it at Thompson Bowling Area with twenty
five thousand people in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So wait, let's set all yeah, let's let's move on
moving caving off of Rocky Top.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
So in nineteen eighty one eighty two, is Jason said,
just recently the NCAA started including women's sports. After the
eighty one eighty two academic year, the ai AW was
legally dissolved. Interestingly enough, at eighty one eighty two, there
were some female sports, including basketball, that had both NCAA
(10:52):
and AIA championships. But the eighty one eighty two season,
seventeen of the top women's basketball teams opted for the
nc DOUBLEA and that was the end of the AIAW.
How did its peak? It had over one thousand members
schools and nineteen different sports. It was a real legitimate organization.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
And you know what, here's another thing, Go ahead, Kevin.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
Quick question. So the ai AW, that was NCUBA, NAIA.
It was all the schools right, correct.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Pretty much if you had an athletics program, you were
you you could be ACA or ANAI school and your
women's sports where chances are going to compete in this division. Now,
again if I'm off, if I'm off on how that works,
and you're listening out there, let us know at NWCA
Matt stats so we can get that up there complete
because some of my history again is not one hundred
(11:49):
percent sure. Now, one thing I also wanted to bring
up about why that acronym has been maybe on the
tip of people's tongue more. It was the Caitlin Clark
phenomenon when she was playing in Iowa and a lot
of eyes on women's college basketball because there was to
talk about her records and then.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
What her scoring records were.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And then there were the predecessors, the athletes in the
aia W that their stats weren't in the NCAA record
but because.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
They were not in CAA sports at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So that is where you may have heard ai a
W recently within the last two or three years, because
there were records being set in those era, those trailblazers
for women's sports and women's basketball that really had some
conversation going too. So not all of it was the
great conversation either, so we'll leave it up to you
to investigate that on the controversy surrounding which records count,
(12:39):
which records are here? Points are in that type of thing.
But that may be another thing that why have I
heard that before? It was definitely the Caitlin Clark phenomenon,
tank you, Jason.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
All right, So big picture we just talked about. Now,
can we talk about just the beginning in the early
days of women's intercally wrestling.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Certainly, Kevin sure will in two before there was an NCAA,
NAIA or NCWA women's national championship, there was an independent
national championship for women. Okay, this started in two thousand
and four. Basically what they did was they said, let's
bring all the best women together from across the country
(13:22):
and let's see who was the best.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
In two thousand and eight, the.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Women's Collegiate Wrestling Association, which we referred to as the
wc WA. I know, it's alphabet souper here, guys, full.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Of alphabet soup was formed to provide.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
A competitive structure.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
Okay, so we have listed as you could you know,
either pull up here if you're watching or if you
want to pull up the powerpoints at home.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We have a list of all the from two thousand
and four to.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
Twenty twenty the WCWA champions, and we do count the
first three years when it was an independent before for
the WCWA was legally formed. But we wanted to get
you on that. And I do have a little side
note here. University of the Cumberlands, which is in Williamsburg, Kentucky,
has won at three times. I want to know why
(14:14):
that college in Williamsburg, Virginia does not have a men
or women's team. That just my question that anybody in
Williamsburg that might know, you just.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Have to run that one up the Dog Street there
and figure that out, because that's one thing that we
all want to know.
Speaker 6 (14:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I also want to clarify because you know, I've always
got the And then so when you go back and
look at the results from two thousand and four, you
were going to see and you know, Glenn and I
were talking.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Before the show about what word to use.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Unaffiliated was one I really didn't like, so we kind
of settled on independent per my urging. And the reason
I use that is you had athletes that were representative
and they essentially it was a lot of clubs. You
had independent athletes sometimes from a cal State Bakersfield, from
a community college, but you also had the handful of
(15:03):
women's colleges at the time that had full fledged varsity programs.
So it really was a foundational effort in two thousand
and four with which they just simply termed Women's Collegiate
Nationals WCN is where you'll.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Also see it.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So you had a lot of just fledgling, just I
mean literally throwing spaghetti to the wall to see if
it would stick in some of these places, and some
of them was it was a community college out in
California with somebody. It was the Academy of Art Institute.
And then you had your mobiles, your pacifics of the
world in there, so those are you know, your Menlo
was early on in there too, So we're looking.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
We only had, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Not handful, literally handful of varsity programs less than the
amount of fingers on my hand, that had varsity programs
twenty one years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
That's where we started. You have to start somewhere.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
So handful of programs we've gone through in this twenty
one years. Think about it, that's older than YouTube or Twitter.
So now it can drink legally.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So you're gonna have to add what mobile to buy
you a beer if you're if you're a new program,
Actually it's probably a bad idea. Let's lay out anyway.
We're okay, but we get it.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
So we had the w's WCWA and what developed after
the WCWA.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Okay, Kevin the Glenn owned a bar.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
That's what it is. That's not drinking agent there. I'm
encouraging people to drinking out.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, I talk about your parking lot anyway.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Oh yeah, Okay.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
In two thousand and nine, the nc WA, the National
Collegian Wrestling Associates, started to include women's National Wrestling Tournament.
The NCWA was formed in nineteen ninety seven with just
man as a gap in the wrestling community. It was
devised to provide opportunities and a lot of times it
(16:59):
was teams that were disbanded.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
In the n c A or in A I A.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
The n c w A is much more budget friendly
than either the n c A A or n A
I A R.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
We have a question, quick question there.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
And and this goes to your point. Am I right?
They run their women's nationals at the same time as
the men's nationals bingo, so I mean going out to Yeah,
so I mean there is.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Their nationals are although they did they did recently hold
a freestyle championship, but for the they've been a folk
style wrestling style for their championships.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Again, a couple.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Weeks ago they did hold a freestyle tournament, but their
end of the year championship is a folk style tournament.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So that is the main difference between the n.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
C w A and the the n AI and the
the NCAA in terms of competitive styles.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, what we have, thank you for the clarification.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
What we have on the screen here you look at
home is to pass NCWA champions women's side from two
thousand and nine until twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Obviously we don't know who wonted twenty five.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Yet interestingly that that was that a number of those
teams were community colleges. All right, So NCWA they now
have a men's and women's What happens after that?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Okay? After that?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
On four nine, twenty two, the NAIA voted to have
an official championship. They started a national invitations with schools
with NAIA in twenty nineteen, but they are recognized as
official NAIA National champions Okay, and then we have a
(18:45):
list of all the schools which slid twenty one that
have won the NAIA Championship. And the first one was
in Jamestown, and I thought that's pretty cool because Jamestown
with us whole country started the first permanent in your settlement.
They're clearly two different jamestowns. Once in North Dakota was in.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Virginia, now, Glenn, little little side note here, do you
remember when they had the anniversary and they did the
replicas of the three.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Ships they came?
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I remember those.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
My grandfather, my grandfather Otis plug Abbot was one of
the people that was.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Part of building those ships.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
So I remember growing up going to see those things
as he after they were already unveiled. They still had
the display a couple of years after the exit was over,
and I just you know, had that green paneling covering
them up and such as we saw in WHR. O
was like, hey, granddaddy Otis worked on those ships. So yeah,
when I hear Jamestown, that was close to the chest.
(19:44):
Although I've I think I've only driven through Jamestown, North
Dakota once, so don't have that same affinity as the
Jim in Jimmy Town that I do.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
You know back in the seven five seven.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I'll tell you a funny story about Jamestown four un
to fund a versary of twenty oh seven. I was
driving back into the office to the bars Jason mentioned
on one and there was nobody at all coming the
other way, and all of a sudden I saw every
helicopter and cop and everything. It was a motorcade. In
one of the limbos was President W. Bush and then
(20:17):
the other limbo was Queen Elizabeth. So it was like
pretty cool, you know, to see all that go by you.
I was lucky I was going the other way. So
I did get hold up for being in work. Okay,
all right, now, so we have some more alphabet soup.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I was wondering, Yeah, you're gonna be okay here, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
I'm sometimes I do get a little confused with this.
But so now we have right now NCWWC, and it
kind of is the NCAA. Glenn, can you explain this?
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Yes, I'll explain this as best as I can. The
National Collegiate women Wrestling Championship, what we call the NCWWC,
is the precursor to the NCAA Women's Wrestling Championship. Okay,
women's wrestling only became an official emerging sport in the
NCAA in the twenty twenty one season.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
The NAIA, as we said, started in twenty nineteen year. Okay,
so the WCWA was on its way out. They had
their last championship in twenty twenty. So the schools that
are NCUBLEA affiliate members schools needed to have their own
national championship, but it wasn't to be called the NCAA
(21:41):
Championships until next year at this time when they have
their first one, because as we mentioned early in the show,
just as past January, it was voted on to be
a championship sport. So the NCAA schools, for one last
time here that'll be coming up in March, call their
championships the nc WWC.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Okay, it's just a real.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Attorney. Legally is nonsense. If somebody calls it the NCAA,
I'm not going to get upset. And I probably called
that myself, so I hope that explained to Kevin that's
what that is, Okay, And we started having these tournaments.
Like I said, the w CWA passed Baton, and here's
(22:31):
a list on's like twenty five of all the championship
teams in the nc WWC okay, and I was up
there in twenty twenty two, and Adrian Michigan with mckendrey
bt king okay, and of course the defending champion right
(22:52):
now is Iowa.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
So there's where we have a list of those.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Hold up here before we get moving, I do want
to you know, as we go through, we've only been
listing the four year institutions, and Kevin pointed out that
a lot of the NCWA schools in those early years
we're community college. Now. The n JCAA, which is junior
colleges to your schools, they've just finished with another year,
I believe their second or third year of their invitational.
(23:22):
So they just like back in the sixties when they
started varsity wrestling as a national championship, their first couple
were invitational, just like the ANAI the first couple were invitational.
So a lot of focus here is on the four
year schools, but the NJCAA does have a national championship
for women and Glenn you'll be happy to also know
this if you didn't know it already, They compete the
(23:43):
same time, same weekend with the men at their site.
So that's another point feather in your cap for your
your angle there. But again I don't want to sit
there and exclude the n JCAA because again those are
those are two year schools. Again, a lot of our
focus on this show is around the four year opportunities.
Why well, because remember you get the two year degree,
you go on to the four year school, so you know,
(24:04):
it's you know, it's kind of one of those things
that's you can't get everything every time all the time.
But in this case, we do want to basically point
out the NJACA has a women's invitation as part of
their national championships as well.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Thank you for that, Jason.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
Yeah, and along those lines, we've just talked about just
a lot of different national championships, Gorms. Can we look
at a chart or that just shows just just a
chronology of how all that worked.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Sure, Kevin, We have a slide up here that shows
basically I did it by year rather than the exact date,
so I didn't confuse a lot of people. This is
basically the important uh moving points and what year they
are and what happened with Women's Interclagion Wrestling. I'm not
going to read them all out. Okay, they're available to
(24:57):
you guys at home, because there's probably fifteen up there
on the screen. And the important one for right now
today is it says in twenty twenty six, we'll have
the first ever NCAA women's National Championship and it all
started in this chart in two thousand and four.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
So where are those tournaments going to be? So we've
got three coming up. We've got the NCAA, the NAIA,
and the NCWA. So where are there those tourneys going
to be?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Okay, nc WWC that we could call.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
The NCAA is in Coralville, Iowa, which is right next
to Iowa City, March seventh, eighth. The NAIA is in Wichita, Kansas,
March fourteenth to fifteenth, which is interestingly the week after
the nai A men's tournament.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Is the NCWA is.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
In Shreveport, Brewsers City, Louisiana from March thirteenth to fifteenth.
That has Jason mentioned, same time, same place, same bat channel,
same bat back as the men in that tournament.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Thanks, So that's the chronology of what they're going to do.
So how about now we just look at the numbers.
I mean, we are in a period of explosive growth.
Can we talk about the numbers just between last year
and this year?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (26:25):
On the NCAA side, In twenty twenty four, there were
six regions and fifty eight schools that compete in the
women's Nationals. This year coming up next month, there's eight regionals.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
And ninety six teams. Okay.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Now, if you look at it on the next slide,
there's ten weight classes. For anybody who didn't realize this,
in both men and women. Okay, there are now top
four placers in each regional per weight class qualify for
the women Nationals. That means we're going to have three
(27:03):
hundred and twenty women and CAA wrestlers at their nationals.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Okay, from eight regionals.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
So if you note, Glenn, you can enter fifteen at
your regional qualifier.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Fifteen per school, yes, jasus, Yeah, so you could have
more than one. Like a couple of years ago, the
twins from King wrestled each other in the finals when
I was there at one oh one. Okay, for some
of you guys that are wondering, now, how big is
this women's NCAA tournament there are and this year coming
(27:42):
up and the men's division one, which is the it's
our biggest party we have. There are seventy nine teams,
three hundred and thirty qualifiers and now eight conferences because
the IVS have split off from the IWA. The women
have ninety six teams, three hundred and twenty qualifiers and
(28:02):
eight conferences. It's essentially the same size tournament.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
All right, Glenn, I'm gonna stop you right here, because
this is the first and as much as I've followed
and tracked women's wrestling for the last twenty something years,
like this, this this table right here, this stat right here,
and if you're watching it, you know, pay slide thirty three.
If you're not, open up the slide show Mantalo online
dot com or NBC online dot com and look at it.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Just visualize it when you see that, and then you
see the.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Growth and think twenty years ago this was barely a thing,
and now in just one of these divisions, these are
the numbers we're seeing. That status blows my mind right
now looking at it again. I've never seen it. It's simple.
I've never seen it. Visualize this way though, and it's nothing.
It's nothing out of the ordinary.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Glenn.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
You've got a chart with number of teams, number of qualifiers.
It's like, wait, what that's where we're at. That is astounding.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Yeah, it really is, Jason. So many people put in
a lot of hard work in this. I don't want
to name anybody because on all these people out so
but so many people have done that to get us
to this position that we can say this march it's basically,
you know, the same size tournament, the men's NC DOUBLEA
Division one and the women's NC Double A.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
It's yikes yeah, huge growth.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Yeah yeah, Okay.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
Next we move on to the NAIA women's teams in
the for the twenty fourth tournament, there were forty two teams.
We have five new teams this year, but two teams
Menlo and Vanguard are transitioning to NC DOUBLEA Division two teams.
So we're gonna have forty five nai A teams in
that now.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And one thing to consider before we get to the
next slide, Glennis, I want I want to I want
to point out the Foundational Schools Pacific was a Division
III school, but the the large number of teams that
really saw this women's wrestling explosion. They were the small
enrollment driven schools in the nai A, so a lot
of you know, the catalysts for a lot of this
(30:12):
growth was the nai A. Now the NCAA schools have added,
they've they've surpassed them in total number of teams, but
King University was an nai A school before it transitioned
to Division two. McKendree was an nai A school. Oklahoma
City still an ANAI school. Simon Fraser was an nai A school.
There had a lot of the foundational programs in the
in what is now going to be known as the
(30:33):
NCAA women's wrestling were started as nai A programs. So
you really can't talk about the success of the NCAA
without actually giving the nai their due as well, because
if it wasn't for some of these smaller schools taking
a chance on something that you know, the nai is
they can they can throw something out there a little
quicker than the structure of the NCAA allows. So they
(30:56):
were willing to those schools. Those presidents, those coaches, those
those athletes were willing to give a shot at these small,
little schools a lot of people had never heard of.
And then that has been a big, big catalyst of
why we've got NCAA wrestling. It's it's the two organizations
actually looking at each other and going, Yep, they've got
it over here. We can compete with them, they can
compete with us. It's not like they're refusing that each
(31:19):
other exists. In this case, it really helped women's wrestling
that both the NCAAA and ANI were working towards something
greater than themselves.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
Yes, no question, Jason, thank you for that. Okay. Now,
there's been a lot of talk. People have asked me
questions about the NCAAA transition, transitioning from the nai A
to the NCAA and all that stuff. I'll go over
his best best I know from the research I've done, guys.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Okay, it's also changed by the way, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Yeah, for years, the NCAA really forced a school transitioning
from one division to another in the inside the NCAA
to wait four years before they could compete. For example,
that Catholic school up in ERIEPA, Mercyhurst went from Division
two to Division one, but they're not allowed to go
to the Division one National championships this year.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
There's also a waiting period for a Menlo and a
Vanguard that went from NAIA to NCAA and the other
ones Jason mentioned King and McKendree, etc. Due to this,
Menlo and Vanguard cannot compete in the twenty twenty five
and CWWC. So Vanguard is competing in the NCWA National Championships.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Guys.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
This is another reason that Jim Junta and the NCWA
make more sense of the archaic rules at the NCAA.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
If you want to wrestle, Jim has a mat open
for you, come on in.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, So it's another thing you've seen. Now.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
California Baptists currently a Division one school. They started a
program in the NIA, then they transitioned to Division two.
They had to go two years the NAIA to Division
two weight is two. Guess where they went the ncw
A for those for those I guess their rogue years
so to speak. Then they reclassify from Division two to
Division one. Guess what back in the n c WA.
(33:13):
So where Gym's organization has been a landing spot for
those transitional schools. We saw it when Lyndenwood was going
from NAI to Division two. We saw it when you
know Mercyhurst hasn't rusted. You mentioned them. They haven't wrestled
a duel meet all year. They lost a lot to
the transfer portal because they knew their athletes were gon
gonna lose some years of eligibility if they were just
going to stay.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Now, one thing I will say that the.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Rules recently changed that that gap between divisions has now
gone from four years to three years. With the Division
three to Division one gap which Saint Thomas here locally
in Minnesota did, that has dropped from five to four.
So the weight is not as long as it was.
I believe the NAI to D two is still a
two year weight. But the argument is so to keep
(33:57):
teams from going back and forth between divisions and right,
and you know you want some continuity in it. The
other is, if you're going to be a Division one school,
they want all your facilities to be in line your
academic support. Basically, they don't want you making the move
too early. So that is your waight time. You've got
those four years to hit those benchmarks to be a
full fledged Division one school. Now, where you and I
(34:21):
probably agree with everybody, I think everybody with a common
sense place on this. Things like these moves are mostly
made for sports that don't involve the athletes that are
punished the most, the Olympic sports, the non revenue sports.
So it's a move made to chase those credits for
March Madness and Division one basketball, for example. So why
do you hurt the swimmers? Why do you hurt the wrestlers,
(34:42):
the volleyball players, the track and field athletes. That's what
drives me nuts about this, And I could go in
a soapbox for that forever. But the wait is now
is three years between divisions, at least within the NCAA,
and unless you're going from three to one, So got
those teams. We may see Mercyhurst at the NCWA this year,
do you not know? I have not heard that yet.
But yeah, a transition thing that's so much fun because
(35:05):
it really hurts. It hurts the athletes that had nothing
to do with the decision. They're they're chasing football and
basketball for the most part, and it's that those other
athletes are the ones that have to suffer for it,
which is and it hurts programs. I mean Queen's and
Lindenwood were in their Division one two Division one transition.
They both dropped it last year. So it's it's unfortunately
(35:25):
killed programs too.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yeah, and it's it's a wild thinkers.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Now anybody can transfer any time anywhere, be immediately eligible.
I think pretty soon you're gonna be able to be
able to transfer at halftime, you know, of a basketball game.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Just did a Major league baseball game before. But anyway,
that's another thing. Yeah, anyway, moving on. Okay, as we
just kind of said, we just kind of we kind
of went over this a little bit too as far
as the logic of the transfer rules.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
But yeah, okay, so what we'll do.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Then, there were two hundred and eight women's qualifiers to
twenty two twenty four NAIA Championships.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
On the screen.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
There you have the five conferences that have teams. They
allocate some qualifiers, just like we all know about the
men's D one doing that, and then you have some
wald card and national at large.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
So that's how you got there.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
I'm not going to list all the conferences like that,
but there's five conferences in the NAIA, the NCWA. As
we mentioned before, if you have a single it in
a headgear, Jim will give you a spot on a map. Okay,
they do eleven weight classes at both men and women. Okay,
they're the only ones in college that do that. They
(36:37):
have nine regionals. One of those regionals is Puerto Rico.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
They had one hundred and sixty two national qualifiers in
twenty twenty four Top six and each tweter all Americans.
Now they have eighty five teams, but not all of
these teams are full eleven person lineups. Just so, what
you guys know is really big about giving people opportunities,
(37:04):
where the NCAA, on the other hand, is very.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Dives in the minutia about the rules.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
That are meant for basketball and football.
Speaker 6 (37:15):
The rules oriented. So NCWA women's twenty twenty five national duels,
we did a show last month about that, and the
NCWA did not have the duel meet women's turning before
we did the show. Can we talk about that?
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, sure, thank you, Kevin.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
The twenty twenty five NCAA Women's Duels were in Saint George,
U taht were U Tau techids. Okay, the NCWA schools
we just mentioned a smaller budgets, Okay, travel can be
really cost prohibitive. There were seven teams in this and
if you see the seven schools, they're of FUM, you know,
way west of the Mississippi, Okay. They had a round
(37:58):
robin where you wrestle all six of the teams. So
if you went there, you got a minimum of six
bouts or minimum men maximum of six bouts. Now, what's
wild about this, which you seldom see. It's basically a
conference standing. It goes six and oh five and one,
four and two, three and three, two and four one,
five oh and six. As a stats guy, this really
(38:20):
jumped out at me because usually somebody beat somebody else
and it doesn't fall directly even like.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
That, like three and four.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
I think you guys have heard Jason say this in
the past. We've never had an example. The men's D
one Nationals were the top eight play swinners with the
exact same order of the top eight seeds.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
That's ever happened, No, correct, never happen.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Things just don't happen like that.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
Now, as far as the champion, just to review the
real quick for the twenty twenty five national tools, Iowa
won the NCAA, Life won the NAIA, and Washington State
won the NCWA.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
And that's a weird thing.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
You don't hear of a big I'm not so sure
if the PAC twelve is still Power five or what,
but a big school they in Washington State and any
wrestling thing, so I was happy to see a different
school in there.
Speaker 6 (39:16):
So we got an emergency, that emergency emerging status. We
only have one division? Why is there only one NCAA
division for women's wrestling?
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Thank you, Kevin.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
There's basically what I just called the twenty ten to
forty rule. In order to be you have to become
an emerging sport first before you can become a championship
sport the sport. They have three criteria in this the
sport meets the NCUBLEA definition of a sport. Wrestling is
the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
So we meet that.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
Okay, at least twenty varsity or competitive clubs exist.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
At an nc DOUBLEA member school.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Check Okay, now, real quick, real quick, Glenn, I wanted.
This is also I gave the NAIA praise earlier. This
is also where the NCWA deserves praise because those club
programs at those NCAA member schools made a difference as
well in getting emerging sports and championship sports status. So
(40:20):
that club, that club descriptor right there, that also played
a role in pushing this through.
Speaker 5 (40:26):
Yep, and then of those twenty at least ten have
to be NCAA member schools. Sponsors are intend to sponsor
the sport. Okay, the Committee on Women's Athletics can recommend
an emerging sport to become an NCAA Championship sport once
forty NCUBA member schools sponsor it.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Check. Okay, well up to ninety six as we saw. Yeah,
we've yep, and we're.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Really at one eleven with the announced schools, we're ninety
six or the compete this year. Once added to the
emerging sports sport us ten years to achieve the NCAA
Championship status and it may be removing the list if not.
We reached that very quickly. Now, why is there one division?
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Kevin asked. Okay, if we go way way back.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
To when Kevin was in college and I was in
middle school, there was just one basketball championship, you know,
when a mac Alot to beat Westchester State. Because there
were so few schools. There were not enough schools that
had a history of this in each of the divisions
to have three divisions. Now the Division three does have
(41:38):
enough of that, so we're going to see one division
in twenty twenty six, we were most likely very soon
see a Division three and another division. Okay, I believe
Jason said that ice hockey went from one division to two.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
In one year, so women's ice hockey. So again, this
is something that through my workover at Saint Cloud, State
of actually I've learned a little bit more. They have
a women's ice hockey program there. And now for clarification, semantics,
because you know how much I love semantics. Technically, it's
national collegiate. It's the trophy says national collegiate. It does
(42:15):
not say Division one, but it's they refer to themselves
as Division one athletes. It's the only there's a Division
three in women's ice hockey, and then there's a National collegiate,
which is essentially the Division one Division two schools. Now,
they went championship sport two thousand and one, so that
year there was only a national collegiate championship, and the
(42:37):
next year, in two thousand and two, there was a
Division three championship. So as we stand right now, we
have a national collegiate championship and we have a Division
three championship on the men's side. There is no more
Division two, so it's still Division one and Division three
from the hockey side. But on the women, they came
from the emerging sports status. So whereas another sport to
do that beach volleyball, the other sport women's bowling, they
(42:59):
have come from the emerging sports status two championship status.
So will we eventually have Division one, Division two, Division
three and women's wrestling. I believe we will. The logical progression,
we will have a national collegiate you're one till insert
question mark here, then we will more than likely have
the Division three breakoff and be its own championship, leaving
(43:21):
who was left to be the national collegiate championship? Will
they split? That depends on the membership. How many schools
are going to be in Division one? How many schools
and oddly it's going to be the Division two schools
that are gonna dwarf the number of Division one programs
because we know that D two is still a lot
enrollment driven, whereas you know, we know what Division one
sports are trying to do. Actually we don't know what
(43:43):
they're trying to do, but that's where we're gonna be.
We're gonna have a National Collegiate Division three eventually sooner
than later.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
And then are we going to get the three?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Who knows, but we're definitely gonna get the two quicker
than we will just stay with one. So I expect
to see one championship for one maybe two years before
Division three will break off. And then that's another devil's
in the details on which Division three schools are going
to want to be national collegiate and such like that.
We don't have the details on how that works. Maybe
the future episode will look at the schools playing up
(44:12):
playing down that type of thing and figure that out.
But that's how it sits in comparison to how women's
ice hockey works in the emerging sports status.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Thank you for the clarification there, Jason.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
I don't know if I clarified much. I might have
just made it more confusing.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
The next chart shows everyone the NCAA is one hundred
and eleven announced women's teams. It shows you how many
are Division one member schools, Division two member schools, and
Division three member schools. Okay, Like Jason said, they're all
in one division right now.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
And then in twenty twenty one is highlighted in Yellow
Joe became emerging sports status because we had thirty and
twenty two. Twenty three is when we had enough to
qualify for championship status, but we didn't get until this January.
Speaker 6 (45:05):
Okay, Okay, So you know we're talking about this, and
I know we want to talk about later, But first
of all, I'm listening to this, and I'm thinking when
I was a kid, men's wrestling was very much like this.
I mean, it was the everybody we had one national
(45:26):
championship or two nations. You know, it was a lot
less fluid or a lot more fluid than it is now.
And I think you're going to see it become more
structured as they have more teams. Okay, that said women's
wrestling growth. So you need twenty teams to have a
(45:51):
national championship? Where will where does the women's wrestling team
rank in comparison to other sports?
Speaker 5 (46:02):
Yeah, just to make sure Kevin met twenty to be
the emerging sport and then forty to be a championship wrestling.
Women's wrestling now this is just NCAA Sports is now
fifteenth on the list of thirty schools.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Okay, And if you're home.
Speaker 5 (46:18):
Looking at this champ means its championship status, ES means
its emerging sports status, and other you're not quite emerging
sports status, okay, which one day women's wrestling was, and
then they worked their way up. So we're fifteenth, we're
six teams behind ice hockey and thirty six behind rowing.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Pretty soon we're going to be passing ice hockey in rowing.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
So for anybody who like five years ago, didn't think
any of this was possible, and it's very possible.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah, I don't think we're going to be that far
off without paying. I mean, looking at the number of
schools we have, and I'm seeing field hockey as two
hundred and eighty one sitting in twelve. That is a
very attainable goal, especially when we see now that almost
every single high school, every single statement country has girls
high school wrestling. Again, give it two generations of four
year groups to come through, and then that's going to
(47:09):
double and increase the number of potential college aged athletes
that want to want to do this sport. So, and
you know, as way as these schools need need enrollment,
I expect the big blow up to continue to be
heavy in Division three and the ANAI especially.
Speaker 4 (47:25):
Yeah, I agree, Jason.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
I set us on a couple of shows ago that
I predicted We're going to pass field hockey within five years,
and I think we will now. The next slide is
a really interesting This is a real match stats type slide. Okay,
this is in twenty eighteen, nineteen academic year. That was
the first year the nc Doualea started keeping track of
(47:49):
schools that sponsored a wrestling team varsity NCUBA team.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
Okay, So what I did is I.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
Looked at all thirty of the women's sports from eighteen
to nineteen to see how many teams they added, dropped, whatever,
so they had an increase or decrease on the number
of championships.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Wrestling is going up one hundred and seven. Okay.
Speaker 5 (48:15):
All the sports combined have gone up two hundred and four.
All right, So wrestling is going up fifty two and
a half percent of all of it. That means if
you're over fifty percent, that means we being women's wrestling
has increased more teams than all the other twenty nine
(48:37):
ANCLA sports combined.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
That is a wild stat guys. So anybody who.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
Thinks, you know, women's wrestling doesn't have a chance is.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Patsy clined crazy. Okay.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
Now, okay, now, this is an interesting year. I've said
many times in the past there's liars, damn liars and statisticians.
I didn't just randomly picked that year and the end year.
I picked the first year we had wrestling, and I
picked the most up to date year because that's that's current.
Speaker 4 (49:14):
Okay. Also, if you look at that short when you're
at home and can look.
Speaker 5 (49:20):
At it, it is eess heavy up the top. However,
indoor and outdoor track are second and fourth.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
So there are some championship sports that have been around
a long long time, right. I mean, we're clearly the
world's oldest and greatest sport. I think you can make
an argument the track is the second oldest sport because
that was from the people. Wouldn't wrestle they have they
running right for the Russell.
Speaker 6 (49:46):
Okay, So that really was an incredible statistic. So really
strong growth numbers. We're fifteenth in women's team numbers. We're
going to pass hockey and rowing and and you think
field hockey in the next five years. And you know,
(50:10):
I remember the show three years ago. It was about
this this time. We did a show on women's wrestling.
The name of the show was the future of women's
wrestling is so bright. I gotta wear shades, and the
title has.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Aged like that was three years ago. Geez. Yeah, I'm
just like how that was? That was really that's amazing.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
I remember we were was February of twenty two we
did that.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Yeah, I mean one of us still had hair, not
that on me.
Speaker 6 (50:44):
Not me, and he's the only one wearing a hat.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
Yeah, I hats.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I should be wearing more, but I don't know, I've
kind of I've kind of got used to the shine here.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I don't mind it anymore, you know.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah, like I said, I'd rather look like I'd rather
look like a fat biker than a fat banker.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
No offense to the overweight bankers out there.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
You know.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
My neighbor even goes is it is a tougher look,
you know.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
See, you don't want to mess with kh there, you know,
Glenn with that orange anyway.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
KeV, what do you got for keV notes?
Speaker 6 (51:18):
All right? keV Notes, Episode forty one, number one, January
seventeenth of this year. The NCAA approved women's wrestling is
the championship sport, and that became the ninety first NCAA championship.
That's on Slide forty one eight. Women's intercollegiate athletics was
not formed on a national basis until nineteen forty one.
(51:41):
That's slide eleven. The first Intercollegiate Women's Wrestling Championship was
started in two thousand and four as an independent event.
It was followed in two thousand and eight by the
WCWA Slide fourteen. Two thousand and nine, the nc WA
followed with its owned Women's National Championship Slide twenty. Three
(52:06):
years later, four nine twenty two, the NAIA approved an
official national championship for women's wrestling slide also Slide twenty
alphabet soup. The NCWWC is a placeholder for the NCAA
because there are attorneys involved. They've got a whole four
(52:28):
of the team. I think that's four seven on their buildings,
all attorneys looking at things like this, and that's until
NCUBA has its first championship, which is gonna happen next year.
And the NCWWC increased from fifty eight teams and six
regions to ninety six teams in eight regions in one year.
(52:50):
That's a that's really huge growth. The NCAA Women's Championship
will have only one division as of twenty twenty five.
This will change as a sport grows, and we've spent
a lot of time on that. NCAA has one hundred
and eleven announced women's wrestling teams as of you know,
(53:10):
February sixteenth, and that places them fifteenth out of thirty
on the number of women's teams in all sports, the
NCAA women's wrestling had a larger increase than all other
NCAA women's sports combined. That's a huge statistic and that
(53:31):
was on slide forty nine.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Thank you Kevin for that summary. Jason, everything else to
say before I wrap it up?
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Uh No, I think you're just going to pitch to
what next episode is. I think this will again this
is an eye opening episode. We go back and we
look at you just you sit there and you throw
all the numbers there and you're like, it has been fast.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
It has been fast.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
And again, the women's wrestling movement, especially in the LAB
five six years. I know it goes back a lot
longer than that, but we look at the the involvement
of the NWCA, the Hall of Fame Wrestle like a girl,
the National Federation of High School State Associations, uh, you know,
the the NCAA to ANI, the n j c A,
the n CW, all the alphabet soup that comes together,
(54:17):
and all the organizations USA Wrestling. You look at everybody
that's been involved, and it's been it's been a push forward.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
It's you know, I mean, it's just you.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
You've got a lot of people with a lot of
a lot of a lot of a lot to say
at the table, and they've all had a voice and
they've all been moving forward.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
The fact that we've got you know, over.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Forty something high school states now with state championships, it's
it's a lot, a lot a lot more athletes out there,
and it's a lot of people that are seeing the benefits,
uh not just of the physicality of it and the
physical fitness aspects of support of wrestling, the camaraderie, the brotherhood.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
And sisterhood of it.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
But it's just been you know the fact that there's
more opportunities that the Terry Steiner says, you know, why
why do we want to hide the the great things
this sport gives us to just half the population.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
So love what it's.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Done, and this thing is I mean again, that stat
with the size of the tournament this year is just
it's it's it's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 6 (55:12):
Son's just just just a quick thing talking about the compression.
Clarissa Chun was a high school state champion in Hawaii.
I think I'm right, Jason, yell at me if I'm wrong.
I think she was the first high school women's state champion.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
She was lowest weight class and the first state to
sponsor it officially.
Speaker 6 (55:37):
Firth Date to sponsor it. She's now the head coach
at Iowa and she's in heer I think what third year.
So that's how compressed it is the first high school
state champion to the head coach of the national championship team,
all the same person. And that's the compression of time.
And she's not that old, No, she's not.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
No, guys. I got her back couple of years.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
So yeah, all right, guys. It was great.
Speaker 5 (56:04):
Now the next show, okay, is a preview for the
twenty twenty five NCAA Division One Men's Championships. Okay, I've
been talking to many people about this guide for years.
Jason calls it the guide. Jason Bryant puts together the
most comprehensive, data driven, fact driven book about the sport
(56:27):
of wrestling you could possibly do.
Speaker 4 (56:29):
It's so good.
Speaker 5 (56:31):
ESPN uses it for their show where their live national broadcast.
They based almost everything on what Jason says. Pre Order
this Wrestling Guide you get a ten dollars discount if
you use the word not starts to check out. So,
guys on behalf of them, the father of that guy,
Jason Bryant, and the patriarch of this show, Kevin Hazard.
Speaker 4 (56:55):
I'm Glenn Gorbley. See you next month.
Speaker 6 (57:00):
The sly inter continue
Speaker 3 (57:05):
To Dan set to Dundas in acting and seeming to
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a
batting average, a win percentage, correlations, and standard deviation. But
numbers aren't just for nerds. In life, decisions need data.
In wrestling decisions, projections and hypotheticals also need data. Here
(00:24):
on mat Stats, we take historical data, theories, and statistics
and apply it to the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Now to your trio of numerical nerd balls, Glenn Gormley,
Kevin Hazard, and Jason.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Bryant, it's the Match That Show, episode forty one. Don't
be bothered by the intro there. We're not going to
make you wait five minutes to hear from Glenn Gormley,
Kevin Hazard myself.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We're going to be talking.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
About wrestling real soon, real quick once again, episode forty
two of the Match That Show the Moneyball of wrestling,
along with the Grand Poobac Kevin Hazard and the Sultan
of stat Glenn Gormley, I'm Jason Bryant, and we are
getting into the postseason as we record this in February
of twenty twenty five. Postseason means a lot of things.
Now that could be the We've got conference tournaments showing up,
(01:13):
We've got regionals coming up, We've got the women's postseason,
which is our topic today. We'll be talking about women's
collegiate wrestling and the formation of those tournaments.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
We've got several of them to talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Flow Wrestling just recently did a piece by award winning
journalist Kyle Klingman explaining the regional breakdowns. But we're not
talking about this year's my new year. We're gonna be
talking about the foundations of it. But before we get
to those foundations, last show, we talked about the national duels.
A lot of moving parts to that. We've got dual
meet win streaks going on. As we record this. Penn
State just crossed win number seventy, so they are about
(01:47):
they are seven away from tying the NCAA record of
seventy seven set by Saint Cloud State in twenty twenty two,
or is it yeah, twenty twenty two. The Division one
or major college record is seventy six, except by then
Oklahoma A and M now Oklahoma State. So they've just
passed Iowa at sixty There was at sixty nine for
(02:07):
the Big Ten records.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So that's where we're talking about duel meets and win streaks.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But now Iowa women is also going to be a
topic of the discussion because we're talking women's wrestling, Glenn,
and this is one that we looked at the.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Notes pre show.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's like, yeah, this is something I feel like if
you don't know anything about women's wrestling and you want
to know about it, this is where you should start.
So this is why we do the show. We do
it as a library of sorts and aa archive of things.
But yeah, this is how we start to know the
history of women's collegiate wrestling.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
We can go back and talk nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Even in the eighties when it came to Fila the
artist formerly known as Fela with international wrestling, but we
wrestle freestyle in college wrestling, and Glenn, a lot of
stuff you dug into on this one.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah, thank you, Jason.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
First of all, I want to show I got to
grow women's wrestling shirt on here for the show.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
So what I wanted to do is I didn't know
a whole lot about.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
The history of women's wrestling despite doing the show fro
almost four years now and trying to help out women's wrestling.
So I try to do some research and break it
down so the average fan can just look at this
show as a library source and find out what's going on.
So what we're doing on this show is what Jason said,
It's an historical background, and then we are going to
(03:22):
get into you know, who's in how many schools and
what region, how many schools are NCAA and AI, etc.
And also the growth of women's wrestling, specifically the NCAA.
We're going to end the show on. So you know,
at home, as Jason tells you all the time, you
can pull up our PowerPoint show and the second slide
(03:43):
is always what's in this episode?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
And then Jason explained it real quickly. The reason we
do this is we're research thing. And of course I
have to say every time, the opinions expressed here do
not necessarily reflect all the opinions of the NWC, Nor
do Jason, Gormley and Hazard agree with each other all
the time.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Okay, slide numbers show.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You with your awful selection of hats. I disagree with that,
lean still do.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Forward.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Okay, I hope you like my hat.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
This time it's another baseball hat happens to be the
World College World Series Champions.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
It's orange, which surprises absolutely no one.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
Exactly matches the screens, Yes it does.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So okay, guys, Glenn picked this format for the show
notes by the way.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Yes, no surprise there. Okay.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
So Slide six shows you all the four year college
teams and the NCAA, n A, i A, n c
W as broken down by men and women in total.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Right now, we have seven hundred and twenty one.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Teams that are competing and do are already announced to
compete next year.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
Okay, So we're talking about the news, what's going on
and changes. We were going to talk about business and logistics,
and so we're going to another topic and is there
a good reason or a reason why or how do
we end up with women's wrestling this time?
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Okay, Well, there was two main reasons. We always do
a show in March on the preview of the men's division. One,
so we'd like to do February with the preview of
the women and some explanation about the women for equal time.
But with the big reason we bumped to the logistics
of business was on January seventeenth, twenty twenty five, the
NCAA approved women's wrestling as a championship sport, it becomes
(05:42):
the ninety first championship. I want to explain something to
people here though. For example, in men's wrestling, we have
three championships at NCUBLEA Division one, Division two, Division three.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
It's not three sports, it's three championships.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Okay, this will be a one championship for the women
right now, Okay, one day, it'll grow soon.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
We'll get back into that later in the show.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
I have, of course been hoping that the women's championship will
be in the same arena, same time, same place as
the men's. Don't know if that's ever going to happen,
but that's my personal preference.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Okay. And the NCAAA has been around for one hundred
and eighteen years, and now I'm taking it totally seriously
now that they have a men and women's championship.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Okay, so we're talking about women's championship. Let's do a
quick preview for this topic for the episode.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Certainly, Kevin, thank you.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
We have six main things we deal with on show.
A quick history of women's in collegiate organizations, a chronology
of women's national tournaments number three, the number of NCAA,
n AIA, and NCWA women's teams number four, the number
of conference quality of fires for those following organizations, number five,
(07:04):
How a sport becomes an NCAA sport, which I'm sure
a lot of.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
People have no clue. And then number six were a
match do show the growth of women's wrestling.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Now, I'll start your guys out with a quick history
of intercollegiate athletics. They were first formed on a national
basis in nineteen forty one. In nineteen fifty six, the
division of Girls and Women's Sports was three basically pe
organizations that joined together to form this in nineteen seventy one.
(07:38):
What we all know is the AIAW, the Association for
Intercollegiate Athletics for.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Women, was formed in seventy two. Seventy three.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
They had their first championship events in eight different sports.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Glad, I actually want to stop you real quick right there,
because you had said something. What you had said was
is as we all know, no, what we all don't
know because where I went to school. Yes, we know
what the AIAW is because of the great women's basketball
tradition there, but a lot of people don't know that.
Prior to nineteen eighty two, they weren't NCAAA Women's championships,
(08:16):
and this is where the AIAW is. So if you
are sometimes walking through some of these gyms that had
programs national championships, you will see banners for those teams,
usually hanging in those gyms, especially if it was an
indoor sport. You'll see again at that school in Norfolk,
you'll see like I believe it was, I think it
was seventy eight, seventy nine. It was somewhere in that
(08:36):
range because they won an NCAA title in eighty five.
But you go look, it's the AIAW and you'll see
that and you'll be like, what the heck does that mean?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
That's what it means.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So if you did not know, those of the certain
age like hmm and h will know what it means.
Somebody here in this age demographic probably don't because we
were kind of a lot of you just younger than me,
were just being born. I was born in seventy nine.
The AIW was a thing when I was born, but
at three years old when they the NCAA adopted it,
I didn't know what it was because I wasn't watching
(09:06):
any sports by then. So if you are basically my age.
You're younger, you may have it, you may have heard
of it. But if you're my age or older, you
you probably know it a little bit more if you
followed any any sort of women's sports. So I just
want to say, as we all know, no, there's there's
an age demo here because.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Hmm, are they're they're you know, they're the a little older.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So just want to clarify, yes, for the younger viewer,
the young in this case, the younger viewer is forty
five and below. In this case, yes, we're that mill
box on the demographic that you fill out in the survey,
if you get right.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Down to it.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
The reason we did the show is because not everyone
knows it right. So you I appreciate you for correcting me.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And I will make sure yes, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
I'll tell you one of the banners that's hanging in
that school No Folk. Uh, my freshman year at Tennessee
Old Dominion beat Tennessee for the women's ai AW women
basketball championship.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So that's one of the that's made a drive to
Rocky Top from that school in Norfolk, twelve hour drive
and heard that song probably about twenty two times. That's
probably why I hate the song, and because I had
to endure it. It wasn't like I had to I
had to endure it at Thompson Bowling Area with twenty
five thousand people in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So wait, let's set all yeah, let's let's move on
moving caving off of Rocky Top.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
So in nineteen eighty one eighty two, is Jason said,
just recently the NCAA started including women's sports. After the
eighty one eighty two academic year, the ai AW was
legally dissolved. Interestingly enough, at eighty one eighty two, there
were some female sports, including basketball, that had both NCAA
(10:52):
and AIA championships. But the eighty one eighty two season,
seventeen of the top women's basketball teams opted for the
nc DOUBLEA and that was the end of the AIAW.
How did its peak? It had over one thousand members
schools and nineteen different sports. It was a real legitimate organization.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
And you know what, here's another thing, Go ahead, Kevin.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
Quick question. So the ai AW, that was NCUBA, NAIA.
It was all the schools right, correct.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Pretty much if you had an athletics program, you were
you you could be ACA or ANAI school and your
women's sports where chances are going to compete in this division. Now,
again if I'm off, if I'm off on how that works,
and you're listening out there, let us know at NWCA
Matt stats so we can get that up there complete
because some of my history again is not one hundred
(11:49):
percent sure. Now, one thing I also wanted to bring
up about why that acronym has been maybe on the
tip of people's tongue more. It was the Caitlin Clark
phenomenon when she was playing in Iowa and a lot
of eyes on women's college basketball because there was to
talk about her records and then.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
What her scoring records were.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And then there were the predecessors, the athletes in the
aia W that their stats weren't in the NCAA record
but because.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
They were not in CAA sports at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So that is where you may have heard ai a
W recently within the last two or three years, because
there were records being set in those era, those trailblazers
for women's sports and women's basketball that really had some
conversation going too. So not all of it was the
great conversation either, so we'll leave it up to you
to investigate that on the controversy surrounding which records count,
(12:39):
which records are here? Points are in that type of thing.
But that may be another thing that why have I
heard that before? It was definitely the Caitlin Clark phenomenon,
tank you, Jason.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
All right, So big picture we just talked about. Now,
can we talk about just the beginning in the early
days of women's intercally wrestling.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Certainly, Kevin sure will in two before there was an NCAA,
NAIA or NCWA women's national championship, there was an independent
national championship for women. Okay, this started in two thousand
and four. Basically what they did was they said, let's
bring all the best women together from across the country
(13:22):
and let's see who was the best.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
In two thousand and eight, the.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Women's Collegiate Wrestling Association, which we referred to as the
wc WA. I know, it's alphabet souper here, guys, full.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Of alphabet soup was formed to provide.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
A competitive structure.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
Okay, so we have listed as you could you know,
either pull up here if you're watching or if you
want to pull up the powerpoints at home.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We have a list of all the from two thousand
and four to.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
Twenty twenty the WCWA champions, and we do count the
first three years when it was an independent before for
the WCWA was legally formed. But we wanted to get
you on that. And I do have a little side
note here. University of the Cumberlands, which is in Williamsburg, Kentucky,
has won at three times. I want to know why
(14:14):
that college in Williamsburg, Virginia does not have a men
or women's team. That just my question that anybody in
Williamsburg that might know, you just.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Have to run that one up the Dog Street there
and figure that out, because that's one thing that we
all want to know.
Speaker 6 (14:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I also want to clarify because you know, I've always
got the And then so when you go back and
look at the results from two thousand and four, you
were going to see and you know, Glenn and I
were talking.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Before the show about what word to use.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Unaffiliated was one I really didn't like, so we kind
of settled on independent per my urging. And the reason
I use that is you had athletes that were representative
and they essentially it was a lot of clubs. You
had independent athletes sometimes from a cal State Bakersfield, from
a community college, but you also had the handful of
(15:03):
women's colleges at the time that had full fledged varsity programs.
So it really was a foundational effort in two thousand
and four with which they just simply termed Women's Collegiate
Nationals WCN is where you'll.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Also see it.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So you had a lot of just fledgling, just I
mean literally throwing spaghetti to the wall to see if
it would stick in some of these places, and some
of them was it was a community college out in
California with somebody. It was the Academy of Art Institute.
And then you had your mobiles, your pacifics of the
world in there, so those are you know, your Menlo
was early on in there too, So we're looking.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
We only had, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Not handful, literally handful of varsity programs less than the
amount of fingers on my hand, that had varsity programs
twenty one years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
That's where we started. You have to start somewhere.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
So handful of programs we've gone through in this twenty
one years. Think about it, that's older than YouTube or Twitter.
So now it can drink legally.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So you're gonna have to add what mobile to buy
you a beer if you're if you're a new program,
Actually it's probably a bad idea. Let's lay out anyway.
We're okay, but we get it.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
So we had the w's WCWA and what developed after
the WCWA.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Okay, Kevin the Glenn owned a bar.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
That's what it is. That's not drinking agent there. I'm
encouraging people to drinking out.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, I talk about your parking lot anyway.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Oh yeah, Okay.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
In two thousand and nine, the nc WA, the National
Collegian Wrestling Associates, started to include women's National Wrestling Tournament.
The NCWA was formed in nineteen ninety seven with just
man as a gap in the wrestling community. It was
devised to provide opportunities and a lot of times it
(16:59):
was teams that were disbanded.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
In the n c A or in A I A.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
The n c w A is much more budget friendly
than either the n c A A or n A
I A R.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
We have a question, quick question there.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
And and this goes to your point. Am I right?
They run their women's nationals at the same time as
the men's nationals bingo, so I mean going out to Yeah,
so I mean there is.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Their nationals are although they did they did recently hold
a freestyle championship, but for the they've been a folk
style wrestling style for their championships.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Again, a couple.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Weeks ago they did hold a freestyle tournament, but their
end of the year championship is a folk style tournament.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So that is the main difference between the n.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
C w A and the the n AI and the
the NCAA in terms of competitive styles.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, what we have, thank you for the clarification.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
What we have on the screen here you look at
home is to pass NCWA champions women's side from two
thousand and nine until twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Obviously we don't know who wonted twenty five.
Speaker 6 (18:10):
Yet interestingly that that was that a number of those
teams were community colleges. All right, So NCWA they now
have a men's and women's What happens after that?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Okay? After that?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
On four nine, twenty two, the NAIA voted to have
an official championship. They started a national invitations with schools
with NAIA in twenty nineteen, but they are recognized as
official NAIA National champions Okay, and then we have a
(18:45):
list of all the schools which slid twenty one that
have won the NAIA Championship. And the first one was
in Jamestown, and I thought that's pretty cool because Jamestown
with us whole country started the first permanent in your settlement.
They're clearly two different jamestowns. Once in North Dakota was in.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Virginia, now, Glenn, little little side note here, do you
remember when they had the anniversary and they did the
replicas of the three.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Ships they came?
Speaker 4 (19:14):
I remember those.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
My grandfather, my grandfather Otis plug Abbot was one of
the people that was.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Part of building those ships.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
So I remember growing up going to see those things
as he after they were already unveiled. They still had
the display a couple of years after the exit was over,
and I just you know, had that green paneling covering
them up and such as we saw in WHR. O
was like, hey, granddaddy Otis worked on those ships. So yeah,
when I hear Jamestown, that was close to the chest.
(19:44):
Although I've I think I've only driven through Jamestown, North
Dakota once, so don't have that same affinity as the
Jim in Jimmy Town that I do.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
You know back in the seven five seven.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I'll tell you a funny story about Jamestown four un
to fund a versary of twenty oh seven. I was
driving back into the office to the bars Jason mentioned
on one and there was nobody at all coming the
other way, and all of a sudden I saw every
helicopter and cop and everything. It was a motorcade. In
one of the limbos was President W. Bush and then
(20:17):
the other limbo was Queen Elizabeth. So it was like
pretty cool, you know, to see all that go by you.
I was lucky I was going the other way. So
I did get hold up for being in work. Okay,
all right, now, so we have some more alphabet soup.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I was wondering, Yeah, you're gonna be okay here, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
I'm sometimes I do get a little confused with this.
But so now we have right now NCWWC, and it
kind of is the NCAA. Glenn, can you explain this?
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Yes, I'll explain this as best as I can. The
National Collegiate women Wrestling Championship, what we call the NCWWC,
is the precursor to the NCAA Women's Wrestling Championship. Okay,
women's wrestling only became an official emerging sport in the
NCAA in the twenty twenty one season.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
The NAIA, as we said, started in twenty nineteen year. Okay,
so the WCWA was on its way out. They had
their last championship in twenty twenty. So the schools that
are NCUBLEA affiliate members schools needed to have their own
national championship, but it wasn't to be called the NCAA
(21:41):
Championships until next year at this time when they have
their first one, because as we mentioned early in the show,
just as past January, it was voted on to be
a championship sport. So the NCAA schools, for one last
time here that'll be coming up in March, call their
championships the nc WWC.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Okay, it's just a real.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Attorney. Legally is nonsense. If somebody calls it the NCAA,
I'm not going to get upset. And I probably called
that myself, so I hope that explained to Kevin that's
what that is, Okay, And we started having these tournaments.
Like I said, the w CWA passed Baton, and here's
(22:31):
a list on's like twenty five of all the championship
teams in the nc WWC okay, and I was up
there in twenty twenty two, and Adrian Michigan with mckendrey
bt king okay, and of course the defending champion right
(22:52):
now is Iowa.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
So there's where we have a list of those.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Hold up here before we get moving, I do want
to you know, as we go through, we've only been
listing the four year institutions, and Kevin pointed out that
a lot of the NCWA schools in those early years
we're community college. Now. The n JCAA, which is junior
colleges to your schools, they've just finished with another year,
I believe their second or third year of their invitational.
(23:22):
So they just like back in the sixties when they
started varsity wrestling as a national championship, their first couple
were invitational, just like the ANAI the first couple were invitational.
So a lot of focus here is on the four
year schools, but the NJCAA does have a national championship
for women and Glenn you'll be happy to also know
this if you didn't know it already, They compete the
(23:43):
same time, same weekend with the men at their site.
So that's another point feather in your cap for your
your angle there. But again I don't want to sit
there and exclude the n JCAA because again those are
those are two year schools. Again, a lot of our
focus on this show is around the four year opportunities.
Why well, because remember you get the two year degree,
you go on to the four year school, so you know,
(24:04):
it's you know, it's kind of one of those things
that's you can't get everything every time all the time.
But in this case, we do want to basically point
out the NJACA has a women's invitation as part of
their national championships as well.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Thank you for that, Jason.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
Yeah, and along those lines, we've just talked about just
a lot of different national championships, Gorms. Can we look
at a chart or that just shows just just a
chronology of how all that worked.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Sure, Kevin, We have a slide up here that shows
basically I did it by year rather than the exact date,
so I didn't confuse a lot of people. This is
basically the important uh moving points and what year they
are and what happened with Women's Interclagion Wrestling. I'm not
going to read them all out. Okay, they're available to
(24:57):
you guys at home, because there's probably fifteen up there
on the screen. And the important one for right now
today is it says in twenty twenty six, we'll have
the first ever NCAA women's National Championship and it all
started in this chart in two thousand and four.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
So where are those tournaments going to be? So we've
got three coming up. We've got the NCAA, the NAIA,
and the NCWA. So where are there those tourneys going
to be?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Okay, nc WWC that we could call.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
The NCAA is in Coralville, Iowa, which is right next
to Iowa City, March seventh, eighth. The NAIA is in Wichita, Kansas,
March fourteenth to fifteenth, which is interestingly the week after
the nai A men's tournament.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Is the NCWA is.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
In Shreveport, Brewsers City, Louisiana from March thirteenth to fifteenth.
That has Jason mentioned, same time, same place, same bat channel,
same bat back as the men in that tournament.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Thanks, So that's the chronology of what they're going to do.
So how about now we just look at the numbers.
I mean, we are in a period of explosive growth.
Can we talk about the numbers just between last year
and this year?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (26:25):
On the NCAA side, In twenty twenty four, there were
six regions and fifty eight schools that compete in the
women's Nationals. This year coming up next month, there's eight regionals.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
And ninety six teams. Okay.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Now, if you look at it on the next slide,
there's ten weight classes. For anybody who didn't realize this,
in both men and women. Okay, there are now top
four placers in each regional per weight class qualify for
the women Nationals. That means we're going to have three
(27:03):
hundred and twenty women and CAA wrestlers at their nationals.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Okay, from eight regionals.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
So if you note, Glenn, you can enter fifteen at
your regional qualifier.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Fifteen per school, yes, jasus, Yeah, so you could have
more than one. Like a couple of years ago, the
twins from King wrestled each other in the finals when
I was there at one oh one. Okay, for some
of you guys that are wondering, now, how big is
this women's NCAA tournament there are and this year coming
(27:42):
up and the men's division one, which is the it's
our biggest party we have. There are seventy nine teams,
three hundred and thirty qualifiers and now eight conferences because
the IVS have split off from the IWA. The women
have ninety six teams, three hundred and twenty qualifiers and
(28:02):
eight conferences. It's essentially the same size tournament.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
All right, Glenn, I'm gonna stop you right here, because
this is the first and as much as I've followed
and tracked women's wrestling for the last twenty something years,
like this, this this table right here, this stat right here,
and if you're watching it, you know, pay slide thirty three.
If you're not, open up the slide show Mantalo online
dot com or NBC online dot com and look at it.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Just visualize it when you see that, and then you
see the.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Growth and think twenty years ago this was barely a thing,
and now in just one of these divisions, these are
the numbers we're seeing. That status blows my mind right
now looking at it again. I've never seen it. It's simple.
I've never seen it. Visualize this way though, and it's nothing.
It's nothing out of the ordinary.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Glenn.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
You've got a chart with number of teams, number of qualifiers.
It's like, wait, what that's where we're at. That is astounding.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Yeah, it really is, Jason. So many people put in
a lot of hard work in this. I don't want
to name anybody because on all these people out so
but so many people have done that to get us
to this position that we can say this march it's basically,
you know, the same size tournament, the men's NC DOUBLEA
Division one and the women's NC Double A.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
It's yikes yeah, huge growth.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Yeah yeah, Okay.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
Next we move on to the NAIA women's teams in
the for the twenty fourth tournament, there were forty two teams.
We have five new teams this year, but two teams
Menlo and Vanguard are transitioning to NC DOUBLEA Division two teams.
So we're gonna have forty five nai A teams in
that now.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And one thing to consider before we get to the
next slide, Glennis, I want I want to I want
to point out the Foundational Schools Pacific was a Division
III school, but the the large number of teams that
really saw this women's wrestling explosion. They were the small
enrollment driven schools in the nai A, so a lot
of you know, the catalysts for a lot of this
(30:12):
growth was the nai A. Now the NCAA schools have added,
they've they've surpassed them in total number of teams, but
King University was an nai A school before it transitioned
to Division two. McKendree was an nai A school. Oklahoma
City still an ANAI school. Simon Fraser was an nai A school.
There had a lot of the foundational programs in the
in what is now going to be known as the
(30:33):
NCAA women's wrestling were started as nai A programs. So
you really can't talk about the success of the NCAA
without actually giving the nai their due as well, because
if it wasn't for some of these smaller schools taking
a chance on something that you know, the nai is
they can they can throw something out there a little
quicker than the structure of the NCAA allows. So they
(30:56):
were willing to those schools. Those presidents, those coaches, those
those athletes were willing to give a shot at these small,
little schools a lot of people had never heard of.
And then that has been a big, big catalyst of
why we've got NCAA wrestling. It's it's the two organizations
actually looking at each other and going, Yep, they've got
it over here. We can compete with them, they can
compete with us. It's not like they're refusing that each
(31:19):
other exists. In this case, it really helped women's wrestling
that both the NCAAA and ANI were working towards something
greater than themselves.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
Yes, no question, Jason, thank you for that. Okay. Now,
there's been a lot of talk. People have asked me
questions about the NCAAA transition, transitioning from the nai A
to the NCAA and all that stuff. I'll go over
his best best I know from the research I've done, guys.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Okay, it's also changed by the way, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Yeah, for years, the NCAA really forced a school transitioning
from one division to another in the inside the NCAA
to wait four years before they could compete. For example,
that Catholic school up in ERIEPA, Mercyhurst went from Division
two to Division one, but they're not allowed to go
to the Division one National championships this year.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
There's also a waiting period for a Menlo and a
Vanguard that went from NAIA to NCAA and the other
ones Jason mentioned King and McKendree, etc. Due to this,
Menlo and Vanguard cannot compete in the twenty twenty five
and CWWC. So Vanguard is competing in the NCWA National Championships.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Guys.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
This is another reason that Jim Junta and the NCWA
make more sense of the archaic rules at the NCAA.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
If you want to wrestle, Jim has a mat open
for you, come on in.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, So it's another thing you've seen. Now.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
California Baptists currently a Division one school. They started a
program in the NIA, then they transitioned to Division two.
They had to go two years the NAIA to Division
two weight is two. Guess where they went the ncw
A for those for those I guess their rogue years
so to speak. Then they reclassify from Division two to
Division one. Guess what back in the n c WA.
(33:13):
So where Gym's organization has been a landing spot for
those transitional schools. We saw it when Lyndenwood was going
from NAI to Division two. We saw it when you
know Mercyhurst hasn't rusted. You mentioned them. They haven't wrestled
a duel meet all year. They lost a lot to
the transfer portal because they knew their athletes were gon
gonna lose some years of eligibility if they were just
going to stay.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Now, one thing I will say that the.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Rules recently changed that that gap between divisions has now
gone from four years to three years. With the Division
three to Division one gap which Saint Thomas here locally
in Minnesota did, that has dropped from five to four.
So the weight is not as long as it was.
I believe the NAI to D two is still a
two year weight. But the argument is so to keep
(33:57):
teams from going back and forth between divisions and right,
and you know you want some continuity in it. The
other is, if you're going to be a Division one school,
they want all your facilities to be in line your
academic support. Basically, they don't want you making the move
too early. So that is your waight time. You've got
those four years to hit those benchmarks to be a
full fledged Division one school. Now, where you and I
(34:21):
probably agree with everybody, I think everybody with a common
sense place on this. Things like these moves are mostly
made for sports that don't involve the athletes that are
punished the most, the Olympic sports, the non revenue sports.
So it's a move made to chase those credits for
March Madness and Division one basketball, for example. So why
do you hurt the swimmers? Why do you hurt the wrestlers,
(34:42):
the volleyball players, the track and field athletes. That's what
drives me nuts about this, And I could go in
a soapbox for that forever. But the wait is now
is three years between divisions, at least within the NCAA,
and unless you're going from three to one, So got
those teams. We may see Mercyhurst at the NCWA this year,
do you not know? I have not heard that yet.
But yeah, a transition thing that's so much fun because
(35:05):
it really hurts. It hurts the athletes that had nothing
to do with the decision. They're they're chasing football and
basketball for the most part, and it's that those other
athletes are the ones that have to suffer for it,
which is and it hurts programs. I mean Queen's and
Lindenwood were in their Division one two Division one transition.
They both dropped it last year. So it's it's unfortunately
(35:25):
killed programs too.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yeah, and it's it's a wild thinkers.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Now anybody can transfer any time anywhere, be immediately eligible.
I think pretty soon you're gonna be able to be
able to transfer at halftime, you know, of a basketball game.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Just did a Major league baseball game before. But anyway,
that's another thing. Yeah, anyway, moving on. Okay, as we
just kind of said, we just kind of we kind
of went over this a little bit too as far
as the logic of the transfer rules.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
But yeah, okay, so what we'll do.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Then, there were two hundred and eight women's qualifiers to
twenty two twenty four NAIA Championships.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
On the screen.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
There you have the five conferences that have teams. They
allocate some qualifiers, just like we all know about the
men's D one doing that, and then you have some
wald card and national at large.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
So that's how you got there.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
I'm not going to list all the conferences like that,
but there's five conferences in the NAIA, the NCWA. As
we mentioned before, if you have a single it in
a headgear, Jim will give you a spot on a map. Okay,
they do eleven weight classes at both men and women. Okay,
they're the only ones in college that do that. They
(36:37):
have nine regionals. One of those regionals is Puerto Rico.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
They had one hundred and sixty two national qualifiers in
twenty twenty four Top six and each tweter all Americans.
Now they have eighty five teams, but not all of
these teams are full eleven person lineups. Just so, what
you guys know is really big about giving people opportunities,
(37:04):
where the NCAA, on the other hand, is very.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Dives in the minutia about the rules.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
That are meant for basketball and football.
Speaker 6 (37:15):
The rules oriented. So NCWA women's twenty twenty five national duels,
we did a show last month about that, and the
NCWA did not have the duel meet women's turning before
we did the show. Can we talk about that?
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, sure, thank you, Kevin.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
The twenty twenty five NCAA Women's Duels were in Saint George,
U taht were U Tau techids. Okay, the NCWA schools
we just mentioned a smaller budgets, Okay, travel can be
really cost prohibitive. There were seven teams in this and
if you see the seven schools, they're of FUM, you know,
way west of the Mississippi, Okay. They had a round
(37:58):
robin where you wrestle all six of the teams. So
if you went there, you got a minimum of six
bouts or minimum men maximum of six bouts. Now, what's
wild about this, which you seldom see. It's basically a
conference standing. It goes six and oh five and one,
four and two, three and three, two and four one,
five oh and six. As a stats guy, this really
(38:20):
jumped out at me because usually somebody beat somebody else
and it doesn't fall directly even like.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
That, like three and four.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
I think you guys have heard Jason say this in
the past. We've never had an example. The men's D
one Nationals were the top eight play swinners with the
exact same order of the top eight seeds.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
That's ever happened, No, correct, never happen.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Things just don't happen like that.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
Now, as far as the champion, just to review the
real quick for the twenty twenty five national tools, Iowa
won the NCAA, Life won the NAIA, and Washington State
won the NCWA.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
And that's a weird thing.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
You don't hear of a big I'm not so sure
if the PAC twelve is still Power five or what,
but a big school they in Washington State and any
wrestling thing, so I was happy to see a different
school in there.
Speaker 6 (39:16):
So we got an emergency, that emergency emerging status. We
only have one division? Why is there only one NCAA
division for women's wrestling?
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Thank you, Kevin.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
There's basically what I just called the twenty ten to
forty rule. In order to be you have to become
an emerging sport first before you can become a championship
sport the sport. They have three criteria in this the
sport meets the NCUBLEA definition of a sport. Wrestling is
the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
So we meet that.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
Okay, at least twenty varsity or competitive clubs exist.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
At an nc DOUBLEA member school.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Check Okay, now, real quick, real quick, Glenn, I wanted.
This is also I gave the NAIA praise earlier. This
is also where the NCWA deserves praise because those club
programs at those NCAA member schools made a difference as
well in getting emerging sports and championship sports status. So
(40:20):
that club, that club descriptor right there, that also played
a role in pushing this through.
Speaker 5 (40:26):
Yep, and then of those twenty at least ten have
to be NCAA member schools. Sponsors are intend to sponsor
the sport. Okay, the Committee on Women's Athletics can recommend
an emerging sport to become an NCAA Championship sport once
forty NCUBA member schools sponsor it.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Check. Okay, well up to ninety six as we saw. Yeah,
we've yep, and we're.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Really at one eleven with the announced schools, we're ninety
six or the compete this year. Once added to the
emerging sports sport us ten years to achieve the NCAA
Championship status and it may be removing the list if not.
We reached that very quickly. Now, why is there one division?
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Kevin asked. Okay, if we go way way back.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
To when Kevin was in college and I was in
middle school, there was just one basketball championship, you know,
when a mac Alot to beat Westchester State. Because there
were so few schools. There were not enough schools that
had a history of this in each of the divisions
to have three divisions. Now the Division three does have
(41:38):
enough of that, so we're going to see one division
in twenty twenty six, we were most likely very soon
see a Division three and another division. Okay, I believe
Jason said that ice hockey went from one division to two.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
In one year, so women's ice hockey. So again, this
is something that through my workover at Saint Cloud, State
of actually I've learned a little bit more. They have
a women's ice hockey program there. And now for clarification, semantics,
because you know how much I love semantics. Technically, it's
national collegiate. It's the trophy says national collegiate. It does
(42:15):
not say Division one, but it's they refer to themselves
as Division one athletes. It's the only there's a Division
three in women's ice hockey, and then there's a National collegiate,
which is essentially the Division one Division two schools. Now,
they went championship sport two thousand and one, so that
year there was only a national collegiate championship, and the
(42:37):
next year, in two thousand and two, there was a
Division three championship. So as we stand right now, we
have a national collegiate championship and we have a Division
three championship on the men's side. There is no more
Division two, so it's still Division one and Division three
from the hockey side. But on the women, they came
from the emerging sports status. So whereas another sport to
do that beach volleyball, the other sport women's bowling, they
(42:59):
have come from the emerging sports status two championship status.
So will we eventually have Division one, Division two, Division
three and women's wrestling. I believe we will. The logical progression,
we will have a national collegiate you're one till insert
question mark here, then we will more than likely have
the Division three breakoff and be its own championship, leaving
(43:21):
who was left to be the national collegiate championship? Will
they split? That depends on the membership. How many schools
are going to be in Division one? How many schools
and oddly it's going to be the Division two schools
that are gonna dwarf the number of Division one programs
because we know that D two is still a lot
enrollment driven, whereas you know, we know what Division one
sports are trying to do. Actually we don't know what
(43:43):
they're trying to do, but that's where we're gonna be.
We're gonna have a National Collegiate Division three eventually sooner
than later.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
And then are we going to get the three?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Who knows, but we're definitely gonna get the two quicker
than we will just stay with one. So I expect
to see one championship for one maybe two years before
Division three will break off. And then that's another devil's
in the details on which Division three schools are going
to want to be national collegiate and such like that.
We don't have the details on how that works. Maybe
the future episode will look at the schools playing up
(44:12):
playing down that type of thing and figure that out.
But that's how it sits in comparison to how women's
ice hockey works in the emerging sports status.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Thank you for the clarification there, Jason.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
I don't know if I clarified much. I might have
just made it more confusing.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
The next chart shows everyone the NCAA is one hundred
and eleven announced women's teams. It shows you how many
are Division one member schools, Division two member schools, and
Division three member schools. Okay, Like Jason said, they're all
in one division right now.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
And then in twenty twenty one is highlighted in Yellow
Joe became emerging sports status because we had thirty and
twenty two. Twenty three is when we had enough to
qualify for championship status, but we didn't get until this January.
Speaker 6 (45:05):
Okay, Okay, So you know we're talking about this, and
I know we want to talk about later, But first
of all, I'm listening to this, and I'm thinking when
I was a kid, men's wrestling was very much like this.
I mean, it was the everybody we had one national
(45:26):
championship or two nations. You know, it was a lot
less fluid or a lot more fluid than it is now.
And I think you're going to see it become more
structured as they have more teams. Okay, that said women's
wrestling growth. So you need twenty teams to have a
(45:51):
national championship? Where will where does the women's wrestling team
rank in comparison to other sports?
Speaker 5 (46:02):
Yeah, just to make sure Kevin met twenty to be
the emerging sport and then forty to be a championship wrestling.
Women's wrestling now this is just NCAA Sports is now
fifteenth on the list of thirty schools.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Okay, And if you're home.
Speaker 5 (46:18):
Looking at this champ means its championship status, ES means
its emerging sports status, and other you're not quite emerging
sports status, okay, which one day women's wrestling was, and
then they worked their way up. So we're fifteenth, we're
six teams behind ice hockey and thirty six behind rowing.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Pretty soon we're going to be passing ice hockey in rowing.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
So for anybody who like five years ago, didn't think
any of this was possible, and it's very possible.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah, I don't think we're going to be that far
off without paying. I mean, looking at the number of
schools we have, and I'm seeing field hockey as two
hundred and eighty one sitting in twelve. That is a
very attainable goal, especially when we see now that almost
every single high school, every single statement country has girls
high school wrestling. Again, give it two generations of four
year groups to come through, and then that's going to
(47:09):
double and increase the number of potential college aged athletes
that want to want to do this sport. So, and
you know, as way as these schools need need enrollment,
I expect the big blow up to continue to be
heavy in Division three and the ANAI especially.
Speaker 4 (47:25):
Yeah, I agree, Jason.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
I set us on a couple of shows ago that
I predicted We're going to pass field hockey within five years,
and I think we will now. The next slide is
a really interesting This is a real match stats type slide. Okay,
this is in twenty eighteen, nineteen academic year. That was
the first year the nc Doualea started keeping track of
(47:49):
schools that sponsored a wrestling team varsity NCUBA team.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
Okay, So what I did is I.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
Looked at all thirty of the women's sports from eighteen
to nineteen to see how many teams they added, dropped, whatever,
so they had an increase or decrease on the number
of championships.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Wrestling is going up one hundred and seven. Okay.
Speaker 5 (48:15):
All the sports combined have gone up two hundred and four.
All right, So wrestling is going up fifty two and
a half percent of all of it. That means if
you're over fifty percent, that means we being women's wrestling
has increased more teams than all the other twenty nine
(48:37):
ANCLA sports combined.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
That is a wild stat guys. So anybody who.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
Thinks, you know, women's wrestling doesn't have a chance is.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Patsy clined crazy. Okay.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
Now, okay, now, this is an interesting year. I've said
many times in the past there's liars, damn liars and statisticians.
I didn't just randomly picked that year and the end year.
I picked the first year we had wrestling, and I
picked the most up to date year because that's that's current.
Speaker 4 (49:14):
Okay. Also, if you look at that short when you're
at home and can look.
Speaker 5 (49:20):
At it, it is eess heavy up the top. However,
indoor and outdoor track are second and fourth.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
So there are some championship sports that have been around
a long long time, right. I mean, we're clearly the
world's oldest and greatest sport. I think you can make
an argument the track is the second oldest sport because
that was from the people. Wouldn't wrestle they have they
running right for the Russell.
Speaker 6 (49:46):
Okay, So that really was an incredible statistic. So really
strong growth numbers. We're fifteenth in women's team numbers. We're
going to pass hockey and rowing and and you think
field hockey in the next five years. And you know,
(50:10):
I remember the show three years ago. It was about
this this time. We did a show on women's wrestling.
The name of the show was the future of women's
wrestling is so bright. I gotta wear shades, and the
title has.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Aged like that was three years ago. Geez. Yeah, I'm
just like how that was? That was really that's amazing.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
I remember we were was February of twenty two we
did that.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Yeah, I mean one of us still had hair, not
that on me.
Speaker 6 (50:44):
Not me, and he's the only one wearing a hat.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
Yeah, I hats.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I should be wearing more, but I don't know, I've
kind of I've kind of got used to the shine here.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I don't mind it anymore, you know.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah, like I said, I'd rather look like I'd rather
look like a fat biker than a fat banker.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
No offense to the overweight bankers out there.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
You know.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
My neighbor even goes is it is a tougher look,
you know.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
See, you don't want to mess with kh there, you know,
Glenn with that orange anyway.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
KeV, what do you got for keV notes?
Speaker 6 (51:18):
All right? keV Notes, Episode forty one, number one, January
seventeenth of this year. The NCAA approved women's wrestling is
the championship sport, and that became the ninety first NCAA championship.
That's on Slide forty one eight. Women's intercollegiate athletics was
not formed on a national basis until nineteen forty one.
(51:41):
That's slide eleven. The first Intercollegiate Women's Wrestling Championship was
started in two thousand and four as an independent event.
It was followed in two thousand and eight by the
WCWA Slide fourteen. Two thousand and nine, the nc WA
followed with its owned Women's National Championship Slide twenty. Three
(52:06):
years later, four nine twenty two, the NAIA approved an
official national championship for women's wrestling slide also Slide twenty
alphabet soup. The NCWWC is a placeholder for the NCAA
because there are attorneys involved. They've got a whole four
(52:28):
of the team. I think that's four seven on their buildings,
all attorneys looking at things like this, and that's until
NCUBA has its first championship, which is gonna happen next year.
And the NCWWC increased from fifty eight teams and six
regions to ninety six teams in eight regions in one year.
(52:50):
That's a that's really huge growth. The NCAA Women's Championship
will have only one division as of twenty twenty five.
This will change as a sport grows, and we've spent
a lot of time on that. NCAA has one hundred
and eleven announced women's wrestling teams as of you know,
(53:10):
February sixteenth, and that places them fifteenth out of thirty
on the number of women's teams in all sports, the
NCAA women's wrestling had a larger increase than all other
NCAA women's sports combined. That's a huge statistic and that
(53:31):
was on slide forty nine.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Thank you Kevin for that summary. Jason, everything else to
say before I wrap it up?
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Uh No, I think you're just going to pitch to
what next episode is. I think this will again this
is an eye opening episode. We go back and we
look at you just you sit there and you throw
all the numbers there and you're like, it has been fast.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
It has been fast.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
And again, the women's wrestling movement, especially in the LAB
five six years. I know it goes back a lot
longer than that, but we look at the the involvement
of the NWCA, the Hall of Fame Wrestle like a girl,
the National Federation of High School State Associations, uh, you know,
the the NCAA to ANI, the n j c A,
the n CW, all the alphabet soup that comes together,
(54:17):
and all the organizations USA Wrestling. You look at everybody
that's been involved, and it's been it's been a push forward.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
It's you know, I mean, it's just you.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
You've got a lot of people with a lot of
a lot of a lot of a lot to say
at the table, and they've all had a voice and
they've all been moving forward.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
The fact that we've got you know, over.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Forty something high school states now with state championships, it's
it's a lot, a lot a lot more athletes out there,
and it's a lot of people that are seeing the benefits,
uh not just of the physicality of it and the
physical fitness aspects of support of wrestling, the camaraderie, the brotherhood.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
And sisterhood of it.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
But it's just been you know the fact that there's
more opportunities that the Terry Steiner says, you know, why
why do we want to hide the the great things
this sport gives us to just half the population.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
So love what it's.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Done, and this thing is I mean again, that stat
with the size of the tournament this year is just
it's it's it's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 6 (55:12):
Son's just just just a quick thing talking about the compression.
Clarissa Chun was a high school state champion in Hawaii.
I think I'm right, Jason, yell at me if I'm wrong.
I think she was the first high school women's state champion.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
She was lowest weight class and the first state to
sponsor it officially.
Speaker 6 (55:37):
Firth Date to sponsor it. She's now the head coach
at Iowa and she's in heer I think what third year.
So that's how compressed it is the first high school
state champion to the head coach of the national championship team,
all the same person. And that's the compression of time.
And she's not that old, No, she's not.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
No, guys. I got her back couple of years.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
So yeah, all right, guys. It was great.
Speaker 5 (56:04):
Now the next show, okay, is a preview for the
twenty twenty five NCAA Division One Men's Championships. Okay, I've
been talking to many people about this guide for years.
Jason calls it the guide. Jason Bryant puts together the
most comprehensive, data driven, fact driven book about the sport
(56:27):
of wrestling you could possibly do.
Speaker 4 (56:29):
It's so good.
Speaker 5 (56:31):
ESPN uses it for their show where their live national broadcast.
They based almost everything on what Jason says. Pre Order
this Wrestling Guide you get a ten dollars discount if
you use the word not starts to check out. So,
guys on behalf of them, the father of that guy,
Jason Bryant, and the patriarch of this show, Kevin Hazard.
Speaker 4 (56:55):
I'm Glenn Gorbley. See you next month.
Speaker 6 (57:00):
The sly inter continue
Speaker 3 (57:05):
To Dan set to Dundas in acting and seeming to
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