What's going on? A look at the state of college championships in the U.S. - Mat Stats 43

The MatStats crew looks where we have been and where we are as a table setter for a future show on where we are going and how to be prepared.  We analyze historical statistics with attendance at the NCAA Championships, participation numbers at National tourneys, NCAA Men’s number of teams and participants.
Slideshow for Episode 43: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/MatStats43Slideshow.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

Episode Transcript

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 Matt 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 Bryant.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And welcome back to another episode of the Matt Stats Show.
Along with Kevin Hazzard and Glenn Gormley, I'm Jason Bryant.
We are coming off the recovery period of the college postseason.
We had so many national championships. If we go back
into December, we can count with the California Community Colleges
that ends up their fall season in December, and then
we had the D Ones, the D Two's, the D threes,

(01:02):
the ANAIA men and women. We had the National Collegiate
Women's Championships, We had the California Collegiate Women's Championships just
ended last week. There are spring sport. We had the
NCW we have a load of alphabet soup, we have
all Americans, we have national champions and we're going to
talk about all of that here on episode forty three
of the Match That Show. I'm just fresh off another tournament.

(01:24):
I had no break. I went right on vacation. Then
I came home and turned around and went to Slovakia
for eleven days for the European Championships. Came back with
a nice, nice sinus congestion, and we spent about ten
days in an equine arena. Kevin, I don't know how
much time you spent around horses, but you spend ten
eleven days in a barn, you're gonna come up with

(01:46):
some interesting stuff and we'll just leave the visuals away
from you there. But yeah, it's been it's been an
interesting month since the month and a half since the
college postseason started. And Glenn, what about you? Any any
wild horses in your history?

Speaker 3 (02:00):
No wild horses in my history. I haven't had quite
the hard month that you've had, all the work you've done.
I just enjoyed going to the NCWA tournament in shreet Port, Louisiana,
and then went back home to Philly for the NCAA
men's Division one championships.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, I saw. I went from the I had a
regional here in Minnesota, had the Region seven Division three championships,
which they expanded. We'll talk about that in the episode.
Division three expanded to two hundred and ten entries, so
now top three per each region. Now there's a seventh
region that was hosted by Augsburg, where I routinely announced
their home duels. So about fifteen minutes away, the shortest

(02:38):
trip that I had all postseason. Then down to Wichita
for THENI Men's Championships, then to Providence for the Division
three Championships, then back home, then turn around and go
to Philly for the Division one. So that was my
postseason four week run. And you know, hockey had had
a pretty pretty rough season, so I didn't have any
postseason hockey to get to. But yeah, that was you know,

(02:59):
four posts season events for me, including a regional, real history,
history making, and a lot of craziness. And we'll get
into that here shortly. So Glenn, what do we got
on the docket today?

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Okay, today's episode we are going to review quickly the
tournaments that Jason just mentioned. But this show is going
to be it's like I named it from Marvin Gaye's
famous song What's going On. We're going to tell people
about where we've been and where we are now, and
then in a future show where we're going, but we're
restricting it to.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
Be where we were and where we are now for
this show.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Okay, the table of contents during this episode is there
that you guys can look as Jason always mentions, there's
a copy of this on his side and on the
NWCA website.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Okay, well, all to say again to you, if you're
following along mattalkonline dot com INTWCA online dot com, you'll
have the show notes. So if you've got the audio version,
you can sit there. If again, I don't advise that
while you're driving, that's that's not a great way to
consume this show with the visual aspect of it. But
you know, if you can click along, if you're watching
on the YouTube side or the NBCA side of things,

(04:10):
you've got the video here up on the screen. If not,
you've got the slide show accompanying you with it. Then
that's where you'll hear Glenn give his verbal cues like
I am the I'm the GA in the room with
the clicker like right now click.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Okay, and the Match Stats Show is here to create
a library statistical analysis for the NWCA. Mike Mooreyer, the
executive director, asked the three of us to do this
for him, and we've been doing this on a monthly
basis to try to help educate the wrestling world to this.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Now, as I always.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Say, the opinions expressed on this show do not necessarily
reflect any policies or opinions of the NWCA, nor do
gorm Lee, Jason and Kevin Hauser necessarily agree with each
other on everything we say on this show. Okay, Matt
status is based on number at stats analyization. It starts

(05:02):
with facts, not opinions. It's a little bit different than
a lot of shows. A lot of sports talk shows
are just all opinions.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Okay. As we do in our monthly update the number.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Of NCAA and AIA and NCWA teams, we now have
seven hundred and twenty five of April eleventh this year.
That's a big number to have, guys, it's really going well.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah. We also had some news that pitt Johnstown and
Edinburgh have announced women's wrestling programs. Now, there's a little
question mark on Edinburgh. That was one thing that I
did see on social media. So let's clarify this since
we are a show about the minutia and the stats.
So Edinburgh is a Division two institution. They let's use

(05:45):
the term play up even though we know we don't
play wrestling. They play up to Division one in wrestling,
just like Clary and Lockhaven and Bloomsburg do out of
the Peasac Franklin Marshall and Division III. That is kind
of a grandfather rule. You don't just pick and choose
that anymore now. So when Edinburgh starts it's women's wrestling program,
if they come to a divisional structure, their Division two schools.

(06:07):
So if they started a brand new you know, let's
pick if that they didn't have baseball and they started baseball,
they'd be Division two. They wouldn't just be able to
be Division one. Just because their men's wrestling program is
Division one does not mean that when they have all
their sports a Division one. So to clarify when they're released,
it's like, you know, there was a lot of confusion
about division to Edinburgh and people, Well they're Division one,

(06:29):
yes they are in wrestling, but it is a Division
two athletics institution. So it's the overarching thing. So get
that in my new shot the way. Pitt Johnstown, on
the other hand, is a Division two across the board.
So just to clarify some things there. I had to
do that on the socials last week when when people
are like, well their division one, well yeah, lockh Haven's

(06:49):
Division one. And of course with the women, as we
will talk about in this show right now, we have
we're going into an NCAA Championships where we will have
what is called a national collegiate. There will not be
a divisional structure yet with women's wrestling. It will be
under the NCAAA banner, but under national collegiate like we
have with women's hockey and some other sports.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
Thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Jason always got to interject something that has really almost
nothing to do with what we were talking about, but yeah,
that was actually relevant, tell much relevant.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
All right.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
So that being said, how about we take a quick
preview on this new topic for this episode.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Okay, sure.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
The first thing we'll do is we're going to have
a quick review of the eight national collegiate wrestling championships for.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Four years colleges.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Then we will analyze four categories to statistically see where
we were and where we are. Number one attendance at
the men's NCUBAD one championship. Number two the number of
participants at the national championships. Number three the number of
men's NCUBA wrestling teams, and number four the number of

(07:58):
participants in the men's NC double A wrestling. Now, I
want to stress something here. It's not that we're biased
towards the NC Double A over the NAI A or
any any other thing. The nc Double A just does
a much better job historically and keeping number exact numbers
of schools of participants. So that's why we use the

(08:19):
NC double A more for statistical numbers than we do
the other divisions.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
And I'm going to interject now one more thing that
we didn't end. We talked about four years, so we
don't want to short the you know, let's let's let's
give Indian Hills Community College AA proper shout out taking
both the men's and women's in JCAA championships this year.
The NJACA women is still under the invitational status, not
yet a true national championship like the NAI women had

(08:46):
the invitational status for a couple of years before it
went full championships for but Indian Hills kind of rising
quickly up the ranks in both men's and women. So
congratulations coach Cole Spree. And then the program up there
that is really just churning out some talent.

Speaker 5 (09:01):
What how did how did that? Do you have any
insight into how that happened? I mean somebody put some
money in or well.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
It's a two year school, you know. That's one thing
like with two year schools you get you don't have
four year recruiting cycles and five year recruiting cycles. You
can quickly take a team from nowhere and make them
national relevant a ne e oh. When they rebuilt their
program with Joe Renfro they won a national title their
first years of program when they were reinstated. So uh yeah,
junior college you could do it real quick. I mean

(09:30):
you could do it probably within four years. And like
the NAIA, well if you didn't have Grandew to contend with,
you know, hype on paper. Yeah, but like like I said,
you can't do that in D one, but definitely junior
colleges where you've got two years maybe three with the athletes,
you can get get a load of talent in and
start churning it out. So that's that's one definitely league
where you can definitely we're here and we're gonna win.

(09:57):
All right.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
So that said, again, what happened this year at the
DANC the Men's d Championships and NCWWC Women's Hands Ships,
which is really the NCAA.

Speaker 4 (10:10):
All right, let me start out with this, guys.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
First of all, I really want to give a shout
out here to Jason and Brian Hazzard on the big.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Show with the hair in the picture that doesn't.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Work, yes, exactly, Yeah, So I just wanted to say
a special thank you to these guys. You guys are
becoming much a part of my life as John Ward
and Bill Anderson the all football announcers long term, We're
part of my life for years, and it's really something special. Jason,
the job that you and Kevin Hazard's son Brian do.

(10:42):
I really appreciate the job and the work that you
guys do. It would be a tournament without you guys.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Well, I appreciate it. Plus we get to throw those
random factoids in there that the suite up there, multiple
suites seem to hang on our every word for some reason,
I'm not quite sure why that is, but.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
And I like some of the kind of obscure terms
that end up in your commentary.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
I have no idea what you're talking about, except for
maybe the Spanish announced table every year heavyweight goes through it.
That's you're going to get there. WrestleMania call out there anyway.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Okay, so the big news at the Men's division one
was we are Penn State set the record for one
hundred and seventy seven points on pass shows. We did
some stuff out of the points of change and takedowns
of change and all that stuff. But however you want
to slice it, Penn State has the record for most points.
And what record do they break? Penn State some twenty

(11:36):
twenty four. So we're not one of these shows that's
going to put an asterisk on thing like sixty one
with an astros for Roger Mowers.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Now, Penn State placed all ten wrestlers in the top six.
They became the second school ever to have ten all Americans.
The Gophers from Minnesota did it in two thousand and one.
Just a remarkable feat. Penn State won eighty one zero
point seven percent of their bouts and two of those

(12:09):
were defaults with their heavyweight to.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Followed after losing in the semis.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
That is just an amazing thing to think about to
win that many to win that many bouts, and when
you look at it with Penn State, aside from their
heavyweight who had a default, he won three bouts.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
He was three and three.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
The guy with the next most amount of wins was
the one ninety seven pounder who was national runner up.
So I mean, when you have four wins at Nationals
and eight guys on your team have more than you do,
that's a pretty good team. One thing that I really
loved about it, guys, was for the people out there

(12:51):
that don't know me. I was born and raised in
Philly and actually ran up the Art Museum steps before
before Rocky did in high school. But this had a
like a Rocky theme to it, where you have an underdog.
Wyatt Hendrickson being an Olympic gold medalist was It was
very much Rocky like, so I thought I'd put that
on there, and then the next slide has a link

(13:14):
to where Rocky's training session, you know, So it's the
Philly I grew up in the seventies, so it always
rings a bell to me. In addition to that, this
was the first time, as Jason announced, you know, the
introduction of the forty seventh President of the United States.
It's always great to have the commander in chief at
the national wrestling tournament. It's good publicity for US, and

(13:37):
I'm very happy that it happened. On the women's side
of things, what will soon be the call the National
Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament, as Jason mentioned, will be one division.
The IOWA late Lady Hawk Eys won that title.

Speaker 5 (13:55):
Okay, so we did D one. Can we do a
quick recap of D two and D and also let's
talk about the NIA men's and women's championships?

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Sure, okay, Nebraska Carney won Division two and Wartburg and
Johnson and Wales tied for the team title in Division three.
I'm not sure why there's not a tie breaker on that,
but it's the first if again, nineteen ninety four was
the last team in D three men's other than Augsburg

(14:27):
or Wartburg to win a title. So obviously Johnson Wales
did win a title, but Wartburg won one two.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
And what was interesting, So a couple things to talk about. One,
Nebraska Carney let's go to Division two. I wasn't at
that one, but again I announced in Say Cloud State,
so I've got a tie to the program there. That
was going to be a dogfight. There was several teams
that went in with a shot that could win it.
Carney brought all ten out of their region and it
wasn't just you know, the reason was was a little down,

(14:54):
but that did not really show through with how Carney
was performing. They they would gangbusters. They had this thing
wrapped up. I mean, when you've got a fifty point
gap between first and second. They wrestled their butt off.
So the Lopers fifth national championship on the men's side
in school history, so that is that's an impressive They

(15:15):
wrestled like crazy. And Augustana coach Jason Reitmeyer, you know,
I've actually actually announced two of their duels this year.
They lost both of them. They lost duel meats to
Saint Cloud and to Augsburg during the year, and I
think he was hoping I wouldn't show up at D
two's as well, but they had a one heck of
a tournament too. There was a big group of teams afterwards,
and Augustana, which you know, they've had a real solid

(15:37):
program the last several years. They they come in there
and they take that second place trophy after you know what,
you know, you could say that, you know, was it
where they were they contending for second going in? I
don't think they were kind of looked at as a
second place team going in, and they definitely went out
and wrestled really really well. So congratulations to Carney and
then of course, you know, right Meyer at Augie doing

(15:58):
a real good job there to take that trophy and
then sat Cloud finishing third. Johnston Wales and Wartburg. Now
this was this was like storybook because it was in Providence,
just like a mile from Johnson and Wales University. And
Lonnie Morris has been the only coach the programs ever had.
He started it back and I want to say nineteen
ninety seven had a number of people I know that

(16:20):
have gone to Rustle there from Gloucester. There was like
you know, there's like I think there were thirteen Lenhart's
in Gloucester, in Gloucester, Virginia, And the mother one time said, yeah,
there was a Lenhard at Gloucester High School from nineteen
eighty two to like two thous whatever the last one
got through. There was a gap between Brenan Brendan and
the next one up. I think that was Ryan, so

(16:41):
it was Ryan Bryant. Between Colin and Brendan, there was
a gap, so there was that streak was over there.
But it came down to the last match, and it was.
They started at thirty three. So the returning national champion
from Johnson and Wales, who had majored the guy previously
in the year before, had to get a bonus point,
uh to to win the tournament. Outright. Now he wins,

(17:03):
they win the tournament. He gets a bonus victory, they
win outright. It came down to it. The place was
going nuts, uh and both wrestlers Guzman from North Central
was also fired up. They were both like john with
the crowd to like get it all fired up. It
was and it was, it was. It was. It was
very storybrook but storybook, but it was also really weird
because it was like, okay, he's a tie. But at

(17:24):
the same point, look at the numbers too. Johnson Wales
did it with four all Americans. They had just four
place winners. They had two champs. Wartburg wasn't really looked
at as a title threat on paper because they they
only brought six, but they had a you know, Mitch
Williamson was unseated at heavyweight, he had a he had
what he dropped one match at the region was kind
of a kind of a question, why why you're your

(17:46):
guy with one loss all years not seated? Uh, But
he ends up he ends up winning the title. So
Wartburg takes a lead at one point. You know, Augsburg
had a chance to win this thing. Wisconsin La Crosse
brought nine, uh in terms, so there was it was
a dog. I mean there were there were at one point,
I think there were seventeens within five or six points
towards the end of day one into day two. And
I had never seen that before. And I was always

(18:09):
harp on how much D three is one of my
five favorite tournaments in the world, and this was just
and it was an amazing experience. Providence is a great town,
had a chance to get some Italian up on Federal Hill.
I just had a great time. So hats off de
Loni and staff for one winning a national title. And
you know, the streak still continues, but the streak ended

(18:30):
at the same time. So it was definitely something that
was really cool, and I you know, normally, you know
there's tie breakers, you know, internationally, it's like the most champs.
I don't care. It was cool. Let's move on, okay, Hi,
we'll go.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
We'll go to the Man's nai A. Grand View won
their thirteenth title in fourteenth seasons. The only school that's
won one since said was Life Men one in twenty
twenty one.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
Grand View won six individual.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Titles, tying the records sitting nineteen eighty one by Central Oklahoma,
and Life won its first NAIA women's title.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Okay, so how about now we talk about the NCWA
Men's and women's Championships. So you went there, didn't you, Glynn?

Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yeah, I sure did. I had a great time. It
was in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was a blast going to
see it. It's something I've been a fan of here
recently since Kevin started me on this on the CWA.
And I got to know Jim Junta. He was a
very hospitable host. Spent a lot of time with him there.
Thank you for your help with this, Jim. It was

(19:38):
a really nice tournament. Menlo won the NCWA Men's D
one title. Life won the NCWA men's D two title. Okay,
Life has an NAIA team and an NCWA men's team.
Now the Division one and Division two title are all
in the same bracket, but they have a champion for

(19:59):
each one. And Charleton State, relatively new team won the
women's ncw A title.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
So that was by half a point over Utah Tech.
That was that was a crazy team race too.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yep, the old Utah State used to be you know,
just Dixie. You told Tech used to be Dixie State.

Speaker 5 (20:16):
If anyone was wondering, what's the what's the difference between
D one and D two at n c w.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
A level of funding, So it's all it's one of
those things like Menlo, we know that we knew them
as an anai A program. A lot of those transitional
schools will park there for a couple of years. Menlo
is the transition from ANI Division two is only two years,
so they'll be sitting down there for two years and
then they'll be moving up. So it's like your your
apprentic schools that's a varsity program. Uh, they are, they're full.

(20:43):
They are funded by their athletic department, so they're looking
at schools that fund their these these clubs like Washington State,
for example, does not have a varsity program, but they
do have funding for their wrestling program. So or if
you've got Ohio State, which has a Division one team,
but they've got a resting club, so they will be
in that they are not in the Division one portion

(21:04):
of the tournament, they are in the Division two team scoring.
So like in junior college, the n JCA has a
Division one and Division three scholarship and a non scholarship,
So it's a level of funding. A lot of the
when you say the Division two is a lot of
it is the student run type of stuff. Whereas Life
just started this thing up like mid seed. I mean,
it's like the semester they said, hey, we're starting to

(21:25):
you know, we're starting to in CW a club team.
It's like, okay, So you know, it's one of those
things that's based on funding and support, and there is
a sliding scale. Usually you start out, even if you're
brand new, you're going to be in that Okay, we'll
see where're at and then Jim will move you up.
Because I don't expect that Life's in CW a team
to be on that Division two tier very much longer.

(21:47):
Because you know we'll as well, we'll talk about here
in the future that life is uh life, life's all
about them some rugby and wrestling.

Speaker 5 (21:55):
Yes, I think it's I think it's interesting that the
ncw A has a funded division because I think the
most people think of them as the National Club Wrestling Championship,
and I know.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Definitely not there are clubs. But yeah, it's tough.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
It's a tough, tough thing. And what a great program
that he runs.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's also a lot of alphabet soup as we as
we learn, Yeah, WAWCA just just spell checking Glenn on
these things and then the show noteses is enough trouble
when we bring up the NCWA.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, the NCWA had seven hundred and fifty one wrestlers
in it. Now that counts men and women. They were
both in the same building, but there were two separate
national tournaments men wressel men and women with women. But
that was the largest collegiate national tournament ever. Okay, which
is which is a big thing. As Jason mentioned, earlier,

(22:50):
schools like Menlo are transitioning from nai A to NCAA
Division two, so they had to wrestle there. Menlo actually
had two men's teams of the twenty twenty five NCWA,
one that's going to stay NCWA and one will be
Division two. Okay, Matt Stats reported this previously. There are

(23:10):
seventy two men's teams at the NCAA that were dropped
as either an NCAA or NAIA school. Okay, this is
really helping our sport and our growth.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
I was very impressed with the NCWA Wrestling tournament. Okay,
how big was the attendance?

Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
It was very small, but it did remind me a
lot of the NCAA Championships in nineteen eighty one at
Princeton and Old Jadwin Gym.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
But we'll get to the attendance things a little bit.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
But it was really the kids there were working hard,
trying as hard. They just weren't as talented as you know,
the Division.

Speaker 4 (23:56):
One level or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
But it's an important part of this because the growth
of the sport is not about the ten NCAA Men's
Division one champions It's about everyone that's wrestling.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
You know, we need a big.

Speaker 5 (24:10):
Ten glory days. So now we were so March is
really kind of what we focus on in college wrestling
that's you know, we all it all comes together, and
memories are really important. Can we do a little analysis

(24:31):
of see why these really are the true glory days
of wrestling?

Speaker 4 (24:36):
Yeah, Kevin, that's a great thing.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
It's really difficult to pinpoint what the glory days is
for different sports.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Most people based this on their own thoughts and perceived memories. Okay,
so we're trying to use little stats here to see
what we can do. Okay, So the four stats we're
going to use as we talked about before, but I'll
refresh everyone's memory his attendance at the men's d one, okay,
the number of participants in the national Championships, the number

(25:04):
of NCAA men's wrestling teams, and the number of participants
in the NCAA. Because you know that famous song Willie
Mickey and the Duke was talking baseball. I mean, it's
a great thing, and a lot of times I think
as that as the glory years because when I was born,
and when I was walking around Philly with Kevin and

(25:24):
his wife Joe and other way married wrestlers, we were
right near where the Phillies won the World Series in
nineteen eighty. Me and Billy happened to be at Game six,
Billy Pinkas, and I noticed a lot of stuff about
the old whiz kids that were there. So let's start
doing some statistical stuff. There's an old say by the famous.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
We need to just pump the brakes on any more
Philadelphia Phillies talk. It's just that. That's what I got. Yeah,
only place I've ever been sworn at in my life
as a visiting baseball fan. The collective language I got
at Citizens Bank Park circa two thousand and nine at
an Angels Phillies game was yeah, anyway, I am for that. Yeah,

(26:05):
I was even worrying any Angels gear.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
We better we boot Santa Claus. So we're going to
boot ja.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, you through batteries and snowballs. Granted now to the
Philly fans defense, that was the worst Santa in the
history of the world. Yes, look at the footage. Just
look at the foot it's awful. Anyway, Well, he was.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
Brought in at the last minute. The original Santa was drunk.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yes it was. It was. It was like a guy
on work release or something. So again, here's here's the
there's the four stats we've got in the memories as as.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Memories get faced. So we have anecdotal stories about what
does it. But let's start talking about, uh, some actual
stats here, all.

Speaker 5 (26:48):
Right, attendance. Let's talk about attendance first, and and and
the examples of well, how do our how our mind
plays tricks on us?

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Okay, guys we mentioned before, Uh, you know, sometimes in
nineteen fifties are thought of as the glory days Ted
Williams at four o six, Jody Mauger at fifty six
fifty six straight games. But if you look at the
Boston Braves, I'm not going to say Fildelphia Phillis. I'm
gonna say Filadelphia A's Jason Brooklyn don't right.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Now, what are the A's. They're just the A's.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
Yeah, they're just the Ages.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
They're just the ees.

Speaker 6 (27:22):
And you're looking at the schedule, it just says at
ass Yes, I you know what, I have no problem
because that's the that's the baseball team I loath more
than life itself.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
So so sorry, A's.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
That's okay. My dad grew up as an A's fan because.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
They were your fills. A's. I'm still bitter about nineteen
eighty six. Glory days continue, Okay, eighty so anyway, seven.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, So anyway, the Boston Braves, Philadelphia's Brooklyn Dodgers, and
New York Giants in the fifties, they all moved west
and their attendants jumped one hundred and seventy nine percent. Okay,
and it was really something. The four Major League Baseball
owners to five conventional wisdom, had moved west and sold

(28:07):
great results in attendance.

Speaker 4 (28:09):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Major League Baseball nineteen fifty had seventeen million fans. Last
year twenty twenty four, there were seventy million.

Speaker 4 (28:19):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Now, of course there's more teams and stuff like that,
but we've increased ninety percent per game attendance. Okay, because
back in nineteen fifties early sixteen teams, now there's thirty
And of course they used to play under fifty four games,
now hunder sixty two. So let's look at the attendance
at the NCAA tournament. I could not find attendance for

(28:43):
nineteen seventy seven, so we have a five year period.
Over six years from seventy six to eighty one. The
arithmetic mean for attendance was thirty eight thousand total or
sixty four hundred per session in nineteen seventy six, there
were seventeen thousand fans at the whole tournament. As I

(29:05):
mentioned earlier, in Princeton, New Jersey, tournament I was at,
there was forty one thousand people at that tournament. Okay,
now how does that compare to now? There was one
hundred and ten thousand fans at Philly. Each session had
over eighteen thousand, and yes, doctor pell most of these

(29:25):
people were the same folks each session. Okay, So what
can we determine from this? There were more fans in
session one on Thursday in Philly than there were the
entire tournament in nineteen seventy six. The arithmetic mean for
five years from seventy six to eighty one was thirty

(29:48):
eight thousand in Philly. In the first two sessions we
had thirty six thousand.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
The four years prior to COVID, the average annual attendance
at the Men's Championship was one hundred and eleven thousand,
So Philly was not an anomaly from the amount of
people coming to this tournament. It is hard to imagine
the late seventies and early eighties were the glory days. Okay,

(30:19):
Then when you add TV streaming and all this stuff.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
You know.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
I remember in two thousand and one the championships were
moved the session six was moved to three thirty in
the afternoon because TV wonted Cale Sanderson.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
That tournament was in Albany.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
I was back in Willingsburg, Virginia, Saturday night, you know,
because at the time of the tournament.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, it was it was two. Two was the first
year they went off from two. Well yeah, yeah, that
was the first one I attended was two and Albany.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
I apologize.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
It was two, yes, and it was Kale's fourth year,
and that's why they wanted to do it, you know,
because he was on defeat and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Well, I remember the year year after that, in two
thousand and three, when I went with my buddy Charlie
Church from Ghetim right across the street from my college house.
He actually still uses my tickets, and we're we're we're
sitting there at a at a Hooters. Once we're we're
having dinner watching the finals tape delay. It's like, you know,
we were done again three thirty in the afternoon. It's
like seven thirty. We're getting dinner before we fly out

(31:24):
the next day, and it's like it's like, man, this
is strange we're watching we were just there. That's the
one thing I was always weird about tape delay.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Well, I mean think about the nineteen eighty miracle and
Ice was tape delayed. I mean that was not live,
and Lake Placid is our time zone.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
I mean I was barely alive, guys.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, but that game was tape delayed. So that's I
understand what you're talking about. Watching it toin you've been at.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
You know, what was it live? Was Shamanad beating Ralph
Sampson's UVA team? What was that eighty one?

Speaker 4 (31:56):
I was in college. I believe you're right.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, anyway, yeah, moving forward, yep.

Speaker 5 (32:05):
So that's attendance. What about participation and if March is
the best month of collegius wrestling? Can we look at
an analysis of the participations at the national collegiate wrestling
tournaments in March?

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Certainly Kevin first of all nine different schools one team titles.
Life happened to win two different titles, but it was
nine schools okay, in twenty twenty five. In these eight tournaments,
there were two thousand, two hundred and eighty one wrestlers. Okay,
that's a mouthful, guys. Now, in nineteen seventy eight, okay,

(32:47):
it was the first NCAA tournament I happened to go to.
There was three hundred and forty seven male participants in
the NCAA Division one, And in.

Speaker 4 (32:57):
Those days, there was no women's.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Wrestling, and the thought of D two, D three and
NAIA were really not on people's There wasn't no people's vocabulary.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
We didn't talk about it.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
So there's you get the Ken Mallories of the world
showing up at the Division one Championships back in that.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Era, correct, But we just talked about him as a
D one champ, not a Jersey kid who won it all. Now,
So are these the camelot days of wrestling? If you
look at it, as you can see on slide forty
two that in nineteen eighty and the NCAA and NAIA
men there was one thy one hundred and seventy three wrestlers.

(33:38):
There was no women, and there was no NCWA tournament. Okay,
now there's twenty two to eighty one, so we have
an increase of eleven hundred wrestlers or ninety four percent increase.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
That means we've almost doubled.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Okay, now here's one of the problems that I or
the topics of conversation that I get every year in
the suite when we're listening to Jason and Brian. Okay,
in nineteen eighty, there was eleven hundred and seventy three
wrestlers between the three NCAAs and the ni Men. This

(34:17):
year there was exactly a thousand. So that's a decrease
of one hundred and seventy three wrestlers, a change of
a little bit less of fourteen fifteen percent down.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Okay, Well, one thing you could also say is there's
definitely there is also less of a wild West attitude.
I mean, we're talking about nineteen eighty. We're only twelve
years removed from the event being an open, so Division
two at that point Division two and Division three and
nineteen eighty are only six years old. There's still a

(34:49):
lot of schools that are dual affiliates. And this also
what this doesn't consider. Glenn, I might have found a asterisk.
I know we don't like asterisks on this show, but
this doesn't include the dual affiliate schools that were wrestling
both at either Division two and Division three and the NAIA.
There is some overlap with the numbers here, so that
number may be less than one hundred and seventy three.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Yeah, you're correct, because somebody.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Sounds like you give me another homework assignment.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yes, get the work, Jason. Yeah, somebody like Kevin Mallory.
Jason's correct would have been counted in the Division three,
in the Division one, and in the old days when
Gray was winning titles anywhere he went, he would have
been counting the NAIA and Division one. Now, if you
want to hang your hat on, there used to be

(35:35):
more wrestlers back in the good old days when I wrestled,
as I've heard everyone say, but not everyone, but a
lot of people say, let's think about this, despite there
being twenty three fewer wrestlers at the Main's Division one
championships from that's thirteen, it's just say three forty three,

(35:58):
three thirty Okay, the championship matches.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
Excuse me, that's correct.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
There are so many more matches now, Okay. We used
to have in nineteen eighty five hundred and two matches.
Now we had six hundred and forty matches. Okay, say
for any defaults because they all count as matches.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
In other words, we had less wrestlers today than we
had in nineteen eighty, but we have twenty seven percent
more bouts. There's double the amount of consolation matches now
because now what most people call double elimination, what I
call modified double elimination. In the old days, you had
to lose to a quarter finalist and before that of semifinals,

(36:42):
before that a finalist, so there were very few consolation matches.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
And even into the nineties, you had the loss had
the guy who beat you in the first round had
to win the next round, so round.

Speaker 5 (36:54):
Few to move on.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, so for Fallow the leader, they do that in Minnesota.
They still do that in Minnesota high school brackets here,
which is simple my so stupid to me. Continue.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
So, and here's my thought, like, why do we really
go to the NCAA. We go to see more matches
and to see great wrestling. Okay, So, if you want
to hang your hat on that there were more wrestlers,
there's more bouts now, there's more to be entertained. There's
more for Jason and Brian Hazard to do, whether they're there. Okay,

(37:23):
I'll take an extreme example for you, if in twenty
twenty five, if we had sixty four wrestlers in each
weight class and no wrestle backs, there would have been
six hundred and thirty bouts all weekend. Now we had
six hundred and forty bouts despite only having thirty three

(37:44):
wrestlers in each weight class. So it's a it's you know,
one of the hand two and the bush type thing.
It really is a thing now that don't hang your
hat too much on.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
There were more people.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Wrestling then than there are now in the tournament. Yeah,
that's true men wise, but overall there's a lot more.
We get to see more bats. You know. We have
a much larger tent in twenty twenty five that we
had in nineteen eighty. Okay, however, the part of the
tent with the men's NCAA and NAIA are smaller with

(38:17):
participants not bouts. But I used to be in the
restaurant business. If the bar wasn't as crowded, but the
restaurant was jam packed, that translates the more money for
the restaurant.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
We filled up the seats.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
So it's something good that's going on there.

Speaker 5 (38:37):
Okay, we are Matt stats. How about some analysis of
where we once were and we are now in terms
of nc double A men.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
Okay, thank you Kevin for that.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
The slide the charter on slide forty eight shows you
how many.

Speaker 4 (38:55):
This is NC DOUBLEA only. Like I mentioned before.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Eighty one eighty two, when they started keeping annual statistics,
there were three hundred and sixty three men's teams across
all divisions last year. In twenty twenty four, that's the
most updated numbers we have in the NCAA, there were
two hundred and seventy five. There's now counting Edinburgh and
pitt John sound oh no, this is men's only. There's

(39:21):
two hundred and eighty six right now. So the percentage
decrease has been twenty one percent down and people do
mention this often, and I agree. I wish we had
more teams now than ever before in the.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
NCUBA, but we don't.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
Okay, now, there is no question we've seen a decrease. However,
from two thousand and nine to twenty ten and two
thousand season, the twenty twenty three, twenty four and the
announced teams now we run our NADER. In two thousand
and nine ten there was two hundred and seventeen NC

(39:59):
Double eighteen teams, we now have two hundred and eighty six.
That's a growth of thirty two percent. So if you're
fifteen years old, all you have ever seen is this
sport crowd. If you're wrestling in high school, that's all
you've ever seen, all right now, just like we have

(40:20):
less wrestlers in the men's Division I Nationals now, but
we have more bouts. Let's look at the number of
participants we have. Okay, in nineteen eighty two, we had
seventy nine hundred. Last year in twenty four, as we
mentioned on the show before, we set the record with

(40:42):
eighty eight hundred and one. That's an eleven percent increase
since eighty two.

Speaker 4 (40:48):
Now, guys, that's.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
A minuscule annual increase. Okay, it's much less than one
percent annually. It's, you know, a decimal thing annually increase. However,
we have had an increase. So if you're younger than
I am, guys, you have never wrestled in an NCUBLEA
that's had more wrestlers than had had in twenty three

(41:11):
twenty four. We don't know the numbers yet from twenty
five because they've not been released. Okay, let's see how
this compares with other sports men's NCAA sports From eighty
two to last year, the total men increased eighty five percent,

(41:32):
where the wrestling only increased eleven So there was definitely
a problem there, and I've mentioned it before that I
don't think we reacted well to what happened back then. Okay,
but we see all the other men's sports went up
eighty five percent, including us, so with allots that went
up even more than that.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
So in other words, men's sports at NCUBA were doing great, okay,
in participant numbers, even if wrestling was it. So let's
look at men's wrestling participants from two thousand and nine
to ten to last year. We've grown thirty seven percent,

(42:13):
more than thirty seven percent. That is a big number, guys,
in a fifteen year period, Okay, fourteen year period.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Now, if we compare that with all the NCAA men
in that same time period, we've grown thirty seven percent,
they've grown twenty five percent. So something's going on, guys
that all of a sudden we've corrected something or something's
helped us out. Now, if you look at that, guys

(42:43):
on slide. Fifty five thirty seven percent is not twelve
percent bigger than twenty five percent, it's forty six percent bigger.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
Okay. So in other.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Words, we're growing forty six percent faster than all the
men's sports combined. Right from twenty and nine ten to
last year. We do the same thing for twenty fourteen fifteen,
when the advent of women really started percolating, we've grown
almost twenty five percent men's wrestling.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
All the other sports have grown thirteen percent on the
men's side only.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Once again, that is twenty four is not eleven percent
bigger than thirteen. It's ninety percent bigger. It's almost double. Okay,
one hundred percent would be double. So guys, something's going
on in men's wrestling that's really growing.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
I think the two biggest reasons for this is Mike
Boyer and the advent of women's wrestling. Now, as a species,
we cannot exist without women, and I think as a sport,
wrestling cannot exist without women.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
People are free to disagree with me and say what
they want, but they're not going to convince me otherwise.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
So Kevin, here's yeah, here's some other things on. Here's
some other things I want to want to want to
touch on too, is we're looking at the number of
teams and you know, one of the arguments I hear from,
you know, from people before my time. And again I'm
forty five years old, so I was learning about the

(44:36):
cuts during the nineties were not good to us, and
that's when I really started learning about the sport of
wrestling and experiencing it. But I'm going back looking. Let's
use Glenn's nineteen eighty as the start point, because that's, uh,
you know what's going eq equal decades. It's like, how
many teams were actually getting wrestlerch to nationals? Oh, we
had one hundred and forty six teams. Well, doesn't necessarily

(44:57):
mean it was tougher. You just you may have had
had sixty more schools that were half funded or partially
funded or no funding at all. So that's again I
always make the argument, what's better for the sport of
wrestling a half scholarship d one school that's a hanging
on by a thread, or a well funded nai A
program with eighty on the roster that's putting a lot,

(45:19):
a lot of coaches into the into the pipeline to
help development more coaches for the for for the next generation.
So you got to look at where your battle is.
Do you want more teams in Division one or do
you want more wrestling as a whole? They and they
they're not. It's not an either or either, So you
can you can, you can want some of each. But
I'm looking at the numbers of looking at NCAA here,

(45:41):
So D one, D two, and D three. In nineteen
eighty there were one hundred and thirteen different schools that
had place winners at the D one, D two, and
D three championships. Now that also is in the era
of multiple qualifications, so that number you might have a
Montclair State in counting for D three and in D
one and so it's counted as an individual. But there

(46:03):
were forty schools in Division one in nineteen eighty that
had a place winner. This past year we had thirty seven,
so that's down. But in look in the middle, we
had one hundred and thirteen out and then forty and
D one. Then we go one hundred and four in
nineteen ninety so we had eleven school eleven less schools,
and then down in two thousand we had only had
one hundred and one schools across three divisions with all Americans,

(46:24):
So we were losing programs and you see the amount
of med schools. Yes, that makes sense right, Well, looking
at thirty four thirty four thirty nine, thirty four teams
with a place or D one thirty four teams the
place or D one thirty nine teams twenty ten. Statistically,
I didn't do the I didn't run the numbers on this,
but okay, what we've done. Yeah, we've lost a lot
of the bottom tier programs. We've lost some good ones.

(46:46):
We've lost some teams that were putting guys on the
stand like Oregon and Syracuse and Mi Alma Mater. But
you know a lot of the losses were were the
marquettes of the world, and that sucks. It sucks for
that alumni base. It really is not good for the
health of those areas. But the same point, we're looking
at the growth of the ANAI the Division two and
Division three, where the growth of the people that love

(47:10):
the sport, where it's it's coming from. So when we're
climbing back to one hundred and eleven from almost forty
five years from one hundred and thirteen. There's that gap
and we're seeing that moving up. And what the numbers
tell that Glenn has shown you here is that, Yeah,
we hitdle all and we're we're moving back up. We're
moving back up. We're moving back up. So we're if

(47:30):
we're not in Camelot now, which Glenn is going to
argue we are for not now, we're going to be
there very soon because those move those things are going
up because we're getting every year we're getting a new program,
we're getting a new school, especially at the NAID two
and D three first All American in school history. I mean,
I'm looking through the numbers with just all our just
the junior colleges, which we don't spend a whole lot

(47:51):
of time on, but like and the THEAI women where
they're launching where there's there's no history, and a lot
of these schools like okay, there there's their first All
American school history. And it's creating a legacy and it's
creating oh wow, these administrators, we've got an All American.
It's big to them. Okay. So those are things, these
little things are important, and those numbers are important to it.

Speaker 5 (48:14):
Kevin Well, I'm watching and interesting more anecdotal than statistical.
I've noticed the last couple of years that I think
the coaching has gotten so much better on the D
one level that you're seeing it feels like there's more

(48:38):
more teams that have a chance to have an All American.
They come in better prepared. I mean, you watched JUNI
this year, and you knew that they were going to
be in every match. They've done just done a great
job bringing their program up. And I think we're starting
to see that across across the whole, you know, spectrum
of wrestling, to the point that there's eighty you know,

(49:02):
those NAI teams that are putting out great coaches, they
got great programs, they're putting out great coaches. We have
we are a better off foundation up with with with
coaches in wrestling wrestlers.

Speaker 4 (49:17):
Yeah, thank you for that. Kevin and Jason.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
One example I wanted to give guys, and this is
very anecdotal example because it's very, very small, but the
two schools I went to, and sadly, the two schools
Kevin went to no longer wrestling, although the one might
be bringing you back, I'm not sure the exact scenario.
And that and the school that Jason went to doesn't
have wrestling.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
There's a school called Life University that we mentioned many
times here, and I wanted to really give a shout
out to the Life president, Robert Scott, and the ad
Jamie Prendergast. I actually met Jamie at the nwc A
convention a couple of years ago, and the fact that
she came to the convention really said to me.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Wow. Okay.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Life men came in second in the NAIA. Their NCWA
men's team won the Division two title there. Okay, and
Life women won the NAIA title. Now I got this
from their website, so it might not have been updated
since they, you know, since the March Championships, but they
have won twenty four national titles in their twenty intercollegiate sports,

(50:24):
with seventy seven individual national champions. Okay, that's wow. Okay.
Life has eight hundred and seventy five undergraduate students. As
of twenty twenty two, Life had an endowment of three
point four eight million. Yes, I said that correct million

(50:48):
with an M.

Speaker 4 (50:49):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Now, let's compare that to a school I'm a little
bit more familiar with that happens to being Williamsburg, Virginia. Okay,
William and Mary was established in sixteen ninety three. We
weren't a country for one hundred years. Still, okay, Life
in nineteen seventy four. Willim and Mary has about eight

(51:12):
and a half times the number of undergraduates. I mentioned
Life University's president, so I might as well mention William
Mary had four US presidents.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Okay, Well, none of which attended the NCAA Championships either.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
No.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Not.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Thomas Jefferson gets old this praise and he never came.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
To the n What a what a slacker in Paris
to the state of Virginia. Geez, come on, TJ. You
know better than that anyway, Sorry.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
William Mary has the oldest law school in the United States,
and I like to think a prestigious business school. And
you know what the final scores, final score number of
wrestling teams at the twenty twenty five Nationals Life three women,
Mary nothing. So my thought is if any NBA grat

(52:05):
William Mary could do a case study on this, and
if anyone at William and Mary would pay attention to it.
Willim and Mary has a one point five billion with
a down billion with a B so they can afford
to hire a consultant for this case study, and I
know just the person that's willing to do.

Speaker 4 (52:23):
It, h Okay.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
And I know a barstool where we can all sit
down and talk about the results.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
Yes we can, so all right, guys, I really think
we're in the glory days of collegiate wrestling. And as
Jason said, Okay, hopefully the glory days to be in
the future are better than what we.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
Know in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Okay, in the seventies and eighties we had more NCAA
men's teams and more participants.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
But this year we had.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
More matches the Division one Championships, and we have more
wrestlers in the NCUBA. Today we have women and the NCWA,
and it's been and there's we see a huge demand
for tickets to the D one Nationals. Okay, wrestling is
much more mainstream forty than it was forty to fifty

(53:20):
years ago. Guys, And we learned on the previous show
there's more men high school wrestlers than ever, and of
course more.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
Women high school wrestlers than ever.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
It might be impossible to quantify what the glory days is,
but I sure think these are more glory days than
fifty years ago. Now, the big question for a future
show is where are we heading? And here's my concern, guys.
I'm old enough as is Kevin to remember. And Jason

(53:52):
mentioned that he came into the sport a little bit
later than we did to mention that we had had
a decrease. We definitely had it, you know, went down
to a bottom and then we've come back up, not
all the way up a number of teams, but we
did not handle the change as well legal and otherwise.

(54:13):
We sat around and when I say we, I was
allowed us one on the microphone, badmouthing the ad at
way Mary and bad mouthing people dropped wrestling, and I
had no ideas on how to change that.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
I was just bitching, okay.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
So.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
Wrestling, in my mind, would be best served if we
were proactive with the tsunami of changes that are coming
our way, with nil transfers, eligibility and many other factors.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
In case anybody.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
Was wondering, there's a judge in Trenton, New Jersey this
week that is hearing a case that would eliminate four
year eligibility that in other words, Kevin, you're still eligible.
If the judge RULESO, you can wrestle next year.

Speaker 5 (55:00):
Okay, so I have to get a doublet can't wear
a single that anymore?

Speaker 4 (55:04):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
So anyway, last time I put on a single, that
was the last time I put on a single.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
Guys, Yes, exactly, yes, yes. So in other words, guys,
that'll be a show in the future because we're trying
to help what we came for the sport because match
stats and I could speak personally on this, Glenn Gormley
is concerned if we don't do anything, we will see
a bad situation.

Speaker 4 (55:30):
Okay, keV, why did you give a your you're normal?

Speaker 5 (55:34):
Starting starting on the before the Kevin notes, I wanted
to say something on that we hit that low because
they were there were there were huge changes in the landscape.
Title nine was a huge change, and the reaction to
Title nine and other elements that created some of the turmoil.

(55:54):
I think we're about to hit another period and I
think your spot on it's how we were fond to
it and and I'm looking for the show because I
think I don't think anybody really a lot of people
really understand all of the factors that they're going into
the changing complexity complexion of college sports in general and

(56:18):
wrestling in particular.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
All Right, what I hate about it, Kevin, What I
hate about it is, here's what we're going to have
to do, and no matter what happens, no matter what happens,
if they because we're we're along for the ride, really,
because we're not the ones in the meetings making the rules.
Wrestling and volleyball and hockey and track and field and uh,
you know, gymnastics raw in the back of the bus,

(56:41):
going where are we going? Let us do we get there?
Whereas you know, football and basketball are sitting there like
you're they're counting their money, trying to figure out how
we get more? How do we and then you know,
we got the nil people going, well, how do we
how do we pay for this guy that we're taking
from this school? And Okay, what's what we're gonna happen.
Here's the hard reality wrestling is going to have to
do with, especially at the Division I level. We we wrestling,

(57:04):
we are gonna have to pay for ourselves. Nobody else
is gonna sit there and pay for us anymore. We're
were sitting there, well, we should have all this, We
should have all this entitlement is over. We need to
be ready to pay for ourselves, and the time to
start raising that money was yesterday. So just remember that

(57:25):
when when it comes down to, oh, we don't have
the money, and you're worried about an nil deal dropping
four million dollars for some quarterback that may or may
not ever play a down for you and then jump
ship after a year. We can't worry about that. We
need to worry about our own and the time to
start m dowing and having our money was yesterday. We're

(57:45):
gonna we're gonna have to prepare for it. Nobody's gonna
pay for us moving forward. If we want D one
athletics for wrestling, we're gonna have to pay for it ourselves.
Be ready to be prepared.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Folks agreed to one hundred percent, Jason, one hundred percent.

Speaker 5 (58:00):
All right, let's say a recap. Penn State set the
record this year with one hundred and seventy seventeen points.
They won eighty one percent of their matches with ten
All Americans. That was on slide thirteen.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Is that good? That's that's good? Right, that's good.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
That's really good. Ten All Americans. We all remember the
last time ten All Americans is Minnesota, and they didn't
have a champion.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
They didn't have a finalist. They didn't have a finalist
that year. By the way, one thing I'm gonna interrupt
Keev's notes for one thing part of that ten All
Americans is we didn't even mention it. We mentioned, you know,
Captain America White Henderson with his great upset over Gable Steveson.
But Carter Starachi making history becoming the first five time
INCAA Division one champion. Now I have to be clarified

(58:46):
because you know, Gray won seven national titles, four an AI,
three NCAA in an era for things. But Carter is
the division one bell Weather? Was it? Bell Weather? Is
that the word we use? Glynn, I think you could
use that wasn't Yeah, Okay, car made history, So congrats
to him. You know, the scenario being what it is,
he did it. He beat a national champion to do

(59:07):
it too, so it was it wasn't easy for him.
Torn a cl last year or whatever the knee injury was,
and then Parker kickys in this year. So the guy
did it, and you can't take anything away from him,
and he was freaking good at doing it.

Speaker 5 (59:18):
He's really hard, really good.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Okay, item too Number two.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
This was the first time a sitting president attended the
NCAA Wrestling Championships. The NCWA this year had seven hundred
and fifty one wrestlers between their men and the women,
making it the largest national collegiate tournament ever. And glory
days for different sports are a matter of perspective, and
perspective can be deceiving. That was on slid twenty seven.

(59:49):
The comparison of attendance numbers from the fifties to now
in baseball and from the seventies to the current wrestling
is really eye opening. Go back and look at it.
It's between forty three, thirty four and thirty seven. Really
interesting statistics there. Number six nine different schools won national
titles and collegiate wrestling in twenty twenty five, with almost

(01:00:12):
twenty three hundred participants. The NCAA has seen a decrease
of twenty one percent of the number of teams from
eighty two to twenty four, but the numbers have increased
thirty two percent since botting them out in twenty ten,
so we are back on a growth spurt. Wrestling partition

(01:00:32):
participation growth at the NCAA level has been much lower
than men's overall sports since eighty two, eleven percent versus
eighty five percent, but wrestling participation has far outpaced overall
men's sports since twenty fifteen nine. The ascendance of women's
wrestling has been a key factor in changing the trajectory

(01:00:54):
of participation in college wrestling. And ten be like life
from the Universe, not William and Marry.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Be like life. If I could be like life, be
like I got a life scarf around here somewhere.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Okay, guys, have anything else to sayer?

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
Fights? Talk about next week's show next.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Month time I'm talked out, Okay, Kevin, I'm good.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Okay, Guys.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Next month, we're gonna do a follow up show on
the effect of the three point takedown rule and men's
NCAA Division One championships from twenty two to twenty five.
Last year, we just had a window of one year
where we had a three point rule. So this year
we're gonna do the two years previous and the two
years since, and we're gonna see what happens. And until
next month, guys on behalf of my co host Jason Bryant,

(01:01:43):
Kevin Hazard I'm Glenn Gormley and see you next month.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Se