Women’s wrestling is considered one of the fastest growing sports in the nation, and now Colorado Mesa University will be adding the first inaugural team in the fall of 2018, making it the only RMAC school to do so. This decision was made over a month ago, so just where is the school in their process of getting the program on track?
As of recently, there is no head coach selected for the program, however, the athletic department has been interviewing candidates and are nearing their final decision.
“The search for a head coach is in process right now,” Co-Athletic Director Kristin Mort said. “[This] week we will have some candidates on campus and from there we should have most of our searches wrapped up. We should have a head coach ready to be named close to the first of May.”
CMU is looking for a coach that has had experience in the sport. Women’s wrestling is a relatively young and fast-growing sport, as it would provide a great base and support for the women that will join the team next semester. Someone that would know how to coach, recruit and budget the team would be high on the candidate list.
At the same time they have been looking at hiring a new coach, CMU has been adding to the actual roster as well. Recruiting from women from CMU to outside the school have been taking place so that when the program starts, there will be women to participate in the sport.
According to the National Federation of High School sports, women’s wrestling is the fastest growing girls sport in the United States at the youth level, so statistically there is a pool to recruit girls from.
“The athletes are out there,” Mort said. “There are 15,000 high school women athletes out there in the United States, to think if we pick up 25 to 50 of those young women that maybe never dreamed of an opportunity to wrestle, in college, on an all-female team. The establishment of the sport at the collegiate level is just taking off.”
Come next semester, the program won’t start as a NCAA sport. It is instead declared as an emerging sport instead of an official NCAA sport. For it to become a NCAA sport, 40 NCAA colleges will have to make programs for Women’s Wrestling so that there can be a league for the sport. If there is not enough schools to do so in 10 years, the sport will most likely become a club and/or intramural sport. This happened to Women’s Rugby and is why CMU’s team is not a NCAA sport.
“We were one of the first and we hope to see other schools add,” Mort said. “We are the only school in the RMAC adding women’s wrestling at this time and are hoping to be trail blazers and trend setters and maybe create some followers so there are other collegiate programs near us.”
If it becomes a NCAA sport, there will need to be six schools in the RMAC for there to be a Women’s Wrestling RMAC conference, but the emerging sport has to get enough traction for that wo happen in the first place.
The Women’s wrestling program is well under way to start in the Fall 2018 semester. With athletes joining, naming a head coach in May and lighting a fire for the progress of this sport in the nation the program shows promise. Only time will tell if it becomes an official NCAA sport before the emerging sport is forced down to club or intramural levels.
