By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

Freshmen have made a big impact on the Div. I college level recently, including last year’s NCAA tournament when 31 first-year wrestlers qualified for the national event in St. Louis, where four rookies also earned All-American status.

            Unfortunately, the academic side of first-year wrestlers has become a reason why wrestling ranks among the lowest-ranked NCAA sports when it comes to the scholastic element of college athletics. According to the NCAA’s Academic Performance Ranking (APR), which has measured the eligibility and retention of all Div. I athletes the past four years, the sport of wrestling has fared poorly.

            As a whole, wrestling ranks fourth from the bottom among 29 men’s and women’s sports; only men’s basketball (928), football (934) and baseball (938) had a lower four-year APR average than wrestling (941). The highest ranked men’s sports is fencing (977) while crew (985) is the highest-ranked women’s sport.

            The APR, which is basically a percentage of athletes who have remained eligible at each school, is affected by academic performance and athletes who transfer to another school. According to the APR, wrestling’s academic eligibility rating (936) is lower than our retention rating (944) and classroom performances by first-year wrestlers have affected those numbers more than anything.

            “Our incoming freshmen have high school profiles that are above average so something is happening the freshman year,” said Mike Moyer, the executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association. “That is why we are at the bottom of the APR score. The two years we struggle the most is freshman year and and with fifth-year seniors.”

            When the APR was first created by the NCAA in 2003, it was first a warning for programs to improve the eligibility and retention numbers. The NCAA is now penalizing programs for failing to meet the NCAA’s threshold rating of 925 based on both contemporaneous (current) or historical data by taking away a percentage of scholarships.

            According to the NCAA, 22 wrestling programs ranked below 925 and 15 were either penalized or put on public notice this past year. On a positive note, the number of programs below 925 was fewer than a year ago when 26 programs failed to score a 925 — Boise State, Cal Poly, Maryland and Wyoming all moved above 925 this past year — and 46 of 87 programs improved its APR, including 14 of the 22 who ranked below 925.

            But at a time when wrestling’s very existence is facing its greatest threat since Title IX first started depleting varsity programs in the 1970s, the NWCA is very concerned about wrestling’s APR — “(NCAA president) Myles Brand mentioned wrestling among the lowest sports, which is not something we want,” Moyer said — and tried to convince its coaches at the recent national convention to start acting on improving their APR standing and value at their school.

            “The theme of our convention is going to center around this concept that the NCAA only requires a school to sponsor six sports at the Div. I level,” said Moyer before the convention, which was held June 11 in Las Vegas. “On most campuses, football and men’s basketball are going to be two of them. We want to remind our coaches that when they wake up in the morning they need to ask themselves if their sport is one of the top five or six sports at their school. If it’s not,  what am I going to do to get it there.

            “It’s that plain and simple. If we are truly committed to entrenching our programs, there is no substitute to that. If you are on the other side of that fence, you better be so entrenched. It’s about so much more than wins and losses.”

            To help out in this battle of improving the APR, the NWCA has connected with the National Association of Athletic Academic Advisors.

            “Their strategies will be customized to unique situations,” Moyer said. “Unfortunately, this in not a one size fits all.”

            But Moyer also said there is one common thing for all coaches to focus on so that wrestlers don’t leave their programs before their eligibility is completed.

            “Make sure you recruit student athletes who fit the institution profile of students who do well at your school,” Moyer said. “Also, the days of mass recruiting are long gone. You have to recruit guys who you believe will legitimately help your program.”