An open letter to Northern State University, the City of Aberdeen, the SDWCA and the South Dakota Wrestling Community

There are no selection show Sundays. There are no office pools on Cody Pack's chances at the Championships. Wrestling is difficult arduous sport from the time you pick up a headgear to the day you hang it up. There is little glory. Stands are usually empty with just the cheering of families and a few friends. Lessons are learned with your face in the mat or counting the lights. I often found the center of the mat was the greatest solitude I could find. The quiet muffle of the crowd making it through my headgear to my ears. A zen quality of thinking of your next two or three moves and the simultaneous reaction of the body putting those into action while processing what an opponent is currently doing. The delirious feeling of giving it your all, and sometimes your arm not being raised despite all your effort. It is living in the moment while thinking of the future and forgetting the past.

In recent years, the sport has taken a bashing, sometimes even by me. It has gotten better in aspects that shouldn't be part of the sport but have been integral to it's past and the old school ways of thinking concerning nutrition. It has fought it's way back from extinction from an Olympic Committee that would rather put more obscure sports in action than a rich history of tradition.
In our own microcosm of the world the wrestling community has been setback by the recent decision of Northern State University to halt the program for "study". I don't believe anyone is buying that. However, the quick reaction for consideration of the SDWCA is to cancel the State Youth Tournament in Aberdeen, SD next year. The tournament was a request by the NSU wrestling to have as a fundraiser for it's scholarships. Think about that! A university reached out to a youth program in order to save it's program. Smartly(can't remember if that's a word, but I wrestled.), the SDWCA agreed to do that in order to protect the sport it nurtures in youth across our State. What a great idea! Unfortunately the unfortunate happened, the NSU program was put on the chopping block. At least it got a courtesy excuse, unlike University of Nebraska-Omaha which was just summarily executed alongside it's football program. UNO had a very successful program, so the NSU excuse of 2 bad years doesn't hold much weight with me either.

Now, I have laid the ground work of the problem. I can see why the SDWCA is thinking about the decision to remove the tournament from Aberdeen. On the surface this looks like a reasonable request. However, wrestlers and their communities are tougher than that. We can not simply take our headgears and go home when things get tough. If the University is serious about a "courtesy study" then a committee of concerned wrestling parties should be formed. Frame the beliefs that wrestling deserves to be part of the University still. A solution should be found. If this wrestling team is that important then we should be looking to help still run this tournament in Aberdeen and as a complete community raise funds to help with scholarships to maintain the continuation of the program. Not just NSU, but all the colleges in the state maintain a program. I do not know where all the funds go for all the clubs, but combined we should be able to create some sort of scholarships for our South Dakota Wrestlers to attend university in pursuit of knowledge and to compete. This could help us retain the best of our wrestling talent instead of them leaving the state to represent other colleges. Should the tournament be held in Aberdeen and NSU fails to reinstate the program then funds raised should be disseminated in a fashion that benefits the sport as a whole in the state.

Facebook posts and petitions are nice, but funding is funding. Coaches in every sport and at all levels of education know this to be true. To protect this sport that so many of us grew up. Now we are passing on to our children, because we know it to be one of the purest sports out there. No ball, no pads, we all weigh the same(in theory anyways), just skill, desire, determination and work. We must truly combine the talents we all forged through wrestling and have taken into our adult lives and come up with a better solution than "let's just move the tournament". NSU may be the first shot fired, there are more Universities and more programs at stake. If we retreat in the face of this adversity, then every college knows that we are not just measuring our support with the number of facebook likes and twitter reposts. True support is measured in dollars whether through funding or butts in the seats. A hard truth, brutal but true. Wrestling is very much like life, you reap what you sow. The wrestling community cannot afford to let another program shutdown with barely a fight. Simply moving the tournament is barely a fight and will sow the thought process that this is alright. Supporting the sport needs to happen with calm, reason, and  viable solutions.

(I decided to use this blog for an editorial opinion piece, which is really not it's purpose per se. It is to work on my writing ability, so I kind of hit the objective. Also, I'm not a narcissist so I can't always write about myself. )