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St. Thomas dropping wrestling

Dear Reverend Dease,

I understand your position you have taken in regards to dropping some of your athletic programs. I realize your commitment to high academic standards and the strain there must be to balance the budget in today's economy. However, there are two things that are still of concern to me.

First I noticed that there are no programs in women's athletics being dropped although I would guess there would be some that are in similar financial struggles. Is there reason for this or are they all able to "balance the budget" in a way that they do not "outpact the income" for other programs?

Secondly is the disregard for the wrestling community's willingness to help fund the program until it can reach the more financial and competitive status that you are looking for. This in no way would dilute the programs you have currently, infact it may cause other programs to take notice and seek funding of their own, lessening some of the financial burden on your department.

I would suggest that in most cases, it takes money to make money. Your wrestling program has been underfunded for many years and this fact alone has had a great impact on the success of your program. It is remarkable that they have had any success with the financial backing that they have been given. In order to hire, support and keep good coaches at the collegiate level you need to also do your part by showing them your commitment to the program both spiritually and financially. This has not been the case for quite some time. I am still wondering why the school will not allow the wrestling community to help support the program at UST. If your motives are strictly financial, as they seem to be, then please allow us to do our part and help preserve and protect the great sport of wrestling.

I appreciate your intentions of supporting the MIAC's petition to the NCAA to keep the conference as a qualifier. However, I'm sure you also realize how unlikely it will be that the NCAA will make provisions for these remaining teams. Your decision could potentially have a major impact on the other programs of the MIAC as well as the future of wrestling in Minnesota. Don't let this happen.

I urge you to reconsider the options set before you by your student athletes, alumni, and the wrestling community and give this program the opportunity to continue its rich tradition.

Respectfully yours,

Mitch Hegland
Head Wrestling Coach
Eden Prairie High School

Thank you for writing to express your concerns about the University of St. Thomas' decision to eliminate its men's varsity wrestling program as well as its men's junior varsity programs in ice hockey and soccer. The decision to eliminate these programs has been revisited by the President's Staff and by me, and has been reconfirmed.

We have made this decision only after careful consideration based on the university's primary mission of undergraduate and graduate education; the program priorities within the Department of Athletics; the need to reduce our budget to ensure that expenses do not outpace income; and the determination that all internal and external sources of funding should be used to support central university priorities.

We are strongly committed to maintaining and strengthening our excellent varsity sports program. However, over the last several years it has become clear that we lack the resources to develop wrestling into a top-quality varsity program. The decision to eliminate wrestling will enable us to concentrate on supporting our other varsity teams. Were we to reduce support for all teams in order to retain wrestling, we would dilute the quality of our entire varsity program.

Using the same criteria, we have concluded that the junior varsity programs in men's ice hockey and soccer do not have a substantial enough impact on our ability to field high-quality varsity teams to justify their considerable expense.

I want to assure you that our decision to eliminate varsity wrestling should not have a negative impact on the MIAC conference. We are completely prepared to support MIAC in seeking a waiver from the six-school rule.

The University of St. Thomas fully believes in the importance of sports as a co-curricular activity that helps our students build character, confidence and leadership. In addition to our varsity teams, we will continue to offer a full range of intramural and recreational sports opportunities for our students.

Sincerely,

Reverend Dennis Dease
President

In an effort to try and understand their message as clearly as possible I rephrased to him what I thought I was hearing.

I said you're telling me that St Thomas' position on this is, the program is still dropped, the school is not willing to commit the resources to make this work and, even in the face of the precedent set at St Olaf, St Thomas is not willing to let us help fund the program..is that correct...his answer was Yes.

The message was tough to hear but we can't give up yet. They are wrong to let this program go and we need to let them know that again. Starting immediately let's begin a new round of phone calls to the president on down.

Let's ask for a meeting with him in the interest of making sure he understands what this is going to do wrestling in Minnesota. As always don't be the bystander. Don't assume someone else will call...this is no different than a wrestling match they are trying to take something away from us, from all of us, ask yourself "are you willing to just stand by and watch it happen" get involved and make the calls!!!

We are planning to get something going on campus and will need your involvement there also. Tell everyone you know to call!!!!

Jason O'Brien

1. I was at the meeting (heard about the out come) and it's great to see that the University is willing to move forward to save the wrestling program.
2. The support for this program is tremendous form the wrestling community and they are ready to help in anyway. There were hundreds of people at the meeting and hundreds more that were asked to stay away. In my opinion this can be a win/win for everyone especially for the students of St Thomas, alumni, parents.
3. It seems to me (my understanding) that there are alternatives to dropping this program and one has risen to the top:
   1. Allowing the wrestling community to raise the money to fund the program the next 3 years. We would work with the school in regards to a time frame and if we get started early could have the funds by the last day of school--Friday May 18th
   2. This will give them time to work toward a long term solution like an endowment
4. What also impressed me is that the leadership of the current program is asking to be held accountable to a number of short term goals that would measure their progress:
   1. 20+ wrestlers in the room--25% of them Scholar All-American
   2. Field a full team at the MIAC Conf Tournament every year
   3. Top 3 in the conference every other year at a bare minimum--obviously striving for more
   4. Send wrestlers to nationals 75% percent of the time---3 out of next 4 years
5. Thanks for your time I am behind this all the way and will have renewed faith in the University of St Thomas if they move in this direction and try and save this program

EVERYONE SHOULD BE CALLING TODAY

Presidents Staff:

Greg Roberts g9roberts@stthomas.edu 651-962-6120

Doug Hennes dehennes@stthomas.edu 651-962-6402

Doctor Judith Dwyer jadwyer@stthomas.edu 651-962-6525

Terrence O'connor tloconnor@stthomas.edu

Ralph Pearson rlpearson@stthomas.edu 651-962-6720

Father Dennis Dease djdease@stthomas.edu 651-962-6120

Call all these people--for those without #'s--962-5000 for info----REMEMBER PHONES ARE NOISIER THAN E_MAIL

Below is the e-mail address and phone number to the President of the University, if you could take just a few minutes to write or call it would be a great help, a couple of key points to make would be...

1. You are a wrestling fan and realize the impact that this decision would have on College level wrestling in Minnesota as well as high school programs across the state.
2. That you believe fund raising would be easily achievable and a simple solution for the money problem in the athletic departments.
3. That varsity athletics at a college level are key components to a well rounded education.

The President of the University is Rev. Dease, his e-mail address is djdease@stthomas.edu his phone is 651-962-6500

Please remember to be positive in any comments that you make. Please keep in mind that you are not only helping St. Thomas, but state wide wreslting. You would also be helping me in a huge way!!!!

Thanks for your time and help!

Mitchell J. Becker

This decision may have very big ramifications to our program at St. John's, wrestling in the MIAC, and national implications. The MIAC has six schools that still sponsor the sport of wrestling. If St. Thomas drops their team, the MIAC could possibly no longer sponsor a championship for the sport of wrestling.

In the larger national picture. If St. Thomas drops wrestling our conference championship, if it remains a championship, would no longer be a national qualifying tournament because it has less than six teams represented. (Based off past success at the NCAA championships, the MIAC currently has the second highest number of qualifiers to the national tournament of any qualifying tournament). Without St. Thomas, the remaining MIAC schools would now be required to compete at a regional tournament in order to qualify to the NCAA Championships. Because Wisconsin and Iowa both qualify through their conference tournaments (as did the MIAC) the remaining teams in the MIAC would be required to join the Great Lakes or Midwest Regional Qualifying Tournaments. This regional is made up teams from Illinois and Michigan and would require considerable additional expenses to our teams that would now have to travel and compete in this tournament in order to qualify to the NCAA Championships. How will these additional travel costs be perceived by other MIAC schools? Will this be the excuse they need to drop their wrestling programs as well?

We need to make a stand now, just as we did a few years ago when they attempted to drop the wrestling program at St. Olaf. The students, parents, alumni of St. Olaf united along with support of the other wrestling programs in the MIAC to make enough noise that they reinstated the sports programs they intended to cut. We must do this again. Next Tuesday, May 1st, there will be an open meeting to address this issue. The meeting will be held at 7:00 PM in Murray Hall (3rd floor) on the campus of St. Thomas. Murray Hall is located by O'Shaughnessy Stadium. Park in the athletic parking lot and walk through the link between their locker room and their basketball arena and continue east. I've been told you will run right into it. I will try to have as many of our athletes attend this meeting as possible, and I've been told that Dan Gable, J Robinson and Mike Moyer from the NCAA have been invited and hope to attend.

If you can't attend this meeting, you may contact Steve Fritz, St. Thomas Athletic Director at 651-962-6120 or by e-mail at sjfritz@stthomas.edu and Greg Roberts, V.P. of Student Affairs at 651-962-6120. It is important that both of these individuals know that their decision to cut their wrestling program affects more than just their athletes, and saving this program in important to the larger wrestling community.

Please pass this information on to as many SJU alumni or other individuals you may know that would be willing to support our efforts to keep wrestling alive in the MIAC.

John Elton,
Wrestling Coach
St. John's University