NCAA women’s wrestling: Understanding recent milestones
WOMEN’S WRESTLING is not recognized by the NCAA as a championship sport, yet.
Likeminded individuals and organizations have laid the foundation—Wrestle Like A Girl, the National Wrestling Coaches Association, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, USA Wrestling, the National Collegiate Wrestling Association and other key stakeholders. These organizations have synced up and continue to collaborate on the multifaceted initiative of bringing women’s wrestling into the NCAA.
The distinction of being named a championship sport under the NCAA umbrella supports the growth of the sport and expands opportunities for women wrestlers.
Sally Roberts, Founder and Executive Director of Wrestle Like A Girl, has largely spearheaded and coordinated the NCAA efforts in conjunction with efforts to sanction girls wrestling at the interscholastic level—two vastly different initiatives with great reliance upon one another.
This article takes a 10,000-foot view of the details behind the recent steps toward championship status, the development of the NCWWC tournament and the steps required to obtain championship status.
The information below was gathered through a number of conversations and press releases that have been verified by the WLAG organization.
CWA Recommends Women’s Wrestling for Emerging Sports for Women Program
In early June, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics (CWA) made the recommendation that all three divisions of the NCAA governance structure add women’s wrestling to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program.
The recommendation signified a green light to build and submit bid packets for each divisional governance committee (I, II, III) to support the recommendation—moving it toward the vote for emerging sport status at January’s NCAA convention.
The CWA plays a critical role in the guidance and support of the administrators working group during the development of appropriate legislation, bylaws and the formation of women specific support structures. Oversight by the CWA helps position the sport for acceptance by the divisional governance committees with a lower chance of opposition.
After the recommendation, Sally Roberts stated: “We are hopeful for a positive outcome as inevitably adding women’s wrestling will increase opportunities for young women to pursue educational and athletic goals without sacrifice to one or the other, and strengthen the fabric of campuses and greater communities given the beautiful qualities that the sport of wrestling brings.”
Formation of Working Groups
Just days after the CWA’s recommendation, NCAA administrators met in Orlando to discuss and develop a strategic plan to position women’s wrestling to reach emerging sport status.
The NWCA press release stated: “The plan calls for the working group to develop a road map that mirrors the NCAA Bylaws (compliance, eligibility, etc.) so that transitioning to an NCAA championship sport will be smooth and seamless.”
The working groups can be thought of as teams with separate objectives working together toward a common goal.
Once the NCAA has 40 programs that sponsor women’s wrestling the sport is able to apply for championship status. With that number quickly approaching it is essential that programs are equipped with the necessary tools and training to make the transition that meets compliance under NCAA guidelines.
NCAA Administrators Working Group
The NCAA administrators working group is comprised of NCAA administrators that may or may not be at schools that currently have women’s wrestling. The main focus of this group is to work closely with the NCAA CWA to compose the language for bylaws and legislation within the bid packet for submission to the appropriate governance committees up for vote in January. The WCWC provided a loose structure for the group to work with, but are hands-off, allowing administrators to construct language that will be supported on the convention floor with as little pushback as possible.
The Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Coalition
The WCWC is a group of representatives comprised of national stakeholders, coaches, administrators and athletes. The collective mission of the organization is “To bring the sport of Women’s Wrestling through NCAA emerging sport status to become a fully sanctioned NCAA championship sport.”
The WCWC was developed in response to the NCAA CWA’s need for 1) transparency into the intentional development of women’s wrestling, 2) a place to witness program and prospective athlete support and 3) a verification hub for the number of member institutions, roster sizes and contest results.
According to the WCWC, women’s wrestling will remain freestyle using the same ten weight classes, is to be contested as a winter sport and legislation will closely mirror that of men’s wrestling. A full view of what women’s wrestling looks like as defined by the WCWC can be found, here.
Impact for the 2019-20 Wrestling Season
For the most part, the 2019-20 season will continue without drastic changes on the mats. Things to be aware of:
- NCAA programs will compete in a separate division at the NWCA National Duals
- NCAA programs may choose to allow their WCWA memberships to expire and not compete at the WCWA National Championships in February
- NCAA programs are encouraged, but not required to attend the NCWWC tournament in March
- NCAA programs wrestle freestyle, with the exception of most NCWA club programs
- NCWA member schools as members of the WCWC are able to compete in the NCWWC, and club programs may transition to varsity sports in the near future
NCWWC Tournament Scheduled for March
NCAA administrators at the meeting in Orlando, “emphasized the need to continue to provide an opportunity for all women competing at NCAA institutions to have a collegiate national championship experience while waiting for the NCAA process to be completed.”
The National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championship is an invitational tournament hosted by the major stakeholders driving women’s wrestling to the NCAA: The WCWC, USA Wrestling, The NWCA, Wrestle Like A Girl, etc.
If everything goes according to plan, the NCWWC should only be in existence for one year—2020. It is the most closely aligned version of a championship tournament for NCAA women’s wrestling until the sport reaches emerging sport or championship status and moves under the NCAA’s umbrella.
Reaching Championship Status
If the January vote on the NCAA convention floor across the divisions is, “yes,” emerging sport status for women’s wrestling goes into effect August 1, 2020. From there the sport has ten years to reach the 40-program mark and apply for championship status.
At the current growth rate of women’s wrestling programs, the sport could have its own official NCAA championship event as early as March 2021.
At that point, all three divisions would compete in a single championship event until each division reaches their own 40 programs. I.e., if Division II reaches 40 programs before Division I or III, Division II would have its own divisional championship while Divisions I and III continued competing against each other.
Getting Involved
On a call early in September, Sally Roberts said, “We haven’t gotten information out of our wrestling nucleus.” Noting that a large amount of “yes” votes are from programs that already have women’s wrestling.
“We need to make sure that the schools that don’t have women’s wrestling are just as informed as the schools with women’s wrestling and by virtue of that it’s going to help grow the sport, create more opportunities and there are going to be more administrators that potentially could see adding women’s wrestling as their sport,” said Sally.
Bringing women’s wrestling into the NCAA is a collective effort. Want to step into the arena? Send a few emails of your own or use pre-written templates created by Wrestle Like A Girl. If your state doesn’t have sanctioned girls wrestling, find info here. If there is a college near you that you’d like to see add a women’s wrestling program you can use the template created for contacting DI athletic directors, here.
Transition Wrestling is incredibly excited for the future of women’s wrestling. We’re happy to play our part in the process as we share stories of effort and excellence from within our great sport.
“We all have to do our due diligence and talk and share so proudly and so loudly about the beauty of women’s wrestling.” — Sally Roberts
Let’s make it happen, together!
First time here? Transition Wrestling is an independent women’s wrestling news publication.
