What is the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Festival?
Wrestle Like A Girl has come up with an innovative solution and engagement opportunity to close the gap between high school athletes and college coaches this year.
The Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Festival, scheduled for August 17-21, will focus on creating coach-athlete connections and educating athletes, parents and coaches about wrestling in college. I.e., things like navigating the recruiting process, scholarships, freestyle wrestling, balancing academics with athletics and next steps for the NCAA among other topics.
The idea comes at a time when the coronavirus has disrupted traditional avenues for recruiting—including access to combines, tournaments and other coach-athlete touchpoints.
From Tuesday to Thursday, a portion of the virtual event schedule allows participants to break out in small group sessions with individual coaches—an intentional replication of what could be an in-person meeting or campus visit.
Attending coaches include Jason Moorman (King), Travis Mercado (Colorado Mesa), Sam Schmitz (McKendree), Nicole Tyson (Oklahoma City), Max Mejia (Augsburg), Carlene Sluberski (Providence), Kevin Corbett (Lyon), Breonnah Neal (Ferrum), Craig Jackson (Umpqua), Nick Goebel (Tiffin), Joe Norton (North Central) and Carl Murphree (Missouri Valley).
Additionally, women’s wrestling is going through formative regulatory updates, and change naturally tags along with all of the celebrated progress. With the NCAA’s recent emerging sport status milestone, and the NAIA tracking toward championship status, the sport will formally operate under the rules and regulations of their respective governing bodies.
Division formalization impacts how and when coaches can contact athletes, differences in scholarships and changes to championship events. On Monday, a portion of the festival time will be spent with a representative each from the NCAA, NAIA and JUCO’s to discuss the divisions and how they affect student athletes.
On Friday, participants will hear from women on non-traditional paths. The list of student-athlete ambassadors includes Bri Csontos (Columbia), Sandra Moon (Harvard), Marisol Nugent (Lehigh), Marlee Smith (Arizona State) and Katrin Pokalyukhin (Stevens Institute of Technology).
Registration for the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Festival remains open through midnight on Saturday, August 15, and full details are available on the Wrestle Like A Girl website.
Transition Wrestling is an independent women’s wrestling news publication.
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