Cleveland State to Drop Wrestling

Cleveland State announced on March 30th, that they intend to stop funding Varsity Wrestling for the 2016-17 season and in turn fund Men's Lacrosse. It's reported that the initial plans were to fund Men's & Women's Lacrosse for the 2016-17 academic year, but with financial concerns they just decided to drop wrestling instead. 

There is so much wrong in that first paragraph I just don't know where to begin. There were many great points that came out of the rage of the announcement. Many people pointed out the Athletic Director and his wife have both been Lacrosse coaches and they would do anything to get Lacrosse at Cleveland State including axing a program in an area where wrestling is extremely popular. 

Mark DiSalvo (@markjdisalvo) pointed out for 2013-14 in Ohio High School 10,668 schools sponsored wrestling with 269,514 participants. Lacrosse is just sponsored by 2,535 schools with 106,720 participants. Jason Bryant (@jasonmbryant) states that Ohio State has 85 Lacrosse players (including men & women) and only 10 are from Ohio.  

I feel really bad for the coaches, athletes, and alumni at Cleveland State that are victims of an administration pushing their personal agenda while not giving a damn about the hard working guys that have represented their school for decades. However, I have mixed feelings about any calls to arms to fund a program at Cleveland State. If that's who the administration is, then wrestling is to good of a sport to have at that institution. Maybe we can do what the Maryville did when Nebraska-Omaha inexplicably canned the program the night of them winning their 6th of the last 8 national championships. Maybe we can, as a wrestling community, essentially move the program to a more deserving school in the area and pitch in to fund it. Maybe that is wishful thinking, but part of me hates to think wrestling money will be going to a school that could allow this to happen.