New D1 Wrestling Program!

With rumors flying around about different schools and creating Wrestling programs, some get lost to wishful thinking. Then we, the faithful Wrestling community, gained a Division 1 program seemingly out of nowhere.

New York City will have a new D1 Wrestling program as Long Island Post and Long Island Brooklyn are combining to make one Long Island University. We know their colors will be Blue & Gold, there will be a student poll on mascot names, they will begin D1 competition together in 2019-20, and some teams will compete on the campuses that are about 20 miles apart placing Wrestling still at LIU Post.

LIU Post has been a Division 2 Wrestling program while LIU Brooklyn has not had Wrestling, but has been a Division 1 athletic department for all sports. This announcement says Athletics are important to their growth, and while some teams will overlap (both having Basketball teams combining to make one) they plan on bringing all sports.

This will make a third team in the New York City area. Hofstra University is also on Long Island a whole 7.4 miles away. Columbia University is in the Manhattan area so already Long Island University has two built in rivals. LIU Brooklyn has been in the Northeast Conference for most sports so it stands to reason the new program will join the EIWA.

This is exciting news. After Eastern Michigan Athletics continues to be a well-documented disaster (bad when HBO segments are about you), Wrestling has Arkansas-Little Rock, Presbyterian, and Long Island to look forward to. If all goes well, you could see all three teams have members represented at the 2020 NCAA Championships.