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Recently, Grand View University has confirmed that it will be adding a women’s wrestling program in fall 2019

Waldorf University in Forest City is the only other college in the state of Iowa that offers a women’s wrestling program. There are 25 colleges in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics that either already have or are planning to add a women’s wrestling program, according to the College Wrestling Recruiting website. In 2019 alone, at least five schools in the NAIA will be adding a women’s wrestling program

According to the NAIA’s website, there are three categories of sports. They are in order of smallest to largest: emerging, invitational and championship. A sport is considered emerging if there are 15 institutions or more participating in that sport and invitational if there are 25 or more participants. Championship status is decided after two years of invitational status. After these two years, the National Administration Council reviews the sport to see if it is ready to take on the championship status

As of right now, women’s wrestling is considered an invitational sport, a status it earned in April of last year.

The NCAA also has a women’s wrestling program. However, it is not a major sport in that division

Troy Plummer, who has been the athletic director of GV for the past 11 years, shared his thoughts on the decision.

Currently, Plummer expects to have some success and to recruit the right student athletes. He said he doesn’t have huge expectations yet, such as winning national titles, and is instead focused on getting the coach prepared and setting up the culture for the program

Getting a coach trained is one of the biggest priorities right now with forming the team. Angelo Crinzi was recently named the coach of the women’s team. Crinzi is a GV graduate, and he has been coaching for six years. He has shaped successful male and female wrestlers and sent several to NAIA and Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association tournaments each year.

Nick Mitchell is the head coach of the men’s wrestling team and has been since the program started 11 years ago. He plans on helping Crinzi set up the team.

“I’m just excited to help the new coach get off to a good start,” he said.
Mitchell said the best kind of coach is someone who puts the athletes first. He elaborated on this point, saying that this applies no matter what sport is being played.

“A good coach has their athletes’ best interests in mind,” he said. “If they’re willing to work hard and do everything in their power to help their athletes be successful on and off the mat, then things will work out just fine,” he said.

Rachel Coleck, a student at Waldorf University who is considering transferring to GV for the new program, agreed with Mitchell, saying that a solid coach for the team would be someone who is kind and hardworking.

“(Someone who) not only cares, but that has the time for his or her athletes,” she said. “I also want a coach that isn’t lazy, and so that coach would work out with us, and the coach would put in the work and effort that we’re willing to put in for him or her.”

Coleck said the success of the men’s program is a big draw for her. “They have a really good men’s team … I would believe that the women’s team that they recruit would have a lot of (great) teammates,” she said.

The men’s team has won eight national titles in a row

Kent Henning, the president of GV, also shared his thoughts on the decision.

“There were a lot of people within the wrestling community who were looking to us just because of the strength and reputation of our men’s program,” he said.

Henning also brought up the Title IX issues regarding equal opportunities and access to women athletes.

“With women’s wrestling now becoming sanctioned at the collegiate level, and perhaps sanctioned at the high school level, it would be difficult for us to claim that we’re in compliance with Title IX if we offered the sport for men, but we don’t for women,” Henning said

As a wrestling fan, Henning said he looks forward to studying any subtle differences between how women wrestle compared to men. He is also “interested in following another team.

GV has been looking at adding a women’s wrestling program for the last few years, but the biggest reason the program was not added sooner was because of limited resources. Resources such as money, coaches and even new facilities need to be added to support the new program

“We really wanted to make sure that this was something that we could support appropriately, and we weren’t just jumping in to do it just because other people were adding the sport,” Plummer said. “Since it’s not a high school-sanctioned sport in Iowa, that held us off a little bit, but now that the ball is rolling quite a bit, (and the) participation numbers are up in Iowa and a number of other states, the timing felt right to jump in.

Since seeing an increase in women’s wrestling in Iowa lately, it’s more logical now to launch the program than it was five or so years ago.

“It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to start a program that didn’t have a high demand,” Mitchell said.

But as far as making it a reality, it has been made possible in the last six months, according to Plummer.

“We’ve been noticing what other people have been doing and seeing the growth in the sport for a couple years,” Plummer said

Both Mitchell and Henning agreed with this statement.

Many students and faculty members said they believe that other colleges will follow in GV’s footsteps and start adding women’s wrestling programs at some point in the future

“I think our wrestling program, being as good as it is, hopefully that propels other universities to start the same thing,” said Danni Finn, a student at GV.

Many also believe that adding this program says good things about GV

“I think that we’re open to new ideas and providing opportunities in athletics that maybe some other institutions aren’t,” Plummer said

Connor Larson, a wrestler at GV, said it shows that our university is open to taking chances and giving as many advantages to as many people as possible.

“I think Grand View has demonstrated, and this is further demonstration, that we know how to do small-college athletics well, and hopefully that provides some leadership more broadly,” Henning said.

Not only do coaches, wrestlers and administrators approve of the sport, but students have also shown a positive reaction.

“I think it’s cool,” said Finn. “I know a few girls that do wrestling, and so I think it’s really awesome that they now have the opportunity to do that on a collegiate level.”

She also said that it shows that the school sees the equality between genders, and it makes her proud to be a Viking.

Justin Portillo, a men’s wrestler at GV, also thinks it is amazing that our university is adding women’s wrestling.

“We care about equality and diversity, and we want to give opportunities to as many people as we can,” he said. “We want to basically get a monopoly on wrestling championships. We want to be the best there is, in men’s, women’s, everything.”

Portillo also said that the first women who join the team will be pioneers for the future of the program, so they have to set a good example for any future recruits. Any recruits may see that example, follow it, and they will build off of each other.

There will likely be some difficulties that come with starting up the new team.

“It’s all going to be difficult at first,” Mitchell said. “That’s what starting a program is about; it’s tough. They’re going to have to go out and recruit hard, build a team, and build a culture … but that’s the fun part of building a new program. It’s being able to develop it the way you want it from day one.”

Mitchell has some advice for the future team on behalf of the men’s team.

“Our program has been built around living a championship lifestyle, and I would tell them to focus on that exact same thing,” Mitchell said. “If they can decide to put the same amount of effort into school, wrestling, their social life, their family life, their faith life, then everything else will take care of itself.”