“This started to come together through keen insight from government officials and community leaders throughout the state of New Mexico. The youth needed to be taken care of. Over the past five years, the plan they put together to start wrestling program was working and gaining momentum. All of a sudden, it was in jeopardy of being dropped five short years after it was reinstated. The wrestling program at New Mexico Highlands was doing what many other programs were not. They were gaining prominent recognition at the NCAA Championships with their first NCAA Champion, Seth Wright. Both Wright and Coach Moses are putting NMHU on the map,” said legendary coach Dan Gable.
In 2005, legislative appropriations allowed for the reintroduction of wrestling to NMHU along with the creation of women’s rodeo. The problem was that this funding over the past five years has been dwindling. With the current economic situation throughout the country, it was only getting worse.
Mike Lujan, a high school teacher and wrestling coach for the past 28 years, is a tireless advocate for the opportunities that wrestling will give the youth of New Mexico as they get older.
“It is extremely important for New Mexico to have wrestling; this is our only collegiate program in the state. I would do anything for the sport of wrestling because without it, I feel that I would not be where I am today.
In fact, I would probably be dead or in jail,” said Lujan. “Wrestling provided me the opportunity to go to college and become a teacher and a coach. Since receiving my teaching degree, I wanted to be able to give that opportunity back to the youth of New Mexico. Every state in the country is broke in this economy and this is not where cuts should be placed. This changes our country’s future by affecting the youth,” said Mike Lujan.
To Lujan, there was no other time than the present to get the ball rolling. He began making calls to key people within their state government in the hopes they could find a way to overturn this decision. He also organized a group of 180 people to go sit in on the Board of Regents meeting.
One of those people that Lujan contacted was State Senator Phil Griego, Senator Griego knew the background of the program at NMHU and did not want those opportunities to be taken away from the youth of New Mexico. Senator Griego had to act fast as it was two days before the Board of Regent’s vote. He made personal calls to each Regent as well as to the NMHU President. He eventually was able to get a 30 day reprieve so he could raise the funds necessary to keep the program.
Governor Bill Richardson played a large part in saving both women’s rodeo and wrestling. Having started an initiative to get the youth more involved in rodeo, saving the rodeo program was also important to him. He was able to allocate $100,000 toward the women’s rodeo program at New Mexico Highlands. That money was commingled with NMHU institutional funds so both save both programs could be saved.
“When I thanked the Board of Regents for making this decision, I wanted to make sure they realized what a powerful choice they had made for these future New Mexico Highlands students. To me, education and athletics go hand in hand. If you deplete one or the other, nothing works properly. At Highlands, the wrestling team gave New Mexico kids the hope of getting a wrestling scholarship to New Mexico Highlands. That, in turn, allows them to also obtain a college education which they otherwise might not have access to,” said Senator Griego.
Coach Gable continued, “This program is working in every way and has so many positive things coming from it. The only natural thing to do is to keep it going. To do so, it is going to need consistency to keep it going for years to come. This is still a challenge to make sure that this is not going to be a yearly happening due to lack of funding; NMHU needs longevity and planning to secure this program. Thank goodness for the relentless efforts of Coach Lujan, Senator Griego, Coach Moses, and the NMHU administration to save the program this time around.”
Building champions is exactly what this program has been doing in its very short five year history. Since the wrestling team was reinstated they had success both on the mat and in the classroom under head coach Doug Moses.
This year, they celebrated with their first Division II NCAA Champion, Seth Wright, who joins three other Cowboys who have earned All-AmPhilan status five times since 2005. Coach Moses has also had ten wrestlers achieve NWCA Division II All Academic honors to top off their list of accomplishments since becoming a Division II program.
“I am eternally grateful for the support of the state legislature and the New Mexico Highlands University administration for their efforts to save my wrestling program. This will enable our NMHU wrestling team to continue to provide quality educational and athletic opportunities for countless “in state” high school wrestlers throughout New Mexico,” said Coach Moses.
As states all around the country are facing tough economic times, it is important to realize that cutting back opportunities for youth is not the answer to the problem. It will more than likely create many long term problems down the road. In New Mexico, there are 1,461 high school wrestlers and only one “in state” college for them to compete at after high school.
“We dodged a bullet this time around. We can never let this happen again. Not at NMHU or any other college that sponsors wrestling. It is important for all of us to position every intercollegiate wrestling team to reduce its dependency on institutional funding with outside support from alumni, camps, clinics, and the wrestling community in each region. The NWCA looks forward to working with Coach Gable, Coach Moses, the New Mexico wrestling community, and the NMHU administration to develop a fundraising model that will protect the wrestling program indefinitely,” said NWCA Executive Director, Mike Moyer
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