D1 Tarleton State (TX) has a Head Coach?

[Tom formerly Tofurky]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=787248713408695&set=a.436045331862370&type=3&ref=embed_page

[SetonHallPirate]

Yep! Congratulations to Grant Leeth!

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

This will help amateur wrestling at the national  level, too.    Next up:  Dallas Baptist U?   

[Corby]

Sounding like NCWA as a club team for now. They gotta raise over a million then will be D1

Edited October 10, 2023 by Corby

[Tom formerly Tofurky]

1 hour ago, Corby said:

Sounding like NCWA as a club team for now. They gotta raise over a million then will be D1

Grant has his work cutout for him. That is not an easy way to start attracting D1 talent, unless they have a VERY defined timeline towards making that happen.

[Idaho]

20 minutes ago, Tom formerly Tofurky said:

Grant has his work cutout for him. That is not an easy way to start attracting D1 talent, unless they have a VERY defined timeline towards making that happen.

Agree... hard to expect a D1 level guy to make a commitment to a club team hoping to become D1. 

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

For inspiration, UNC Chapel Hill's NCAA D1 wrestling program (which placed 12th this past season and with an NCAA champ from Illinois if I remember correctly) started off as little more than a club program.   Their head coach, Bill Lam, was a marketing executive for Procter & Gamble (I think I read) at the time, too.   But he took the lead and the club members improved while trying to build a tradition of excellence for incoming recruits to follow and build upon.   That approach worked.    

    Coach Lam (originally from Oklahoma, I seem to recall) met with longstanding Carolina backers and they helped him resolve some challenges that he perceived having.   Scholarship money became increasingly available.   Weather was also a marketing attraction.   They even started scheduling home meets near the Carolina ticket booth right before basketball game days so lots of students would happen to pass by and discover wrestling.    Around 85% of UNC's student body is from North Carolina.   Meanwhile UNC periodically won the NCAAs in b-ball, as you recall.   

     I wish I could find that perhaps 20 year old article which described the abovementioned info.  This might be it, but I don't presently have a reader for its format:

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/19690520/why-coach-lam-and-carolina-wrestling-are-synonymous
 

Edited October 10, 2023 by TitleIX is ripe for reform

[SetonHallPirate]

4 hours ago, TitleIX is ripe for reform said:

This will help amateur wrestling at the national  level, too.    Next up:  Dallas Baptist U?   

If Dallas Baptist were to start a wrestling program, unless they moved their entire athletic department to Division I, DBU would be a Division II program.

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

Maybe the note I saw an ally leave in another forum was inspired by how California Baptist U. converted its wrestling program into D1.    Houston Christian University (formerly Houston Baptist) is already D1, by the way... 

Here's info. on the college wrestling club scene in Texas nowadays:  

http://www.ncwa.net/teams 

Edited October 10, 2023 by TitleIX is ripe for reform

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

Coach Lam has stated elsewhere that for UNC's first match with him at the helm, five people were in the "crowd".    

"If I would've looked back 30 years ago, after the first match, I would've said what have I done and left." 

https://goheels.com/news/2002/11/21/205484038.aspx

[billyhoyle]

34 minutes ago, TitleIX is ripe for reform said:

For inspiration, UNC Chapel Hill's NCAA D1 wrestling program (which placed 12th this past season and with an NCAA champ from Illinois if I remember correctly) started off as little more than a club program.   Their head coach, Bill Lam, was a marketing executive for Procter & Gamble (I think I read) at the time, too.   But he took the lead and the club members improved while trying to build a tradition of excellence for incoming recruits to follow and build upon.   That approach worked.    

    Coach Lam (originally from Oklahoma, I seem to recall) met with longstanding Carolina backers and they helped him resolve some challenges that he perceived having.   Scholarship money became increasingly available.   Weather was also a marketing attraction.   They even started scheduling home meets near the Carolina ticket booth right before basketball game days so lots of students would happen to pass by and discover wrestling.    Around 85% of UNC's student body is from North Carolina.   Meanwhile UNC periodically won the NCAAs in b-ball, as you recall.   

     I wish I could find that perhaps 20 year old article which described the abovementioned info.  This might be it, but I don't presently have a reader for its format:

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/19690520/why-coach-lam-and-carolina-wrestling-are-synonymous
 

The article you linked implies that it was part of the ACC for 20 years prior to his arrival.  Of course, it also highlights how he turned the program around in his time as a coach. 

Turning "Tarleton State," which few people outside of Texas have ever heard of, into a successful program is a completely different challenge. Why is Tarleton State the place where there is now support to start a program...Is there any chance at Texas A&M, Rice, Texas Tech, UT Austin, Baylor, etc? Or is the plan that once Tarleton state has a program, it could motivate some of the more marquee Texas universities?

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

Maybe Tarleton State U. wants more achievement-oriented students, which wrestlers tend to be.   I've been looking for their enrollment figures and it seems that they accept 57% of applicants.   U. of Texas @ Austin's % is around 29%.      Here's contact data for Coach Leeth, soon to be joined by student participants' names, weights and college records (etc.), by the way:

https://ncwa.net/teams/tstu

    R/e UNC, though, I just found this interesting series of statistics to supplement what you shared above:

"Lam took over the Carolina wrestling program in 1973-74. Prior to his arrival, the Tar Heels had never won an ACC championship and had only two winning seasons in the previous quarter century. Carolina won 11 matches in Lam's first year, four more than it had won in the previous four years combined. In 1979, his sixth year at UNC, the Tar Heels won their first ACC championship and placed 17th at the NCAA Championships. "

 https://goheels.com/news/2002/4/16/205462640.aspx

Edited October 10, 2023 by TitleIX is ripe for reform

[SetonHallPirate]

5 hours ago, billyhoyle said:

The article you linked implies that it was part of the ACC for 20 years prior to his arrival.  Of course, it also highlights how he turned the program around in his time as a coach. 

Turning "Tarleton State," which few people outside of Texas have ever heard of, into a successful program is a completely different challenge. Why is Tarleton State the place where there is now support to start a program...Is there any chance at Texas A&M, Rice, Texas Tech, UT Austin, Baylor, etc? Or is the plan that once Tarleton state has a program, it could motivate some of the more marquee Texas universities?

Getting an FBS school (and especially an A5 school, which all of those schools you mentioned except Rice are...all of them are FBS) to start a program is like expecting a unicorn to wish upon a shooting star that you'll win Powerball this Wednesday...it's completely unlikely to happen. Tarleton is a smaller Division I school (in fact, they're still within their transition period...2023-24 is their last year of their transition), and as such, their required fundraising level to start a program is much lower.

Further, as I mentioned in a previous thread, you have to go back to 2016 for the last time a non-FBS Division I school dropped wrestling (Grand Canyon). Priorities, put simply, are a lot different at non-FBS institutions than at FBS schools.

[Warm Up Champ]

14 hours ago, Tom formerly Tofurky said:

Grant has his work cutout for him. That is not an easy way to start attracting D1 talent, unless they have a VERY defined timeline towards making that happen.

Did Grant want to leave Stanford or was Ayres not going to retain him?

[Tom formerly Tofurky]

2 hours ago, Warm Up Champ said:

Did Grant want to leave Stanford or was Ayres not going to retain him?

I do not know that, but I have to imagine that the lure of becoming a head coach of a(n eventual) D1 program is appealing to a young coach.

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

10 hours ago, SetonHallPirate said:

 Tarleton is a smaller Division I school (in fact, they're still within their transition period...2023-24 is their last year of their transition), and as such, their required fundraising level to start a program is much lower.

Is that by law or simply a pragmatic reality?   Will matters get much worse once the transition concludes?   Sigh...  At least we still have the NCWA.   

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

12 minutes ago, Tom formerly Tofurky said:

I do not know that, but I have to imagine that the lure of becoming a head coach of a(n eventual) D1 program is appealing to a young coach.

Meanwhile it has to be appealing having the opportunity to help bring D1 college wrestling back to life in the region.    Neighboring Louisiana apparently lacks D1 wrestling just like Texas, and nearby Mississippi barely even has high school wrestling (and has no D1 wrestling).   Furthermore, to the west, I'm not aware that neighboring New Mexico has D1 college wrestling, either.   Tarleton State is rather centrally located for that underserved land mass.   It can inspire the growth of our sport at various levels.   Coach Leeth is from Missouri, by the way, but reportedly he almost wrestled at Duke instead of Mizzou.   Injuries and bad luck repeatedly set him back.   May he flourish at Tarleton State.   Incidentally Schreiner U. (in Kerrville, Texas) started off as an NCWA club program (for men & women) about a decade ago and then successfully transitioned to D3.   

[drwemitchellca]

Who's Stanford replacing him with?

[Corby]

Brucki is heading to Stanford with Ayers

[Corby]

18 minutes ago, TitleIX is ripe for reform said:

Meanwhile it has to be appealing having the opportunity to help bring D1 college wrestling back to life in the region.    Neighboring Louisiana apparently lacks D1 wrestling just like Texas, and nearby Mississippi barely even has high school wrestling (and has no D1 wrestling).   Furthermore, to the west, I'm not aware that neighboring New Mexico has D1 college wrestling, either.   Tarleton State is rather centrally located for that underserved land mass.   It can inspire the growth of our sport at various levels.   Coach Leeth is from Missouri, by the way, but reportedly he almost wrestled at Duke instead of Mizzou.   Injuries and bad luck repeatedly set him back.   May he flourish at Tarleton State.   Incidentally Schreiner U. (in Kerrville, Texas) started off as an NCWA club program (for men & women) about a decade ago and then successfully transitioned to D3.   

Grant did do a year at Duke as a RS

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

Thanks for sharing that detail.   An article I read on his injury-plagued history yesterday leaves it out by simply mentioning his having had plans to wrestle for Duke only for the family to turn around and for him to wrestle at Mizzou instead.       

[SetonHallPirate]

2 hours ago, TitleIX is ripe for reform said:

Is that by law or simply a pragmatic reality?   Will matters get much worse once the transition concludes?   Sigh...  At least we still have the NCWA.   

Just pragmatic reality.

Talked to an A5 University Vice President at the NWCA Convention over the summer and asked him what it would take to start a program at his institution, let’s just say the number they asked for was a kick-rocks number.

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

Why so expensive?   I recall the U. of Oregon's demand for something like $60 million a few years back.   I call that a "pound sand" number.     I understand that they want an endowment so that funding won't be a problem.  But I also understand that lean operations can be cost-effective.   NCWA club programs prove it time & time again.       

[SetonHallPirate]

11 minutes ago, TitleIX is ripe for reform said:

Why so expensive?   I recall the U. of Oregon's demand for something like $60 million a few years back.   I call that a "pound sand" number.     I understand that they want an endowment so that funding won't be a problem.  But I also understand that lean operations can be cost-effective.   NCWA club programs prove it time & time again.       

The number this VP quoted to me was more than that.

But I suspect most A5 schools don’t want to start programs unless they have a shot at a national championship. Simply “existing” is not a goal for them.

[TitleIX is ripe for reform]

That's a shame, on various levels.   Thanks for sharing those insights (as always).