Wrestling that is. Having long cried foul when gender equity kicked in in intercollegiate athletics, it seems that wrestling is making a comeback.
The Georgia state legislature is looking to boost wrestling in the state by "encouraging" Georgia public colleges to institute intercollegiate wrestling. Such encouragement actually makes some sense, if there are as many high school wrestlers in the state as the legislature claims. With currently no wrestling programs at state schools, any wrestler wanting to wrestle in college has to go out of state. The resolution the legislature has drafted to officialize the encouragement, however, does not really seem to have much bite to it. The legislature is not offering any kind of incentive or funding if public colleges do implement intercollegiate wrestling.
As reported earlier, wrestling at Bucknell started its comeback this year due to a donation from a wealthy alum who wanted the school to bring back the sport. The hook of this article is the dominance of the revived Bucknell program against the doomed JMU program which reminds the anti-Title IX wrestling supporters that all is not right in intercollegiate wrestling. But the article also notes that, since 1999, nine previously terminated wrestling programs have made a comeback.
And it appears that women's wrestling at the college level may be an emerging trend.
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