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Crowds Miss Winning Team
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by Terry Day
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| It is really tough when SJSU has a winning team and hardly anyone on this campus pays attention. |
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| That, in a nutshell, is the problem of the Spartan wrestling team. |
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| After a disastrous start the Spartans have won their last 14 dual meets, including a close 21-19 cliffhanger over
rival Fresno State. |
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| The most distressing fact for the Spartans is that the crowds have been very small and the student support has
been close to nil. |
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| A rationalization for the lack of student involvement is..."who puts money into wrestling when basketball
is the dominant winter sport?" |
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| UCLA, who does put a lot of money into basketball, has an annual operating budget of $100,000 which includes 19
full scholarship grapplers. |
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| Cal is another West Coast school that goes in for wrestling in a big way. Their budget runs $42,000 per season
with 10 scholarship grapplers. |
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| These are just two of the many NCAA institutions that recognize wrestling can be a profitable program. |
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| Schools east of the Rockies have made wrestling into a big campus activity that draws thousands of students. |
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| The University of Iowa, alone, can draw 13,000 fans for one match. But the West Coast is floundering in its wake. |
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| At the last Spartan match against Fresno the crowd was the usual handful of fans. Most of those were parents and
friends...hardly anybody came just to see how good the Spartans really are. |
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| But what can SJSU do to build its program to equal that of Cal or UCLA? |
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| It is obvious that the financial situation is an entirely different story, but student involvement is what can
turn the program around. |
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| If students realize that SJSU is WINNING, then there may be a re-evaluation of winter priorities. |
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| Right now, the Spartan grapplers are in the driver's seat as as another PCAA title is concerned. They also have
some genuine potential for the NCAA finals next month in Aames, Iowa. |
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| It is hard to believe that students at this school complain of losing teams, then when one team begins a winning
streak, it is ignored completely. |
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| Maybe SJSU should look at wrestling as a potential money maker, rather than a sport to fill the gap left by basketball. |
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