By Bobby Narang
Aurora University is taking a step forward at a time when some colleges are choosing to take a step back in athletics.
In late March, the Aurora University athletic department announced it would add men’s and women’s wrestling to increase the department to 24 collegiate sports.
It will be the first time the Aurora University Athletic Department has offered women’s wrestling, and will be the return of the men’s program after a 35-year hiatus. Both wrestling programs will compete in Division III starting with the 2020-2021 season.
“We are thrilled that women’s and men’s wrestling will be the newest programs at AU,” said assistant vice president/director of athletics, Jim Hamad in a statement. “It is exciting to be a part of both the rapid growth of women’s wrestling and the steady resurgence of men’s wrestling. We have been able to start new programs that quickly find success in recent years and we are confident that our wrestling programs will follow a similar time line. Our goal is to become successful in the competitive national wrestling landscape.”
With the coronavirus pandemic dominating the headlines and putting all sports, high school, college, and professional, to a halt, the news about two more programs in the western suburbs received little fanfare (see The Voice, April 2 issue). There are just less than 450 high schools in Illinois that offer boys wrestling, thus giving Aurora University a fertile ground to find quality student-athletes to restart its program.
According to the school’s release, The Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association (WCWA) governs women’s wrestling and has overseen the national championships since 2008. A total of 59 collegiate institutions fielded varsity women’s wrestling teams in 2019-2020.
Women’s wrestling recently was approved as an emerging sport by the NCAA committee on women’s athletics and will be added to the NCAA emerging sports lineup August 1, a huge step toward evolving into an NCAA championship-level sport in the future. Currently, intercollegiate women’s programs compete in National Collegiate Championship in March.