BGSU Wrestling Taking a Major Hit

Title Nine was a huge leap for women athletes in the sixties and many thought it was an improvement within the sports world. But what was supposed to add more competition to athletics all around has actually dropped the competition level on the men’s side. Wrestling is one sport that has felt the aftershock of Title Nine in a very negative way.
Title Nine calls for the same amount of money to be distributed between men's and women's athletics. Because BGSU has a decent football program, more money is spent on that team and less funds are available for other teams. Wrestling is not the only team at BGSU that has seen their downfall due to the lack of funds.
Within the past thirty years, over three hundred collegiate wrestling programs have been dropped due to the title, and it hasn’t stopped there. On BGSU’s campus, we still have a wrestling team but it isn’t considered varsity so they receive zero money from the University. The Bowling Green State University wrestling team used to be a well established one, but now it’s all pay-to-play and it’s all because of Title Nine.
Fifteen wrestlers at the university pay around three hundred dollars just to compete. And if they make it far enough, another five thousand dollars is tacked on for Nationals. But these guys have a hard time relying on the scheduling because of Title Nine. So many schools have lost their wrestling programs; matches are dropped constantly due to money issues.
Senior and President of the team Josh Paulis had a hard time putting into words how he felt about the issue, “Yeah it’s frustrating, it really is. But I know, me personally, I can’t do much about it.”
The team suffers greatly because of the lack of funds coming their way. The guys don’t even have a place to practice on campus, so they can be found behind Bowling Green High School in a small, detached building practicing every night from 8to 10 p.m.
This has become more of a problem than anything, and those who live and breathe wrestling are looking to change it. Facebook has even been utilized to bring more awareness about the issue. Saving Wrestling is a page dedicated for an attempt at saving collegiate wrestling programs from going under due to the lack of funds giving by the schools.
Individually, a wrestler may not be able to change the title. But a large amount of people fighting for the same cause just may. “What we’re gunna do is we’re gunna establish our program here as best we can and try to get as many All-Americans as we can. We’ve had one so far… so we can establish ourselves and hopefully the University changes their minds and tries to gets us. But as far as Title Nine goes, I know me personally, I can’t work any angles over that,” says Paulis.