Originally posted by

B. Tipsword

Mr. Enough,

I would like to clarify a couple of points.
1. The '06-'07 EIU wrestling roster consisted of 23 athletes, 9 of these young men had GPAs of 3.0 or better for the spring semester '07, including Mr. O'Toole's son with a 4.0 and Academic All-American Greg Perz. I cannot speak for all of the supporters of EIU wrestling, but all the supporters I know agree with your assessment of student first, athlete second.
2. The reason given by the former AD for dropping the program was that the wrestling team's poor academic performance could lead to the university losing it's D1 status for all teams for the '08-'09 school year. This statement is false. No universities are subject to this penalty until at least 2010-11 and EIU could not have possibly reached this penalty until at least 2011-12.
Should some of the wrestlers have been more dedicated to their studies? Yes. Should the program have been dropped because some student/athletes underachieved? No.

9 out of 23 having a 3.0 or better for a SEMESTER...you act as if that is a great stat to show off. Almost all teams at eiu have an average GPA above 3.0 They don't get there by simply having a few people do really well and the rest scrape by.
Because the university would not be subject to penalty until 2010, we should risk all the rest of EIU sports for the next 2 seasons? Most of the wrestlers on the team from last spring would have used up their eligibility by 2010 except freshmen. They would feel no impact if their grades did not improve from an athletic standpoint.
I think the message is what's important here. Put as much effort into school as you did wrestling and you wouldn't be in this position. You can't send a message to these kids that its okay to get bad grades and bail them out of it. These students waited too long to care about their grades and now it's too late.

Mr. Enough,

I would like to clarify a couple of points.
1. The '06-'07 EIU wrestling roster consisted of 23 athletes, 9 of these young men had GPAs of 3.0 or better for the spring semester '07, including Mr. O'Toole's son with a 4.0 and Academic All-American Greg Perz. I cannot speak for all of the supporters of EIU wrestling, but all the supporters I know agree with your assessment of student first, athlete second.
2. The reason given by the former AD for dropping the program was that the wrestling team's poor academic performance could lead to the university losing it's D1 status for all teams for the '08-'09 school year. This statement is false. No universities are subject to this penalty until at least 2010-11 and EIU could not have possibly reached this penalty until at least 2011-12.
Should some of the wrestlers have been more dedicated to their studies? Yes. Should the program have been dropped because some student/athletes underachieved? No.[/QUOTE]