Eastern Illinois Drops Wrestling Program

Wednesday's Frat Boy News Daily Sports Page

Eastern Illinois University (compiled by the DEN NEWS)
A sports program that had been at Eastern for 59 seasons will not be around next year.

Last Thursday, Eastern's Director of Athletics Rich McDuffie announced that Eastern's wrestling program would be discontinued, effective immediately.

McDuffie cited the team's poor academic performance as the reason the team was cut.

Three years ago, the NCAA adopted a program called the Academic Progress Rate. The NCAA collects data on athletes' eligibility status, graduation rates and retention rates.

According to the NCAA, the APR includes a calculation that accounts for currently enrolled student-athletes receiving financial aid based in any degree on athletics ability.

"A perfect APR is 1000; the NCAA cut off is 925," McDuffie said. "All of our teams are above 925, except wrestling which is in the 800s."

For the 2004-2005 Academic Progress Rate Institutional Report, wrestling had an APR of 851, with 26 athletes represented in the data. During the same year, Eastern's baseball team had an APR of 913, with 65 athletes represented and men's indoor track had an APR of 924 with 44 athletes represented. These teams are not penalized because of "size squad adjustment."

The NCAA has collected three years worth of data on Division I teams.