WxP: Tom, what are your thoughts on the team date proposal, to have, instead of having back-to-back dates counting as one date, you’ll have three days to wrestle those duals counting as one date, and you’ll have four of those.
TR: I’m in favor of that, for a number of reasons. Probably the biggest reason is the opportunity for additional duals for revenue so we can go and help smaller schools, that’s probably the number one thing.
WxP: Also, you’re going to be looking at seeding up to 33 this year.
TR: I’m in favor of that as well. I think that the consensus of the group was that we should do that and I think that’s probably the most fair thing to do when you look at only seeding 16, you got from 17-33, is it really fair for 17 to have a chance to be with one.
WxP: To look back at your time as NWCA President and with the Blue Ribbon Task Force, what you’re thrilled with, what your regrets were.
TR: I think my biggest regret was to have the dual meet scenario figured out. I won’t change my belief that the dual meet is a lifeline to help us grow attendance and general fan support. There’s some RTC stuff, managing the RTC, putting some guidelines in place that are just uniform across the board that anybody who has an RTC knows about. I think the introduction and starting of a lot of teams, and this is obviously Mike Moyer and his team, the growth of the sport, and it’s great to see two Division I teams as well, as most of our growth previously has been at lower levels. Happy that Pat Popolizio, a great young coach, is in there now, and I think it’s important that coaches from the bigger conferences get involved.
WxP: And between the Blue Ribbon Task Force and the Leadership Council, where’s that going.
TR: I think the fact that we’ve gotten the ears of some people that can help us navigate through some things, and have a stronger word, I think it’s been invaluable to this point. Now, the forming of it and actually having it do things, put some things into law that helps us change the sport is what we’re looking for. The group is great, but we gotta get some things done.
Wrestling by Pirate 