The University of Iowa, which competes in the Big Ten Conference, will become the first Power 5 school to add a women’s wrestling program, it announced last week.
The team is slated to begin competition in the 2023-24 season; a head coach search will begin this fall.
Iowa has long been a powerhouse in men’s wrestling, winning its 24th national title last season. The school is breaking ground on a new 37,000-square-foot wrestling facility — with an estimated price tag of $17 million to $20 million — in 2022.
Athletic Director Gary Barta said Iowa had been discussing adding women’s wrestling for years, but talks were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the university also had to add a new women’s sport as part of the settlement for the Title IX lawsuit filed by women’s swimmers after their team was initially cut during the pandemic. Along with women’s swimming and diving, the school eliminated men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis, and men’s swimming and diving — the women’s team was the only one reinstated.
“In general, it was about Title IX, and specifically it was about adding women’s sports, the counting of women’s sports,” Barta said, according to the Associated Press. “We had already agreed on reinstating women’s swimming permanently. Part of the agreement was adding a women’s sport, and we chose women’s wrestling, for all of the obvious reasons.”
The new women’s wrestling team will be able to offer 10 scholarships and is expected to include 30 to 35 athletes total, the AP reported. The addition will bring Iowa to 22 sports teams: eight men’s and 14 women’s.
There are 45 women’s wrestling teams in the NCAA currently, and 32 states have sanctioned state championships for high school girls’ wrestling. The association added women’s wrestling (as well as tumbling and acrobatics) to its Emerging Sports for Women list across all three divisions in 2020.
Sports on that list can eventually try for championships status. Past sports that have made that leap include water polo, ice hockey, rowing, bowling and beach volleyball.
This is fantastic. Way to go Iowa!
Why is this on this site?
Wrastling can be a great spectator sport…with they have a ring, smash chairs over heads and talk trash?
Once every 4 years in Iowa & it gets worldwide attention . However in 2020 Blue team winner was not announced or something & claims of rigging .
It set the scene for all such comps that year.
Hopefully 2024 will be back to participants eating corn dogs & patting hogs.
don’t let this man distract you from the fact that in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.
Add men’s swimming back and I’ll be impressed.
Glad to hear they balanced that $70 million budget deficit that forced the swimming teams to be dropped
Hey Pete Kennedy….
Does this surprise you?
Why would you add a sport that has zero other power 5 competitors and not one that already does? Makes no sense
Interesting. As I recall Iowa was a leader in girls high school sports. Not where I expect this kind of innovation to come from, but good for them! And shame on me for my narrow views on the state.