Maranatha Bible Baptist College has a vacancy for their head coach position. Scott Hawes was the previous head coach. See the job posting here. Last year, Marantha had their first ever NCAA All-American as junior Ben Hoover placed 2nd at 165 lbs, compiling a 36-2 record in 2007-2008. Maranatha, located in Watertown, Wisconsin, competes in the Great Lakes Regional.
d3wrestle.com has received word that Dan Weber, 2003 NCAA champion at 165 lbs. has accepted the position of Head Coach at his alma mater Wheaton College. Weber has served as a part time assistant at Wheaton for the past five years and takes over for Seth Norton, who stepped down in June after 12 years as Head Coach.
Weber transferred to Wheaton from Indiana University and spent two years competing for the Thunder. In 2001, he placed 3rd in Division III at 157 lbs. before moving up to 165 his senior year when he was undefeated on his way to a national championship. He was Wheaton’s fourth NCAA champion.
As of today, there should be no vacancies in Division III, as Wheaton was the last of nine schools to fill its open position.
UPDATE: See the official Wheaton release HERE
Morrisville State College today announced the hiring of Mario Thomas as Head Wrestling Coach. Thomas comes from Gannon University where he was the assistant for two years. As a wrestler, Thomas was a 100 match winner for Missouri Valley. He takes over a team in its third year of provisional Division III membership. See release below.
49 states have high school wrestling. Mississippi has been the only holdout after Arkansas started up in the past few years. Now, according to WLOX, Mississippi is on the verge of starting high school wrestling. See the link below for more information. Sure, it’s not DIII wrestling, but this is an idea the whole wrestling community can get behind.
Over the past season, a number of schools changed their web site addresses. The Division III Team Sites page of d3wrestle.com has been updated to reflect these changes in anticipation of the 2008-2009 season. If any link ever fails to take you to the right destination, please contact d3wrestle.com with that information.
Tri-State University has changed its name to Trine University. They will still be the Thunder and still have 4 returning Midwest Regional Runner-Ups. The name change was effective August 1st.
After 20 years coaching in the area at the high school and middle school level, Ron Headlee moved up to take the reigns at his hometown Waynesburg University. Following his first year off from coaching as he followed the wrestling careers of his two sons, Headlee did not plan to become a high school head coach again. However, as Headlee tells it, “God opened the door for me to take over at Waynesburg University.â€Â Accepting the job in February of this year, he and John Yates, his assistant, set their first goal as filling out the roster in order to avoid the forfeits that have doomed the team in dual meets in recent years.
Click below to read the rest of the interview.
Sam Barber has stepped down as head coach at Augsburg College. Assistant Coach Mark Matzek has been named interim head coach as the national search begins.
Sam Barber Resigns Wrestling Position — Mark Matzek Named Interim Head Coach
University of Dubuque coach Jon McGovern was featured last week in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald along with former Iowa Hawkeye and current Edinboro assistant Cliff Moore. The article talks of his transition from competitor to coach following a 4th place finish at the 2000 Olympic trials.
No regrets – Wrestlers Moore, McGovern trade Olympic dreams for family life, coaching
Cornell Head Coach Mike Duroe is headed to his fourth Olympics as a member of the Team USA Coaching staff this August. As the article below details, he’s taking on double duties this time.
Cornell’s Duroe draws dual duties as freestyle wrestling coach at 2008 Olympics
A quick update while I’m at wrestling camp this week and next.
1. Jason York, a former wrestler at Boston University, has been named head coach at Bridgewater State.
2. Morrisville State College, a school soon to join DIII, has a coaching vacancy.
All for now.
Dustin Carter, a wrestler profiled here on AOL, here in the New York Times, and here on CBS, has committed to wrestle at the College of Mount St. Joseph, as reported in this Cincinnati Enquirer article. Carter was 40-4 this past season at 103 lbs., qualifying for the Ohio Division II State Tournament.
The Directors Cup is an accounting of all sports at Division III institutions where points are scored based on NCAA participation. Williams College won the cup this year for the 10th straight year. To score points in wrestling, a school must score team points in the NCAA tournament. Points are given for placing, starting with 100 points to Wartburg for first, all the way down to 21.5 points each for Thiel and Centenary, who tied for 52nd with 0.5 points.
Top Ten Schools with Wrestling Teams
1. Williams
3. TCNJ
6. UW-Whitewater
8. Wartburg
9. Cortland
10. UW-Eau Claire
11. Messiah
14. Ithaca
15. UW-Stevens Point
17. Johns Hopkins
All of these ten except Williams and Johns Hopkins appeared in the last full team ranking of the year, though Williams had two national qualifiers and Johns Hopkins had an All-American for the first time ever.
Some new video is up on the Video Page, including highlights of the NCAA tournament for Stevens wrestler Brandon MacWhinnie, the first All-American from his school.
While you’re on the video page, be sure to check out the NEWA Championship matches and several college highlight videos.
LINK TO DAILY DIARIES/BLOGS AND PHOTOS:
http://www.augsburg.edu/athletics/wrestling/08asia/index.html
Six members of the Augsburg College wrestling team are traveling to central Asia for a 15-day training, mission and service trip. Four Auggie wrestlers, two coaches and four other wrestlers will be in central Asia from May 25 to June 8, training in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and Dushnabe, Tajikistan. In addition to training and competing, the wrestlers will do mission and service work, along with visiting historical and cultural sites in the two countries.
Two-time All-American and 2008 NCAA Division III 125-pound national champion Seth Flodeen (JR, Cannon Falls, Minn.), 141-pound national runner-up Jason Adams (SO, Coon Rapids, Minn.), 141-pounder Lucas Murray (FY, Anoka, Minn.) and 141-pounder Jake Saatzer (FY, Mound, Minn./Mound-Westonka HS) will join Augsburg head coach Sam Barber and assistant coach John Peterson (a 1976 Olympic wrestling champion) in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Also on the trip will be Steve Barrett, a three-time All-American wrestler at Oklahoma State (1975-77) who currently works as a representative for Athletes in Action in Russia; Olivet College (Mich.) NCAA Division III All-American wrestlers Jason Brew (second at 157) and Kyle Vanderhyde (fourth at 174); NCAA Division III 165-pound national runner-up Ben Hoover from Maranatha Baptist Bible College (Wis.); and Ravshan Uraimov, a three-time national boxing champion from Kyrgyzstan.
This is the third time that Barber has led a wrestling contingent overseas. In 2006, Barber served as head coach of the National Wrestling Coaches Association’s Division III Cultural Exchange trip to Ukraine. In 1997, he served as an assistant coach on the NWCA Cultural Exchange trip to England.
Barber completed his first season as Augsburg’s head coach in the 2007-08 school year, his seventh year as a member of Augsburg’s coaching staff. In 2008, Augsburg finished third at the NCAA Division III national championships, marking the 20th straight year that Augsburg has placed the top four in the team standings — a record currently unmatched by any other NCAA wrestling program in any division. Augsburg claimed five All-Americans, marking the 20th straight season that Augsburg has had five or more All-Americans and 22nd time it has accomplished the feat in its 26 seasons of NCAA Division III competition.
Eagles land promising recruiting class – from the La Crosse Tribune
Highlights include 5 state champ freshman and 2 state champ transfers.
Severin Walsh Named Head Coach 
FOREST GROVE – Pacific University Director of Athletics Ken Schumann has announced that Severin Walsh will become the next head coach of the Pacific men’s and women’s wrestling program.
Walsh comes to Pacific after two seasons as the top graduate assistant coach at St. Cloud State University, a NCAA Division II program in St. Cloud, Minn. Walsh replaces Scott Miller, who announced his retirement from coaching in March after six years leading the Boxers. Walsh is the ninth coach in the history of the program.
I know it’s not Division III, but KC Star columnist Joe Posnanski wrote recently in his blog about his experience covering the 2000 gold medal match at heavyweight in greco-roman wrestling. It’s worth reading at a slow time of the year for wrestling news.
Here are two recent D3 highlight videos. Please contact me if you have one, or one is posted somewhere, for a specific team.
2x All-American and Wilmington graduate Carl Amerine was announced last week as the new head coach at Wilmington College. See the release below.
