All-American Crookham Enters the Transfer Portal

Earlier this week, we wrote about a pair of assistant coaching moves. It’s the season for such movements. Another staple of the offseason in this new era of collegiate athletics is the transfer portal. The offseason got a major boost with All-American Ryan Crookham’s surfacing in the portal. InterMat has confirmed that Crookham is in the portal.

Crookham was a third-place finisher at the 2024 NCAA Championships for Lehigh, his hometown team. In just his second tournament for Lehigh, Crookham announced himself to the collegiate wrestling world by upsetting the returning national and world champion, Vito Arujau. Crookham remained undefeated for the duration of the regular season and added a second win over Arujau in the EIWA finals.

The EIWA title gave Crookham a #2 seed for his NCAA Tournament debut. Arujau got revenge when it counted; however, Crookham rebounded and defeated Nasir Bailey for third place.

Since the 2024 NCAA Tournament, Crookham has only seen action in 11 matches. This year, Crookham made his season debut in January and defeated the eventual Ivy League (Tyler Ferrara) and EIWA champions (Max Leete) in his first two duals. Unfortunately, he was injured later that month at the Bloomsburg Open and lost for the year.

If healthy, Crookham could be another intriguing piece to what was an electric 133 lb weight class.

Before coming to Lehigh, Crookham was a three-time Pennsylvania AA state champion at Saucon Valley and Notre Dame-Green Pond.

The interest in Crookham should be very strong from schools throughout the country. We’ll track this story as it develops.