DazeofGrace

Ok, so I took a min to clean up what I was posting. So here is a small list of the college forums. Hope this helps. Oregon State Benny’s House (BeaverBlitz) – https://oregonstate.rivals.com/ North Dakota State Bisonville (Bison Bill’s) – https://bisonville.com/ Iowa Hawkeye Nation – https://forum.hawkeyenation.com/forums/wrestling.8/ Penn State BWI (Blue White Illustrated) – https://pennstate.rivals.com/ Iowa State CycloneFanatic – https://cyclonefanatic.com/forum/ Oklahoma State GoPokes (247 board) – https://247sports.com/college/oklahoma-state/board/ OStateIllustrated – https://oklahomastate.rivals.com/ Michigan The Wolverine – https://michigan.rivals.com/ Ohio State BuckeyeGrove – https://ohiostate.rivals.com/ Nebraska HuskerOnline – https://nebraska.rivals.com/ Minnesota GopherIllustrated – https://minnesota.rivals.com/ The Guillotine – https://theguillotine.com/The-Guillotine-Forum/ Wisconsin Buckyville – https://buckyville.yuku.com/ Arizona State SunDevilSource – https://arizonastate.rivals.com/ Missouri PowerMizzou – https://missouri.rivals.com/ Rutgers Rutgers On3 Wrestling Board – https://www.on3.com/boards/forums/rutgers-wrestling-forum.346/ Cornell BigRedBears – https://bigredbears.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=14 Virginia Tech The Key Play – https://www.thekeyplay.com/ NC State Pack Pride – https://247sports.com/college/north-carolina-state/board/ North Carolina InsideCarolina – https://www.insidecarolina.com/boards/ Lehigh Lehigh Wrestling Forum (Intermat subforum is most active) – https://intermatwrestle.com/forums/forum/ Pittsburgh PantherLair – https://pittsburgh.rivals.com/

Millions of forums bud…not just wrestling. Happy to provide yours and a few others. Bennyshouse.com thematclub bisonvilleforums Sdsuwrestling fans The guillotine Wiwrestling wyowrestle Usawks hawkeye nation bigredbears intermat Oklahoma st, Michigan, Ohio st reddit r/wrestling let me know if you’d like more.

Are guys seriously trying to imply I’m some other random on a message board? That’s hilarious. For what it’s worth, I’ve never been on the intermat forums before the other day and my initials aren’t JC but keep guessing.

1000%. This is what I’m saying.

You don’t get to call something a ‘known fact’ right after failing to prove it, that’s not how arguments work. I addressed your claim directly & showed your own example doesn’t support it. Instead of engaging with that, you’ve now moved to ‘we don’t need to prove it,’ which is just another way of saying you can’t. If you want to argue a different issue, go ahead…but don’t pretend you’ve established this one when you haven’t.

You keep arguing ‘they can’t read,’ but you haven’t shown that’s what admissions is evaluating, or that it’s even true at admission. What school is testing for this before admitting, can you tell me? You’re just repeating the same claim without supporting it. It’s almost as if you aren’t reading what I’m saying to you.

You’re still arguing past the actual point. That report doesn’t show unqualified students are being admitted instead of ‘more deserving’ ones, it shows that some athletes struggle academically after admission. Those are completely different claims.Admissions decisions are made using minimum academic thresholds plus additional criteria (like athletics). Once admitted, whether a student succeeds academically is a separate issue entirely, and one that affects non-athletes too. So citing post-admission academic struggles doesn’t prove athletes are ‘taking spots’ from more qualified students, it just shows some admitted students need support. That’s a retention and development issue, not an admissions one. Unless you’re now implying that these universities know about an individuals reading level prior to admission. You’re treating outcomes as if they were selection criteria, and they’re not the same thing.

Hey thank you. Really appreciate that.

This is sure to ruffle some feathers but let’s take a different angle at this. We keep circling back to HS numbers and saying California and other populous states have so many more wrestlers. I’d think it’s worth noting that while that increases the possibility of high level wrestlers it also increases the number of lower level wrestlers. Here are the numbers at NCAAs this year based on who was there. Just something else to consider.

Also, not for nothing, but is this what you’ve been reduced to? Pointing out when I was added to this board. I mean I’ve seen weakness before, but wow….bless your heart.

Guess that means I was born yesterday. Even funnier if that was the case. The new guy just came in and you got checked . Take the L son.

You went from making a claim, to getting it dismantled, to changing the subject entirely. That’s not a rebuttal, that’s an exit.

You didn’t make an argument, you replaced one with a cartoon version of reality because it’s easier to attack. No one is admitting students who ‘can’t read or spell.’ That’s something you invented, and it collapses immediately under even minimal scrutiny. Admissions has never operated as a single-axis ranking of ‘smartest applicants.’ Universities deliberately construct classes across multiple forms of merit; academic, athletic, artistic, and institutional priorities. Athletes aren’t ‘taking’ spots from stronger students; they’re being evaluated under criteria the institution explicitly values. So the actual question is whether you agree with how merit is defined. Instead of addressing that, you substituted a fictional extreme to avoid the real discussion. When an argument only works after you distort reality and is so extreme, it’s not an argument, it’s an admission that you don’t have one.

I guess you didn’t know that this isn’t the only forum that exists. That is adorable. I’m trying to white glove this so as not to shock you out of your seat, it isn’t. In fact, sit down before you read this part, there are millions of them. AND….those have hundreds of millions of threads.

So we’ve gone from an argument to “sometimes / often” & random stereotypes. Got it. You still haven’t addressed the actual point, admissions are not one single academic leaderboard where athletes are “stealing” spots. Schools build classes intentionally, & athletes are one of the categories they choose to admit. And now you’re down to “athletes can’t read” and “don’t go to class”? That’s not an argument, that’s just lazy, outdated nonsense. Are there athletes who don’t care about school? Sure. There are also non-athletes who cheat, skip class, and do the bare minimum. That’s not unique to athletes, & pretending it is just shows you don’t have anything real to stand on. You keep saying “they take spots from smarter kids” but you can’t actually explain how, because it’s not how admissions works. At this point you’re not debating the system, you’re just repeating talking points and hoping they stick. You’re not making a case, you’re just lowering the quality of your argument in every reply.

Nothing gives me more pleasure on these boards than reducing a guy who perceives himself as smarter or behaves more aloof, to posting little kid memes. You just made my night.

You’re asking the question like all spots are the same, they’re not. Schools don’t have one big pile of “academic spots” that athletes are stealing from. They build a class with different buckets; academics, athletics, arts, diversity, etc. Athletes aren’t displacing top academic admits, they’re being admitted for a different role the university intentionally values. By your logic, musicians are “taking spots” from smarter kids. So are legacy admits. So are students with unique backgrounds. That’s not how admissions works. And calling them “smarter kids” like the only metric that matters is GPA/test scores just shows you don’t understand what schools are actually building. Athletes aren’t sneaking in. They’re recruited on purpose.So no, they’re not taking spots. You’re just misunderstanding how the system is designed. You’re arguing like there is one bucket or scoreboard, there isn’t.

Posting a meme instead of responding is basically you conceding. Varsity Blues was people FAKING BEING ATHLETES because they couldn’t get in on their own. That’s not athletes taking spots, that’s non-athletes committing fraud to access a lane they didn’t earn. So your entire example actually proves my point. If athletes didn’t have real value in admissions, nobody would’ve needed to pretend to be one. You started with a take, got corrected, and now you’re hiding behind a picture because you don’t have an argument left. We’re done here.

You’re confidently wrong here. Varsity Blues didn’t expose athletes “taking spots”, it exposed rich families faking athletes because they couldn’t get in otherwise. That’s the entire point. Those kids weren’t competing, weren’t training, and in many cases never even touched the sport. They were frauds, not athletes. So using that as evidence against actual athletes makes zero sense. If anything, it proves the opposite, that being a legitimate athlete has real value in admissions, which is exactly why people tried to cheat their way into that category. And let’s stop pretending this is some accidental loophole. Schools intentionally recruit athletes because they bring value to the university revenue, visibility, alumni engagement, campus culture. They’re not “stealing academic spots,” they’re being admitted for a different set of qualifications, just like any other specialized admit. You’re taking a fraud case and trying to stretch it into an argument against real athletes. That’s not being honest about what happened, it’s just forcing a narrative. Sorry my font is triggering you.

Varsity Blues isn’t really the example you think it is. That scandal wasn’t about athletes taking spots, it was about wealthy non-athletes buying their way in and using fake athletic credentials as a loophole. If anything, it proves the opposite point: schools value athletics enough that people were trying to exploit it. And yeah, athletes in some sports get admissions consideration. That’s not some hidden flaw, that’s by design. Universities aren’t purely academic institutions, they’re building entire campuses, cultures, & programs. Athletics is part of that whether people like it or not. But even if you want to go down that road, it still doesn’t answer the original point. This started as a financial argument, whether programs like wrestling are worth having. Shifting it to admissions standards doesn’t really change the economics of it. And lumping all sports together doesn’t really work either. The NIL/transfer chaos you’re talking about is heavily concentrated in football and basketball. That’s not what’s driving decisions around sports like wrestling. At the end of the day, schools clearly don’t operate on a simple “profit only” model, or most of these programs wouldn’t exist in the first place.

You’re shifting the argument now. Originally this was about whether wrestling is financially worth it. Now it’s about athletes “taking spots” from academic students. Those aren’t the same conversation. If we’re talking admissions, schools admit athletes ON PURPOSE. It’s not like they’re sneaking in &stealing seats, rosters are built into how universities structure enrollment. In a lot of cases, athletes actually help balance enrollment targets (especially male/female ratios) and bring in tuition that wouldn’t otherwise be there. And the idea that it’s mostly “lower qualified” athletes taking spots doesn’t really hold up, especially in sports like wrestling. A lot of these kids are strong students, and many are paying significant tuition themselves. As for NIL& transfers, yeah, that’s a separate issue across all major sports, but that’s mostly impacting football and basketball. It’s not really a driving factor in whether sports like wrestling should exist or not. So if the original point is still about whether programs like wrestling are worth having, none of that really changes the core reality: schools aren’t running athletics as simple profit/loss businesses, and cutting programs doesn’t automatically put them in a better financial position.

To hear you tell it, wrestling should just cease to exist because it isn’t revenue positive. If that’s the standard, then only football and basketball should exist, right? Or maybe that’s not actually how college athletics works. A lot of these so-called “non-revenue” programs are tied directly to enrollment. Those athletes are still students paying tuition (often out-of-state), and they help fill roster and enrollment spots schools actually need filled. On top of that, wrestling isn’t some massive financial drain, its overhead is relatively low compared to most sports, which makes its return on investment a lot better than people assume. So it’s not just a “cost” sitting on a balance sheet. In many cases, it’s part of the school’s broader enrollment and funding strategy. Cut a program like that, and you’re not just saving expenses, you’re also losing tuition dollars, alumni engagement, and donor support that doesn’t just magically get replaced. You’re looking at it strictly from a profit/loss standpoint, but universities don’t operate that simply.

So without the players the schools would still generate the same revenue? You say some absolutely wild things on here. And frankly you sound like someone in admin. No one loves how it is now, but kids have been getting monetized and programs pocketing for years. There is a reason even the Supreme Court agreed and made the decision they did.

Your tax dollars . You don’t have the first idea where your tax dollars go. Sit down. It literally isn’t your business because it doesn’t affect you one way or the other. Much better to let the universities monetize the players. That makes way more sense.