UTD wrestlers coming along in first year  By Brian Honea    RICHARDSON - The National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA) is comprised of non-varsity teams not affiliated with the NCAA, NAIA or NJCAA.  But one would never know that by watching one of the NCWA's newest teams, the University of Texas at Dallas.    UTD qualified five wrestlers for the NCWA Championship Tournament, which the school has hosted in each of the last two years.  Last year, UTD featured a looser, less organized version of a team and did not qualify anyone for nationals.  For the 2004-05 season, UTD brought Head Coach Shawn Wilson and Assistant Coach Dennis McGrane on board and became more serious about wrestling.    "We started out with 13 kids and we ended up with five," Wilson said.  "Dennis and I treat this as a Division I sport.  We don't treat it as a 'club' atmosphere, like this organization (the NCWA) is.  A lot of kids don't have that mentality to stick with a Division I team.  The five that are remaining here today do have the desire to win and to stick it out."    Those five are Dylan Sheppard and Clay Silver (both at 133 pounds), Chris Boyd (157 pounds), Jesse Hale (174 pounds) and Thomas Gravitt (heavyweight).    "People who want it will stay, and people who don't will leave," said Sheppard, a senior from New Jersey who had been out of wrestling for four years before UTD formed a team.  "And they won't be allowed in. It's that simple. Even though we're an organization right now, we've got to be strict."    The five UTD wrestlers met with varying degrees of success Friday in the first day of the national tournament.  Sheppard won one of his matches by fall in 58 seconds and Hale won one of his matches 12-0.  This may be an indication that the team may be ahead of the coach's set pace as far as building a competitor.    "Both Dennis and I have about a five-year plan," Wilson said.  "It's going to take about five years to really get this program up to where it's a competitive NCWA team."    Sheppard credits his coaches for the UTD wrestling team's success in its first year.    "They are in here just as much as we are," Sheppard said.  "They sacrifice their time, if not more than we do. We have people who come in to help us from just work.  They know people on the team or people that are coaching.  They'll come in to work out with us on their own time."    One of those is Alan Smith, a former high school and college wrestler who comes in to work out with the UTD wrestlers several times a week.    "The wrestling down here in Texas is growing, and you need some experience in order to bring up the level of competition," Smith said.  "It's really helped out by getting some experienced wrestlers in the room working with them, like Shawn and Dennis and I."    Wilson said UTD's success all comes down to that five-year plan.  One year down, four to go.     Bad hair days lead to good days on the mat  By Brian Honea    RICHARDSON - The Barber of Seville is in the house for the University of Central Florida wrestling team.    Senior education major Jayson Patino, the Southeast Conference champion in the 165-pound weight class, cuts hair in his spare time.  He simply applied his shears when the members of the UCF wrestling team decided they would use haircuts as a way to symbolize their camaraderie and team unity.    UCF is competing this weekend at the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA) Championships at the University of Texas at Dallas, trying to defend their national championship.    "Bad haircuts were the theme last year," Patino said.  "We had kids with mullets, kids with Mr. T haircuts and it was pretty bad.  This year we decided we'd go with Mohawks and moustaches.  Most of the kids got Mohawks but couldn't get a moustache.  A few of us got the moustache. Some people got the Mohawk and the moustache.  The Mohawk seems to be the popular item."    Patino said the most unusual haircut went to sophomore Paul Rothenberg, who donned the "old man" look by shaving just the top of his head to give the appearance of a receding hairline.    "That was the weirdest haircut we'd ever seen," Patino said.    The "bad haircuts" theme did not originate as such.  According to Head Coach Johnny Rouse, the wrestlers agreed at the beginning of the season to let their hair grow and not cut it all season long.    "Some of the guys chickened out, because their hair looked really bad," Rouse said.  "And then they came up with this (bad haircuts theme) at the hotel last night.  A couple of guys did it before we left Orlando, then last night, Jayson Patino whipped out the shears.  What they have here is what they ended up with."    If the UCF wrestlers believe sharing bad haircuts (or no haircuts at all) leads to greater camaraderie which in turn leads to greater success when competing on the mat, it showed last year at the NCWA Championships.  UCF won the team national title and produced three gold medalists and three runners-up.  At this year's Southeast Conference Championships, UCF boasted eight champions and three second-place finishers.    They are not just successful on the mat, however.  The seven seniors on UCF's team have an average GPA of 3.7.    "I think it definitely has to do with team unity," Patino said.  "They're all willing to volunteer to let us do this to their hair.  It's hilarious.  They like it. They feel like a team, because it's something different."    The haircutting tradition began some three years ago, right after student interest in wrestling had led to the revival of the long-since-done-away with wrestling program at UCF.  Rouse came out of retirement to voluntarily coach the team and promised his kids he would bleach his hair if he won the NCWA's Coach of the Year award.    He did not win the award for the 2001-02 season, but he proceeded to win it in each of the next two years.  Despite not winning the award that first season, Rouse bleached his hair blonde, but got more than he bargained for.    NCWA Finals set for 4 p.m. Saturday at UT-Dallas    RICHARDSON, Texas - It started out with 90 teams and more than 300 wrestlers. By 4 p.m. Saturday, it will be down to just 22 wrestlers competing for 11 individual national championships.    The finals of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association will begin at 4 p.m. Saturday in the gym at the University of Texas at Dallas.  The tournament began Friday morning with wrestlers competing from such teams as Yale, Auburn, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Kansas State, UTD and the defending national champion, the University of Central Florida.    The NCWA hosts a popular national championship for colleges with non-varsity teams not affiliated with the NCAA, NAIA or NJCAA. The NCWA was founded by Jim Giunta eight years ago as a way to help to teach athletes how to approach their schools and get wrestling recognized as a sport.    This is the second year in a row that UTD has hosted the tournament.