MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - The nine-time NCAA Division III national champion Augsburg College wrestling team's visit with President George W. Bush at the White House in Washington, D.C., has been postponed from this Thursday (9/8) until Wednesday, Oct. 12, college officials have announced.

The visit has been postponed from this week until October because of the recent events involving Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast area.

Nine wrestlers from the 2005 NCAA Division III national championship squad will be honored by the President in the ceremony on Oct. 12, along with members of the coaching staff and Augsburg President Dr. William V. Frame.

It will mark the first time that an Augsburg team has ever been honored at the White House, and it will be just the second time a national championship college wrestling team has ever been honored by the President. The 2001 University of Minnesota Division I national championship team was the first college wrestling team to receive the White House honor.

Over the last three decades, Augsburg has established itself as a national power in small-college wrestling. Augsburg won its ninth NCAA Division III wrestling national championship in the last 15 years in 2005, claiming 10 All- Americans, four individual national champions and two national runners-up. The Auggies finished 14-1 in dual meets in the 2004-05 season, while also claiming the NWCA Division III National Duals title for the second time in the tournament's four-year history.

The nine team national titles is an NCAA Division III national record. Augsburg has had top-two national finishes in 15 of the last 16 years, top-four national finishes the last 17 seasons in a row (the only NCAA wrestling program, regardless of division, that can make that claim) and top-20 national finishes every year since 1971.