Men's College wrestling in Texas facts

- There has been college wrestling in Texas on the varsity level in the past. In fact, the University of Texas and Texas A&M once fielded varsity wrestling programs.

- In 1928, Ralph Hammonds of the Univ. of Texas was an NCAA Div. I runner-up at 175 pounds.

- The last two varsity programs in Texas were a junior college, Richland College in Dallas, and LeTourneau University in Longview, which competed in the Christian College Nationals. The final season the Richland program competed on the varsity level was 1984. The final season that the LeTourneau program competed was 1985. This means that when the new program is started in the 2010-11 season, it will have been 26 years since Texas has fielded a varsity college wrestling team.

- Many native Texas wrestlers have competed in college wrestling, with some achieving All-American status on many levels. According to WrestlingStats.com, eight different Texas natives have won 11 NCAA Div. I All-American honors in wrestling.

- The most prominent is Amarillo native Brandon Slay, a two-time Div. I runner-up for the University of Pennsylvania, who went on to win a gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia in freestyle wrestling at 76 kg.

Women's College wrestling information

- Women's varsity college wrestling began in the mid-1990's, when the Univ. of Minnesota at Morris was the first college to start a varsity program.

- Women's freestyle wrestling was added to the Olympic Games in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. It was also contested at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China and continues on the Olympic program.

- Texas is one of three states which host an official girls high school wrestling championships, along with Hawaii and Washington. California hosts two official sectional wrestling tournament (North and South) each year. Other states are considering adding girls wrestling on the high school level. There are more than 6,000 girls competing in wrestling in U.S. high school programs.

- The U.S. has won three Olympic medals in women's freestyle wrestling. One of the medalists attended high school in Texas, Randi Miller of Arlington. She is also a product of women's college wrestling. She wrestled on all-women college varsity teams at Neosho CC (Kansas), MacMurray College (Illinois) and with the USOEC program at Northern Michigan Univ.

- Women's college varsity wrestling is conducted in freestyle, and is managed by the Women's College Wrestling Association (WCWA). This organization hosts the WCWA Women's College Nationals each year. The returning champion is Oklahoma City Univ.  

- Women's College programs in the WCWA this year include: Univ. of the Cumberlands, Jamestown, King College, Lock Haven, Lindenwood, Menlo College, Missouri Baptist, Missouri Valley College, Oklahoma City Univ., Univ. of Regina (Canada), Simon Fraser (Canada), USOEC- Northern Michigan, UW-River Falls