Citing budget problems, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville plans to drop its wrestling program after this season.     Head coach Booker Benford said he would fight the decision.     "I don't want them to break up what we got," Benford said Wednesday. "It would be a total disservice to this university to cut this program without looking at other venues."     The 21 wrestlers in the program will not lose any scholarship aid, the university said.     Eric Hess, sports information director at SIUE, said the decision was   prompted by revenue cuts and increases in health insurance and room and board costs for athletes.     The wrestling program's budget is about $108,000 a year, Hess said. The budget shortfall in the athletic department is expected to be about $110,000.     The university began this year the first of four annual $8 increases to student fees for athletics. Each increase will generate $100,000 for the athletic department.     But Hess said that revenue would not save the wrestling program. The fee increases already are allocated, with most of the money going to basketball.     SIUE athletics director Brad Hewitt could not be reached for comment   Wednesday. In a news release he said: "This was not an easy decision, but it is the most prudent financial decision. We considered many options, including across-the-board cuts and the opportunity for additional revenue sources and decided that discontinuing the wrestling program was the most realistic option consistent with our guiding principles and strategic plan."     Hess said that the athletic department had looked at several factors in deciding to cut wrestling, including the number of teams in SIUE's conference that have wrestling, academic performance of athletes, media interest, community involvement, facility conditions and recent success.     Benford said staff members were told last week that Hewitt did not want to make across-the-board cuts to athletic programs.     "I immediately smelled a rat at that point," Benford said. He said he had confronted Hewitt and had been told that wrestling was to be eliminated.     SIUE's program dates to 1969. It won three NCAA Division II titles from 1984 to 1986 and has 19 individual championships. Benford has two of them, in 1984 and 1985.     Benford has been rebuilding the program since becoming coach in 1999. The team was rated 15th in the nation last year.     Benford noted that the team had several African-American, Hispanic and Asian wrestlers.     "Wrestling has a lot of minorities," said Benford, an African-American. "I don't see that consistent minority participation on any other squad" at SIUE.     Nationally, college wrestling programs have declined as colleges struggle to comply with the federal Title IX law, which tries to keep participation levels of male and female athletes proportionate to the enrollment of men and women.     Title IX was not cited as reason at SIUE. It does not field a football team, which can swing a college's participation level heavily toward men.     Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, said about 170 wrestling programs from junior college through Division I had been dropped in the last two decades. He said Title IX was mainly to blame.