Wrestling

Wrestling first began as an intercollegiate sport at Centre College in the 1968-69 season under coaches Briscoe Inman and Steele Harmon. A team had actually practiced the previous year on a non-intercollegiate basis, participated in three scrimmage matches, and sent four wrestlers to the College Athletic Conference meet. The team practiced and held matches in a space in the basement of Alumni Memorial Gymnasium, with a capacity for 125 spectators. Few students had ever seen a wrestling match before, and an article in the student Cento about the inaugural 1968-69 season found it necessary to explain the basic rules of scoring. The sport never gained in popularity, and in a state where wrestling wasn’t a major high school sport, the team suffered with small numbers of participants. By 1975 there were requests to upgrade soccer from a club to an intercollegiate sport. At a time when the college found it necessary to maintain a no-growth athletic budget, there was not enough money to fund both. Prior to the 1975-76 year, Centre decided to drop wrestling in favor of soccer, a sport that was gaining in popularity in Kentucky high schools. During its short history, the wrestling team won 32 matches, lost 42, and tied 2.