Takedown Report

UW-Eau Claire wrestling moving on up to new practice room

“Well, we’re movin’ on up…” To quote the lyrics to the theme song for the popular 1970s sitcom “The Jeffersons”, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire wrestling program is moving on up in more ways than one… relocating from a lower-level facility upstairs to a new space that’s larger, brighter and better. The move actually involves two Olympic sports at the public university located in northwestern Wisconsin. The Blugold mat program is moving into what had been home to the school’s gymnastics program, which is relocating out of the on-campus McPhee Center into L.E. Phillips YMCA Indoor Sports Center as part of a partnership between UW-Eau Claire and the community YMCA.

Both wrestling and gymnastics will gain additional space to prepare for competition. As UW-Eau Claire athletic director Dan Schumacher described it: “It’s a classic win-win for both programs.” Head wrestling coach Tim Fader offered a description of the Blugold’s current home… and the new wrestling facility set to be ready this fall. “The existing room has about 2,000 square feet of space, and a low ceiling — no more than 9 or 10 feet tall,” Fader told InterMat. “It’s on the lowest floor of the building. No windows. It’s merely functional.” “The room was about right for 15 wrestlers, which is about what we had when I came here five years ago. We now have a team in the 40s, so there’s simply not enough space for that many wrestlers to work out effectively.”  Here’s how coach Fader described the challenge of a too-small wrestling room to the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram in terms even a non-wrestler could understand: “If I want to take you down, I’m going to take you down and probably run into three people that are also doing the same thing or we’re going to hit the wall. … If you put a wall right around the out-of-bounds line on a basketball court, a brick wall, and said, ‘Ok, play,’ it would change the way you play.”  “The new space has about 5,400 square feet – Rest of the story at https://intermatwrestle.com/articles/21964

May 29, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized