Takedown Report

InterMat Rewind: Looking back at first college All-Star event

TDR Notes ; We lament as well the lack of an All-Star Meet this season as there are fond memories of attending previous events.
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For more than a half-century, the NWCA All-Star Classic has been an annual event on the college wrestling calendar going back to 1967. Until this year. Last month, the National Wrestling Coaches Association announced that the 2019 All-Star event would not take place this fall.
Here’s how the NWCA announcement described the event: “Typically serving as the kick-off to the collegiate season, The All-Star Classic has matched up numerous national champions and All-Americans through the years, including many No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchups.”
Why no NWCA All-Star Classic this fall?
Here’s the explanation provided by Mike Moyer, NWCA Executive Director:
“On behalf of the NWCA Board of Directors, I wanted to let you know that we have decided to suspend the NWCA All-Star Classic for the 2019/20 year. Over the past 6 months, we have received some terrific ideas and concepts from our constituents on how we can ‘revitalize’ the All-Star Classic to meet the unique needs of our college wrestlers, coaches, and fans. Some of the proposed ideas and concepts required some extensive vetting which has made it impractical to still host the All-Star Classic this Fall…” InterMat thought the time was right to take a look back at the very first NWCA All-Star event — the 1967 East-West Classic — which took place in early April of that year.
Not always the kickoff for the college wrestling season
Although the All-Star event has been a fixture of college wrestling since 1967, it hasn’t always been the season-opening event. In fact, the NWCA All-Star Classic has been the kickoff event for only a decade-and-a-half … going back to 2005, when the event made its first appearance at the beginning of the collegiate season when held at the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville in metropolitan St. Louis. In the early years — 1967 through 1971 — the All-Stars had been the capstone event of the college wrestling season, taking place a week or two after the conclusion of the NCAA wrestling championships.  Rest of this story of reflection at http://intermatwrestle.com/articles/22530?fbclid=IwAR2gkWX2q9zVhXvDMU_BxE_SfubAoR3ZAXk8UBLNPLqX4kb3PMDJdKtbgXU

November 15, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized