From: John Welty [mailto:johnw@csufresno.edu]
Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 12:47 PM
To: don@2squires.net
Cc: tboeh@cvip.net; bmosher@cvip.net; pladwig@cvip.net; mnelson@cvip.net
Subject: Re: Fresno State Wrestling

Mr. Squires,

Thank you for your message.

Athletics Director, Thomas Boeh, has been faced with an extraordinarily
difficult decision. The action is a significant component of a long- range
strategic plan for the continuing success of Fresno State athletics. The
department has not been able to balance its operating budget for the past
several years. In 2005-06, the average NCAA Division I-A athletics
department budget was $32.3 million, compared to Fresno State's $22 million.
This action helps ensure that the university's athletics programs can be
sustained at a highly competitive level into the future.

The university is very concerned about the impact on student-athletes.
Scholarship offers to returning student-athletes and incoming freshmen who
have signed letters of intent will be honored until they have completed four
years of school at Fresno State or transfer to other institutions. Affected
student-athletes will continue to have full use of training and academic
facilities and may compete individually if they choose.

For more information on this decision please visit our website:
www.fresnostatenews.com/2006/06/wrestling%20cut.htm

John D. Welty
President

----- Original Message -----
From: Donald Squires <don@2squires.net>
Date: Sunday, June 25, 2006 1:04 pm
Subject: Fresno State Wrestling
To: johnw@csufresno.edu, jarambula@co.fresno.ca.us, mayor@fresno.gov
Cc: tboeh@csufresno.edu, calusarob@aol.com

> Gentlemen,
>
> I think that the recent decision to drop Fresno State's wrestling team
> is an ill-advised move. Your program has produced dozens of fine young
> men who were also wrestlers. Wrestlers, in my humble opinion, gain
> more from wrestling than other athletes gain from their sports. I know
> in my own personal experience, wrestling through college (at Georgia
> Tech - also a victim of Division I cost cutting) taught me crucial
> life lessons that permitted me to work through difficult things,
> including the death of a 4-year old daughter. Were it not for
> wrestling and the brotherhood thatwrestling is, I am not sure that I
> would be alive to write this letter to you.
>
> I am now from Virginia (a New Jersey transplant two years ago) and I
> have twin sons who both wrestle at Christiansburg High School in
> Christiansburg,VA. They are beginning their sophomore seasons,
> wrestling for a Top 10 (in the country) HS program at a small public
> school. They are learning important things about hard work (and the
> accompanying rewards), dedicationand discipline that will serve well
> in the real world.
> The next part of
> their real world will be college. Whether or not they wrestle in
> college is not the point; I worry about the impact that fewer and
> fewer college wrestling opportunities might have on HS wrestling (and
> the cascading effect on youth wrestling). If my boys had come along in
> twenty years, who knows if they would have had the same opportunities
> to expand their horizons and challenge themselves. I can tell you
> right now very clearly that wrestlinghas had an important positive
> effect on their lives.
> Don't take that away
> from your current and future athletes, please.
>
> We already have hundreds of thousands of young men and ladies who will
> never have an opportunity to wrestle at Fresno State. The more Fresno
> States that happen, the more it will continue to happen. I cannot let
> that happen without registering my feelings with both of you. I feel
> that you are making a mistake with potentially bad unintended
> consequences. Please reconsideryour decision and permit your wrestling
> program to return and continue building on a fine legacy of success.
> The world will be a better place for it.
>
> Wrestling coaches have had perhaps the most profound impact on my
> life, and my sons' coaches are doing that now for them. Do the right
> thing - keep the wrestling program at Fresno State!
>
> Respectfully submitted,
>
> Donald Squires
> 135 Morning Star Lane
> Christiansburg, VA 24073