Wrestling once prospered at Saint Vincent College.
From 1963-75, the school sponsored a full-fledged NAIA program before it faded into a club team.
Rumblings of a program reboot turned into much more than that Thursday when SVC announced wrestling will return as the school’s 24th varsity sport.
Backed by supportive alumni and interested student-athletes, the program will take to the mat in 2023-24.
The college is in the process of finding a head coach.
Only three other schools in the NCAA Division III Presidents’ Athletic Conference sponsor wrestling teams. They are Thiel, Washington & Jefferson and Waynesburg.
There are currently 109 schools that sponsor wrestling nationally in Division III, including 19 in Pennsylvania.
“With the continued popularity and success of high school wrestling in the Western Pennsylvania region, we feel that the sport will be an ideal fit for our institution, and the timing to add it could not be better,” SVC athletic director and Rev. O.S.B. Myron Kirsch said in a news release. “We expect our wrestling program to succeed both athletically and academically, while upholding our Catholic, Benedictine mission.”
Tom Harbert coached the wrestling program from 1963-71.
“I am elated about the return of wrestling to Saint Vincent,” said Harbert, a SVC Hall of Famer. “We’ve been working hard for the past 3-4 years to reinstate the program. A lot of people are excited to come back, and there is a lot of excitement in the wrestling community about its return.”
