Imagine this: you have been churning out stellar NCAA championship qualifiers for years and have an incredibly bright future. However, things soon took a dark turn. The administration decided to cut the wrestling program, leaving students to fend for themselves. Sounds like a terrible scenario, right? Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Campbell University has been going through recently. All of this took place on the brink of a very exciting 2024 NCAA season too. 

With this in place, their current scholarship athletes won’t be able to compete either. In fact, they only had 9 scholarships, and by next year, it will drastically reduce to just 3. Since the news broke out, the wrestling community hoped for the Director of Athletics at Campbell University, Hannah Bazemore, to speak up. But there hadn’t been an update, that is, until October 17. 

The Wrestling Room shared a ray of hope on X, captioned, “This statement was sent to the student athletes, but nothing public yet.” In the images shared alongside, Bazemore addresses the chaotic situation surrounding their program being cut. “As you know, this university and numerous others around the nation are facing increasingly unique challenges. To that end, the university has asked for cooperation of various departments and units, including Campbell Athletics,” it stated.

https://twitter.com/MrPatMineo/status/1846932187498656195?t=VSSSJdTy7pR-dNqgTl5X8A&s=19

Hannah Bazemore even reiterated the changing landscape of the NCAA, including the roster. But all things said and done, she reassured the student-athletes that she would continue advocating for them. This would include giving them a fighting chance to compete in Division I athletics at Campbell University. The students won’t experience changes in how things are done under the program for this or the next season. Unfortunately, this does leave things hanging by a thread.

For things to go smoothly, Bazemore exclaimed that they weren’t the only ones going through a difficult time. The university had to reduce several scholarships over multiple programs for the 2024-2025 season. She continued, “Hope is on the horizon; I have already laid out plans to rebuild scholarship numbers and increase enrollment and revenue.” The Director of Athletics assured them that it would be easier this way and reiterated how she would never stop advocating for them. Even though this update wasn’t made public, it came after a lot of backlash. 

Campbell University’s decision wasn’t well received by the masses

When the news first broke out, it caused quite a stir among the wrestling community. This is especially heartbreaking since this was right before the 2024-2025 NCAA wrestling season. Many students wouldn’t be able to balance their academics and athletics, given that’s what the scholarships helped them do. Campbell University was privy to these, but they tried smoothing things over. 

“These decisions have caused some anxiety for many. Rest assured, our university and athletics leadership is working to position all of our teams for success. We appreciate and value our student-athletes and athletics staff and they are a vital part of the Campbell community,” the university stated. However, one NCAA coach didn’t think this was in good faith. Christian Olanowski exclaimed, “Campbell dropping scholarships is the first domino to fall in what will be a very grave future for Division I Wrestling.” This only added more fuel to the fire.

Watching the uproar rise, Campbell Wrestling shared their gratitude for their faculty on X: “We love our faculty at @campbelledu. Some of the very best in the nation! There are few Universities in the WORLD where the students have the personal connection that they have with their professors as they do at Campbell! We plan to host an OPEN PRACTICE for all professors and anyone else who would like to come, this Friday at 2:30pm.” However, this didn’t make the situation any better. 

Even though they were trying to ease the doubt in their student athletes’ minds, this would only hurt the chances of any potential recruits considering Campbell University. While no public announcement has been made, Hannah Bazemore’s statement might momentarily give them hope about things changing soon. As for right now? The university will still be moving forward with its decision. What do you think of this unfortunate situation?