Morgan State to become only HBCU to offer DI wrestling, reviving program thanks to $2.7 million donation

When the time came for Jahi Jones to make a decision about what to do after graduating from Oxon Hill High School in 2015, the senior was debating between Morgan State University and University of Maryland.

Because Jones was a wrestler and Morgan State did not have a wrestling program, he turned his attention to Maryland, where he went courtesy of a full scholarship and wrestled for four years.

But Jones sometimes catches himself wondering what might have been if Morgan State had a wrestling team.

“I knew that I didn’t want to and couldn’t go to Morgan because they didn’t have wrestling,” Jones said. “I think about some of my friends who I wrestled with in high school or even in [Prince George’s] County who could have wrestled and gone up the road to Morgan, and they could have had success at a higher level.”

That option will be available for future prospective wrestlers. Morgan State announced last week that it is reviving its wrestling program thanks to a $2.7 million donation — the largest in the history of its athletic department — from HBCU Wrestling Initiative and Mike Novogratz, a former wrestler and CEO of an investment firm.

The school, the donor and local wrestling coaches hope the move will be instrumental for both the sport and for young Black men in the region. Novogratz who wrote in a tweet that his “hope is this program creates a new cadre of Black leaders.”

After a 24-year hiatus, Morgan State will be the first historically black college or university to offer wrestling as an NCAA Division I sport. Bears athletic director Edward Scott said the initial plan is to launch the program in time for the 2023-24 season with a team of 26-30 wrestlers. He hopes his school’s entry is the first of many among HBCUs.

“If we do this right and things continue to move forward in the right direction, I think you’ll see some other HBCUs get in the game,” Scott said.

The development has already sparked interest among students and wrestlers of Beat the Streets-Baltimore, a nonprofit organization co-founded in 2011 and run by Lydell Henry, a native of West Baltimore’s Sandtown neighborhood.

“This is huge,” he said. “I think this completes the puzzle from grade school, secondary and then college. I think the program will continue to work on focusing on the community.”

Kerry McCoy, a two-time Olympian and two-time NCAA champion at Penn State who is the vice president of the Black Wrestling Association, hailed the announcement as significant for future generations of Black wrestlers. He recalled speaking this past summer to a student from Oregon who wished to wrestle at an HBCU.

“This gives young people from across the nation an opportunity to participate in the sport that they love and get a better understanding of their culture,” said McCoy, who was the head coach at Maryland from 2008-19. “And considering what’s going on in our country, it’s another opportunity to elevate and celebrate the diversity that we have by giving another segment of our population an opportunity to experience their culture and really build that self-awareness.”

Wrestling is not unfamiliar territory for Morgan State. The institution has a rich history in the sport, starting in the 1950s and capturing Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association titles from 1963 to 1965, as well as 13 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference crowns. It produced four NCAA Division II champions before the program was discontinued after the 1996-97 season due to a lack of resources.

The sport remained dormant even after the university arranged for Henry, a 1995 Dunbar graduate who went to Morgan State to wrestle, and his Beat the Streets organization — which offers to tutor students in wrestling and academics — to use a multi-purpose room at Hill Field House in Baltimore for the past several summers.

Shortly after hiring Lydell Sargeant from UCLA as an associate athletic director for development and revenue generation, Scott said he and Sargeant began discussing plans to return wrestling to the Bears. In July, they connected with the HBCU Wrestling Initiative, and talks accelerated until Thursday’s announcement.

Scott, who was the senior associate athletic director who oversaw wrestling at Binghamton University when the program moved from the Colonial Athletic Association to the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association in 2013, said the process was backed fully by university president Dr. David Wilson and the rest of the administration.

“The mission of Morgan State University is all about access and opportunity,” Scott said. “If you look at the 10 champions from last year’s NCAA tournament, five of them were of Black or African-American descent. So there’s obviously an appetite in the African-American community for the sport. Morgan has a deep history in this sport. And we’re going to be able to provide opportunities to young men that currently don’t exist for them. So when you look at it that way, it’s not about, ‘OK, we’re successful in this little spot.’ It’s about, ‘What is the larger mission of the university?’”

Jones, who is now Director of the HBCU Wrestling Initiative, said the organization hopes to fund the sport at five other HBCUs within the next five years and is also expanding its scope to women’s programs. On Sept. 23, the University of Iowa became the first Power Five school to add women’s wrestling to its stable of sports.

Jones said the group considered donating toward restartinghe sport at HBCUs that had fielded it previously, including Coppin State in Baltimore, Howard, Hampton and Delaware State, which was the last school to offer wrestling until 2009. But because of Morgan State’s location in the Mid-Atlantic region and its proximity to potential geographic rivals such as Maryland and Penn State, the organization went with the Bears.

Morgan State would be only the third Division I wrestling program in the state, joining the Terps and Navy.

“From a geographical standpoint, Morgan is in the hotbed of wrestling,” said Jones, who was a 145-pound state finalist as a senior at Oxon Hill and an NCAA tournament qualifier as a senior at Maryland before the championship event in 2020 was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.“

“Being able to have an endowment where we know a certain amount of money will be generated every year for this program is a tremendous thing,” he continued. “The combination of all of those things is what made Morgan State perfect for them to get up and running as the first program.”

Henry said a Division I team in the city would be an attractive option for students in his Beat the Streets program and beyond looking to stay close to home.

“We would be doing all of the work here in Baltimore and all of our kids were going out of town to states like Iowa and Nebraska,” he said. “So this gives them an opportunity to wrestle at home. If we had wrestling, I think a lot of the homegrown talent would have stayed and gone to Morgan.”

For example, Jorden Pryor, a 2019 Dunbar graduate who was Baltimore City’s first three-time state champion, currently wrestles for Iowa Central Community College more than 1,000 miles away.

In a news release, Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners who wrestled at Princeton, pointed out that 15 of the country’s 46 presidents wrestled at some point in their lives.

“That is what HBCU Wrestling is about,” he said. “It’s about growing the sport of wrestling and our bench of future black leaders who will make our nation more just and prosperous. I fully support the HBCU Wrestling Initiative and hope that many others will help push this endeavor forward.”

Jones said Novogratz values the qualities that wrestling develops in its participants.

“It teaches hard work, grit, humility, and it teaches so many other great things that transition very well to future careers,” Jones said. “… Those skills that you learn as an individual and being on a team translate very well to when you’re working in a workplace as an individual and the overall team. Mike recognizes that, and he’s always looking to try to create more opportunities for wrestling.”

Scott said $1.5 million of the $2.7 million donation has been endowed and will be utilized to start the wrestling program and fund up to nine full scholarships annually. The remaining $1.2 million will be distributed equally over a 10-year span to help offset operating expenses.

Scott said he has already received emails and messages via social media from at least a dozen high school wrestlers expressing enthusiasm after Thursday’s news.

“There’s a sense of pride to be able to bring it back to a place that was so good at the sport,” he said. “And the outpouring from the alums and those that attended homecoming this past weekend with people grabbing me and hugging me was just amazing.”

Pat Popolizio, who worked with Scott at Binghamton from 2008 to 2012, said an HBCU like Morgan State adding wrestling is significant in the national landscape.

“I think with where we’re at in society right now, that’s a statement,” he said. “People want to support what’s going on, and they want to be a part of it, and there’s no better time to be on that momentum side of things. I think the right people got involved, and our sport is diverse to begin with. So I think that’s going to be a home run for them.”