The Moorpark College Wrestling Team was given a nearly impossible goal by the VCCCD of raising $35,000 in two weeks to reinstate their program. They managed to do just that, through fundraising in the Alumni Association, as well as by performing car washes only to see Dr. Pam Eddinger, President of Moorpark College, and the Board of Trustees for VCCCD, wash away any hopes of reinstating the program for the 2009 season.

The Board of Trustees tells you that you can keep the program when given, or if they had, the proper funding, only to see our bureaucracy falter in keeping a promise. Why didn’t they reinstate the program when the money was raised? And what happened to the money that was raised?

It is puzzling and raises some eyebrows across the wrestling community, one which has witnessed the only wrestling program in the district achieve great success over its 41-year tenure, winning state championships in 1990-91, 1997, and 1999-2000.

Eddinger disappointed the former wrestlers as well as current wrestlers by breaking a promise she made to reinstate the program, putting a knife through the biggest vein in the powerful wrestling community of Ventura County.

Former Moorpark College wrestler Juan “Chucky” Durazo expressed his shock with Eddinger standing by her decision to suspends the program, despite money being raised to reinstate it.

“She [Eddinger] thought she was going to scare us,” he said, referring to her telling the wrestling team they needed to raise $35,000 in two weeks to be able to keep the wrestling program afloat. “She could’ve brought back the program, but made a mistake.”

According to Durazo, Eddinger thought there were only four people registered for the wrestling class when she reviewed the enrollment in the class to determine whether to cut the program or not. However, she looked at four people in a particular weight class, and there were actually twenty-five wrestlers enrolled in the class/program.

After she discovered her mistake, she still decided to suspend the program.

“She still said she didn’t want to continue the program,” Durazo stated.

Pretty substantial misjudgment, and then to renege her promise; it just seems plain wrong.

For many students, the wrestling program is what got them to come to college in the first place. Now, these athletes are being denied the opportunity to play the sport they love because they raised the $35,000 required to revive the sport? This does not make sense.

A Board of Trustees meeting was held on Sept. 8, where many angered alumni urged the board of trustees to revive the program.

Former Athletic Director of Moorpark College, Jon Keber, who also coached the wrestling team for 27 years, expressed his displeasure with their decision to cut the program.”Athletics was one of the connective tissues to the school,” he said.

Current athletic director Howard Davis also emphasized the important of athletics as a learning experience that could not be taught in the classroom.

“Athletic participation is a wonderful supplement to the (student’s) education,” he said.
“Athletic participation teaches and reinforces traits that are difficult or impossible to replicate in other academic venues-leadership, teamwork, reacting to adversity…”

Yet the district still decided to suspend the program. Once again, a nice way to get the wrestling alumni and former players to be raising some eyebrows.

One opportunity given to these athletes, and have it taken away from them because of not only a poor lack of judgment on Eddinger’s part, but also a false hope that the program could be restored if the proper amount of money is raised, is plain wrong, unprofessional, and unethical.

Administrators did not receive any cuts in their salaries because of this economic crisis. It seems they care more about themselves than the students. It appears there is another bureaucracy that is only interested in the personal welfare of the administrators and let everyone else suffers, ultimately failing to do their job: be there for the students.

If there were anything at all to say about the course of action taken to resolve the budget crisis, this would be the worst possible way to do it, failing to meet the needs of these student athletes. They might have taken out the scissors and cut the program, even if it is only temporarily, but they also cut through the hearts of the former wrestlers, as well as the entire wrestling community.