Three months after Northern Michigan University declared that they would remove the National Training Site for Greco-Roman wrestling from campus upon the conclusion of the spring semester in 2027, the school today released a statement announcing that the program will remain in place an additional 12 months.
The statement, distributed via NMU Chief Marketing Officer Derek Hall, begins “Northern Michigan University today announced a modification to its timeline for discontinuing the residential USA Wrestling National Training Site (NTS) Greco-Roman wrestling program, extending its closing date by one year until the end of the winter 2028 semester.”
The statement then continues as displayed below:
“’This extension will enable any current NTS wrestler training at Northern to continue without disruption through the Olympic Trials for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles,” said NMU President Chris Olsen. ‘We felt it was critical to make this change after talking with the students and several parents.’
“Greco-Roman wrestling began at NMU in 1999 as part of what was then the U.S. Olympic Education Center (USOEC). At that time, the program was jointly funded by the state of Michigan, the federal government/U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), and USA Wrestling. In 2011, state funding was eliminated, and the USOC restructured its funding model, ending federal support for several Olympic training centers nationwide, including the NMU USOEC. Northern subsequently became a National Training Site for the USA Wrestling-sponsored program, receiving partial operational support from USA Wrestling until 2020, when USA Wrestling eliminated all direct financial support to NMU.
“Since 2020, NMU has assumed full financial responsibility for the program. Amid recent institutional budget challenges—including significant budget cuts for the current fiscal year—the university can no longer sustain the full financial load of the USA Wrestling program. The decision also allows NMU to reallocate facility space and expand rosters more efficiently for the university’s NCAA athletics teams.”
The statement provides more pieces of the university’s narrative, including the following:
“Northern administrators have engaged in discussions with USA Wrestling officials, the national governing body (NGB) for the sport, but they have indicated, at this time, that they are unable to restore prior or provide partial funding for their program.”
The above paragraph, however, is not a full representation of the circumstances.
Certainly, several meetings have been held involving administrative officials (namely Olsen, VP/CFO Gavin Leach, and Athletic Director Rick Comley), USA Wrestling (mainly in the form of Assistant Executive Director-National Teams Cody Bickley) and NMU NTS head coach Andy Bisek. But USA Wrestling did not abruptly decide to halt their financial contribution to the NTS. Instead, the organization was presented with a budgetary amount from NMU that far exceeded the amount rendered as the program’s costs on their athletic department’s financial status report for 2025. With the larger dollar amount, NMU thereby requested a considerably larger figure from USA Wrestling. This number was, indeed, much higher compared to previous years, and so USA Wrestling determined that it was currently neither feasible nor tenable to seek a continuation of funding at that rate.
Moreover, upon the first announcement from NMU in June pertaining to the removal of the NTS Greco-Roman program, finances were not mentioned. At the time, the university (through Comley) said that “increased resource constraints” were the reason (i.e., commandeering locker room space inside of the Superior Dome from the NTS athletes and availing it for others).
Through the earlier parts of the summer, this spacial issue was the most frequently-cited catalyst for the school’s decision. So much so that, as reported previously, Comley is alleged to have insisted to USA Wrestling Executive Director Rich Bender and Bickley that finances had little, or nothing, to do with the decision to cut the program, as facility space re-allocation remained the premier objective. The conversation shifted to finances, on behalf of the university, come early-August, which then led to further discourse between NMU administrators, USA Wrestling, and others.
Not yet known is if there is potential for the program to continue past ’28 should another source (or additional sources) of third-party funding be secured, particularly through donors and sponsors. It should be noted that keeping the NTS in Marquette is still perceived as an ongoing discussion despite this latest announcement from the university.
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