On Behalf of our Wrestlers in Business Network (WIBN) Board members, I want to welcome everyone into the new year! We closed out the 2018 year with a fantastic social that was hosted by a newly established WIBN/Delaware Chapter. The event was held on December 22 at the University of Delaware in conjunction with one of the largest high school wrestling tournaments in the nation (Beast of the East featuring 115 of the top scholastic teams from across the nation). We had four featured speakers:

U.S. Senator Chris Coons (DE) - a former high school wrestler

Delaware State Senator & Majority Leader Nicole Poore – a wrestling mom

Olympic Champion Kyle Snyder

WIBN/Washington DC member, Bob Brams – leading a national effort to “takedown” cancer

This event was wildly successful on many levels as evidenced by the following:

U.S. Senator Chris Coons & State Senator Nicole Poore pledging their full support to restore Division I wrestling to the University of Delaware athletic department.

Bob Brams has been successfully fighting a brain tumor for several years and his inspiring message led to some significant donations in support of cancer research.

A nice group of 50 business leaders from the region attended the inaugural event.

This is just the most recent example of a WIBN Chapter supporting wrestling in its community. For example,

Several years ago, the WIBN Cleveland Chapter saved the Cleveland State wrestling program in 9 days because we had prominent business leaders who are WIBN/Cleveland board members who stepped up in a big way.

Numerous of our other WIBN chapters (Atlanta, Washington DC, Princeton, Cleveland, and Denver) have hosted the NWCA All-Star Classic and re-invested the proceeds back to various wrestling related initiatives in their communities.

Most recently, the WIBN/Princeton Chapter extended an invitation to every high school wrestling coach in New Jersey to receive a FULL SCHOLARSHIP to attend a CEO Leadership Academy designed to promote best practices for improving recruitment and retention of scholastic wrestlers.

I could go on for pages with examples of what other WIBN chapters are doing to keep wrestling at all levels strong in their communities. Simply stated, as each WIBN Chapter strengthens as the result of successful business networking among its members, they will all be better positioned to support local wrestling initiatives.

WIBN Social at the NCAAs - If you have not already done so, please mark your calendars so you can attend our annual WIBN Social held in conjunction with the 2019 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in Pittsburgh. Our social will be hosted at the Marriott Hotel (located just across the street from the competition venue) on Saturday, March 23 from approximately 1 pm to 5 pm. Our featured speaker will be Alan Nero, Managing Partner of Octagon’s Baseball Division (Alan represents over 50 Major League Baseball Players). Alan began his career as the head wrestling coach at Rhode Island University. Specific information on purchasing tickets will be coming soon.

In closing, we are always looking to establish new WIBN chapters in cities across the nation. All it takes is a leader and a dozen or so business leaders who are collectively willing to work with the national office to launch a chapter. We have developed a “turn-key” approach to getting new chapters established. Simply call the NWCA office at 717.653.8009 And ask for Mike Moyer to get started.

Growing wrestling together, Mike