Eastern President William L. Perry issued an official statement addressing the Eastern Illinois decision to cut the wrestling program on campus.

He will not revisit the decision.

However, he has had to revisit the subject numerous times in his short time as president.

“I felt like I needed to look at this,” said Perry. “I received several e-mails asking me to reverse the decision.”

Perry said that though he will not revisit the decision, he has still done his research on the matter.

“I reviewed the wrestling academic data and compared it to other athletic programs and saw a clear difference between them,” he said.

The decision to cut the wrestling program was made on May 17, when EIU Athletic Director Rich McDuffie announced that the wrestling program had been cut from Eastern due to consecutively low Academic Progress Rates (APR) the past 3 years.

A fourth year of low APR’s would have brought stiff punishment for the university and all of its athletic programs, according to McDuffie.

A Board of Trustees meeting was held on campus in mid-June to protest the program being cut allowing some people against wrestling being cut to speak, but the decision remained unchanged.

Perry took office July 1 and was not part of the initial decision to cut the wrestling program. But Perry said after his research he understands the circumstances of why the program was cut.

“I also reviewed NCAA documents about the APR,” Perry said. “My findings were consistent with what had been found before.”

Perry does, however, sympathize with those who disagree with the decision to drop the sport.

“Anytime a university drops a program, academic or athletic, there are things that affect people,” he said. “There are tough decisions that have to be made sometimes, decisions which may affect people in unfortunate ways.”