Wyatt Hendrickson in the Portal.
- Thread starter CatCoach
- Start date
Is he leaving the academy??? How else could he avoid his 5-year obligation?
I’ve seen them either delay the obligation or completely absolve it. Who knows what their plan is.
This is unusual but not unprecedented. I’ve seen the USAF allow similar options for football players. He will receive his commission and either delay active duty or hold a PR role.
So I was talking with an academy grad. This is a very common thing. Among all the academies. The academy will send them to grad school (especially those in the 10%)
We’re talking Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UVA, etc. it lengthens their commitment, but it’s definitely worth it to the grad and Academy.
Usually they’re out of athletic eligibility - but obviously Covid changed that.
Also of note - he cannot accept ANY NIL money. So wherever he goes, it will be because that’s where he wants to wrestle,
You’re correct on grad school being common. It’s the athletic part that’s unusual. I can’t recall a single instance of a commissioned academy grad competing for another school. The NIL is an interesting twist because officers can have a second “job” if approved. Good news is school will be paid for and he will receive Second Lieutenant pay ($3820 per month) plus a housing allowance (depends on location…$1395/month for Iowa City as a single).
One other note on full time grad school…it’s only offered straight out of the academies for the top academic ranked graduates.
He was given a release, for at least this year. He still has his obligation.
He will have to complete a masters program regardless of wrestling so that could have an impact on schools as well.
Flowrestling's article on Wyatt:
A couple things of note:
He can receive NIL $$$ - Good for Wyatt!
He is interested in 5 to 6 schools: I have heard OSU and MU, but who are 3 - 6?? IOWA??
__________________________________________________________________________
Wyatt Hendrickson is coming back to college wrestling.
Air Force’s two-time heavyweight All-American has been cleared to compete next season and has entered the transfer portal.
Hendrickson, one of college wrestling’s most dominant competitors during the past three seasons, won 84 of his final 90 matches with the Falcons, including 53 by fall. He placed third the past two years at the NCAA Championships and also won a U23 World title during his time with the Falcons.
“I’m grateful and we’re grateful as an institution and program for what Wyatt Hendrickson’s been and what he means for the Air Force Academy and the Air Force wrestling program,” Air Force coach Sam Barber said Wednesday afternoon. “He’s a guy who fit who we are institutionally, he has service on his heart, he’s an extremely high-character, integrity guy with great athletic ability, one of the top recruits in the country. He chose our program because he wanted a world-class education, he wanted an opportunity to serve and he believed he could achieve his goals in our program, and he did for the most part as a two-time All-American and World champion.
“Our relationship is going to continue to grow and we’re going to be connected through this process and whatever school he wrestles for next year, he’s still an Air Force Academy guy, he’s still our guy and we’re still his program, we’re still his home. He’ll come back to us once that’s done.”
Hendrickson entered the transfer portal with a “do not contact” designation. Barber said Hendrickson “has a short list of five to six schools.”
“When people come here, we’re all about maximizing opportunities,” Barber said. “So if there’s a pathway — although it wasn’t direct and straightforward with him to stay with us — we still wanted him to have that opportunity since he had it and he’s such a unique and special athlete for our academy and our program.”
The Kansas native needed United States Air Force clearance to return to college wrestling for a COVID season after exhausting his four-year eligibility for the Air Force Academy.
“He needed official Air Force approval to be able to compete,” Barber said. “There’s a couple different pathways available to him. He’s still kind of working through those things with exactly what it’s going to be. But he has the official Air Force approval to compete. It’s just going to be Option A or Option B.
“Within those two options, everything’s available. He can get a full-ride scholarship, he can get Name, Image and Likeness, he can represent a different school for a year and after he does that he can come back to the Air Force as part of the World Class Athlete Program wrestling again for the United States Air Force.”
A couple things of note:
He can receive NIL $$$ - Good for Wyatt!
He is interested in 5 to 6 schools: I have heard OSU and MU, but who are 3 - 6?? IOWA??
__________________________________________________________________________
Wyatt Hendrickson is coming back to college wrestling.
Air Force’s two-time heavyweight All-American has been cleared to compete next season and has entered the transfer portal.
Hendrickson, one of college wrestling’s most dominant competitors during the past three seasons, won 84 of his final 90 matches with the Falcons, including 53 by fall. He placed third the past two years at the NCAA Championships and also won a U23 World title during his time with the Falcons.
“I’m grateful and we’re grateful as an institution and program for what Wyatt Hendrickson’s been and what he means for the Air Force Academy and the Air Force wrestling program,” Air Force coach Sam Barber said Wednesday afternoon. “He’s a guy who fit who we are institutionally, he has service on his heart, he’s an extremely high-character, integrity guy with great athletic ability, one of the top recruits in the country. He chose our program because he wanted a world-class education, he wanted an opportunity to serve and he believed he could achieve his goals in our program, and he did for the most part as a two-time All-American and World champion.
“Our relationship is going to continue to grow and we’re going to be connected through this process and whatever school he wrestles for next year, he’s still an Air Force Academy guy, he’s still our guy and we’re still his program, we’re still his home. He’ll come back to us once that’s done.”
Hendrickson entered the transfer portal with a “do not contact” designation. Barber said Hendrickson “has a short list of five to six schools.”
“When people come here, we’re all about maximizing opportunities,” Barber said. “So if there’s a pathway — although it wasn’t direct and straightforward with him to stay with us — we still wanted him to have that opportunity since he had it and he’s such a unique and special athlete for our academy and our program.”
The Kansas native needed United States Air Force clearance to return to college wrestling for a COVID season after exhausting his four-year eligibility for the Air Force Academy.
“He needed official Air Force approval to be able to compete,” Barber said. “There’s a couple different pathways available to him. He’s still kind of working through those things with exactly what it’s going to be. But he has the official Air Force approval to compete. It’s just going to be Option A or Option B.
“Within those two options, everything’s available. He can get a full-ride scholarship, he can get Name, Image and Likeness, he can represent a different school for a year and after he does that he can come back to the Air Force as part of the World Class Athlete Program wrestling again for the United States Air Force.”
Wrong on NIL money, he can receive it, according to head coach Sam Barber, so it may be a bidding war. Who does that favor? Wyatt said he has a small list of schools - 5 to 6. I have heard Missouri and Okie State, so who are the other 3 or 4? Is Iowa in or Michigan, than that probably increases the pot of $$ substantially.
This situation is outside the norm so I may not fully appreciate the options, but he will have to complete a masters based on past experience. This is normally an academic competition against his peers to qualify for this opportunity, but the AF also picks up the tuition. Again, COVID and NIL have changed the landscape and I graduated a long time ago so who knows!
I would love to have Wyatt for a year and it would give Ben another year to add much needed weight, but I'm afraid if Ben doesn't have that wrestling competition he needs it might be easier for him to just do football?
Maybe he would be all in and be onboard with Wyatt coming in for a year.
Tough to say when Ben's future is so undecided. His mother was on here last year saying Ben was REALLY wanting to compete in wrestling this year. I wonder what his thoughts are after this season.
Maybe he would be all in and be onboard with Wyatt coming in for a year.
Tough to say when Ben's future is so undecided. His mother was on here last year saying Ben was REALLY wanting to compete in wrestling this year. I wonder what his thoughts are after this season.
I still wish both Gabe and BK wrestled in the post season. We would have got 2nd as a team and we would have more options for this coming seasons line up.
With this being so academically competitive, I’m kind of surprised the Air Force would not be a bit more picky in the graduate school. It says his undergraduate major was management. OSU and Missouri both have pretty poor business schools.
This is such a unique situation that it’s difficult to know the criteria for his selection. If based on academics I would think Michigan would be in the lead based on their recent success in bringing in wrestlers for graduate programs. Which makes me wonder about schools like Cornell.
Normally, the USAF is actually pretty damn picky about grad school funding (and release from duty to pursue said grad school).
As an example, a guy I went to grad school with graduated from USAFA, and moved to Blacksburg (Virginia Tech) within a week. Enrolled in some summer school classes and knocked out some general requirement classes. His orders to his first duty station were delayed by a year and a half to allow him to do this. His graduate thesis used remotely sensed (satellites) imagery to automatically detect, and map the severity of, natural disaster damage to buildings. Which has various uses, to include but not limited to emergency management response and resource delivery coordination. He had a research plan submitted to USAFA, and DAF, 6+ months before he graduated. Oddly enough, 3 years after graduation, we ended up working together again at the same DOD facility in CO.
I hate to say it, but if they let him go to a school OTHER than Stanford, Northwestern or Michigan (or an Ivy, but they don't allow grad school athletes, so ), they've really lost the plot. It's great that he wants to pursue his athletic career but a business degree from a crappy business school at a university with a good/great wrestling team is NOT doing much to enhance the ability of the USAF.
As an example, a guy I went to grad school with graduated from USAFA, and moved to Blacksburg (Virginia Tech) within a week. Enrolled in some summer school classes and knocked out some general requirement classes. His orders to his first duty station were delayed by a year and a half to allow him to do this. His graduate thesis used remotely sensed (satellites) imagery to automatically detect, and map the severity of, natural disaster damage to buildings. Which has various uses, to include but not limited to emergency management response and resource delivery coordination. He had a research plan submitted to USAFA, and DAF, 6+ months before he graduated. Oddly enough, 3 years after graduation, we ended up working together again at the same DOD facility in CO.
I hate to say it, but if they let him go to a school OTHER than Stanford, Northwestern or Michigan (or an Ivy, but they don't allow grad school athletes, so ), they've really lost the plot. It's great that he wants to pursue his athletic career but a business degree from a crappy business school at a university with a good/great wrestling team is NOT doing much to enhance the ability of the USAF.
Sometimes it’s just about good PR. Everybody loves this dude. That enhances recruitment
Depends on if he plans on making it a career. But yea, I imagine Michigan would be great for him because of their recent success at HWY plus the grad school. Grad school, paid for by the gov, isn't that unusual for some of these top tier fast movers...it's usually a mid career thing. A similar situation just popped up for Miss America who graduated from the USAFA last year. She has a degree in physics and deferred her pilot slot and is going to Harvard for a master's in public policy.
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