COSTA MESA, Calif. – Vanguard Director of Athletics Jeff Bussell announced today that women's wrestling will become the university's 19th intercollegiate sponsored sport, effective with the 2022-23 academic year.
Current men's wrestling assistant coach Joe Evano will assume head coaching duties of the women's program.
"Joe Evano is the perfect fit to lead us in our journey to build a highly competitive women's wrestling program," said Bussell. "As an assistant men's wrestling coach, Joe has made a tremendous impact and demonstrated great enthusiasm for the Vanguard way and his work ethic is second-to-none. We are blessed to have a person with a heart like Joe, who will make a difference and will impact our student-athletes spiritually, academically and athletically."
"I'd like to thank Vanguard University for the opportunity to lead a program in a growing sport which empowers female student-athletes to be great human beings beyond just the arena of competition," said Evano. "I'm looking forward to building a program that represents the university well and 'Go Lions.'"
The NAIA, which has the largest number of women's wrestling teams of any intercollegiate association, has 37 schools currently participating in the rapidly growing sport. Women's Wtesling will participate in the Cascade Collegiate Conference as does the men's program.
"Since we started men's wrestling three years ago, the most asked question we get every year is 'When are you adding women's wrestling?' Today is that day as we are extremely excited to provide women the opportunity to join the Vanguard wrestling tradition," said Bussell. "Enthusiasm and support from the Orange County wrestling community has been tremendous, and we look forward to making an impact in the sport of women's wrestling. Our women's wrestling student-athletes will have the opportunity to compete at a high level athletically and academically."
Wrestling will join a lineup of 10 other women's sports offered at Vanguard, including basketball, beach volleyball, cross country, dance, golf, soccer, softball, stunt, track and field, and volleyball. Men's sports consist of baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, track and field, volleyball and wrestling.
For more information about the women's wrestling team, please reach out to Coach Evano at joseph.evano@vanguard.edu.