The Big Ten is now bigger, now that it has welcomed the University of Maryland and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
The two new member schools are expected to begin competing in the Big Ten in all sports – including wrestling – in the 2014-15 school year.
Maryland was welcomed to the Big Ten on Monday; Rutgers joined the conference on Tuesday.
The two Eastern schools become the thirteenth and fourteenth members of the Big Ten, a conference that, true to its name, had ten members until twenty years ago, when Penn State came on board. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln was announced as the twelfth member of the conference in June 2010; the Cornhusker sports teams began competing in their new conference in the fall of 2011.
In addition to expanding numerically, the Big Ten has expanded its geographic reach. Once known as the Midwest Conference, the Big Ten now extends from Lincoln, Neb. in the west to New Brunswick, N.J. and College Park, Md. near the east coast, reaching sizeable, lucrative media markets in the mid-Atlantic, including New York City and Washington, D.C.
Maryland's sports teams, the Terrapins, have been competing in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference), and, in fact, were one of the founding members of that conference in 1953. Although most Rutgers sports teams compete in the Big East conference, its Scarlet Knights wrestling program is in the EIWA (Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) which counts Cornell University and Lehigh among its members.
Located in College Park outside Washington, D.C., the University of Maryland was established in 1856. It has a total enrollment of approximately 37,000 students.
Rutgers can trace its roots back to 1766, when it was founded as Queens College. It later became a state university, named for an early benefactor. The New Jersey-based school can claim a total enrollment of nearly 58,000 students.
Led by two-time NCAA heavyweight champ and two-time U.S. Olympian Kerry McCoy, the Maryland mat Terrapins won the 2012 ACC wrestling team title.
Penn State won the 2012 Big Ten team title, then, two weeks later, claimed its second straight NCAA team championship.
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