The Barton Community College Board of Trustees vote Tuesday to add women’s wrestling to its roster of team sports, starting in the fall of 2026. Men’s Wrestling Coach Nathan Broeckelman with do double duty as head coach for both teams and each team will have an assistant coach.
Athletics Director Trevor Rolfs recommended the addition, noting women’s wrestling is the fastest-growing sport in the state.
“We’ve been studying this for several years,” Rolfs said.
Mark Dean, vice president of administration, crunched the numbers that show the program is expected to pay for itself through increased enrollment. The staff anticipate a first-year roster of 21 student-athletes, including eight from Barton County.
The estimated expenses are $166,000, including $74,000 for salaries and benefits, $32,000 for operational expenses and $60,000 for athletic scholarships. The revenue will include $172,410 from tuition, fees and state aid, plus $41,600 in housing. That $214,010 total represents a net gain of $48,010 after expenses.
“We will utilize the current facilities,” Broeckelman said.
Barton President Dr. Marcus Garstecki said approving the program now gives the college a recruiting advantage. Barton will be the fifth college in the state to approve women’s wrestling, after Fort Hays Tech Northwest Tech in Goodland, Colby Community College and Seward County Community College, along Garden City Community College, which just added it last week. Several other community colleges are considering it.
Broeckelman became the third head wrestling coach at Barton in 2023, having coached wrestling at Great Bend High School.
“I was a big promoter of women’s wrestling when Kansas passed it at the KSHSAA (Kansas State High School Activity Association) level,” he said.
According to the recommendation, the addition of a women’s wrestling program has the potential of increasing full-time student numbers by 20-30 students. In addition to the community colleges in state, there are a few universities – both public and private – within Kansas that already have women’s wrestling. Women’s wrestling is a popular sport within Kansas and is growing at the school school level. This will provide additional opportunities for those high school students within BCC’s service area, as well as the state, who wish to compete at the next level.
In other business Tuesday, the trustees:
• Heard a report from Karen Gunther, HOSA organization sponsor, about the success of this organization for future health-care professionals. She was joined by Kaden Baird, one of five Health Occupation Students of America members who attended the HOSA State Leadership Conference and qualified for the International Leadership Competition, where they were also highly successful. The other students are Hannah Dapogny, Haley McCormick, Aaron Deason and Valeria Gallardia.
• Karly Little, who coordinates Barton’s Leadership Institute, introduced the 2025-2026 participants.
• There was a monitoring report on the college’s indicators for END 1: Fundamental Skills.
ENDs are the over-arching goals used to set board policy. According to END 1:
- Students will have the fundamental skills to succeed in the workplace.
- Students will have the fundamental skills to lead productive lives.
- Students will be provided remediation as needed.
• New personnel were approved:
- Janet Stones – Part-time data specialist for Adult Education at the Barton downtown campus
- Rylie Duvall – Lead Care Provider at the Barton Campus
-Aiden Noblitt – Infrastructure and Cloud Services Analyst at the Barton Campus
• There was an executive session for 15 minutes where the board discussed the performance of an employee. Administrators Garstecki, Dean, and Rolfs were included in the private discussion. No action was taken.
