Mario Morgan is the new head coach of the men’s wrestling program at the University of Bridgeport. (Photo courtesy Bridgeport Sports Information)
Two more collegiate wrestling programs are coming to Connecticut.
The University of Bridgeport is planning to add varsity men’s and women’s wrestling beginning next fall. Bridgeport has already hired a new men’s wrestling coach, Mario Morgan, and has been soliciting applications for a women’s wrestling coach.
With the addition of wrestling, Bridgeport will have eight varsity teams for men in the fall of 2025 and ten varsity teams for women. The school, which competes at the NCAA Division II level, is member of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC), a 13-school organization that includes schools in Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The men’s wrestling program will begin next fall with the team beginning competition in November 2025. Bridgeport will become just the second Division II wrestling program in New England, joining American Internation College in Springfield.
The most recent collegiate wrestling programs to be started in Connecticut are the Sacred Heart women’s team that began in November 2021 and the Sacred Heart men’s wrestling program that began in November1998.
Morgan was a collegiate wrestler at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. His team won three consecutive NCAA Division II national titles from 2009-11. He won an individual Division II national championship in 2011 at 141 pounds.
Nebraska-Omaha dropped wrestling and football shortly after the team won the national championship in 2011. So, head coach Mike Denney left for Maryville University in St. Louis, which was looking to start and build their own wrestling program.
Morgan joined his coach at Maryville and spent 10 years as an assistant coach. He was responsible for day-to-day operations of the wrestling program, supporting the recruitment, technique and development of 27 NCAA Division II All-American wrestlers and a pair of NCAA Division II national champions.
“It is an incredible honor to be named the men’s head wrestling coach at University of Bridgeport. Division II wrestling is where my athletic career took shape and where I’ve spent my coaching years, and it’s where I feel at home,” Morgan said. “I’m excited to build a program that embodies the spirit and dedication of this great community, and I can’t wait to get started.”
It will be similar to his work at Maryville, where he and Denney built the wrestling program from scratch.
“We got to build a program for the first year,” Morgan said. “We had to start from scratch. A handful of us made it work.”
With the retirement of Denney, Morgan didn’t coach last season.
“It was the right time to see where my career would take me,” Morgan said. “As the season went on, I got the itch back to be back in the room every day. College is where I feel at home.
“I am excited to be giving my time and energy to build a program people would be proud of,” he said.
There was a wrestling program at Bridgeport for a few years in the 1960s. The late John Vino, a Hall of Fame official with the Connecticut Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, started a club team at the school when he was a student.
A member of the football team, Vino and fellow student Tom Gladtke began a club team that lasted two years, according to articles published in the Bridgeport Post – now called the Connecticut Post.
For at least two seasons, there was a varsity team at Bridgeport, according to information found in NCAA wrestling guides in the late 1960s. The Purple Knights fielded a team in 1965-66 and went 8-3 under head coach Will Berger in 1966-67.
When Bridgeport takes the mat in November 2025, there will be five collegiate men’s teams in Connecticut joining Division I Sacred Heart and three teams in Division III — Trinity, Wesleyan and Coast Guard.
