Two Penn State wrestlers, Jeff Prescott and Bob Truby, have been declared ineligible for the spring semester because they have not passed the minimum number of credits required after three semesters.

"They are behind on the number of credits," Coach Rich Lorenzo said. "It's not like they're grade point average is too low or anything like that. It's just they have not passed the 38 credits that the university requires them to have passed at the end of three semesters."

After three semesters, Prescott had passed 35 credits, and Truby had passed 37, Lorenzo said.

"It hurts the team immensely to have that happen," Lorenzo said. "It's embarrassing for the two young men that it's happened to, and it's embarrassing for our wrestling team because we've never had it happen to us in the 17 years I've been here.

"They've just wasted a golden opportunity to possibly become All-Americans or national champions this year," Lorenzo continued. "The bottom line is that they are jeopardizing their college education, which is just utterly ridiculous."

According to section 67-00 of the The Policies and Rules for Students 1988-89, University athletes must not only fulfill credit standards, but grade-point deficiency standards, also. If an athlete has scheduled 24-39.5 credits, he or she cannot compete if 11 or more deficiencies have accumulated.

Grade point deficiencies occur when a student's total grade points are less than the total credits scheduled and multiplied by two, according to Policies and Rules.

"It's not a deficiency point issue at all," Lorenzo said. "It's just the amount of credits they have passed didn't meet Penn State's requirements."