Save Oregon Wrestling

As you may have seen in the press, the University of Oregon wrestling team and its alumni, friends, and prospective members reluctantly filed suit against our university Friday afternoon. We asked Marion County Circuit Court to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent the athletic department from dropping wrestling while we argue legally for our continued existence. We also need time to continue our fund raising, in hopes of endowing our sport, so as to no longer impose a burden on the athletic budget.

This action culminates eleven frustrating months during which we tried to reverse Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny’s decision to end our 95-year wrestling tradition in Eugene. We started as a club sport in 1913 and became a full-fledged intercollegiate team in 1953.

We regret suing our own school, which we dearly love. We had no choice. We hope you will read our press release, in the article below, and then click on this link: Seven Great Myths. The press release discusses our legal case. The link is a our plea for understanding in the court of public opinion.

We hope you will understand that our lawsuit is merely a plea for outside adjudication of a formal dispute with our university that we have not been able to solve by alternative means. We ask for your understanding in these difficult times.

Go Ducks!

Jeremy McLaughlin ‘09

Eugene, OR (June 9) — Members of the University of Oregon’s wrestling team filed suit Friday afternoon in the Oregon Circuit Court for Marion County, seeking to prevent the University from dropping wrestling as an intercollegiate sport. Circuit Judge Albin Norblad will hear the case.

The complaint alleges that the UO’s plan to eliminate wrestling would violate not only the procedural requirements for dropping an intercollegiate team but also the substantive requirements of the equal privileges and immunities clause of Oregon’s constitution, an Oregon anti-discrimination statute known as Section 659.850, and the Oregon University System’s implementing regulations.

In essence, the University mistakenly believed that gender equity under the federal Title IX statute required UO to eliminate men’s wrestling to enable UO to add men’s baseball, without considering whether that would violate Oregon’s constitution and statutes, as well as established University procedures.

After acknowledging that Title IX did not require UO to eliminate wrestling to make room for baseball, UO spokesmen developed several new reasons to justify their original decision to drop wrestling. Like the original Title IX reasoning, however, the University’s new reasons fail to consider violations of Oregon law and University procedures.

The complaint seeks a preliminary injunction that orders UO to defer dropping wrestling until the athletic department completes the required intra-University consultation with UO’s Intercollegiate Athletics Committee and offers the affected students the opportunity for a hearing. Either UO’s president or the Oregon University System’s chancellor would make the final decision after the hearings. If UO still intends to drop wrestling after the required hearings, the parties would return to court to challenge that decision before the preliminary injunction dissolves.

The plaintiff, Equity in Athletics in Oregon, is an Oregon non-profit corporation that represents returning members of the Oregon wrestling team, prospective students who wish to wrestle at the University, and other Oregon citizens interested in the University’s proving an equitable athletic opportunity. The defendants are the University of Oregon, UO President David Frohnmayer, the Oregon University System, OUS Chancellor George Pernsteiner, UO Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny, UO Associate Athletic Directors Reneé Baumgartner and Neal Zoumboukos, and UO General Counsel Melinda Grier.

Read More »

In a stunning reversal, Arizona State’s athletic department countermanded its decision to eliminate wrestling from its men’s intercollegiate athletic program.

For the Sun Devils, it was the money that mattered. Backers of ASU wrestling pledged $8 million to endow the sport. Unlike the situation at Oregon, there seems to have been no hidden agenda to eliminate wrestling–no underlying desire to dispense with a blue-collar sport that didn’t fit an image of glitz and glamor being promoted by athletic department image makers. No spurious allegations regarding gender equity had been made to justify cutting wrestling when the decision was announced on May 13.

More than 5,000 Arizona high school athletes wrestle. When Sun Devil boosters stepped forward to insure Arizona State would remain as the sole statewide opportunity for them to earn a Division I athletic scholarship, that satisfied the athletic administration. Early in the process, ASU had set a price tag for saving the three endangered men’s sports. Wrestling obtained the required $8 million. It will cost $5 million each to save swimming and tennis.

Oregon wrestling backers have raised almost $3 million in donations and pledges, despite active discouragement by Duck athletic administrators. If athletic director Pat Kilkenny would set a reasonable price for endowing the sport, Save Oregon Wrestling maintains, the required amount would become available quickly. Instead, reports have surfaced that Oregon has urged local Duck clubs to stay out of the frey, threatened to withdraw business from entities inclined to donate to wrestling, and pressured the Oregon School Activities Association to disallow SOW fund raising at the state wrestling tournament.

Compare this attitude with the one expressed by ASU Vice President for Athletics, Lisa Love: “It is with great pleasure that I announce the reinstatement of the varsity sport of wrestling at ASU,” Love said. “The wrestling community, both locally and nationally, accepted this as a challenge to do something wonderful for the sport. ASU is forever grateful for that passion and unwavering support. Something special is happening on our campus thanks to civic leadership that cares deeply about ASU wrestling.”

For more information regarding ASU’s decision, visit the Save ASU Wrestling web site. Click here to read the Arizona State press release.  Click here to read the Arizona Republic article.

This ESPN Outside the Lines feature does not mention Oregon’s decision to cut its wrestling team. The information it presents to a national audience is well-known to any Duck fan who has followed developments since the change in Oregon’s athletic administration in early 2007. We post this feature here in order to furnish our out-of -state friends, and the national wrestling community, with background information regarding the challenges we face in trying to save our program.

Saving Oregon wrestling has always been a struggle. Former Coach Ron Finley had to counter three proposals to drop the sport during his 28-year career, but never under circumstances as unique as these. We’re writing the book on how to save a wrestling program, an endeavor without a template. The nature of Oregon’s athletic governance constitutes an interesting but frustrating chapter.

Save Oregon Wrestling’s plans to take the campaign to a national wrestling audience received a setback late last week when ESPN rejected a series of thirty-second television advertisements it had previously agreed to broadcast during coverage of the NCAA Division 1-A Wrestling Tournament in St. Louis. Save Oregon Wrestling and the National Wrestling Coaches Association had agreed to share the cost of one spot on ESPN during live coverage and 11 during taped replays on ESPNU.

At the last moment, ESPN rejected the commercials based on its policy of not running political or issues-oriented advertising during its sports coverage.Click here to read the text of our press release on the subject, which includes quotes from SOW chair Ron Finley and creative director Hank Hosfield.

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An important Oregon Duck fan magazine has endorsed the struggle to save the University of Oregon’s embattled wrestling program. The March 6 issue of Ducks Illustrated contains a six-page cover-story spread, including a three-page listing of “10 Reasons Why the UO Should Not Drop Wrestling.” DI editor Jerry Thompson makes the case for continuation of the program, while giving equal space to UO Assistant to the Athletic Director Neal Zoumbouklos, who advocates the administration’s position. Significantly, when Thompson questions “Zoomer” about Title IX issues, the long-time assistant football coach turned administrator admits: “Yea, it wasn’t necessary” to drop wrestling to conform to federal law regarding gender equity in educational opportunity. This represents the second time in several weeks that Zoumbouklos has debunked the long-standing contention that the resurrection of baseball requires elimination of wrestling in order to conform to federal law. Interestingly, weeks after the Feb. 27 Daily Emerald article and the March 6 Ducks Illustrated piece, Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny told the Salem Journal-Statesman that “potential Title IX issues” prevented the resurrection of the wrestling program. It appears that the upper echelon of Oregon’s athletic administration finds it difficult to coordinate its position. Read More »

While junior Ryan Dunn of Estacada and freshman Charlie Alexander of Central Point wrestled courageously this week at the NCAA Division 1-A Wrestling Championships in St. Louis, a dedicated core of supporters continued to work behind the scenes in an effort to extend the University of Oregon’s proud wrestling tradition.

State Senator Ben Westlund (D-Tumalo) sponsored a letter, cosigned by 23 other Oregon state legislators, that called on Oregon’s administrators to reverse their decision to end the Oregon’s pound 95-year wrestling tradition. Oregon wrestlers first stepped on the mat in 1913, and wrestling became a full-fledged intercollegiate sport during the 1953-54 season. The letter was delivered to Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny before the end of last month’s special legislative session. Westlund, pictured at left with Dunn, took the microphone at the Pac-10 meet and urged Oregon wrestling supporters to continue the fight.

In the meantime, the fund raising effort continues. During the same week that Kilkenny told a Salem newspaper that wrestling could not survive because of facilities, Title IX, and Pac-10 issues — assertions that Save Oregon Wrestling vigorously rebutted with a press release and forum posting — Head Coach Emeritus Ron Finley announced single-week pledges and donations of $35,925. Overall, the effort has raised in excess of $2.8 million in cash and promises. Read More »

Oregon’s wrestlers fought courageously on the mat while alumni, coaches, and fans rallied on the sidelines last weekend (Mar. 2-3) to forestall this year’s Pac-10 Conference meet from becoming the last stand for the Ducks’ storied wrestling program.

Junior Ryan Dunn of Estacada and sophomore Charlie Alexander of Central Point exemplified the home-grown excellence of Oregon high school wrestling, the second-most-popular boys’ winter prep sport in the state, by qualifying for the NCAA championship meet in St. Louis on Mar. 20-22.

Meanwhile, friends of the program marched to Johnson Hall Monday morning to present the president’s office with the news that we have raised $2.8 million, which includes a pledge for a new wrestling practice facility, and to demand that the university prescribe a definitive but realistic fund-raising goal for saving the program.

Read More »

The Oregon Daily Emerald, in its report of an interview with Special Assistant to the Athletic Director Neal Zoubouklos, stated today that gender equity is not an issue in the athletic department’s decision to drop wrestling as an intercollegiate sport. Emerald writer Doug Bonham, who interviewed Zoumboukos, wrote in the Feb. 27 issue: “Contrary to common belief, the decision to remove wrestling is not a Title IX issue; Oregon qualifies for Title IX under history of expansion of opportunities for women, which doesn’t require removing men’s sports.”

The assertion contradicts one popular reason for cutting the sport, one that UO athletic administrators have stated since Pat Kilkenny’s July 13 press conference. Instead, it appears that the athletic department has revised its rationale for eliminating wrestling. Zoumboukos listed four reasons in the Emerald article, which can be viewed here.

What do the New York Times, Fox News, Yahoo Singapore, and the International Herald-Tribune have in common? They all brought their readers and viewers to Eugene recently, giving widespread national and international publicity to our uphill battle to save Oregon wrestling.

When Zane Kesey, son of acclaimed University of Oregon wrestler and novelist Ken Kesey mobilized the Merry Pranksters for the first time in decades on Saturday, Feb. 16, he invited Associated Press writer and photogapher Jeff Barnard to ride the bus. Local media covered Oregon wrestlers, coaches, alumni, and devotees–as they plead their case to basketball fans lining up to enter McArthur court for a game against Washington State. The Register-Guard and Oregonian stories appeared shortly thereafter, but most of the nation’s newspapers saved the Barnard’s story and pictures until their Sunday, Feb. 24 print and electronic editions.

Click here to see a list of American and international newspapers and other news outlets, with clickable links, which have brought our struggle into hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of homes, across the country and around the world. Most web editions featured several pictures, plus links to the SaveOregonWrestling.com web site.

Click here to watch an Associated Press audio slide show. Read More »

(Note: Please refer to updated alumni event schedule in post date Jan. 31 below.)

Oregon’s wrestling team took its fight for survival directly to the fans Saturday afternoon, Feb. 16, when it rode the “Furthr” bus to the Duck basketball game at McArthur Court. The team, coaches, fans, and lettermen reenacted famous Oregon wrestler and novelist Ken Kesey’s epic journey with his Merry Pranksters, this time in a effort to save wrestling as an intercollegiate sport. Dressed in festive costumes and their letter jackets, the wrestlers distributed fliers, mingled with fans, and personally plead their case to Ducks of all ages, to a couple of press representatives that rode the bus with them, and to television reporters who met the bus at Mac Court.

Read the Register-Guard story here.
To read the handbill our student-athletes distributed, click here.
For more pictures, click here.
To read the AP story in newspapers around the world, click here.
To view the Register-Guard video, click here.

To view this video, click here.

Following is an updated schedule (as of Feb. 27) for the Pac-10 Wrestling Tournament and associated alumni and S.O.W. events. If you have questions you can email Scott Glenn at scott.glenn@trelleborg.com or Casey Hunt at casey.hunt@ejgallo.com

March 1st, 2008 (Saturday)

Noon – 3 p.m. – Bowling Event South town Lanes, 2485 Willamette Street 541-345-8575
6 p.m. – Alumni Dinner @ Mallard Hall – 725 W. 1st. Ave (1st and Madison)

March 2nd, 2008 (Sunday)

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. — Pig Tails
12:30 p.m – 3:00 p.m. — Championship Round 1
3 p.m. – 4 p.m. — Consolation Pig Tails
4 p.m. – 6:00pm — Alumni Meeting @ Taylors
(Ken Kesey’s bus “Further” may be available for transportation.)
6 p.m. – 9 p.m. — Semi Finals, Consolations
9 p. m. — Calcutta Event @ Oregon Electric Station, 27 East 5th (5th & Willamette)

March 3rd, 2008 (Monday)

9 a.m. — King Estate Winery Tour
12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Casanova Facility Tour
3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. — Consolations
4:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. — Placing Rounds
6 p.m. – 7 p.m. — Alumni Social at Mac Court
7 p.m. – 9 p.m. — Finals

Ricky Stewart met with Kilkenny on January 22 to present a plan to save wrestling that calls for raising $6-7 million over the next ten years to endow the program. Kilkenny is taking their proposal to his financial committee for further consideration. He’s also going back to the UO general counsel, Melinda Grier, for further ruling on Title IX compliance. This could be very good for us.

SOW is making the rounds to many major wrestling tournaments throughout the state. We’re handing out thousands of pledge cards and information sheets, along with sales of T-shirts and other items to promote our important message of saving wrestling in Oregon. We hope to have a presence at all of the upcoming district tournaments in the Northwest. We’re also putting packets of information together to give to every school and wrestling program that will help us promote our cause.

On the political front, we are currently setting up a caucus meeting with former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, who will becoming to Oregon in early February to meet with key Oregon lawmakers and SOW allies in Salem to focus on the Title IX compliance issues. We also have enlisted the prominent support of Sen. Ben Westlund and Rep. Vicki Walker and their colleagues, who are using their political muscle to put more pressure on UO officials to reconsider the educational interests of Oregon athletes and communities hurt by the loss of wrestling. Our fight transcends simply saving UO wrestling—this is no less than a referendum on the future of wrestling in the West. Already high school administrators in Oregon and Washington have cited the prospective loss of wrestling at the UO as justification for future elimination of their high school wrestling programs. There will be a domino effect and it will hurt wrestling everywhere. SOW’s Chael Sonnen and Kevin Keeney will soon have a new billboard up on I-5 near Aurora to promote Save Oregon Wrestling.

Read More »

Friends of Oregon wrestling can now set up regular monthly giving plans by direct deduction from Visa/MasterCard/Discover cards. Sign up for a single donation, or a regular amount to be deducted over a 12-month period. Click here or on the button at the right.

Message from Ron Finley, former University of Oregon and US Olympic Coach:

Members of the Wrestling Community,

I know you feel the same way I do. Wrestling is something worth saving. Put out a VISA Challenge to everyone you know!

After every home meet this year, friends and alumni of Oregon wrestling gather at a local pizzeria to hear a progress report on efforts to save the program. The next get-together will be held Friday night, Feb. 8, after the Oklahoma State meet, at Roaring Rapids Pizza Company. First match gets underway at McArthur Court at 7 p.m., and the Save Oregon Wrestling get together at Roaring Rapids should commence about 10 p.m.

Grass-roots fundraising emerged as a consensus resolve from a group of Oregon wrestling lettermen and coaches at a year-end meeting in Oregon City. Although Oregon’s decision to drop wrestling occurred among a complex set of circumstances, the road to saving the program runs through fiscal territory. Raising enough money to continue the program, either through endowing certain aspects of the budget or meeting operating expenses for subsequent years, will be the key.

Click here to continue reading this article.

There’s still time for a year-2007 income tax-deductible donation to Save Oregon Wrestling. Make that donation by December 31. Click here for information on making a timely, money-saving contribution for saving a tradition-rich sport that is such an integral part of Duck sports history—one that provides opportunities to Oregon high school students unmatched by any other varsity program at the University of Oregon.

Read Ron Finley’s time-critical appeal to Oregon Wrestling fans and alumni.