“If we wanted to keep wrestling, we could keep wrestling.” These are the words of Oregon wrestling coach Chuck Kearney, and they represent the opinion of most students on this campus.
It’s too bad the people who make decisions – the ones with power – feel differently.
At McArthur Court today is the Pacific-10 Conference wrestling championship, and the last meet before Oregon wrestling ceases to exist. It’s a sad decision for the University, and it’s one that could easily have been avoided and could still be reversed.
Despite confusion over the timing and financial issues in play, the basic facts are simple and make their point loudly and clearly.
Wrestling at the University has been on a short financial leash since the 1980s, after baseball’s initial axing in 1981. But now that baseball is back, and competitive cheerleading has arrived, there’s no longer room for a sport with roots here dating back 54 years.
Wrestling has two things going for it. First, it’s as steeped in tradition as it is inexpensive to maintain. Its roots can be traced back thousands of years, to when it was among the first Olympic sports in the sixth century, B.C. At the University, its operating costs are a fraction of what it takes to run more popular sports like football and basketball. Second, wrestlers can train practically anywhere; this is evidenced by the fact that Oregon wrestlers have been practicing at the Student Rec Center, under a basketball hoop, for the past year after their wrestling room was displaced by a new medical center for athletes.
Wrestling is being pushed aside by the allure of more glamorous, commercialized sports. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone not excited about the return of Ducks baseball. The addition of competitive cheer, while controversial, has generally been welcomed as an addition to the University.
But the issue is not about whether one sport deserves recognition over another. Unlike the blockbuster sports of football, basketball or baseball, wrestling is an individual sport, and its success should be defined on different terms. Though not a moneymaker, it costs the University only $600,000 per year to field and transport a team – that’s around what the University stands to lose each year as a result of fielding a Pac-10 baseball team.
Furthermore, the “Save Oregon Wrestling” campaign has already managed to raise $2.5 million, enough, it is estimated, to keep wrestling at Oregon for four more years. So cutting wrestling isn’t about money, and it isn’t about space.
The lack of a dedicated wrestling facility, the lack of a significant fanbase in the city, a chance to capitalize on an investment and the lack of support from other Pac-10 and Division I programs are all reasons the athletic department uses to justify its decision. But the team has shown that, although the situation isn’t ideal, wrestlers can practice anywhere. Save Oregon Wrestling has shown there is a fanbase, and adding baseball isn’t an investment because it doesn’t stand to generate income. A lack of support from outside the University shouldn’t matter if a sport has backers in state and on campus. Along these lines, the absence of a single Pac-10 women’s competitive cheer team doesn’t seem to faze the athletic department in its wholehearted support of bringing it to the University.
That’s four reasons for not bringing back wrestling, and not a single one rooted in sound logic. The clearest explanation of why wrestling won’t be back next year is that there is no clear reason.
After more than a half century, the mats are being pulled out from under Oregon wrestling. And for that, the administration has no one to blame but itself.