Jeremy McLaughlin was halfway across the world when the news broke.
McLaughlin, an Oregon wrestler in the 149-pound weight class, was participating in a summer-long Christian mission trip. In June, McLaughlin was working in the southern African nation of Namibia. He helped set up a wrestling club, teaching young African kids about the sport he loved and the style he’d been trained on.
“It’s almost like I gave it away,” McLaughlin said.
Back at home, the sport he loved had just been extinguished from the University of Oregon. McLaughlin would not hear about the Oregon athletic department’s decision to reinstate baseball while cutting wrestling until he read the press release on GoDucks.com.
Seven members of the 2007-08 Oregon wrestling team – McLaughlin, Zack Frazier, Ryan Dunn, Brysen French, Ronnie Lee, Duke Wasteney and Cody Moulton – decided to continue attending Oregon as students, rather than continue their wrestling careers at other schools. For some, the decision was easily made, with little athletic eligibility remaining and specific academic goals in action. Others were actively courted by other schools with scholarship opportunities. Their wrestling careers did not have to end with the program.
Zack Frazier
Zack Frazier, in his words, is “not your typical kid who gets recruited to a D-I school.” The Gresham, Ore. High School alumnus never won an individual state championship, and he never was a top-ranked wrestler for his weight class. Nevertheless, Oregon head coach Chuck Kearney offered Frazier a scholarship as a high school senior in 2006. Frazier felt compelled to trust Kearney’s faith in him.
“(Kearney) gave me an opportunity to wrestle at a D-I school when no other D-I school would have,” Frazier said. “He’s the coach that will look for the guys who he sees that can make progress and improve, as well as kids that are good citizens.
“Being able to come to a D-I school was both an opportunity and a risk for me to take.”
Frazier wrestled for the Ducks at 149 pounds his freshman year and at 165 pounds in his sophomore year, which ended with a disappointing sixth-place finish at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships. For the duration of his sophomore season, a cloud of uncertainty hung over the heads of the players. Frazier and his teammates had to leave the controversy off the mats and concentrate on every match.
“At that point, it was out of our hands as far as what we were going to be able to do,” Frazier said. “On our part, what we had to do was wrestle hard and give the audience something to come and watch. In each match, I looked at how hard I could wrestle and how much of a match I could make it so the audience could have a good time watching it.
“I wanted to make sure that … this school (noticed) how hard we work and how much we’re committed to the sport. I wanted to make sure people knew about it.”
After the Pac-10s, Frazier continued working out and conditioning himself to compete immediately, should the right opportunity come along. Opportunities became available shortly after; Cal-State Fullerton offered Frazier a scholarship, and Oregon State offered Frazier the opportunity to walk onto the team.
But Frazier saw an alternative. Connections within the wrestling community led him to ask Kearney’s brother, the head wrestling coach at Churchill High School in Eugene, if any spots were available on the staff. Just a month after his college wrestling career ended, Frazier was hired on as an assistant coach at Churchill, where he works with, among others, Kearney’s son Chase.
Frazier, a junior, is pursuing a degree in economics with a minor in business and a master’s in education. He hopes to coach high school wrestling for those three years, opening up job opportunities. But leaving two years of eligibility and a redshirt year on the table remains a difficult decision.
“There’s a possibility (that) I could’ve been an All-American,” Frazier said.
Jeremy McLaughlin
Frazier’s roommate McLaughlin came into the Oregon wrestling program through a much more complicated path. Offered a scholarship by the Ducks in his senior year out of Crater High School in Central Point, Ore. – a veritable pipeline for Oregon wrestling in previous years – McLaughlin took a year off from school to participate in Christian mission trips to various locations around the world. Kearney still had interest in McLaughlin as a wrestler, but he would have to join the team as a walk-on.
Wrestling in the 149-pound weight class, McLaughlin used a redshirt year and remained a walk-on for two more years before finally earning a scholarship as a junior. He continued to wrestle at 149 pounds last year before injuries forced him to move up four weight classes, to 184 pounds, for the Pac-10s last year.
“It kind of doubled the workload, so to speak,” McLaughlin said of the surrounding controversy. “It was our last chance. Our backs were against the wall. It was a really challenging year. There was a lot of pressure from – people always have opinions and things that they want you to do. It was kind of like fighting the masses.”
The athletic scholarship McLaughlin earned on the mat, along with those of his teammates, was preserved for him and will be honored until his graduation. Former Oregon wrestlers are also allowed access to other facilities reserved for student athletes, including workout rooms, treatment facilities and tutors.
McLaughlin describes the feeling regarding the athletic department’s concessions to the former wrestlers as “bittersweet.”
“For four years, when I was in that weight room, surrounded by other athletes, we all had that same goal: We’re here to compete,” McLaughlin said.
“There’s always that shadow in the back of my mind: This is my year. Senior year is the last hurrah, the last shebang. And that was severed from me.
“You could say that I get all the perks without the work, but that’s why I came here, was for the work. I love the sport. I love the hard work.”
McLaughlin, 24, is a few credits shy of a double major in English and religious studies; upon completion of his degree requirements, he plans to move to Los Angeles and pursue screenwriting and acting jobs. He also works as a youth pastor at Calvary Fellowship in Eugene and volunteers through the Holden Leadership Center.
“The opportunities are pretty much endless,” McLaughlin said. “(I’m) just trying to keep my doors open.”
‘Pros and cons to every decision’
It was important for Kearney, now working as a fundraiser for the athletic department, that Oregon’s commitment to the wrestlers through the duration of their academic careers never waivered.
“We want to make that decision that you make as an 18-year-old signing a letter of intent to come attend and participate and perform at the University of Oregon not just for four years,” Kearney said. “There’s a connection through the legacy you leave both while you’re here and after.”
For all the tumult surrounding their sport and its eventual demise, neither Frazier nor McLaughlin harbor any resentment toward the athletic department for its actions.
“I think they’re a great athletic department. It was just a decision that they had to make,” Frazier said. “There’s pros and cons to every decision you have to make.”
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Still calling Oregon home
Daily Emerald
February 9, 2009
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