Quickness, agility, dexterity, endurance.
These are not your usual words for describing heavyweight wrestlers. But for Oregon sophomore Eric Webb, they have become his keys to success.
Although weighing in at around 230 to 240 pounds, Webb is one of the most nimble wrestlers on the mat. He has to be when going head-to-head with heavyweights who weigh thirty pounds more than he does.
“My conditioning is better than 90 percent of the guys out there,” Webb said. “That has to do with wrestling the smaller guys in practice. I don’t really have any heavier guys to work out with. I have to attack and stay on my toes.”
“Eric is strong, well positioned, and he’s able to wear opponents down, exploiting their conditioning,” Oregon head coach Chuck Kearney said. “Big, strong guys have the tendency to not be able to go at a pace Eric’s able to go for seven minutes.”
This season, Webb has outworked, outhustled and outwrestled 27 opponents, while dropping only four matches. What is more impressive is that he is one of the lighter athletes in what some call the toughest weight class in the nation. Webb has faced eight of the top-15 heavyweight wrestlers in the nation this season, and has beaten five of them. Of the four matches he has lost, one was because of injury and the other three were by less than six points.
“When you look at [Webb] and his opponents both physically and experience-wise, you think, ‘He shouldn’t be beating these guys,’” sophomore Tony Overstake said. “But he just goes out and gets the job done.”
Webb wasn’t always this good, though. Last season, Webb went through some growing pains in compiling a 23-15 record.
“Last year, it was just me losing a close match because I wasn’t confident in my shots,” Webb said. “I was just thinking about winning or losing and not what I need to do to win. It was very hard for me at first.”
“[Eric] was looking at too broad of a picture, not looking at, focusing at, the target,” Kearney said. “When he started doing that we started to see results.
“He completely takes himself into that area where he has control over everything.”
One of the biggest differences from this season to last season is weight. Webb came into the 1999-00 season weighing 214 pounds. A year of extensive weight training later, Webb is stronger and heavier than he has ever been.
“By seeing Eric in the practice room every day in the spring and summer and just looking at him physically, gaining the weight, we knew he was going to have a much improved season,” Kearney said.
“The weight room has definitely had a lot to do with things,” Webb said. “I’ve been breaking my old records. Coach Kearney puts us through a tough program.”
Having a lighter frame has always been an issue for Webb. Many college wrestling programs looked over Webb because he was too light to wrestle heavyweight, and too heavy to wrestle at the next lowest weight class, 197 pounds.
Webb’s weight even kept him out of college football, his first choice in collegiate sports. Webb was a second team All-State selection at the defensive lineman position at Eugene’s Willamette High School.
“I guess I wasn’t ‘Division I material.’” Webb said, gesturing quotation marks with his fingers. “Whatever.”
Fortunately, Webb had a backup plan. After placing second in the state at 215 pounds in February of 1998, he signed a letter of intent in May.
“There was no other school I was going to wrestle for,” Webb said. “Oregon State already had three or four heavyweights, and I wasn’t going to Portland State. Plus, my high school coach encouraged me to come here.”
“I knew he could be a Division I wrestler,” said Rick O’Shea, former Willamette High School wrestling coach and Oregon wrestler. “I called a couple schools, but they weren’t interested. Fortunately for Oregon, he went there.”
Webb credits much of his success in lighter wrestling to O’Shea.
“[Rick] had a lot to do with my wrestling ability,” Webb said. “He told me how to wrestle a lighter weight than a heavier weight and really got me interested in the sport.”
“I was trying to teach him a collegiate style of wrestling,” O’Shea said. “He had speed and agility — the stuff I preached when I was in college.”
Webb’s prowess this season has earned him a No. 4 national ranking after beginning the season unranked. Don’t tell that to Webb, though.
“I really don’t know why [the polls] are out there,” Webb said. “It doesn’t really matter because the top-20 guys could be in the top-eight at my weight class. It doesn’t matter until the March 17 [NCAA Championships].”
On Wednesday, Webb’s task at hand will be Oregon State’s No. 11 Jason Cooley, a 260-pounder whom Webb has defeated twice this season.
On the horizon is the Pacific-10 Conference championships at McArthur Court on Feb. 24-25, where he will likely be one of the top seeds.
“Eric’s capable of being a top contender this year,” Kearney said. “I’d like to see Eric at some point win a national title. He’s a kind of guy who could go on to the next level and participate on international teams representing the United States.
“If he continues to work hard and continues to make improvements like he has, the world of wrestling is open to him.”