Greg Haga isn’t used to losing.
In just the last nine seasons alone, he’s led Crater High School to seven 5A titles, including four consecutive state championships from 2003-06.
And though practice doesn’t start in Grants Pass, Ore., until November, the 20-year coach feels like he’s already suffered a loss.
On July 13, Pat Kilkenny announced that the University’s wrestling program would be cut after this season to revive a baseball team and to satisfy the last two Title IX prongs of compliance.
Haga, in stunned disbelief, got on the computer and wrote Kilkenny an e-mail.
“I told him I was truly disappointed, that the whole school and community was,” Haga said. “I thought Oregon wrestling would be around for a while.”
Haga sure hoped it would: Oregon’s given athletic scholarships to more than a dozen of his former athletes.
Last year, five men on the Ducks’ roster were CHS alumni. Haga estimated that he’s coached 15 boys who’ve gone on to become men in Oregon’s wrestling program.
But now, he’s facing the prospect of losing the longtime ally.
“Coach (Chuck) Kearney has been great to us,” Haga said. “He’s seen a lot of talent in our kids over the past few years.”
Haga wonders if Kilkenny ever saw the talent he sees every winter.
“Oregon is one of the best wrestling states hands down,” Haga said. “When a wrestling program is cut, it hits small communities pretty heavily. It hurts a small community like Central Point pretty big.”
This season, Haga has five seniors, as well as a batch of juniors who look good enough to wrestle at the Division I level. Haga just hopes other schools will give them a look so that they’ll at least have another avenue for advancement.
And Haga feels bad for the Ducks who’ll have to transfer to prolong their wrestling careers.
“The reality is when those kids came out of high school they were more marketable,” Haga said. “When a school drops a program, some of these guys might have trouble finding a place to go.”
He hopes not, though. Of course, the reality is that hundreds of programs since the early 1980s have been dropped because the sport is “non-revenue” gaining.
When Phil Knight donated $100 million to Oregon athletics in August, Haga figured wrestling was on its way back. Then he found out the money would be used to make sure the department remains “self supporting,” and for a new multi-use arena, and for what seemed like a dozen other reasons except saving wrestling.
“You give wrestling $3.5 million, and they are set for life,” Haga said. “If you spend $100 million on something, it seems like you could squeeze out $3.5 million.”
Folks like retired Oregon coach Ron Finley are putting up a fight, leading the charge in fundraising efforts to restore the program. Saveoregonwrestling.com has a petition supporters can sign and a link to make donations, which are placed in an endowment fund set on raising enough money to revive the program. But it seems baseball’s support network – as in, financial support network – is simply bigger.
But if you ask Oregon senior Joey Lucas, he’ll tell you the team doesn’t need much.
“We just put our nose to the grindstone and get after it,” Lucas said. “Give us a few mats and we’ll be fine.”
Oregon will become the latest of six Pacific-10 schools to drop wrestling since 1979 if the program doesn’t receive substantial financial support from the University and its donors by next winter, or if Title IX stipulations prevent it from returning.
Lucas said he and his teammates are practicing as hard as ever, trying to avoid the thought that they may make history as Oregon’s last wrestling squad.
Mainly, Lucas said, they’re all just waiting to see what happens next.
And Haga’s e-mail to Kilkenny?
He’s still waiting for a response.
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