I know it's not all that exciting, we have a MWC/MAC, WAC/MAC, and a MWC/SBC match-up. It's a Battle Royale for basement supremacy.

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Am I the only one watching on TV?  If not what do you think so far?  Flee flicker for the win?  Is Costa better than Thomas?  Is it stupid to play full contact on special teams?  Alas my request for a lear jet has gone unanswered, and I am forced to watch on ESPN2, so if you are in the same boat, leave your comments below.  Hey look Mike Belotti is in the house!  Nice Unis! Go DUCKS. Go Troops.

Tony Celotto is apparently interested in playing football for The Wolfpack?  How could you do this to me Tony?  We were like family,  we let you go because you were getting out of the business, and you just go one state over and play for someone else?  Tony, Tony, Tony, how could you?  I know you want to go into law enforcement but Nevada?  You lied to me Tony and it hurts, it really really hurts.  It's like a dagger to my heart Tony! Is that 75 words yet?

I Know your out there I see the Oregon "O" decal on cars all over town.  Any way I've gone to the peanut farm a few times to watch games that we don't get locally.  Usually there are a few of us there.  It would be cool to get a good fan base showing up there.  The place is usually crawling with Sooner and Trojan fans as well as you name it U.  So if anyone is interested I'll be there you should be to.  If anyone knows a better place, I'm open to suggestions.  Let's represent.  Less than 1 week, I can't wait. But I guess I have to.

This is truly a sad day in Oregon athletics.  In fact it is not just Oregon for which we must mourn but also for the integrity of amateur athletics as a whole.  I have been a ducks fan for as long as I can remember, from the days when winning any games was cherished. When wrestling cannot maintain itself for want of money and facilities or fan support is a testament both to how far we have risen and fallen at the University of Oregon.  The fact is that the concept of amateurism in division I college athletics is officially dead.  One only has to look at the heroic efforts of those who have fought to save their sport from the headsman's axe.  The fact that they have been able to raise the money that they have, shows that there is alot of pride and commitment from fans of wrestling, even though we may not attend the matches and tournements  there is a certain pride that binds us as wrestlers that those who have never wrestled will never understand.  

You can be sure that those who have decided to cut wrestling have never wrestled, and will never understand the courage and heart that it takes to be a wrestler.  We will never receive the glory that is given to the "big sports" like football or basketball,  even the champions will never get rich from their sport as do the "studs" from the other sports.  No, my friends, wrestling is not loved by those who do not do it.  However among wrestler's and former wrestlers is a sense of being that you cannot really explain to those who have never participated.  I imagine it must be akin to the pride that we hear from our friends who are veterans and former marines.  I speak of the sure knowledge that we as wrestlers know that we have something that is deep within us that cannot be taken away by any school administration or business decision.  To wrestle you need heart.  Unless you have looked into your opponents eyes just before the opening whistle, or felt the sweet agony of every ounce of your being drained from you during a match that lasts only six minutes, you can never understand.  Ours is not a fight for the glory of fame and fortune ours is the fight for the honor that comes from the knowledge that you gave every thing you had on the mat against a foe who is your equal in size and weight.  We take pride in the knowledge that ours is a sport that was decided on skills alone.  It is very difficult to cheat in wrestling being that it is one against one with a referee watching your every move.  Its not like football or basketball where people get away with dirty tricks all the time.  We are the true warriors of athletics, and everyone who has wrestled knows and feels a certain sense of pride and respect for all those who have done it and are doing it.

The arguments I hear against wrestling are stale things which do not hold up as has been pointed out throughout this debate.  Title IX for example is bologna, there is no rule that women cannot wrestle in fact here in Alaska we crowned the first ever female state champion in high school athletics last year.  I often remember fondly the time one of my team mates wrestled and lost to a female wrestler at the Castle Rock invitational, in front of a packed house, the place went nuts, if you had seen it you too would agree that women can and do compete well in wresting.  In fact I would argue that the level playing field (or mat) that results from the weight classification system actually allows women to be able to compete more easily on their own merits, unlike other "sports," becuase all wretlers know at the end of the match it is not physical strentgth that acheives victory rather it is skill, stamina, and above all heart.

To those who say that the wrestling program is a money loser I have only to point to the efforts of Ron Finley and the others who have raised millions in cash and pledges to save Oregon wrestling.  Maybe wrestling will never truly turn a profit in the traditional sense (ie. gate returns, and concessions), so what?  If wrestling enthusiasts want to support it with donations what's the damn problem?  The fact that coach Finley and others have been so successfull raising this money is a testament to how meaningful this endeavor is to all those who have participated.  While we may not attend the matches or buy the popcorn, we know that there is an intrinsic value in the sport.  

As for those who say its for want of facilities, all a wrestler needs is a mat, some ropes to climb, and some stairs to run up and down for hours on end, as I have said before ours is not a sport that needs the glitz and glamor of the football and future basketball and baseball facilities.  We do not have the same illusions (or are they delusions) of grandeur that other athletes do.  I say this not as a slight to other athletes I too played football, and love basketball and baseball.  I'm just trying to convey the idea that on some level wrestlers are made from something different that values personal acheivement, that champions and fish alike recognize.  If you don't know what a fish is ask a wrestler.

Truly however, even if you are not and have never been a wrestler, we must recognize this for what it truly is.  It being an illness which will eventually destroy amateur athletics as a whole if we let it.  College athletics is supposed to be about sport and competition for the love of sports and competion and nothing else.  It's about bragging rights and young men and women competing simply for the love of sport.  It is supposed to be about helping these athletes acheive an education that they might otherwise have not recieved.  Instead it has become about money, glamour, the best facilities, and pandering the basest of the athletes desires.  We live in an age when if you want to compete you need to have televisions and xboxes in your locker.  This is no longer a fight for parity, and equality, or bragging rights, or whatever other catch phrase we want to cling to to make us feel better it is about glamour, politics and most of all money.  It starts with wrestling, but what is next?  It may be your sport.  No, truly what we have seen here is something repugnant, it is something that doesn't belong in amateur athletics.  I don't blame the baseball people or the cheerleaders.  This is not about them either.
Sure maybe some of this was bourne of our envy of the Beavers truly spectacular rise to prominence.  But it's not the athletes' fault.

The value of wrestling may not be so easily quantifiable on the accounting ledger or in the attendance numbers, but like old gristled veterans and warriors, we sleep better just knowing that our wrestlers are there and carrying the torch that we have passed to them, as our ancestors have done since time immemorial. Because when it comes down to it this is but a modern incarnation of one of the most ancient of sports that has been passed down from the depths of history and as such is something that is in a sense primeval that lives within all of us.  It is about battling with a foe who is your equal, but really it is about battling ourselves, and that which makes us human in all our short comings.  Indeed it is not just a sport that we are losing it is in some sense about losing a link to a forgotten past that helps to make us whole as people.  We as wrestlers all know this to be true to a certain extent and it is hard to explain to our friends who have never done it, I hope that I have conveyed some part of why the wresting community feels the deep sense of loss that it does, for at the end of the day wrestling is not just a sport, it is the only sport, the rest are just games.