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Post by dhobeika on Jul 15, 2007 3:33:52 GMT -5
Hello all,
Please use this website as a means of communicating with one another about the ideas you have, events and meetings you schedule, and any other information that is pertinent to saving the Oregon wrestling program.
Any suggestions or feedback about information and features you would like to see on the SaveOregonWrestling.com website would also be warmly welcomed.
Thanks for visiting the website.
Danielle Hobeika
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Post by coachfin on Jul 15, 2007 10:32:39 GMT -5
Thanks Daniell, This is a great site. Thank you for all your hard work. Wrestling is a great sport and one that I have been connected with for forty three years. Wrestlers work too hard to not have a program to go to. Oregon loses it program after this season and we need to do everything possible to keep it going. fins
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Post by roberts on Jul 15, 2007 11:06:10 GMT -5
Nice work Danielle. Hey Fin, keep up the good work. We can't let this go.
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Post by coachhart on Jul 15, 2007 15:05:04 GMT -5
Rat Ears, can you help me put together a data base of alumni e-mails? I have asked Kearney to do this for years but he is an idiot. You worked too hard to keep this going to let it get eliminated now. Go toss Kilkenny in an arm spin or something.
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Post by millert on Jul 16, 2007 11:55:03 GMT -5
We are all pulling for your program. We hope that Oregon realizes how important sports are and that student athletes make some of the most successful people in society. Good luck and keep us informed of ways we can help.
Tom Miller
Head Wrestling Coach
Mauston High School
Mauston, Wisconsin
UW LaCrosse class of 1996
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Post by coachfin on Jul 16, 2007 18:57:40 GMT -5
You already have what we have. We had a pretty good base, but people keep moving and changing addresses without letting us know. It is easy to name call and that is not their job to give you private email addresses. Sorry, we will take donations though. fins
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Post by coachfin on Jul 16, 2007 19:00:30 GMT -5
Kerby, Thank you for your offer to support the program. It looks like raising funds will be a big issue in getting back on the collegiate schedule. Stay tuned and we will start a major campaign for pledges soon. Thanks again, Ron Finley
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Post by joshfactor on Jul 17, 2007 9:57:29 GMT -5
Just thought I'd let you all know wrestling fans and supporters in the state of Missouri are aware of the website and I will continue to encourage everyone to sign the petition and send letters to Frohnmayer and Kilkenny. Just a thought, we ought to try to sell T-shirts or something and have the proceeds go to save the program!
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Post by dhobeika on Jul 18, 2007 9:29:34 GMT -5
Online donation forms should hopefully be set up before the end of the week. (It will be on the page of the website that is currently marked contact us/donations).
Coach Finley posted this on another forum, perhaps it might help to clarify his game plan.
"Making a donation to Oregon Wrestling will be fairly easy. We are setting up a non profit account that will be a holding account until two things happen. First, the Oregon administration must agree to keep wrestling (and maybe add women's wrestling to meet title IX requirements. Two we get it built up to an amount that would impress the department. My personal goal is 3.5 million because that will endow most of the program. all contributions would be tax deductable including property and appreciated stocks. Thanks for asking and keep sending our web site to everyone."
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Post by wrestlingpublicist on Jul 20, 2007 12:39:18 GMT -5
May I suggest, as a former Oregon wrestling SID whose ties go back to the days of Joe Sade and Greg Gibson, that while this may be the most serious threat ever posed to our program, that it isn't the first. The parallels between the situation faced some 32 years ago and now are quite striking. The program faced elimination several times under Ron Finley, and each time it survived through diligent work and reasoned argument.
It can live again, but only if we work twice as hard as before and make smart, rational moves--and perhaps enjoy a bit of luck.
One spring morning in 1975, Coach Finley awakened me with an early phone call. He was on his way to a meeting with a gentleman named Pete Wingert, who had recently been brought into the athletic department as a consultant. In reality, Wingert was a shadow athletic director who would make all of the spending decisions while the sitting AD had been relegated to "the revenue side" of the athletic department. It was an almost comical situation for those of us who, as peons in the department, realized the power play that was occurring--but the sitting AD refused to accept the reality that he was being eased out.
It wasn't funny for Fin that early morning. He knew his program potentially faced green-eye-shade scrutiny from an outsider who, like reports say about the current AD, had recently bought his way into influence in the program by being a generous donor to Harter's up-and-coming basketball program. Wingert was a successful Southern California businessman, a former UCLA booster, who retired in the Northwest and adopted the Ducks as his new team.
He knew a lot about running businesses but his neophyte status as an athletic director amused us all. One difference was the athletic department's financial situation. We weren't profitable in the mid-1970s, so the new custodian of the purse was looking for fat to trim. I remember one savings: he cut out letter jackets and sweaters. But he could easily have cut the wrestling program; in fact, several other sports did die in subsequent years under professional athletic directors.
All the while, wrestling survived--but this wasn't the last challenge.
The climate is different now. Oregon was a relatively poor state in those years; now the money is there to save the program. Remember something a very smart man once told me when bucking trends: You're only one intermediary away from being introduced to anyone in the world. All of us wrestling fans seem to have a common denominator. We're not the wealthiest people around. But we know people who can introduce us to those who are.
Wrestling will live or die this time based not only hundred dollar contributions here and there, although those are important for allowing Coach Finley the expenses he will need in this campaign. Instead, it will be resurrected only by making contacts with and winning over those who can help in a very large way.
Who do you know? And who do you know who knows somebody with money and influence?
One parting thought. My grandfather used to say you catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar. It's natural a time like this to express our frustration. But the time for finger pointing, name calling, and accusations is over. We will not shame the University of Oregon into reinstating wrestling.
Our success will rest upon the positive actions we can take.
By the way, regarding that early-morning phone call from Coach Finley some 32 years ago. At the end, after we had discussed his strategy for his pitch before the interim AD, he told me: "Steve Prefontaine died in a car wreck last night. I didn't want to tell you earlier because we might not have got any work done."
It's that kind of discipline and prioritizing that we will have to exercise to be successful.
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