July 13, 2007
Zalesky saddened by demise of Oregon wrestling
By Brooks Hatch
Gazette-Times reporter
Oregon’s decision to reinstate baseball and drop wrestling elicited silence and disappointment on Friday from the Oregon State coaches in those sports.
Baseball coach Pat Casey, whose success with the two-time national-champion Beavers was instrumental in Oregon reviving the sport, wasn’t available for comment on Friday. He has steadfastly declined to talk about Oregon baseball since the rumors the sport may return began in 2006 after the Beavers won their first national title.
The Ducks will field a team in 2009, and play and practice at an as-yet undetermined venue. Scholarships will be increased over a four-year period until the NCAA maximum number of 11.7 is reached in 2012 so the Ducks may play a limited schedule to that point.
“It’s up to Oregon when they want to opt into a full conference schedule,” Pacific-10 Conference assistant public relations director Dave Hirsch said Friday.
“If they want to start in league play they just have to let the conference know and they will be added into the conference schedule.”
The Beavers and Ducks played 296 times between 1907 and 1981, with OSU compiling a 150-146 advantage. OSU defeated Oregon 8-3 and 8-6 in Corvallis in 1981 in Oregon’s final games before the program was eliminated.
The wrestling program will be disbanded after the 2007-08 season. The 17 men on scholarship can compete for the lame-duck team in 2007-08 and then transfer with immediate eligibility; stay at Oregon and keep their current scholarship until their eligibility is completed, or get their release and immediately transfer to another school.
OSU coach Jim Zalesky was saddened to learn the West Coast is losing its second program in the past two years. Fresno State dropped the sport after the 2006 season.
“It impacts us that we don’t have that rival 40 miles down the road, it’s a good in-state rivalry we won’t have any more,” Zalesky said. “You’re never too happy when any program is dropped.
“They probably made a mistake in 1981 by dropping baseball in the first place, because now they’re bringing it back. That’s the way most wrestling coaches feel about wrestling.
“To me, it’s short-sighted. College athletics is about (creating) opportunities, not taking opportunities away.”
Oregon’s demise could help OSU’s in-state recruiting because it leaves underfunded Portland State as the only other option for Division I competitors.
“You could say that, but competition brings you up, it makes you better,” Zalesky said. “Competition in the wrestling room makes you better. Competition down the road makes you better, it makes you work harder.”
Hirsch said Oregon’s departure won’t change the Pac-10’s sponsorship of wrestling, even though OSU, Stanford and Arizona State are the only full-time conference members to sponsor the sport.
“We still have the (six) affiliate members, and with them that makes for nine schools competing,” and the conference will go on as before, just without the Ducks.
OSU, Stanford and Arizona State are the only Pac-10 schools with wrestling programs. Affiliate members UC Davis, Cal Poly, Boise State, Cal State Bakersfield, Cal State Fullerton and Portland State complete the lineup.
“It will probably stay at nine teams for a while, but maybe we could add another team down the road,” Zalesky said. “It’s a good conference, we just have to step it up.”
The elimination will probably increase OSU’s expenses. It must find two duals to replace the annual two-match Civil War series, which OSU dominated 105-24-4.
“We’ll just have to travel,” Zalesky said. “Maybe we’ll get a home-and-home with Boise State, they’ve got a good team, or somebody else. Or you travel more and get some competition out east, which can help us too.
“It’s not going to change our goals. But it’s just too bad. In your sport, you never want to see a program dropped. James Madison dropped 10 sports this year, women’s and men’s.
“You don’t want to see opportunities lost to young people who want to compete.”