Schedule Update, Travel Notes For Cliff Keen and More!

Practice Room - by Doug Parazoo

My last email mentioned the possible date of the Wrestling Parent/Fan Tailgater. The correct date for the Tailgate Party is October 15, the same date as the Utah Football game.

Here is the upcoming schedule:
Oct 8 - Open Practice for wrestling  - Football vs Cal
Oct 15 - Open Practice for wrestling, followed by Parent Fan Tailgate Party - Football vs Utah
Oct 29 - Wrestlers honored for 2016 Pac-12 Championship at halftime during Football game vs WSU; probably will not be an Open Practice, if so, it will be announced
Nov 3 - 7 pm -  the Intrasquad will be held in Gill Coliseum

Wrestling practice usually starts about 3 -3.5 hours before football kick-off, so until that is set, we don't know the start time for Practice. Will keep you posted.

If you haven't read the latest articles by Oregon State, the Beavers are ranked 20th in one pre-season poll. The most recent article announces the 2016-17 schedule, so you'll want to be sure to read that story at osubeavers.com You can also go straight to the schedule.

One of the biggest and best tournaments, the Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas is coming up in December. It is not too soon to begin making your travel plans to attend. This year the tournament location has been moved back to the Las Vegas Convention Center. For more tips, two of your FALL Board members, Michael Denison and Craig Scharer, have put together some thoughts on travel for the Cliff Keen: Cliff Keen Las Vegas Tournament
http://cklvwrestle.com/

December 2-3 at the LV convention Center
35 teams in attendance, view teams at http://cklvwrestle.com/participating-teams/
Half the top 20 participating, including all of the PAC-10.  If you can’t make it to nationals this is the one to go to.

Airfare around $250 round trip to PDX.  Cheaper if you shop around.

Rooms are $85 a night at the WestGate.
Use CODE SGCW6R to get a room at Westgate.
It is connected to the LV convention center, so easy access
You can do cheaper of course if you are willing to walk or drive.

A lot of OSU fans will be there and we will try to get together to share the fun!

“I remember Clayton Jack slamming Capone of Ohio St to his back with just 1 second left in the Match (6:59) to take the championship that year at HWT”, said Michael Denison.  “It was a magic moment In recent OSU Lore”.
"The same year Clayton won, current Operations Director Michael Mangrum knocked off 2 highly rated All-Americans (Boris Novachkov-Cal Poly & Hunter Stieber-Ohio State) to take the title @ 141." - Craig
The Cliff Keen is a lot of fun to attend, get your plans made now, cheer on your Beavers in Las Vegas!

Speaking of travel, Craig & Michael have also been busy with end of season travel planning. Blocks of rooms have been set aside for the NCAA's in St Louis. Work is being done on saving rooms for the Pac-12's at Stanford. Be thinking about whether or not you would be interested in a fan bus to Stanford. The flier for hotels will be available at Socials.

The FALL Board as also been busy getting ready for our upcoming membership drive for this season. If you don't like paper forms, checks and postage stamps, you'll like the new on-line payment system! It is almost ready for use, just a few more tweaks. For those who still like the old form, that will be out soon as well. Keep an eye on your email box!

 

That's Cody Weishoff - top position

Before we forget, the first Open Practice was held last Saturday. It was unofficial, but it was great to see everyone again, especially some faces from the past, like Jason Lara and Cody Weishoff who both took to the mat with the younger guys!  A few tidbits gleaned from the event:
Lots of new faces on the mat
Guys who have left - Tyler Chay, Iho Odighizuwa
Some of the guys were doing some freestyle wrestling in Canada recently, both Amar Dhesi and Joey Palmer knocked off recent NCAA finalists!

End of Practice

One other look back - thanks to Ron Iwasaki for sending this link to a story in the Portland Tribune about Greg Strobel and Mike Haas's induction to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.

Where are they now?

Cody Weishoff and his wife are living in Bandon, OR. Cody is a residential contractor and his wife is the dentist in town. They are the proud parents of a baby boy. Cody can still hang in there for a full practice!

Go Beavs!

Open Practice this Saturday & Other Notes

Don't forget, your first chance to glimpse the 2016-17 Oregon State  Wrestling team occurs this Saturday morning, 9:30, in the Wrestling Room in the Sports Performance Center on campus. Practice usually lasts about and hour and a half, so you'll have plenty of time to tailgate and make it to the football game later.

There will be new freshman faces on the mat, but there will also be a couple of transfers, who are already listed on the roster - Ihoghama Odighizuwa and Amari Sengsavanh.

For those who like to plan ahead, mark Saturday October 29 on your calendar. Your 2016 Pac-12 Champion Wrestling team will be introduced at halftime at the Beaver football game vs WSU that day. It is also Homecoming weekend.

 

Last year's Tailgater

Recent tradition would also make October 29 the Wrestling Parent/Fan Tailgate Party. The Tailgate party generally occurs after an Open Practice and before the football game. The Tailgater has not been confirmed yet for this year, so it is subject to change.

Fellow FALL Board member Craig Scharer recently pointed out that Oregon State used to be in the top ten for attendance at wrestling meets nationally. Unfortunately, we have slipped. We need to get more people in the stands and get our numbers back up!! For more information on national attendance, see this article at The Open Mat sent to me by Craig.

If you have not yet read the news coming out today from the Coaching Corner, it follows below. It has more information on this Saturday's Practice, the schedule, Greg Strobel's HOF Induction, the Making A Difference Tournament in Truax, NCAA tickets and more!

Go Beavs!

Wrestling fans, alumni and supporters-
 
The 2016-2017 season is right around the corner! The school year officially started yesterday and that means we are busy in pre-season training.  In less than two months time, Oregon State will embark on a new season full of new challenges. We have some new faces in terms of a new crop of freshman, and have added two new members to the coaching staff as well.
 
Last night, OSU great and 2x NCAA Champion Greg Strobel was inducted in the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. It was great to be there and OSU was well represented with many of Greg’s teammates on hand in support.
 
We are excited to have former Beav All American Taylor Meeks join our staff, and also welcome Kent State all American Ian Miller to Corvallis! They are a great addition to our team and are going to help us reach a higher level here at OSU.
 
We also have a new crop of freshman here that we are happy to have in the program. Please watch for our schedule to be released any time at www.osubeavers.com.  Our home opener will be on November 20^th vs. Michigan.
 
Our tournament schedule includes The Las Vegas Invitational, The Reno Tournament of Champions, and The Midlands. We have a good competitive schedule set up and are excited about the upcoming challenges. 
 
For anyone going to be around Corvallis this Saturday, we will have an open workout for the fans at 9:30 AM in the Dale Thomas Wrestling Room. Here is your first chance to see the team this fall. 
 
We are hosting our Intra-squad meet on November 3^rd at 7 pm in Gill Coliseum. We anticipate some good battles and competition to make the team. We will then open the regular season the following weekend in Boone, NC when we take on Appalachian State and Duke.
 
A heads up for those looking ahead at attending the NCAA Championships: we will once again have tickets available through our ticket office in the coming months. If you are interested in sitting in OSU section, give me a heads up. We are unsure at this time how many we will get in our allocation but want to have as many of you as we can in our section.
 
Coaches and Parents- The Annual Making a Difference Tournament will be November 13^th in The Truax Center at Oregon State University. This is always a great day of wrestling with wrestlers of all ages. Please plan to attend!
 
Thanks for all the support.

Open Practice Coming Up!

Autumn begins just a few days from now, so you know that wrestling season is not far away. Your first opportunity to check out the 2016-17 Beaver wrestling team is coming up next week.

Saturday, September 24 at 9:30 am the team will have an unofficial Open Practice in the Dale Thomas Wrestling Room. The  wrestling room is located on the second floor of the middle section of the Sports Practice Facility just west of Gill Coliseum. Kick-off for the football game starts a few hours later in Reser Stadium across the street.

Practice will be led by the team, as official practices do not start until later in October. The coaches will be present so you will be able to say hello. Don't forget - Taylor Meeks will be back, this time as a staff member!

Looking back to the Summer Olympics, it is always fun to learn of connections to those on the team. Besides the connection to Terry Steiner, former OSU coach, now the Women's Team Head Coach, the Beavers have another connection to the ladies in the Olympics, Mike R. Jones. Mike is now with Simon Fraser, up in BC, Canada.

Those of you who remember Mike R. Jones from his days of wrestling for the Beavers will enjoy this email exchange he had with Len Kauffman:

Did have my third alum get Olympic gold, proof I do not do lasting harm! Helen Maroulis became USA’s first women’s Olympic Champion.

Thought I might get two as Danielle Lappage had beaten everyone other than Japan and USA. She actually won by tech fall over the bronze medal winner. Five minutes before her opening match she did one last duck under in warm up to a complete hamstring tear.
Helen wrestled for me for four years. She took a sabbatical in her second year to go to center to make 2012 Olympic team (against my advice). Lost to a very average girl and at 20 was ready to quit sport! Came back, made world team that fall, ended up second losing to Japan in final at 55kg. Won four straight University nationals without losing a match, and is on a 80 90 match win streak since winning worlds at 55 last year in Vegas. Did not make any of these athletes from scratch. Although I do claim that once in a while> Nice to see that we have a system that can get them from A to Z if they are willing to work hard, lucky enough to avoid or manage injury > Even Igali coming out of Nigeria was very well coached in v basics by Bulgarian coaches growing up. as did her Team mate Vicky Anthony. Helen majored in communications while here. 3.7 GPA, Originally from Maryland. Really trying to phase out here before they phase me out !! Hope to go part time assistant soon.
Mike

One last piece of wrestling news, which happened a while back - Minnesota's longtime coach J Robinson has been fired. Brandon Eggum will serve as the Interim Head Coach. To read more details, see these two stories:
Article at OpenMat
Second Article at OpenMat
Thank you to Craig Scharer for sending me those links!

Don't forget, first unofficial Open Practice - next Saturday!

Go Beavs!