WE HAVE A MAT!!!!!

Yes you read that right, we now have a wrestling mat, well kind of at least.   A local rancher happened to "come across" one of the old mats before the program was canceled last time and he's been storing it in his house.  He said that it's old, crusty, and definitely "not new" but it's better than wrestling on the ground or the carpet.

I ran into him at the county fair and when he told me that I was so excited that I couldn't wait to get home and do something wrestling related.  Had he been heading home I probably would have followed him the 30 miles to his house just to look at the mat.  I think that Sunday I'll try to run out there and get a picture or two of it.  That was a HUGE weight off of my shoulders I'd really been stressing over where I would find one and  what I would do if I couldn't locate one.  I had contemplated purchasing several home mats and then selling them after the season but I wasn't looking forward to fronting the bill for those, and our only other option was going to be to load up the kids and take them across the river into Goldendale or down to The Dalles for practices.

Sherman Wrestling is moving forward and big things are coming, now do we join ORWAY or run an independent club as a fundraiser like Heppner does?  Thoughts?

Good news and bad news about our wrestling room.

I took a tour of the Wasco grade school today to see where we might be able to practice, there's good news and bad news coming up:

First the good news.

 To my surprise the guy in charge of scheduling for the school had a great room for us, small and cheap for them to heat, closed from the rest of the school so that our mats can stay out all the time and be safe, large enough for at least 3 sections of mat, maybe four.  The room is not huge by any means but it is easily double the size of what Heppner has for their Varsity team.  The Gym is right next door and isn't used during the days that we would be practicing so we'd be able to use it to warm up, play games, or to spill into if we have too many bodies for the smaller room.  

Now the bad news.

Our wrestlers are going to get lots of rug burns and not many mat burns practicing on carpet instead of a mat because we STILL DON'T HAVE A MAT!  I'm starting to reach near panic mode and I'm going to begin calling all the schools and coaches that I can think of until I find one that will sell/loan/give us some sections of mat, even if it doesn't make a full circle, as long as it's a mat.

We're back and running again.

After a long hiatus that lasted all of last season I'm back to blogging and ready to go.  A lot has happened in the past year so I'll run down some of the highlights. 
After a lot of calling I finally got a meeting with the Sherman High School AD.  He shared some good news and some bad news with me.

First the good news:  He likes the idea of a wrestling program at Sherman High school and hopes that it can happen.  There are some hoops that I need to jump through first: 

• Start a youth program and maintain it for a couple of years to show that there in interest.  
• Find the gear (or money for the gear) I guess that all of the gear they used to have was given away, including their mat, warmups, singlets etc
• Be able to show that wrestling can be financially affordable when compared to other sports.  I guess that last time they had a program the cost per athlete was astronomical.  I am not going to share the number that he gave me because there must have been a mistake in someone's math but let's just say it was WAY (like add a zero) higher than any of the other sports.

 Secondly I believe that I found a location for our youth wrestling this winter, the best part of that is they won't charge us anything to use it either.  More on that later.I really should get back to work.

Here we go. . .

Well my digital companions we're getting ready for a big month.  As September winds down and October prepares to come roaring in we're getting ready to move to Sherman County (Moro Oregon), I'll celebrate my 10 annual 21st birthday, Wrestlers in Heppner will probably be certified (not positive when that will be done), I'm going to try like the dickens to get in a climbing/hiking trip of some sort in.  Add work, elk hunting?, and a fantasy wrestling draft in and it could be a whirlwind of a month.

We get the Uhaul on Wednesday, and hope to be moved in on Thursday/Friday.  I've got a meeting on Saturday, work Sunday and Monday, then I hope to get into the local school and talk to the AD, Principal, and maybe even the superintendent to see what their feelings are about a wrestling program.  I hope for a warm receptive welcome.  I have been told by another local coach that he may be able to help find me a practice mat, which would be huge if we could get that out of the way.

If you're jonesing for a wrestling fix check out the Oregon Wrestling Forum http://www.theowf.net/.  There's rankings for all the classes and an all class ranking as well.  That's also THE place to go to find results throughout the season.  See you all next month.

This Sucks

So I nearly cried the other day.  It suddenly hit me that I wouldn't be able to coach that much this year.  For the first time since 2005 my involvement in the sport that I love is going to be severely limited.  I'm working on call in Heppner and I plan to keep the job for a while at least, so on the occasion where I'm working a night shift I'll be able to go over and help the guys out at practice but other than that, I'll be stuck traveling to watch tournaments.  This sucks.  Heppner is the first team that I've been involved with that was on the rise.  The talent is cycling up, the current head coach is a great guy, that was fun to work with, they are building a new wrestling room (it'll most likely be used for other sports but it's being build and designed for wrestling).  In general the program is doing all the right things and headed in the right direction. 

Now I'm headed to a wrestling wasteland.  Guess that I'm going to have to get really comfortable behind the lens of my camera and spend the winter taking pictures instead of coaching (watch out Tony and Jedi), or do I dare contemplate getting certified again and putting on the striped shirt for a season?  Wow, I must really be desperate.

Lester to wrestle for bronze, Ruiz still alive in repechage at World Championships | TheMat.com - USA Wrestling

Lester to wrestle for bronze, Ruiz still alive in repechage at World Championships | TheMat.com - USA Wrestling

It's all becoming real.

Well we went to Sherman County, Kara had her interview yesterday, she was offered the job, accepted the position and her first day October 11th.  So in just over a month, 32 days we will move (for the third time in 12 months), unpack settle in and hopefully begin the process of reintroducing wrestling to Sherman County.  A week ago we were both freaking out a little bit because we couldn't find a place to live when we got there.  We were either looking at staying in Heppner for a while longer with Kara commuting over 90 miles (roughly 2 hours each way) or moving in with my mother-in-law.  Yes the options were that attractive.  However we somehow had the opportunity to not only find a spot to rent but we had our pick of two very nice homes that would both work out very well for us.  We chose a 2 bedroom 2,000 sq ft house that has a very nice 2 car garage, huge lot, fenced yard, underground sprinkler system, large utility room, HUGE master suite with a sliding glass door and private deck off of it, and a fantastic kitchen.  Oh and it also has a pellet stove AND a wood stove--time to fire up the chainsaw and start cutting again.

We're going to try to put both of the kids into one bedroom for now and see how that works--fingers crossed that they will cooperate with us.