page contents Google

AUTHORITARIAN PARENT? WHAT OTHER KIND IS THERE

April 4, 2018 by

    A scene from the movie Vision Quest shows Louden Swain’s buddy Kuch at home with his dad. Instead of a bonding moment of shared struggle, the dad slaps Kuch around, telling him he’ll never be nothing.   Nothing. Wrestling might make him feel like a big shot, but he’ll still be nothing.   […]

Filed Under: Toughen Up Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

HOW HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING PAYS THE BILLS

July 6, 2017 by

No matter how you see the video of President Trump fighting a CNN bobble head, it’s not high school wrestling. It’s not Olympic wrestling. Is it yard wrestling? Not even. Instead it’s a demonstration of what happens when a man finds himself in a situation and wishes he’d been on a high school wrestling team. […]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

EVERY SCRUB ATHLETE HAS THIS STORY

March 10, 2017 by

    If you’ve got one, then you’re a scrub athlete. And that’s not a bad thing.   Talking to college stars and professional athletes, one thing stands out: They’ve played a lot of games. Far too many for one moment to stand above the rest. Ask if they remember one game, one opponent, that […]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

OREGON COACH RON FINLEY

July 6, 2016 by

Youth passes with the people important in our youth: Oregon Coach Ron Finley. How does anyone leave a small town? Some never do, and the towns are all better for it. Oregon Coach Ron Finley left Newberg on a wrestling mat and he never got off. The sports world is better for him. For some […]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

KING OF THE HILL IN NORTH BEND, OREGON

January 9, 2016 by

People know the place when you say you’re from North Bend. Ask someone where there from and you expect one answer, one place. Then you get this: “I grew up all over the place.” Hear that and know you’ve got someone ashamed of where they’re from. They know the name of their town, they just […]

Filed Under: Boomer Up Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

VIN LANANNA HAS A PAIR

May 28, 2015 by

Yes He Does. And Vin Lananna Calls Track And Field The Basic Sport.   Who better than TrackTown President Vin Lananna to explain the world’s most basic sport. Of course it’s track and field. He lives and breathes the stuff. Because of him Portland hosts the World Indoor Track and Field meet in 2016, the […]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , ,

OREGON’S WRESTLING WEEKEND

February 26, 2015 by

Putting Pride On The Line. The sound you hear in Oregon, all up and down the west coast, comes from wrestling families. It’s championship weekend. Oregon high school wrestlers meet on the mats inside Memorial Coliseum starting Friday. By Saturday night every place on the podium will be filled, all medals hung. Sunday the big […]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

BABY BOOMERS: OLDER SIBLINGS OF THE WORLD

November 29, 2014 by

When Big Brother Is A Good Thing. In a large sense baby boomers have become the big brother of the world. Boomers young (50) and old (68) have caught plenty of heat over the years, but their influence is everywhere. Save the earth? Peace? Equality? Women’s rights? Gay rights? In such a huge demographic, baby […]

Filed Under: Who's Up Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

USE SPORTS EARLY TO CURB ABUSE LATER

September 18, 2014 by

But Which Sport? Early sportswriters didn’t write about sports as we know them. Those were desperate times of high mortality. Humans didn’t seem as far up the food chain then. If we believe wiki, sprinting and wrestling made it onto the first sports page/cave painting 17,000 years ago. Say, “for your life,” after each sport […]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

OREGON’S GREATEST ATHLETE (ever)

July 7, 2014 by

Do you open the Oregonian’s sports page and find soccer? If it’s not the World Cup, it’s the Timber or Thorns’ players flinging around. Isn’t it still baseball season? We expect to see diving catches in the out field, runners breaking up double plays, the stretch on first, not wild soccer players kneeing the vertebrae […]

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,