Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A failure to redeem.
The warm glow of Indian summer is gone. The sun is but a faint yellow circle upon a slate gray horizon that hangs a low, heavy ceiling over the fading hillside colors of northwestern Oregon. Fall salmon are surging up the coastal rivers in their indefatigable quest to spread their epic life-force across their natal waters.
Chasing them with a fly rod is an annual ritual for me. The fortuitous conflux of perfectly drifted fly pattern and aggressive salmon explode into chaotic battles that test every fiber of tackle and resolve. Pulling with all my might on a stout nine-weight rod against these silver torpedoes gives me a bedrock appreciation of what it means to never give up.
Hip-deep in chilly current, wading-shoe cleats bracing for purchase against the shifting and slippery river rock, fighting for every reel-turn of fly line, I feel connected to something ancient and authentic. At the same time it rejuvenates me, it breaks me down into my base elements to reveal fundamental truths about myself, my mortality, and my natural place in the universe.
Life, death, struggle, the beginning and the end; it's all here. And it's beautiful.
I'd like to be fishing today. But the rain that has pushed the rivers out of shape has made the day better fit for tying flies rather than fishing with them. Since I passed my fortieth winter I have grown to enjoy my hours at the tying bench as much as time on the water. It offers a different sort of contemplation. Putting hook in vise and dressing it with colored thread, fur, and feathers, whether to approximate one of the time-tested patterns of the masters, or to break away from tradition to create something of totally original symmetry, I find it hard not to think about the fish it will catch in the new seasons to come on my favorite waters.
My lifetime collection of tying materials fills a rainbow stack of clear boxes. Much of the best quality stuff came from my father, who first taught me to tie flies. But the stuff I'm using to tie my salmon patterns today came from my father's late best friend, George. Like my father, George grew up in Akron, graduated from an Ivy League college, then migrated to the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoyed fly fishing on many of the region's most famous salmon and steelhead rivers.
As I admire the fine French tinsel, flawless English hooks, and premium hackles that I cherry-picked from the remnants my father collected from George's estate, it is obvious that George had a passion for the sport and a keen appreciation for beauty and quality. I can't imagine that these things wouldn't have given him great satisfaction.
Which stands in direct contradiction to the sobering truth: George secretly drank himself to death and was fairly miserable. I don't know why.
It's been several years since George's ashes were spread over his favorite Washington stream. Yet still I look at his old stuff and wonder how something that gave him so much pleasure could not redeem him? It is a mystery because fly-fishing is intrinsically optimistic. It is hopeful and life affirming.
I miss George, his crooked smile and sardonic wit. I think of him often as I tie salmon patterns with his old materials, and retrace his steps along streams such as the Kalama, where I also marvel at the life force of salmon.
And continue to wonder and fail to reconcile how it couldn't sustain him.
Chasing them with a fly rod is an annual ritual for me. The fortuitous conflux of perfectly drifted fly pattern and aggressive salmon explode into chaotic battles that test every fiber of tackle and resolve. Pulling with all my might on a stout nine-weight rod against these silver torpedoes gives me a bedrock appreciation of what it means to never give up.
Hip-deep in chilly current, wading-shoe cleats bracing for purchase against the shifting and slippery river rock, fighting for every reel-turn of fly line, I feel connected to something ancient and authentic. At the same time it rejuvenates me, it breaks me down into my base elements to reveal fundamental truths about myself, my mortality, and my natural place in the universe.
Life, death, struggle, the beginning and the end; it's all here. And it's beautiful.
I'd like to be fishing today. But the rain that has pushed the rivers out of shape has made the day better fit for tying flies rather than fishing with them. Since I passed my fortieth winter I have grown to enjoy my hours at the tying bench as much as time on the water. It offers a different sort of contemplation. Putting hook in vise and dressing it with colored thread, fur, and feathers, whether to approximate one of the time-tested patterns of the masters, or to break away from tradition to create something of totally original symmetry, I find it hard not to think about the fish it will catch in the new seasons to come on my favorite waters.
My lifetime collection of tying materials fills a rainbow stack of clear boxes. Much of the best quality stuff came from my father, who first taught me to tie flies. But the stuff I'm using to tie my salmon patterns today came from my father's late best friend, George. Like my father, George grew up in Akron, graduated from an Ivy League college, then migrated to the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoyed fly fishing on many of the region's most famous salmon and steelhead rivers.
As I admire the fine French tinsel, flawless English hooks, and premium hackles that I cherry-picked from the remnants my father collected from George's estate, it is obvious that George had a passion for the sport and a keen appreciation for beauty and quality. I can't imagine that these things wouldn't have given him great satisfaction.
Which stands in direct contradiction to the sobering truth: George secretly drank himself to death and was fairly miserable. I don't know why.
It's been several years since George's ashes were spread over his favorite Washington stream. Yet still I look at his old stuff and wonder how something that gave him so much pleasure could not redeem him? It is a mystery because fly-fishing is intrinsically optimistic. It is hopeful and life affirming.
I miss George, his crooked smile and sardonic wit. I think of him often as I tie salmon patterns with his old materials, and retrace his steps along streams such as the Kalama, where I also marvel at the life force of salmon.
And continue to wonder and fail to reconcile how it couldn't sustain him.
Wrestling expelled from UO's new cool club.
(On July 13, 2007, the University of Oregon's new athletic director, Pat Kilkenny announced that the UO wrestling program would be eliminated after the end of the 2008 season. The following is a column in protest of that decision, written in March of 2008.)
Years ago, wrestling was my life. I chased the Olympic dream. Along the way I played other sports, too. Baseball was a close second in my heart. But wrestling built me up in ways beyond that which any other sport did. While the hardship dwarfed the glory, I can’t imagine how greatly my personal development would have been diminished by the absence of wrestling.
Strange, that a sport that does so much for an individual is so often challenged to justify its existence. No one ever questioned my participation in soccer, baseball, track, gymnastics or cross country, but the one sport that surpassed all others, wrestling, sometimes even invited ridicule. As someone predisposed to celebrate all sports and basically cheer all similarly ambitious human endeavors that produce such good, it never occurred to me that I should scorn activities that were different from my own interests.
What I find even more mystifying is that the leadership within the UO Athletic Department and the university—educators, folks that one would imagine would be more cognizant of the greater educational value of wrestling--are so seemingly benighted.
While some profess that the world would be a better place if everyone's character were forged in the hot crucible of amateur wrestling, the broader view is that all athletics exist to create stronger, more well-rounded individuals--you know, the classical triumvirate of mind, body and spirit. Yet the undeniable thing that I find most compelling about athletic endeavor is, for lack of a better term, what I call the realization of the impossible. Beyond PRs and breakthroughs there are
even greater rare moments of magnificent transcendence that surpass all hope or expectation, as if you're suddenly defying your own personal gravity. You push beyond perceived limits and experience an enhanced awareness of your own potential, and you come out almost bulletproof.
These were the real victories. It’s why we played the games.
I wonder if Pat Kilkenny or David Frohnmayer believe this? They seem more concerned with erecting sports palaces than they do about molding the character of the athletes who play within.
Kilkenny treats college athletics like a business. I say it’s not a business. Businesses exist primarily to generate profit. College athletics exist to enrich the experience of the student athletes and produce better citizens.
I have less faith these days in the business model. It brings us Enron, WorldCom, and Bear Stearns.
I recently read excerpts from a 40-year-old speech made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wherein he puts gross national product into perspective. He observed: “It counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for police to fight the riots in our cities.” Kennedy continues that GNP, “does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of theireducation, or the joy of their play…It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages,” and measures “neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.” Kennedy concludes: “It measures everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.”
Kilkenny’s ledger counts wrestling as a sum loss. It doesn’t measure the value of countless dreams of small-town kids throughout Oregon whose best chance for college is a wrestling scholarship; or how they might further their educations and develop their unique talents, then return to their communities to bolster the fabric of our state. Or even the many who don’t get to college, but who hold onto a wrestling dream that gets them through high school. What is the value of the dream itself? How do you measure the impact of such dedicated athletes--whose desire burns so intensely—to inspire their fellow classmates? All Kilkenny sees is a sport that will never make money. He seemingly makes no accounting for its growing popularity, its unique opportunity, its grounding in the values that built our state, the better citizens it creates, its real and symbolic importance, or the fact that it epitomizes the very essence of what college athletics are all about, and what the UO used to stand for.
Wrestling gave us people like Teddy Roosevelt, James Cagney, John Irving, Gen. George Patton, Ken Kesey and Abraham Lincoln.
I chose wrestling because it gave me a better forum to test my creative cunning and express the full measure of my heart. Kilkenny chose to cut wrestling because he and Renee Baumgartner think it’s unfashionable. They don’t want wrestling in their new cool club they’re seeking to cultivate.
So why should anyone care that wrestling is going away? Forget the fact that it's still a very important sport in our state; or that it's the fastest growing boys prep sport in America; or one with a wealth of local talent that the UO should be able to parley into great success on a national level; or that its very unnecessary demise jeopardizes many other wrestling programs in the West; or the many thousands of wrestlers whose opportunities and worlds close in; or the shameful reality that the UO has the creative and financial wherewithal to easily do so much better than this.
But this is about more than wrestling. This is about values, and drawing a line in the sand. Too many things are being sacrificed. Kilkenny and gang regard this as a cold business decision. What's most alarming is that it seemingly never occurred to them that it should be anything else.
Oregon wrestling coach, Chuck Kearney, said he asked Kilkenny if he thought the UO had any responsibility to the athletic interests of the youth of our state. Kilkenny allegedly replied: “We’re self funded; we can do what we want.”
Is it any wonder the wrestling community is so outraged? They fully comprehend the magnitude of the prospective loss; they see it as symbolic of a greater degeneration; a confounding embrace of style over substance. They understand that Kilkenny’s initial justifications for dropping wrestling—lack of funding, lack of facility and Title IX compliance issues—were specious arguments masking a greater antipathy for wrestling that they pretend does not exist. It’s so much easier to sell the killing of dreams, the stifling of opportunity and the elimination of a cherished program by placing the blame on hard economic realities, and not on their hard hearts. But if the UO’s leadership cannot see the good that wrestling promotes, or how perfectly it meshes with the educational mission of the university, someone should ask them what it is that they do stand for?
So, once again: Why should anyone care about the ushering out of wrestling?
It's not the one thing; it's the tide.
Years ago, wrestling was my life. I chased the Olympic dream. Along the way I played other sports, too. Baseball was a close second in my heart. But wrestling built me up in ways beyond that which any other sport did. While the hardship dwarfed the glory, I can’t imagine how greatly my personal development would have been diminished by the absence of wrestling.
Strange, that a sport that does so much for an individual is so often challenged to justify its existence. No one ever questioned my participation in soccer, baseball, track, gymnastics or cross country, but the one sport that surpassed all others, wrestling, sometimes even invited ridicule. As someone predisposed to celebrate all sports and basically cheer all similarly ambitious human endeavors that produce such good, it never occurred to me that I should scorn activities that were different from my own interests.
What I find even more mystifying is that the leadership within the UO Athletic Department and the university—educators, folks that one would imagine would be more cognizant of the greater educational value of wrestling--are so seemingly benighted.
While some profess that the world would be a better place if everyone's character were forged in the hot crucible of amateur wrestling, the broader view is that all athletics exist to create stronger, more well-rounded individuals--you know, the classical triumvirate of mind, body and spirit. Yet the undeniable thing that I find most compelling about athletic endeavor is, for lack of a better term, what I call the realization of the impossible. Beyond PRs and breakthroughs there are
even greater rare moments of magnificent transcendence that surpass all hope or expectation, as if you're suddenly defying your own personal gravity. You push beyond perceived limits and experience an enhanced awareness of your own potential, and you come out almost bulletproof.
These were the real victories. It’s why we played the games.
I wonder if Pat Kilkenny or David Frohnmayer believe this? They seem more concerned with erecting sports palaces than they do about molding the character of the athletes who play within.
Kilkenny treats college athletics like a business. I say it’s not a business. Businesses exist primarily to generate profit. College athletics exist to enrich the experience of the student athletes and produce better citizens.
I have less faith these days in the business model. It brings us Enron, WorldCom, and Bear Stearns.
I recently read excerpts from a 40-year-old speech made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wherein he puts gross national product into perspective. He observed: “It counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for police to fight the riots in our cities.” Kennedy continues that GNP, “does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of theireducation, or the joy of their play…It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages,” and measures “neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.” Kennedy concludes: “It measures everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.”
Kilkenny’s ledger counts wrestling as a sum loss. It doesn’t measure the value of countless dreams of small-town kids throughout Oregon whose best chance for college is a wrestling scholarship; or how they might further their educations and develop their unique talents, then return to their communities to bolster the fabric of our state. Or even the many who don’t get to college, but who hold onto a wrestling dream that gets them through high school. What is the value of the dream itself? How do you measure the impact of such dedicated athletes--whose desire burns so intensely—to inspire their fellow classmates? All Kilkenny sees is a sport that will never make money. He seemingly makes no accounting for its growing popularity, its unique opportunity, its grounding in the values that built our state, the better citizens it creates, its real and symbolic importance, or the fact that it epitomizes the very essence of what college athletics are all about, and what the UO used to stand for.
Wrestling gave us people like Teddy Roosevelt, James Cagney, John Irving, Gen. George Patton, Ken Kesey and Abraham Lincoln.
I chose wrestling because it gave me a better forum to test my creative cunning and express the full measure of my heart. Kilkenny chose to cut wrestling because he and Renee Baumgartner think it’s unfashionable. They don’t want wrestling in their new cool club they’re seeking to cultivate.
So why should anyone care that wrestling is going away? Forget the fact that it's still a very important sport in our state; or that it's the fastest growing boys prep sport in America; or one with a wealth of local talent that the UO should be able to parley into great success on a national level; or that its very unnecessary demise jeopardizes many other wrestling programs in the West; or the many thousands of wrestlers whose opportunities and worlds close in; or the shameful reality that the UO has the creative and financial wherewithal to easily do so much better than this.
But this is about more than wrestling. This is about values, and drawing a line in the sand. Too many things are being sacrificed. Kilkenny and gang regard this as a cold business decision. What's most alarming is that it seemingly never occurred to them that it should be anything else.
Oregon wrestling coach, Chuck Kearney, said he asked Kilkenny if he thought the UO had any responsibility to the athletic interests of the youth of our state. Kilkenny allegedly replied: “We’re self funded; we can do what we want.”
Is it any wonder the wrestling community is so outraged? They fully comprehend the magnitude of the prospective loss; they see it as symbolic of a greater degeneration; a confounding embrace of style over substance. They understand that Kilkenny’s initial justifications for dropping wrestling—lack of funding, lack of facility and Title IX compliance issues—were specious arguments masking a greater antipathy for wrestling that they pretend does not exist. It’s so much easier to sell the killing of dreams, the stifling of opportunity and the elimination of a cherished program by placing the blame on hard economic realities, and not on their hard hearts. But if the UO’s leadership cannot see the good that wrestling promotes, or how perfectly it meshes with the educational mission of the university, someone should ask them what it is that they do stand for?
So, once again: Why should anyone care about the ushering out of wrestling?
It's not the one thing; it's the tide.
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