Duck grapplers send out SOS.

Byline: Chris Hansen The Register-Guard

Only seven months remain between now and what is expected to be the end of Oregon's last season of wrestling, but you wouldn't know it by talking to Ron Finley.

The former UO wrestling coach and Duck fundraiser is busy scheduling prestigious national tournaments for McArthur Court, reconnecting with alumni and reaching across the nation to find support for his latest grand plan to save the program to which he has devoted his professional life.

According to Finley, the final bell has yet to toll for the wrestling program, which is scheduled to be dropped by Oregon after this coming season to make room for the recently reinstated baseball program.

The goal, Finley said, is to endow the wrestling program by raising $3.5 million by next spring. Wrestling would then be able to pay for itself every year and wouldn't have to take any money from the Oregon athletic department budget, except in the form of support staff. The 2007 wrestling budget was $629,000.

A long shot? Sure, Finley said, "But if they can raise $180 million for a new basketball arena, I can raise $3.5 (million) for my wrestling program."

However, even if he does, it still won't be enough to guarantee wrestling's return, Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny said.

If wrestling were to remain, Kilkenny said, Oregon would have to add another women's sport to satisfy Title IX regulations. That entails building a new facility to house that sport as well as its annual operating budget.

Wrestling would also need a facility. The $100 million donation by Phil and Penny Knight announced on Monday means the new basketball arena project is on the fast track, and it isn't configured for locker rooms or a training facility for a wrestling team. And once the new arena is built, indications are McArthur Court will be demolished.

"I don't think ($3.5 million) gets it done," Kilkenny said. "I don't think it's even close."

Still, when Finley resigned from his job with the Duck Athletic Fund in July to work full-time on fundraising for the wrestling team, Kilkenny let him keep his office at the Casanova Center. Finley has taken that gesture as a form of unspoken support from the athletic director, while Kilkenny said it should be construed as nothing more than a sign of respect and admiration for a man who has worked so hard for so long for the university.

"I told Ron we'll let him have a desk and a phone" Kilkenny said. "But he has to show meaningful progress."

And that's exactly what Finley has been working on. He wouldn't divulge the exact amount of how much he has raised so far, but he said it was more than $100,000.

That amount includes three large bags of coins delivered to his Duck Athletic Fund office that weighed a combined 54 pounds, donated by a former wrestler for Finley, who now lives in Lake Oswego.

"We haven't counted it yet, but it's full of dimes and quarters and nickels and even some rare coins," Finley said. "He pledged $500 or so but I didn't expect it to come in this form."

Finley will take it, though, and anything else people are willing to send him in his grassroots campaign that will reach out to high school and club programs across the state and nation.

"We're a long way from where we want to be," Finley admitted. "We just got started. But wrestling people believe so much in their sport. They just need to be asked."

Finley, along with current UO coach Chuck Kearney and assistant coach Rick Stewart, have been busy networking and contacting former wrestlers and using every connection they have to spark national interest in their campaign.

"We have a long list of people," Finley said. "We want several thousand donors to give from $20 to $500. That would show broad support. Then we're going to need a few people to really step up and help us."

The campaign received a boost when the National Wrestling Coaches Association awarded Oregon the All-Star Classic, a preseason tournament featuring the top two nationally ranked wrestlers in every weight class.

"We're fighting to reverse the decision made by the University of Oregon and we're showcasing how great the sport of wrestling is and showcasing the demand for wrestling at the University of Oregon," NWCA executive director Mike Moyer said in a statement.

Finley and Kearney said they will use the meet, scheduled for Nov. 19 at Mac Court, to officially kick off the Save Oregon Wrestling campaign.

"This is a tournament that normally showcases your university and the sport in your region," Kearney said. "In our situation, hopefully it will show people that wrestling is alive here and that there is a place for it."

The All-Star Classic, which Oregon and Oregon State hosted together in Portland in 1990, has had an average attendance of 3,200 over the last 10 years, and Kearney said he hopes to get twice that number.

"We want this to be the event that gets people in the habit of coming to Mac Court to watch wrestling," Kearney said.

Of course, Kearney and Finley both admit it would have been nice to get more fan support before the program was on the brink of elimination. But despite an individual NCAA champion in 2006, the team hasn't been very successful in recent years, last competing for a Pac-10 title in 2002 when Oregon finished second.

Attendance doesn't come close to breaking 1,000 for home meets, except when OSU is in town, and many of those fans come from Corvallis.

"It's hard to build fan support when you're not very good and you only have five home meets," said Finley, who coached from 1970-1998 before giving way to Kearney. "But we're much better now. Hopefully we can bring 8,000 fans to Mac Court (for the All-Star Classic) and that will fire them up to help us. It'll unite them."

But will it matter?

"I think the AD is a fair man and a businessman and if we present him with $3.5 million he won't turn us down," Finley said.

It's not just about money Kilkenny reiterated. Taking gender equity and facilities into account, it becomes much more complicated and expensive proposition.

"It's a very tough problem to solve," Kilkenny said. "I don't know that they can't do it, I just don't think that they can."