LAKE STEVENS – If Kelly Kubec played football, basketball, baseball, soccer or golf, recruiters from the University of Washington, Washington State University and the state’s other four-year colleges would probably be camped outside his front door.
The Lake Stevens High School standout is, after all, a three-time Western Conference champion, a three-time Northwest District champion, and a two-time state champion – and all with his senior season still to come.
The problem is, Kubec is not a football player, basketball player, etc. He is a wrestler, and the number of four-year universities in Washington with wrestling programs is precisely zero.
Which means Kubec faced a decision as he weighed his college options. He could either continue wrestling by enrolling at an out-of-state school, or he could stay at home and give up the sport.
His choice got a whole lot easier when Oregon State University offered what is almost a full athletic scholarship (85 percent of tuition, room and board, and books). It is a great opportunity for Kubec, although one very few Washington high school wrestlers are lucky enough to receive.
And that’s a shame, says longtime Lake Stevens wrestling coach Brent Barnes.
“It’s very frustrating,” Barnes said. “It’s so unfortunate that you have a sport that’s as successful as wrestling is, and it does not have a Division I or a four-year college program (in Washington). There’s college soccer, baseball, swimming, you name it. Wrestling is the only one (left out).”
The University of Washington had a nationally ranked wrestling program through the late 1960s and early 1970s, but dropped its program in 1980. Washington State axed its program six years later.
Central Washington was the last four-year school in Washington with a wrestling program. It was canceled because of budget constraints in 2004.
Barnes has been on committees that have looked for ways to revive collegiate wrestling in Washington, but says the first obstacle administrators cite is Title IX, which mandates that schools getting federal money – in other words, virtually every college and university – have to provide athletic opportunities that are essentially proportionate to the male-female ratio of the student body.
At Washington State, for instance, officials told Barnes that wrestling could be revived, but the school would need a significant endowment to do so. And then, he was told, there would need to be a like endowment for a comparable women’s program. Together, it would be an outlay of many millions of dollars.
“It would take a Paul Allen-type of contribution,” he said, “and there are not many of those guys out there.”
Like his coach, Kubec calls it “frustrating” that Washington does not have any four-year wrestling programs.
“And I don’t see why,” he said, “because so many other states do. It’s kind of like we’re out of the loop, but it’s just something that everybody in Washington has to deal with. You just have to expect to go out of state to wrestle.”
What it means, Kubec said, is that “a lot of kids that should be competing at the next level, aren’t. So there’s tons of kids that miss out. Of course, the very best wrestlers are going to get their scholarships, but you really have to be in the elite.”
Certainly, Kubec is among those elite. Coming from a wrestling family (older brother Tony, another Lake Stevens star, today wrestles at Portland State), Kubec started in the sport when he was 4 years old. By the time he showed up in high school, he was already an exceptional talent.
Or as Barnes put it, “he’s been great since Day 1.”
As a freshman, Kubec placed third at state, but he followed up the next year with a state championship at 112 pounds and added another at 130 pounds last year (He will wrestle at 130 pounds again this season). Also, he placed second last summer in Greco-Roman and fourth in freestyle at a junior national tournament in Fargo, N.D.
Most top wrestlers are blessed with considerable talent, “but talent is just a small portion of it,” Barnes said. Being a premier wrestler “has more to do with hard work than it does with talent. And Kelly definitely got (his success) through hard work and by putting a lot of time in the sport.
“He is highly motivated and he’s very hard working – not only as a wrestler, but as a student – and all that work has really paid off. He hasn’t rested. He’s continued to improve.”
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