Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Israel Helfrich made his mark in 2001 for the Sweet Home High School wrestling team with fourth-place finishes in both the state 3A tournament and the state Greco-Roman tournament.
Helfrich, now 23, is still making a statement for the wrestlers who have followed after him, in the form of two murals on adjoining walls of the school wrestling room.
One, in black and white, pictures a wrestler in workout attire wearing a T-shirt with the words “Work hard, Study hard. WIN BIG!” on the back. The other, in bright green and gold, features two grapplers going at it on the mat, with the signature “Norm Davis” above them.
Davis, after whom the wrestling room is named, was wrestling coach at Sweet Home from 1968 to 1996. He died July 9, 2001.
Helfrich’s older brother Dan wrestled for Davis before the coach retired.
Israel Helfrich, who wrestled for the Huskies beginning as a high school sophomore, finished the green-and-gold mural several weeks ago after working on it for a couple of months during spare time from his job as a logger.
He painted the black-and-white picture a couple of years ago as a graphic design student at Linn-Benton Community College.
“I had the opportunity to do a few murals in the old wrestling room before they tore it down,” he said. “It was a pretty fun opportunity.”
Wrestling Coach Steve Thorpe said he told Helfrich he wanted a mural with Davis’ name on it in the new wrestling facility, and his former student delivered in spades.
“It’s nice to have our own local artist to help us decorate this room,” Thorpe said. “These two murals of Israel’s go far beyond what I expected them to be.”
Helfrich said he created the new mural in a posterized tone, unlike the more realistic black-and-white picture, because he wanted it to be visible.
“I used flat colors, with no shading,” he said. “I chose that in particular because you can see it from a distance and it does stand out.”
The oval format of the mural resembles the shape of a wrestling mat, which he thought would be appropriate for this particular subject matter, he said.
Donna Davis, Norm Davis’ widow, said the wrestling room is “quite an honor” to her late husband.
“When I saw Norm’s signature on the new mural, it was quite an emotional time,” she said. “It was just the way he signed (his name).
“I’m sure he would have been quite humbled by all the attention he’s received over the last five years.”
Helfrich said he’s interested in a variety of artistic media.
“I took art classes all through high school,” he said. “Then I went through the (three-year) LBCC graphic design program.”
He said he isn’t sure if he will pursue an art career, but he doesn’t plan to stop creating.
“I really enjoy doing things more by hand as opposed to on a computer,” he said. “I got to try a variety of things during my classes at LBCC – pen and ink, pastels, oils. I enjoyed all of them. I like to work in a variety of mediums.”
Helfrich, the fifth of 11 children, comes from a wrestling family. Five of his brothers also have wrestled for the Huskies, and the two youngest, Tom and Rob, wrestled for Sweet Home at the state Greco-Roman and freestyle tournaments last weekend.
Another, David, wrestled for Lehigh University in the NCAA Division I tournament in March.
Helfrich is married to the former Tana Thornton, who was the wrestling statistician when he was on the team, he said. She comes from a wrestling family herself, as her father was a state wrestling champion at Central Linn.
Thorpe said Helfrich was on the Oregon team that competed in the national tournament in 1991 and the impact he made on the coaching staff there was telling about who he is.
“When you’ve got six national team coaches arguing about who gets to go matside with him after a week of workouts, that kind of speaks to his character,” Thorpe said.