Alex Paul
Husky wrestling coach Steve Thorpe smiles and cocks his head when asked to describe legendary OSU mentor Dale Thomas.
“Well,” Thorpe says after a short pause, “Dale was a character. You either loved him or hated him but either way, it didn’t matter to him.”
Thorpe, who has built back-to-back state championship teams from a foundation established by Norm Davis and has gone on to coach district title teams four years in a row, spent three years wrestling under Thomas at OSU.
They were not easy years, he admits.
“Dale and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things,” Thorpe said. “But, as I get older, he gets smarter.”
Thorpe’s day as a Beaver wrestler were in tune with Thomas’ last years as mentor of a program that gained national attention. Thorpe’s contemporaries on the team have gone on to be successful in their own right: Steve Lander is the head wrestling coach at Roseburg, Mike Simons is the head coach at Thurston, Neal Russo is the head coach at Newberg, Chris McGowan is the head football and assistant wrestling coach at Corvallis, Jeff Cardwell is an assistant coach at OSU and Dave Boyle coaches in Alaska.
Sunday, Beaver fans eulogized Thomas, who died March at age 81 after a lengthy battle with cancer. An Iowa native, Thomas set records wherever is was.
He earned a B.A. from Cornell College in 1947, a Masters from Purdue and his Ph.D. From the University of Iowa.
The abridged version of his life story is that his entire collegiate coaching career was spent at OSU (1957-1991) and he was the winningest coach in collegiate wrestling history.
His list of accomplishments though is long. His teams won or tied for 22 conference championships and placed in the NCAA’s Top 10 14 times.
During his tenure, OSU had 60 All-Americans, 116 conference champions and 60 NCAA place winners.
He was elected to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1980, the State of Iowa Hall of Fame in 1982 and the Cornell Sports Hall of Fame in 1970.
Thomas was the first coach in collegiate history to amass 500 wins, that coming in 1980.
He officiated in the 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games, coached numerous cultural exchange teams, and brought many exchange matches to the state of Oregon.
He is credited with starting the state’s Kids Wrestling program that has gone nationwide.
During his own wrestling days at Cornell, Thomas was captain of the school’s 1947 NCAA championship team and was a member of the Olympic teams of 1952 and 1956.
Thomas built Oregon State’s wrestling program the hard way, often scrimping to save a penny. His goal, which he accomplished, was to develop a foundation that would insure the program’s existence in spite of outside pressures.
“The stories about Dale having us on a tight budget are true,” Thorpe laughs. “We would fly somewhere and then drive. We might have five or six matches in five or six different cities in five days. We once had 12 matches in 11 days. We slept five or six guys to a room. One time when an assistant coach booked us two guys to a room, Dale found out, grouped us up and turned in four rooms.”
Thorpe said that during a major national tournament, Thomas brought three boxes of cereal, a gallon of milk and some bread sticks for the team to eat.
“We ate what was left of a girls basketball buffet after one tournament,” Thorpe said, “That’s no joke. I think eating was an inconvenience for Dale.”
Thorpe started his collegiate career at Pacific University in Forest Grove but transferred to OSU as a sophomore.
His first meeting with Coach Thomas was not exactly a pleasant one.
“He told me that no one from Sweet Home had ever finished his program and that I would end up quitting, going back to Sweet Home and working in a mill or logging,” Thorpe said. “He didn’t every know me and he was saying things like that.”
Looking back, Thorpe said that Thomas probably planned every single thing he did to provoke someone as a way of challenging them to prove him wrong.
Thorpe’s sophomore season went well as he beat out two freshmen, another sophomore and a junior for the varsity slot at 126 pounds. Late in the season, though, he bruised his spinal cord, which hampered him through his junior year.
As a senior, Thorpe regained his varsity spot at 134 pounds. During two of those years, he was a teammate with fellow Sweet Home graduate Mike Murphy, now a successful Les Schwab Tire store manager.
After graduation and proving Thomas wrong, Thorpe said their relationship changed.
“I’ve had Dale come speak at our wrestling camps several times and he’s always been extremely positive and complimentary,” Thorpe said. “We had many great conversations over the phone. The last time we spoke for more than an hour.”
Thorpe said there is probably no one in the state of Oregon or perhaps in the USA who has done more for the sport of wrestling than Thomas.
“Dale was the king of one-liners,” Thorpe said. “He often used them to motivate us. One time he asked if I was going to do my magic act at the next night’s meet. I asked him what magic act and he said, you know, when you shake hands and disappear. That was Dale.”
Thomas could make someone laugh or cry, “but he would always be straight forward with you. He didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear, he told you the truth.”
Thomas’ wrestling graduates use portions of his coaching philosophy in their own programs, Thorpe said.
“I would have to say that one big thing I try to do like Dale is make our program more than just wrestling. I want our guys to learn about the positive things in life and what’s around us. Dale did a lot of that when we were on road trips or he was coaching a cultural exchange team.”