Scott Swanson
Coach Steve Thorpe says that if the wrestling trip he and the Oregon Cultural Exchange Team just returned from is his last international foray, it would be the one to go out on.
“It’s very difficult to explain just how beneficial being on a tour like that is,” said Thorpe Monday as he wound down a busy summer that, he said, kept him away from home for all but four of the last 23 days leading up to this week.
“Anytime you go on a cultural event like this, travel, you get so many incredible life experiences. I went three years ago (to South Africa) and this was different than three years ago.”
This trip ran from July 27 through Aug. 15.
Team member Tyler Schilling, for whom this was his second trip to South Africa and third internationally, agreed that this one was different than the last.
“Last time we kind of did lot more wrestling-based stuff; this time we did more cultural stuff. It was a totally separate trip.”
Four Sweet Home wrestlers participated: Schilling, a college freshman-to-be; high schoolers Tyler Fincher and Ricky Yunke and eighth-grader Travis Thorpe, Steve Thorpe’s son, who got to go thanks to a personal invitation from South African organizers and Oregon team leader Mike Simons. Also along as coaches were Steve Schilling of Sweet Home, one of Steve Thorpe’s “best friends” and Neil Russo of Newberg.
“It was a real treat to spend time with Neil Russo and Mike Simons, who were my teammates at Oregon State,” said Thorpe. “It was a treat. How else do you say it?”
Among the wrestlers on the team, who were from all over Oregon and who had to qualify to participate, was former Sweet Home resident Jackson Casteel, who now wrestles for Thurston, where Simons coaches.
Casteel and Fincher, who went to Sweet Home Junior High together, stayed with the same host family.
“It was real nice,” Fincher said of the experience. “Actually, it might be the best thing I ever do in my life. It was a different culture and it was interesting how differently things are done. How they drive on the left side of the road.”
While all trips focus to some extent on wrestling, this one really did, Thorpe said.
“This was a wrestling event,” he said. “We wrestled all the time.”
Travis Thorpe wrestled 20 matches, Fincher 19, Yunke 17 and Schilling 15. One tournament required weigh-ins. All the Sweet Home wrestlers left with winning records, Steve Thorpe said.
They worked out with the Olympians and Goodwood wrestling clubs in Cape Town and with the South African national team. They also wrestled in the big Johnnie Reitz Open and the Centurian Open championships.
In the Johnnie Reitz event, Sweet Home entered its wrestlers in both age group and the President’s Group – a division for 20-and-under wrestlers, unlike their hosts, who stuck to one division.
“One kid wrestled 14 or 15 matches that day,” Thorpe said.
“You wrestle 15-20 matches in three weeks, that’s a season for some people,” he said. “This wasn’t a vacation. These guys literally trained right up to when we left. If this had been a vacation, it would have been come-one, come-all. We wouldn’t have had trials.”
Fincher said he noticed differences in the way their hosts practiced, and even the build of the wrestlers.
“Wrestlers over there are way different than we are here. They’re tall and muscular. They wrestle a whole lot different. In their practices they do a whole bunch more moves that I’m not used to. I learned a few different throws that actually might be really helpful.”
Yunke, who has wrestled South Africans during their trips to Oregon, said he was impressed by the hosts.
“They have a really solid wrestling team and their culture is just, to have so many ethnicities dominant, just strange and cool.
“I think their program’s gotten better. When we wrestled their national team, we beat them in our dual but not by much. That shows how they’ve improved.”
Their trip also included a two-day stop at Marloth Park wild animal sanctuary on the border of Kruger National Park, near the border with Mozambique.
“Kruger was like Yellowstone,” Tyler Schilling said.
More than one of the participants said one of their favorite memories was a rope swing that let the wrestlers drop “about 100 feet,” according to Fincher, over a picturesque gorge.
“It was just an awesome view,” Schilling said.
The wrestlers stayed with host families in Pretoria and visited poor townships in Capetown, including the Fisantekraal school, where the students are 4- to 7-year-old children, both black and colored.
Thorpe said that combination is not common, as black and mixed-race populations don’t “associate” too much in South Africa.
Schilling said they took snacks and candy for the children, “and they were just ecstatic. They didn’t care what color we were.”
Yunke said the townships left an impression on him.
“Seeing the immense poverty in the township, just all of the people that didn’t have much – didn’t have much food at all, dirty clothes and their houses were made out of tin and 2×4’s.”
Thorpe said he personally appreciated Schilling’s contributions to the trip.
“His leadership on the trip, not just for Sweet Home kids, but for the entire USA team, was irreplaceable,” Thorpe said. “He was that guy on our team. Made decisions, he helped us with everything we did. He stepped up in more ways than I could ever imagine he would.
“Our community would have been proud of these boys and how they behaved.”
Yunke said the trip was “a whole new experience.”
“We’ve wrestled against other countries here, but to go over there and experience their culture was way better. It was just awesome.”