[bomp] AP: Kesey's family fights for wrestling

[Rick McCullough <rsmccull@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Ken Kesey's family fights for wrestling

By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press

Before Ken Kesey wrote "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," or stocked a
psychedelic school bus with LSD and the Merry Pranksters to look for
America, he was a wrestler.

He might never have written "Cuckoo's Nest," the 1962 novel that
launched him to stardom, if he hadn't dislocated his shoulder wrestling
for the University of Oregon.

The injury kept him out of the draft, allowing him to go to Wallace
Stegner's writing seminar at Stanford University, where his job at the
local veterans hospital gave him the setting for "Cuckoo's Nest" and the
prototype for mean Nurse Ratched.

So when his alma mater decided to eliminate wrestling at the end of this
season, it went down hard on the Kesey family farm. That's where Kesey
is buried alongside his son Jed, the victim of a 1984 van crash during a
University of Oregon wrestling team road trip. It's also where Furthur,
the bus made famous by Kesey's 1964 odyssey and Tom Wolfe's book "The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," awaits restoration.

"I know what Dad would do," said 46-year-old Zane Kesey, who also
wrestled for Oregon. "It's just the kind of thing he would step up and
attack when he sees something that's wrong, when it's something he's
already shed so much soul for."

So last weekend, wearing his dad's American flag shirt, Zane Kesey fired
up a newer version of Furthur (named Further), called on Oregon
wrestlers and alums to "Get on the bus," and with original Merry
Prankster George Walker at the wheel roared through the Eugene campus.

Loudspeakers blared "Save Oregon wrestling," drums beat, a brass bell
clanged, and wrestlers handed out fliers as they circled McArthur Court,
the aging arena where Ken Kesey wrestled from 1955 to 1957, posting a
winning percentage of .806 that stands seventh all-time at Oregon.

The '60s-style act of taking it to the streets did not immediately get
the university to change its mind about wrestling. But the Kesey family
is not giving up.

"One thing about wrestlers is if they get on their back, it's not over 
it just got interesting," said Zane Kesey, whose father died in 2001.
"You get fierce."

Head wrestling coach Chuck Kearney suggested that if Oregon had not had
a wrestling team back in the 1950s, Ken Kesey might not have attended
the university. And the course of literary history might have been
different.

"Had he gone to Oregon State and wrestled, would he have written 'One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and 'Sometimes a Great Notion' and all the
great things he did?" Kearney asked. "It was a combination of this
campus, this university, the education he received here and the sport of
wrestling that came together and made him what he was and in my mind
made the impact that he made."

Athletic director Pat Kilkenny made the decision to eliminate wrestling
and bring back baseball, which he said could become a moneymaker for the
university.

"Is this a final decision?" Kilkenny said. "It's America, so there are
always opportunities to make changes. But our strong belief is our
analysis was significant and powerful and conclusive, and we don't think
this has changed since last July to today."

For wrestling enthusiasts, the solution might be to run out the clock.

Ron Finley, an Olympic wrestler and head wrestling coach at Oregon from
1970 to 1998, has gathered pledges of $2.3 million so far for the team,
scholarships and a new practice center.

"Kilkenny says it's not coming back," Finley said. "He'll only be here a
couple more years anyway. If it has to go away a few years, we'll keep
fighting, get it back some way."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_re_us/kesey_s_spirit_2

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