Reclaiming, Story 3: Keep Stanford Wrestling

In the spring of 2020, Stanford University made the decision to cut 11 of their varsity teams due to financial issues and lack of success. This episode follows the men’s wrestling team and their coaches in the months following the decision to cut their team as they navigate the challenges of fighting for their spot back.

Transcript for Reclaiming, Story 3: Keep Stanford Wrestling

This is State of the Human, the podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project. Each episode we take a common human experience like teaching or breathing or joking, and bring you stories that deepen our understanding of that experience. My name is Alina Wilson, and in the next few episodes we're looking at the theme of reclaiming what's been lost.

This series will feature stories about reclaiming neighborhoods, music venues, childhood obsessions, languages, and ways of seeing ourselves. It's about holding the tension between what we were and who we've become. It's about returning to our origins, but this time with a more nuanced perspective, and especially in today's episode, it's about the drive and determination it takes to fight for something you love.

For State of the Human and the Stanford Storytelling Project, I'm Alina Wilson. The first time I tried Brazilian jujitsu, I hated it because I was bad at it, like real bad. The only reason I started Juujitsu was that I was bored to death the summer after my freshman year of college, and I found a two for one deal at a martial arts gym.

They'd let you train mixed martial arts and Brazilian jiujitsu for just $50 a month. But then I actually started and I would get on the mat to train, which in BJJ, they call rolling, and I'd be standing there one moment and then bang. My opponent would have me in a human pretzel. Every time someone took me down, my body would crack and pop from years of playing sports, I'd lay there on the mat, my head spinning and feel shame for even trying.

Then my second week, I learned about tapping. I was up against a blue belt and he had me in a headlock. I couldn't breathe. My face was turning pink and he was like, are you gonna tap? I had no idea what he was talking about. He said that whenever I found myself in a position I couldn't get out of, I could tap my partner to let them know, like a white flag of surrender.

I. He said Jiujitsu wasn't supposed to hurt. I tapped him to get out of the headlock. He still had me in, and then I got angry, not at him, at every training partner I'd faced that first week, who had gotten me into arm triangles, straight arm locks, and chokes. All of those times I'd been pressed till my body felt like it was about to disconnect from itself, and I could have just tapped from that day on.

I tapped a lot, especially those first few months, but little by little I got better. I had to tap less and less. After two years of training, I was close to getting my blue belt My junior year at Stanford, I was voted the vice president of the Stanford Brazilian Jujitsu Club. Not gonna lie, I was feeling pretty confident.

A lot of the club members were brand new, so I was regularly getting submissions. Teaching the newbies, the ropes, you know. Then I was training one Monday night at Stanford Juujitsu practice. We were going through our normal drills, and when it was time to roll, this guy with broad shoulders and headgear walked up to me.

I'd never seen him before, and he was wearing a white belt over his training uniform. So I figured he must be new to the sport. I'd go easy on him. We did a little handshake and started circling at each other. I approached him and was about to do a judo throw to get him to the mat. But I never got the chance.

I barely had time to blink before he had me in a single leg and my back hit the mat hard. I could feel the weight of all of that muscle pressing me down like the air had been sucked out of my chest. I tapped, I stood up dazed and tried to figure out what had happened. My partner said he was brand new to jujitsu, but he'd been wrestling all his life.

Now he was wrestling for Stanford. From that point on, I gained a new respect for wrestling because you train and train and trained jujitsu, but if you ever face a wrestler, they'll still take you down. Today's story was created by a group of Stanford athletes, including a couple of Stanford wrestlers.

When the Coronavirus pandemic hit the United States colleges took a big hit financially with tuition numbers down, and campus dorms empty. Many of them had to cut salaries, programs and student services to stay afloat. Even with one of the largest endowments in the world, Stanford University struggled too.

So in 2020, Stanford made university wide cuts in everything from arts to athletics, 11 varsity sports teams, including Stanford Wrestling. Here's Charlie Dericott, Rick Mim, Ty Montero, and Kaitlyn Auth with that story.

It was March, 2020 when Ray Blake, the associate head coach of Stanford wrestling, awoke to the sound of his alarm. 

I woke up at 7 0 4. I looked over, I had an email at 4 23 in the morning from Facebook saying I'd been removed as an admin from our social media accounts. 

Ray reached out to the social media director, Regina, about his loss of access.

You know, I was like, Hey, what's up with this? And she said, you know, I was told they were doing some routine maintenance, but I'm a little bit worried about my own job. 

Later that morning, Ray received an invite to a Zoom meeting. 

We did notice that there were only certain coaching staffs. On that invitation, you know, and not any of the revenue sports.

That was when we pieced it all together, it got shoney and said our program's about to get dropped. 

Within 30 minutes there was a press release announcing the 11 sports cut and leaving 240 athletes without teams and 42 staff members without jobs. Throughout the next 10 minutes, you'll hear from many voices.

You'll hear from three student athletes on the wrestling team, Lucci, Shane, and Ty, as well as their two coaches, Ray Blake and Jason Borelli. Right after Ray Blake and his fellow coaches received the call about the team being cut. They made the decision to alert their athletes. This is Luci Arroyo, who was a sophomore at the time.

After that call, I basically ran downstairs and told my parents from tears, honestly. Because it just got ripped out so fast and so quickly with no explanation. 

Here's Ty, one of Lucci's teammates. Now, 

at the time I was a sophomore in high school and obviously I was shocked by the news. Stanford was my dream school, and I believed that wrestling was the bridge to that dream.

I felt heartbroken. And the crazy thing is they hadn't even reached out yet. It wasn't like I was getting recruited yet, and I still felt like I could achieve that dream. 

For many athletes, their sport opens doors to opportunities they never thought possible. The inherent qualities instilled by sports such as unwavering dedication and unyielding commitment become guiding principles for young athletes navigating the pursuit of their collegiate competition dreams.

This narrative is particularly poignant in sports like wrestling. A quintessential blue collar endeavor. In addition to offering the chance to compete at the collegiate level, wrestling becomes a transformative vehicle capable of elevating not only individual aspirations, but also socioeconomic standing, creating a ripple effect that extends to future generations.

Wrestling at Stanford had been my dream since first grade when my dad made me set goals for myself, and he had always known that that was my dream, and he pushed me towards it every day. 

Jason Borelli, head coach of Stanford wrestling at the time was determined to bring back the program and lead his team towards a greater sense of unity and peace.

In order to triumph over this decision, 

uh, we wanted to make sure they understood we were gonna fight it, we were gonna overturn the, that decision, and, and we wanted to give the guys hope because we felt like if they heard the message from the athletic department, that it would really deflate a lot of guys.

That kind of sucked with me that Borreli was just still confident and like, we're, we're gonna fight for this thing and we're gonna get it back. And he, he had this kind of determination and, and peace. It kind of alleviated the pressure and the anxiety of the situation. I. 

Even though the team was set on fighting back, there was still no clear way forward.

Stanford's decision to cut certain sports left the team with more questions than answers. As the university offered minimal insight into the motivations behind this pivotal move, the board of Trustees and Department of Athletics, the two groups responsible for the decision cited competitive excellence and financial considerations as the primary driving forces.

Despite the group's reasoning, most still felt like things were adding up One of the cut teams, women's lightweight rowing, had just won their fifth consecutive national championship, making the competitive excellence argument weak. Furthermore, Stanford wrestling had raised $12 million. And the ability to self-fund their program, making the financial considerations argument irrelevant.

We got to the point where we were raising money and we could have funded ourselves. 

Despite the overwhelming confusion surrounding the cut, the team found a way forward through a new organization. 

We realized there was strength in being together and being united, and that's the 36 Sports Strong came together and when we decided to.

To all pull together that gave us so much more strength. 

The 36 Sports Strong Reinstatement Alliance is a group of Stanford University alumni who represent all 36 of the university's varsity sports. The group was formed by athletes, parents, and notable alumni, such as Andrew Luck and US Senator Cory Booker.

The Alliance focused on reinstating all 11 teams, which Stanford had previously cut by raising awareness and resources through alumni and community members. Meanwhile, the Stanford wrestling team was preparing to enter their final season. They had to get creative to practice and compete within county and state COVID-19 restrictions, wrestling outdoors, and setting up mats in the field hockey stadium.

That experience definitely brought us closer than I think it would've if we didn't have a cut. You know, I'm not sure if we'd have that same culture if it wasn't for 

that trial. Some of the team's freshmen resorted to creating a steam workout room in their dorm bathroom, turning every shower on hot. And stuffing every crevice with towels to trap the heat inside.

I had some of my darkest workouts in that room. 'cause the moment you walk in, it is a hundred plus degrees. You're wearing sweats, you're drenched and you feel like you wanna die. But testing their 

limits also brought them closer together. 

I also had some of the best times playing some music with my buddies, and you know, when one guy was feeling down, 

we were able to pick it back up.

By March, there was still a lot of uncertainty hanging over the heads of those fighting to earn a spot in the NCAA championships that year in St. Louis, despite wrestling being a team sport, it was up to individual wrestlers to qualify Among those individuals was Shane Griffith, a junior who was coming off an impressive sophomore campaign as Pac 12 Wrestler of the year.

I mean, truthfully, I, for one thought, we weren't gonna have an opportunity to compete, so it's hard to stay motivated, come in every day with an end goal ahead without necessarily believing you're gonna have an end goal. You should work every day for something you don't know when the end is near, but just being prepared and ready for that opportunity once it comes and keeping everyone.

On this train to keep moving forward was a big part of that. 

Shane was in fact prepared when March came around. He and the Stanford Cardinal were ready to give their all in their very last competition. In an effort to visibly protest Stanford's decision, the entire team wore black singlets instead of their Stanford uniforms to make matters more dramatic.

This competition was like nothing in any of them had experienced before. Covid had made the arena virtually empty, but Shane still felt the support of the wrestling community behind him as the whole crowd broke out in chant.

Over the summer, one of 11 sports told they'd be eliminated. The alumni have raised more than $12 million enough to fund the program into perpetuity. He may be the last ever to wrestle for Stanford. The odds stacked against him, but now he is number one. 

When the match was over, Shane was declared the victor.

Instantly. He became an overnight sensation with the program's resilience being highlighted across the news and social media for his teammates like Lu. This was a sign of hope. 

I think that was our first glimpse of a real hope of bringing back the program. I. You know, we fought so much for months on end and holding onto this, this mission that our coach set us on this, this vision.

We had to save the program, but we didn't get any budge and we tried so hard. But when we had that and Shane won the national title and we had the airtime, I really was a window. I felt like that cracked, really moved the meter, you know, and really saw a little bit of the light at the end of the tunnel.

If I had to put in one word, it was. Exhilarating. It's what I thought would've been Stanford's last match ever wrestled. I felt like I was in Shane's shoes, like, oh my gosh, I was so nervous. But when he became victorious, I wouldn't say I was relieved. I didn't know if it was gonna change everything, but I was excited that Stanford was going out on a bang.

'cause even though I didn't know if I was gonna be able to wrestle there, still wanted to support. 

For Shane, this win was a testament to the foundation that they had set at the beginning of the year. 

I think it was even better that we were recognized for the whole mantra of staying together and not abandoning ship and just giving it one last ride.

And at the end of the day, I think that was more special than anything. 

And then it happened. 

I got woken up to people just yelling outside and I was like, what? And people were screaming. I go, I'm like, what happened? What happened? And. I look down, lightweight running team looks up and goes, Luci, we got saved.

We're back. We're back. And the first thing I did was run down the hall and hug all my boys and we're, we're smiling, we're laughing, we're kind of in tears. We just, just awe that what happened. We're like, there's no way we we're back. 

It was May 18th, 2021 when they announced the stunning reversal to not cut any of the 11 programs.

The decision came following a meeting with the 36 Sports strong leadership team and the president of the university. 

I literally started crying on the plane when I like saw all the texts and I was just super emotional. 

That's an awesome feeling, just especially this whole time of just staying together and really believing in the bigger picture and showing if you put in the work and resilience and you fight for what you believe in, you could always get rewarded and hopefully come on top like we did.

I was just like, yeah, 

we did it. We did it. Like, I'm just gonna relax. I 

was 

so thrilled 'cause I've had got. Recruited by a few more skills before that, but this was the one I knew this was where I wanted to be. Being here has changed me so much. I've surrounded myself with just a bunch of good human beings.

It's probably had a bigger impact than anything else. 'cause of what Shane did and everyone contributing to the Keep standard wrestling. These young family members in my life look up to me and now these dreams are attainable through them for them.

This episode was produced by Caitlin au Charlie Kott, Rick Mi and Ty Montero for the Stanford Storytelling Project. The music in this episode was produced by Blue Dot Sessions, the Free Music Archives, and Kevin Lea. We'd like to thank Lucia Royo, Shane Griffith, Jason Borelli, and Ray Blake for their stellar interviews.

We would also like to thank Professor Davis and the entire intro to podcast storytelling class for their constructive feedback throughout this process.

You've been listening to State of the Human, the podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project. This episode was produced by Charlie Dericott, Rick Mem, Ty Montero, and Kaitlyn Auth, and me Alina Wilson, with support from Laura Joyce Davis, Alex Strong. Dawn Fraser, Megan Calfas, Melissa Dyrdahl, and Jonah Willihnganz for their generous financial support.

We'd like to thank the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the program and Writing and Rhetoric, the Office of the Vice President for the Arts and Bruce Braden. Make sure to tune in for more stories of reclaiming what's been lost in upcoming episodes of State of the Human Every Tuesday right here on KZSU.

You can learn about the Stanford Storytelling Project and our podcast workshops, live events, and courses@storytelling.stanford.edu. You can find this and every episode of State of the Human on our website or anywhere you listen to podcasts for the Stanford Storytelling Project. I'm Alina Wilson. Thanks for listening.