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Ex-Crater champ heads for SOU By TIM TROWER Mike Whitehead would no sooner back away from a challenge than he would push himself away from a five-star meal. He greets such moments with the voracity of a bear emerging from hibernation. He showed it at the state tournament as a Crater High senior, when he had to win the 189-pound title in order for the Comets to claim their second of three consecutive team titles. He showed it at the national junior college tournament in February when, after being upset in the second round, he won five matches in a row over two days to place fourth and help North Idaho Junior College win the team crown with a record point total. And he's expected to show it the next couple years while competing for Southern Oregon University. Whitehead will bring an appetite for success - to say nothing of one for food because he needs to add weight - to a Raider program coming off its fourth national championship and 31st straight winning season. "He knows how to win in pressure situations," says SOU coach Mike Ritchey. "That's something you can't coach. You have to recruit it. He's a clutch performer." Ritchey recruited those traits well enough to outmaneuver Oregon, Missouri and Portland State, among others, for Whitehead's services. It didn't hurt that Whitehead's high school coach, Greg Haga, with whom the junior-to-be remains in close contact, is an SOU alum. Or that Whitehead knows Ritchey well. "I see myself fitting in pretty well there," says Whitehead, who wrestled at 197 his first year at North Idaho before moving to heavyweight - or 285 pounds - last winter. He and another top-flight newcomer, former NAIA national champion Ken Kobes, will help fill the void left by Devin Cole, fourth in the nation as a senior last season. Whitehead and Kobes are expected to join holdovers John Fisher and Wes Balensifer. Fisher went 4-3 at heavyweight last season and placed third in the Cascade Conference. Balensifer, expected to move up from 197, was 8-6 at that weight and 0-1 at heavyweight. Kobes won his national title in 1999, then took time off from school. "People say, 'Yeah, it looks like you'll fit in as the second man,'" says Whitehead. "Everyone talks about how dominating he is. But I look at him as being a workout partner for me. I'm sure he's tough, but I just have to have the confidence that I can get the job done. "I'd prefer a (practice) room with a guy whose already placed high at nationals or won it rather than a room with guys who won't push me." Whitehead goes 6-foot-1, 225 pounds. His goal is to weigh up to 250 pounds by his first match in late fall. At the junior college level, he encountered mostly smaller heavyweights. He occasionally met up with those who went the full 285 pounds and had difficulty handling their bulk. He compiled a 35-8 record this past year, winning the regional championship and earning a No. 2 seed to nationals. His timing was off, he says, and he met up with a one of those big heavyweights in the third-fourth-place match, losing 3-2. "My one big goal for next year is to get bigger," he says, "so I can compete with those bigger guys. The NAIA is a step up and the heavyweights are a lot bigger." Neither Whitehead nor Ritchey foresees a problem. The former has experience from various tournaments wrestling against Division I and NAIA competition. Ritchey prefers the smaller, faster, better-conditioned heavyweight and expects Whitehead to compete for the starting position. "He's definitely a workhorse-type of wrestler," says Ritchey. "He's a bit of brawler, but he also has some good technique. He's going to be in every match pretty much that he wrestles." Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.