by Chris Duffin
Things were moving quickly and everything felt a little surreal.
The cover story written about me in the Bend Bulletin in 1995, just before I graduated.
Theme: A Period of Self-Discovery
I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. Everything I did, from choosing and applying to a school, to navigating financial aid, I did myself.
When I reflect back on this period of my life, I’m still something of a mystery to myself. I came from a family where no one went to college and had little mentorship. My parents wanted me to go to college, but couldn’t provide me with much in the way of guidance or support. Admittedly, I was in advanced classes, rubbing shoulders with people for whom college seemed like a normal, natural progression. As one of their classmates, I felt this expectation. I picked up the message that everyone should go to college, and I decided that’s what I would do, too. Nonetheless, it’s hard for me to understand how I formed such a strong determination.
For all my parents’ good qualities, they were totally unfamiliar with the world of education. They simply lacked the expertise to support me along the path I chose. My parents weren’t familiar with the system, so they didn’t know how to help. I was also unaware of anyone at school whose job it was to support students gearing for college. Most other students seemed to rely on their parents to push them in the right direction.
To me, however, the process was completely alien. I knew that I needed to fill in my student aid paperwork, which involved collecting some information from my parents. I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go, too. I wanted to go to Oregon State because it was the biggest wrestling school in the Northwest. By this time—as you’ll read about later in this chapter—I was wrestling regularly. Oregon State was home to a collegiate national champion in my weight class, and I wanted to go there so I could train with him. What I lacked was a practical understanding of how to get there.
Yet, instead, I found my way to a full-ride scholarship at OIT. Moreover, this period of my life ended up playing an essential role in building the structures that I later used to support myself. It was a time of discovery, reflected in the stories that make up this chapter. By putting one foot in front of another, I tapped into resources—both internal and external—I hadn’t known were available. Without the shifts that occurred during this time, would I have pulled myself out of the environment in which I grew up? I don’t know for sure. What I can say is that my experiences during these years set me on a new path, which ultimately led me to where I am today.
A yearbook photo of me from an advanced placement math class, during my senior year in high school. I had just finished a workout and was sporting a stringer tank. I thought I looked great.
Stability at Last
Compared with some of the places my family had lived previously, our new mobile home felt like a palace. It was the first time we had a stable place to live and knew we wouldn’t need to move away at the drop of a hat.
When I say, “new home,” however, you might think it was more luxurious than it was. It was a double-wide mobile home with an extension—containing additional rooms—built off the back. The extension sat directly on the ground, so it was certainly not up to code.
Inside the mobile home there were no doors. To compensate for this, we hung sheets across all the doorways. Our bedrooms and the bathroom were only separated from the rest of the house by sheets. There was no kitchen, so we rigged up a makeshift plywood countertop using some old two-by-fours and a used sink. Pots, pans, plates, and cutlery we stacked on boxes underneath the sink.
La Pine is hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and our home did little to shelter us from the heat or protect us from the cold. There was no double glazing, just single-pane windows that cranked open or shut. When the wind blew, it came straight through the window. To insulate ourselves from the worst of the cold, we put together our own insulation by taping and stapling a sheet of plastic over the inside and outside of the windows.
The mobile home may not have been fancy, but it did have hot running water and electricity. To us, that made it seem comfortable.
My High School Wrestling Career
It was while we lived in this mobile home that I started lifting weights seriously. Previously, I had focused mainly on jump squats and push-ups. Sometimes I trained at high school, but I wanted a place to work out outside of high school hours. I scoured the nickel ads and found cheap pieces of exercise equipment—plates, benches, and dumbbells—and used them to build my own home gym on the back porch. When winter came, and it got too cold to work out outside, I moved my equipment inside to my bedroom.
I started wrestling my freshman year. I was already doing track and field, which was a spring sport, and my mom didn’t want me to play football, so I took up wrestling instead. I knew I was strong for my weight and—through lifting—I was already developing a lot of confidence and self-esteem in my physicality.
My first year on the wrestling team was an eye-opening experience. Wrestling is a sport that a lot of people start young, at the age of five, six, or seven. As a freshman, I was competing against guys who had been wrestling almost their entire lives, and who knew moves I’d never encountered. That first year was a bit of a grind. I lost my first twenty-five matches in a row.
The wrestling team at my high school was strong and the coach pushed the athletes hard. A lot of people dropped out during the year. I didn’t drop out, but I did get a reputation as a “fish.” In wrestling terminology, a fish is a guy that flops around—like a fish out of water—and is easy to beat.
Then, right at the end of the season, I won two matches. Laid out like that, it might sound like a horrible experience, but I enjoyed it. I liked the way the sport challenged me, and I appreciated the demands it made on my body. At first, I wasn’t very good. However, I could see the benefits of the work I put in, and that inspired me to continue.
My freshman year, I cut weight to stay under 141 pounds and compete in a lighter weight class. I thought that would make my bouts easier. By sophomore year, however, I gave up on that strategy. Instead, I trained hard in my home gym, bulked up, and competed at 168 pounds. It was a big jump.
During my sophomore year, I won twenty-five matches in a row, losing only two. It was a record that qualified me for districts.
I was a nerdy kid, so the physical nature of wrestling acted as a natural counterbalance to that tendency. I also liked the accountability that came with wrestling. If I lost, it was because I hadn’t wrestled well enough. If I won, it was because I had done well. There was no one else to blame. It could be a grueling sport, especially for those who chose to push themselves hard. I loved to push myself, in an effort to explore my boundaries and reach the outer limits of my capabilities. During my sophomore, junior, and senior years, I signed on to run cross-country in the spring, purely so I could stay in shape ready for the return of wrestling season.
I was probably the largest cross-country runner in the state, and definitely one of the slowest. I didn’t care about that, though. I was only interested in the impact on my wrestling performance. My old cross-country coach likes to tell the story of a school trip that involved both the high school’s cross-country team and the football team. We had a meet at the same place the football team played a game, and the football players were complaining about riding with the cross-country team, who they branded “lame” and “losers.” My coach told the football players to say that to the next person who boarded the bus. Sure enough, I walked up the stairs and the entire bus fell silent.
During my sophomore year, following my 25-2 record in the regular season, I was knocked out in districts. The same thing happened my junior year. By senior year, however, I felt strong and ready. I sought out competition wherever I could find it, jumping up weight classes to wrestle state champions at different weights. At this point, I was co-captain of the wrestling team, with a heavywe
ight named Sean Tinker. Sean weighed about 275 pounds, and he was my main sparring partner. He was the only person on our team who still presented me with a challenge due to his massive weight advantage over me. In addition to Sean, I sometimes sparred with the school’s assistant coach, who was an adult with many years of experience.
Despite this progress, I had already lost to three different people in the district over the course of the year. My weight class in districts was stacked with talent and—with only the top two performers making it through—it looked as though I would struggle to qualify for state. A couple of weeks prior to our districts meet, my coach approached me and asked what I thought would happen. I looked at him and said, matter-of-factly, “I’m going to win and go on to state.” Based on my record over the year, that prediction seemed unlikely to come true. Even today, I’m not sure why I felt such certainty about the outcome. When I told my coach I would win, however, I felt no doubt at all. I was going to win districts.
I wasn’t a particularly technical wrestler. Some of my team members and opponents knew dozens of moves. I had precisely three. I knew how to take down. I knew how to escape a hold. And I knew how to block a shot. My thinking was that if I knew how to block a shot and escape from holds, I couldn’t be taken down. Therefore, I couldn’t lose. I became incredibly good at these three moves and ignored all other techniques since it was a style that served me well.
My coach liked to use me as an example. He told other members of the team that I had the worst shot in the squad, but I always got it. When I grabbed an opponent, I might take hold of their leg with just two fingers. Then, I’d pull until I got it by three fingers. After a bit more work, I’d have it by four fingers, then my whole hand. At which point, I’d pull my opponent in and take him down. Some of my wrestling was ugly, but I knew my strengths and refused to be beaten.
When I reached districts, one of the people who’d beaten me earlier in the year was knocked out by someone else, so I only faced rematches against two of the three. I made it through every match at districts without conceding a single offensive point, an extremely rare occurrence. This means that no one succeeded in taking me down or making a shot against me. The only time my opponents scored points was when they escaped from a hold, registering a defensive point. This usually happened when I let them go so I could take them down again. In the final, I met one of the guys who had beaten me during the season. I won resoundingly, again without conceding a single offensive point.
I became that year’s district champion.
Winning the district title in my senior year, without conceding a single offensive point. My coach is handing me the award.
The next challenge was state. Three of us made it from my high school: Sean Tinker, myself, and one other kid. The state championships were held in a big auditorium with 360-degree seating around the mats. There were television cameras recording the event and broadcasting news of the championships on local stations. It felt like a freakily strange environment to me.
State championships run for several days. I started winning my matches and, the next thing I knew, I was in the state finals, again without conceding a single offensive point. My opponent, named Baumgartner, had won the Oregon state championships for the previous three years. Meanwhile, I was an unknown who had never previously made it past districts, with a wrestling style composed of three moves. Prior to the match, one of my coaches came up to me and told me that he’d heard some spectators asking, “Is Baumgartner going to pin him in the first round or the second round? That’s the question.”
I’m not sure why my coach told me this. Perhaps he thought it would fire me up. Unfortunately, it was counterproductive. As an athlete, I’m highly cerebral. I figure out what works, and I execute it. When I heard my chances being dismissed, I got quite emotional and stepped out onto the mat feeling as though I had something to prove.
In the first round, I realized that I was the superior wrestler. I could position my opponent wherever I wanted. I could take him down. I could prevent him from taking me down. Just as with every other bout through districts and state, there was no way he could beat me.
In wrestling, there are three rounds. In the first round, both wrestlers start in a neutral standing position. In the second round, there’s a coin toss. Whoever wins gets to choose whether to start in the up position (in control) or the down position (needing to escape). The person in the down position has their lower leg on the ground, their hands on the floor in front of them, and their butt resting on their heels. The one in the up position places one leg beside their opponent, with an arm wrapped around their opponent’s midriff, touching their navel, and the other arm resting on their elbow. Smart wrestlers always defer, allowing their opponent to choose which position to start in for the second round and retaining their choice for the decisive, final round.
Throughout my entire high school wrestling career, whenever I won the toss, I chose to defer. In the state final, however, I departed from that plan. I didn’t even know who had been talking trash about me, but I was determined to prove them wrong. I chose to start in the down position, with the intention of standing up, escaping, turning around, taking Baumgartner down, and winning the bout emphatically. I knew how to do three things: takedowns, escapes, and blocks. None of those moves involve turning someone over and pinning them. It’s almost impossible to do that to a good wrestler, so I never even tried. I won my matches in three rounds, on points.
A little stubborn and a little overconfident, I chose the state final to do something different. I was too cocky to get into my escape position fast enough, and Baumgartner jumped on me and executed a move called a leg ride. Leg rides are usually the prerogative of lighter wrestlers. Competing in the 174-pound weight class, I hadn’t spent a lot of time working on escaping a leg ride. I never needed to. Baumgartner turned me over, pinned me, and won the match. I walked away devastated, because I knew I was the better wrestler and I lost due to my own choices.
Besting an opponent in the wrestling ring. This was in my senior year, before I went on to win the district finals in the 174-pound class.
Nonetheless, when I reflected on my experience, I found much cause for satisfaction. From a complete novice a few years earlier, I worked my way all the way through districts to the final match in the state championships. I was only defeated by a guy who had already been state champion for the previous three years. And even then, I knew I was better than him.
Better Living through Paintball
In my junior and senior year, as my friends began to drive, we purchased some used paintball guns. We used some of our income from work to purchase basic paintball gear and we began to play. Most of us worked in service industries, so we were on a swing shift. That meant we had our Saturdays free to play, before heading over to Sun River to work.
Sometimes we found old, abandoned houses or rock caverns to use as paintball sites. With so much national forest land and in central Oregon, we were spoiled for choice. It was an activity that bonded my high school group of friends together for some years, even after we left La Pine for college.
After about a year of weekend paintballing, we were fairly good. We started to play competitively, traveling around the state and entering tournaments. For me, it was a fun outlet for my energy and an enjoyable way to be a teenager—a part of my personality I hadn’t had a great deal of opportunity to indulge. Of course, it was also a great way to get away from my home environment.
I liked to tinker with the guns. I took them apart and modified them. For example, I found ways of improving them so that they performed better in cold-weather conditions. I polished the triggers to improve trigger response and adapted the valves so that air flowed through them more quickly, increasing the range of the guns. Paintball would be a part of my life for the next several years, bonding me to my friends and giving me an escape from the challenges of daily life.
A Unique Thanksgiving Dinner
Despite our stable home—Pat’s disability checks, my mom’s job, and the income I brought in from working—we never seemed to have enough money. Putting food on the table felt like a constant struggle.
One year, a couple of months prior to Thanksgiving, Pat spotted an ad offering free rabbits to a good home. Pat and I jumped in the truck and picked up three rabbits, one for each of my sisters. We built a makeshift cage for them in the yard and Pat named them Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. I had no idea how prophetic those names would prove.
I’ll never know whether Pat always intended to make the rabbits live up to their names, or whether it was mere coincidence. He always had quite a dark sense of humor and it’s possible he was attempting to impart some kind of life lesson. It’s equally possible we ran out of money over Thanksgiving and his eyes lit upon the nearest source of fresh meat. In my eyes, they were always our pets, until suddenly they weren’t.
On Thanksgiving morning, Pat announced that we didn’t have money for turkey and enlisted my help in killing Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. We grabbed one of them at a time, held them between our legs, and twisted their necks until they broke. Then we gutted them, skinned them, and brought them inside, where my mom cooked them. We ate them with instant mashed potatoes and iceberg lettuce.
Naturally, my sisters were devastated when they discovered that their prized pets became our Thanksgiving meal. They bawled all day and, when we sat down to dinner, they still had streaks of tears running down their faces. Somehow, however, they managed to find some humor in the situation. My littlest sister, eating the rabbit that had been known as Dinner, looked up at one point and said, “Mmm, Dinner tastes so good.”