Stephanie Matthews inducted into Wrestling Hall of Fame

Posted Dec. 3, 2021

By Jonas Hobson-Reeves

Staff Reporter

Athletic secretary Stephanie Matthews was recently inducted into the Oregon chapter of the Wrestling Hall of Fame with Lifetime Service to Wrestling honors.

“Wrestling teaches a lot of important life lessons on the mat that wrestlers, athletes, boys and girls can take into life with them,” said Matthews.

She has been helping out the wrestling community for 20 years, starting in 2001 when her kids took an interest in the sport. Her husband, who was a wrestler in the past, got back into it with her kids.

“I don’t like sitting in the stands and watching I wanna help, when my kids wrestled I got really nervous so it was better to be busy and doing things and helping,” said Matthews.

She started off as an assistant scorekeeper and stack crew member. Since then she has done just about everything, some of her accomplishments including being the Centennial Mat Club President and Stat Crew Advisor. She serves on the OSAA Tournament Committee, The Oregon Classic Tournament Committee and has won the prestigious Oregon Classic Outstanding Citizen Award. In addition to her Hall of Fame status, Matthews was recently voted Vice President on the Oregon Chapters board of directors, and gained an OSAA certification in weighing athletes for competition.

David Douglas has had some rough seasons due to COVID 19 and will focus to recover their success in the Mt.Hood Conference. Girls wrestling is one of the largest growing sports, both David Douglas and Matthews are striving to increase the popularity of the girls wrestling program. Matthews feels that an increase in girls wrestling will also lead to a popularity in boys wrestling, which is more popular. Wrestling as a whole has increased in popularity by around 2.5% in the last few years.

Matthews has a very important teaching role outside of being a coach; she makes it a point that everyone knows what they are doing at a wrestling meet.

“I feel like I know wrestling enough to have been successful in the things that I’m teaching the kids about scoring and running tournaments and all these different things that I do. It’s a lot,” said Matthews.