Former 'M' wrestler Reese remembered

Student-Athlete Advisory Council creates scholarship in his name

It will be an unforgettable experience for an unforgettable person.

Exactly one year, 11 months, and 11 days after after the tragic death of Michigan wrestler Jeff Reese, 10 people will stand on the field of Michigan Stadium - holding a banner in his honor - as the football team takes the field against Ohio State.

Reese would have graduated this spring as a fifth-year senior.

Reese

He would have finished his fourth season as a wrestler.

He would have just celebrated his 23rd birthday.

He wouldn't have wanted to be remembered any other way.

Reese, son of Edwin and Veronica of Wellsburg, N.Y., desperately needed to make his 150-pound weight class one December day two years ago, and he only had four days to do it.

He dedicated the final 96 hours of his life to making weight so that he could compete for his team, for his school, for his wrestling career, for the love of the sport.

Just over one-and-a-half pounds short of his goal, Reese collapsed.

Less than an hour later, he was gone.

But never forgotten.

As a tribute to Reese's hard work and determination, the Student-Athlete Advisory Council created the first scholarship at Michigan to be sponsored by a student organization - a $100,000 endowment fund in his name to forever instill his brief presence as an elite athlete at Michigan.

"The point is not to remember the tragic accident," SAAC treasurer and Michigan wrestler Matt Michalski said. "The point of the scholarship is to remember the person."

The idea was proposed in February, 1998, by Dwayne Fuqua, the then-president of Michigan's SAAC.

"We want to do something that creates a memory for Jeff so people won't forget about him," said current SAAC president Andy Potts, a fifth-year senior and former Michigan swimmer. "Jeff didn't just die from an accident. He died giving his life for Michigan wrestling, and you just can't give anything more than that. He gave so much of himself to his wrestling that it consumed him and his life. I think that should speak a lot about what he was trying to do, what he wanted to represent."

The scholarship is a way that the athletic organization can do Reese's memory justice. The SAAC plans to give the scholarship to the varsity athlete who represents the drive and the hunger to compete that Reese possessed.

"We all want to give the most to everything that we do, and we want to perform to our best ability as student athletes," Potts said. "That was very important to Jeff, so important that he was willing to push himself beyond his physical limits. It's not possible to give anything more than what he gave, and we want to try and remember that... remember why he gave his life, and remember him."

The recipient will be decided on by the SAAC and Reese's parents. It won't be a full scholarship, but, according to Potts, it will be on a need basis to help student-athletes with their athletic endeavors.

"You dedicate a lot of time being a student and an athlete," Potts said. "People who are financially strapped are sitting between a rock and a hard place. It's not an easy thing to do. It's almost a full time job with athletics - most athletes put in 30 hours a week with everything that goes into their sport... and that doesn't include the 15 credit hours."

The SAAC needs to raise $100,000 in order to meet the criteria for an endowment.

Since the start of the funding in March of 1998, students, alumni and others have contributed just over $16,500.

The money came from a car wash, the selling of T-shirts bearing Reese's name, a magazine that salutes the 1997 football season and raffle tickets, the latter of which have been the most successful.

The raffle began last November just before the MIchigan - Penn State football game, where the winners stood at the tunnel entrance and held the 'M Go Blue' banner as the football team raced onto the field. The raffle brought in over $4,000.

To surpass the success of last year's raffle, the SAAC began selling tickets much earlier. After only two events - the football game against Purdue and volleyball's annual "Rock the House" game against Iowa - it has already collected about $1,400.

Raffle tickets will be sold at this Saturday's hockey game, along with upcoming field hockey, soccer, men's and women's basketball games and the home football games against Illinois and Northwestern.

SAAC is also planning to sell tickets in the Diag on Friday, November 5th - the first day of Parents' Weekend. The M Go Blue banner will be out there as well so everyone can get a closer look.

Ten winners will be notified on November 7, and their names will be published in The Daily on the eighth.

The winners will again raise the banner in Reese's memory as the Wolverines take the field in their final home football game against Ohio State.

Although $100,000 is a great deal of money, the SAAC hopes to raise the rest of the money by the end of the year.

This year would have been Reese's final at Michigan, so the SAAC wants it to be the year the scholarship is established.

"It's the last year that people would be around to remember him," Potts said. "So we're trying to do as much as we can this year to solidify the scholarship. We want to keep his memory alive, and the closer we can keep it to when he was here, it would just carry more weight and more meaning for anyone who received the scholarship."

10-13-99