Beavers` on-field leader has a solid f

Beavers’ on-field leader has
By Kip Carlson
It’s a does-your-heart-good story when someone takes on new
challenges in new surroundings and succeeds. Sean Mannion,
’14, started his college journey in 2010; now entering his fourth
season as Oregon State’s starting quarterback, he’s a nationally
ranked star who will likely be one of the early picks in the 2015
National Football League draft.
When it comes to the Mannion family, the tale of that successful journey from Pleasanton, Calif., to the Willamette Valley
is actually a two-for-one deal.
Not long after Sean signed with the Beavers, his father, John
Mannion, was named head football coach at Silverton High
School. The elder Mannion has turned the Foxes into one of the
Oregon’s top teams in Class 5A.
Clearly the northward migration was good for father and son.
“Absolutely,” Sean Mannion said with a smile after a July
workout.
He goes into the 2014 season having guided the Beavers to
back-to-back bowl games; in 2013, he set the Pac-12 record for
passing yards in a season (4,662) and the OSU record for touchdown passes in a season (37). This summer, he won passing
competitions among college quarterbacks at the prestigious Elite
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11 and Manning Passing Academy camps.
His dad’s Silverton teams have gone 34-11 in four years.
Both of the past two seasons the Foxes reached the state
semifinals before losing to the eventual state champion each
time; those were the school’s first appearances in a football
final four since 1992.
The triumphs came after father and son made separate decisions to move about 600 miles from the Mannions’ longtime
home in California’s East Bay area. One of the nation’s top high
school quarterbacks after growing up in a football family, Sean
signed with OSU. John, an assistant at Foothill High School for
more than a decade, wanted to run a program. Having seen Oregon during Sean’s recruitment, John and Inga Mannion decided
to move themselves, their other son Brian, and daughters Katie
and Megan to Silverton.
“It’s very special to have them close so my dad can come
down during camp and check out a few practices,” Sean said.
“And they all come to the games and I get to see them a lot.”
Beaver football keeps Sean too busy to spend much time
around his dad’s program, but the hours upon hours the two
spent together as Sean learned the sport provide a firm foundaO R E G O N S TAT E R
a solid football foundation
tion for his current success. He
remembers tagging along with
his dad — “going to his games,
going to his practices, messing
around on the sideline and getting to watch some football”
— from about age 5 or 6.
A few years later, when John
would bring home videos of
upcoming opponents to dissect, Sean would be right there
with him.
“And being a little kid, you
ask a lot of questions,” Sean
said of those sessions. “It was just kind of natural with him being
a coach and me wanting to spend a lot of time with my dad, and
we spent time together with football.
“It was a great thing that enabled us to be so close and it
helped me as a player.”
Spending time with his father also showed Sean how the ups
and downs within a game or season can be handled.
FALL 2014
Above, a coach’s son who wants to someday be a coach, Sean Mannion
spent much of his summer leading informal practices of the Beavers,
of whom he is the undisputed leader. At left, football helped form a
powerful bond between 6-year-old Sean and his father, John. (Photos
above by Hannah O’Leary; family photo courtesy Inga Mannion)
“It’s something my dad preached to me in all my sports:
whether you make a shot in basketball or miss it, you have to
have a short memory,” Sean said, pointing to OSU head coach
Mike Riley as a perfect example of that philosophy.
“It starts here at the top … everyone is disappointed to lose,
but how a team really grows is how does it react after a loss.
Does everything fall apart, does it just melt, or do you bounce
back the next Monday and have a great practice?”
These are all lessons Sean hopes to impart himself someday.
“I want to play as long as I can,” he said. “Then when I’m done
with that I want to coach. I’d like to coach in college if possible,
but if not I’ll coach in high school.
“I just love the game so much, I want to stay in it as long as
I can.” q
49
Ellsbury shows
his Beaver
baseball pride
in a million
ways
By Kip Carlson
This spring, when he wasn’t streaking down basepaths or traversing
center field in big-league ballparks as a New York Yankees outfielder,
Jacoby Ellsbury did his best to follow his Oregon State Beavers.
“Definitely,” Ellsbury said of keeping abreast of his old school’s
run to another Pac-12 championship and the top of the national
rankings. “I was watching the games on TV after my games, trying
to pick them up on ESPN2 or ESPNU or whatever.
“I was up late watching the Beavs play and rooting them on just like I
know lots of people in Oregon and Corvallis were.”
That continuing sense of connection led the Madras native to make the
largest gift ever to Oregon State by an active professional athlete.
Ellsbury signed a seven-year, $153 million contract with the Yankees
in December 2013. In June, he told OSU head coach Pat Casey that one of
those 153 millions would be headed OSU’s way to help with improvements
to Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.
“My reaction was, ‘Wow, that’s awesome,’” Casey said. “For a young
man to give us that kind of a donation, and coming from him wanting
to continue to be part of our program, meant a lot.”
The Beavs’ new locker room — part of a $2.8 million project for
which money is still being raised — will be named for Ellsbury, a
first-round draft choice of the Boston Red Sox when he completed his OSU career. Playing from 2003-05, Ellsbury was
on the Beavers’ 2005 Pac-10 championship and College
World Series team that didn’t capture a national title but
started an incredible decade for OSU: two national titles,
four CWS appearances, four Pac-10/Pac-12 championships and nine trips to the NCAA tournament.
“I’ve always wanted to give back to the university,”
Ellsbury said. “My time at Oregon State — not only
being a baseball player, but a student-athlete going
to school there — was an unbelievable time. I take a
lot of memories: going to the College World Series,
coming in as a freshman and getting the college
experience. I loved Oregon State.
“With me being a Northwest kid and being
from Oregon, it’s pretty neat to see that
continued success. And hopefully we’ll
get players from the Northwest —
throughout the nation, but most
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O R E G O N S TAT E R
importantly from the Northwest and
Oregon — wanting to go to Oregon State
and play for a great coach in a top-notch
program.”
The gift puts OSU closer to completing
fundraising for a project that is keeping
one of the nation’s oldest college ballparks also one of the finest.
Coleman Field has been the home of
Beaver baseball since the school began
fielding a varsity squad in 1907. The first
permanent grandstand at Goss Stadium
went up in 1999, with extensions down
the left- and right-field lines added in
2008. The new addition, being built in
the left-field corner, will add an upgraded
player clubhouse and lounge, training
room and coaches’ offices for the team;
for fans, a pavilion on top of the building
will allow for additional concessions and a
viewing area.
“We’ll have a terrific facility for our
baseball players to be housed in, and for
our fans to be able to watch the game and
better get themselves something to eat or
drink,” Casey said.
OSU averaged a school-record 2,736
fans per home date in 2014, tops on
the West Coast. The center-of-campus
location, pregame tailgating, scaffoldingperched fans beyond the outfield walls
and closeness of seats to the infield make
Beaver home games a special experience.
“We’d like other OSU baseball supporters to step up and help Jacoby and the
other donors complete the fundraising
to keep Goss Stadium at Coleman Field
(Photo of Jacoby Ellsbury as a Beaver by Dennis Wolverton; photo of Ellsbury as a Yankee
by Keith Allison via Flickr)
the most special baseball venue in the
Pac-12,” Casey said. Those interested in
supporting the project can contact Scott
Nelson, assistant athletic director for
development, at 541-737-4295,
or [email protected].
The new building will help recruiting not
only with the physical improvement, but
with the statement it makes about how
much one of OSU’s greatest-ever players
values his Oregon State experience.
“Prospective players will come in and
look at Jacoby Ellsbury giving back,”
Casey said. “It’s like, ‘Okay, he’s giving
back because he felt it was part of his
development and part of his success.’”
Indeed, Ellsbury said that anyone
approaching him about possibilities for
playing college baseball will get heartfelt
recommendation for OSU.
“It was definitely one of the better
decisions of my life to go to Oregon State.
Just the work ethic that Pat instilled in
us, believing in us. I met my wife (Kelsey
Hawkins, ’06) there. There were just a lot
of good memories I can take away from
Oregon State, and I want to give back and
give that experience to some young kids
with dreams like I had.” q
FRIDAY AWAY GAME SOCIALS
NEW FOR 2014! Join us for spirited
FRIDAY NIGHT socials.
at Hawaii — Sept. 5
at USC — Sept. 26
at Stanford — Oct. 24
BRING THE
AWAY GAME TAILGATERS
Get pumped at pregame tailgaters.
at Hawaii — Sept. 6
at Colorado — Oct. 4
at Washington — Nov. 22
HOME GAMES
Join Beaver Nation for home
tailgaters at the CH2M HILL
Alumni Center.
ORANGE
FALL 2014
Details and reservations:
osualum.com/tailgaters
51
Women have ambitions after win in tourney
Coming off a record-setting season that
included a first-round win in the NCAA
Tournament and a final ranking of 25th
in the nation, head coach Scott Rueck,
’92, ’93, and his Oregon State women’s
basketball team are looking at a 201415 schedule that will give them several
chances to prove they’re ready for
elite status.
The Beavers, who return players who
had 95 percent of their points and 96
percent of their rebounds, have booked
a non-conference schedule whose 11 opponents include four that made the Sweet
Sixteen of this year’s NCAA Tournament.
The Beavers went 24-11 overall and
13-5 in the Pac-12 in 2013-14. The coming
schedule features road games at powerhouses North Carolina and Tennessee.
OSU’s 2014 finish tied the school record
for wins previously set in 1982-83. The
Beavers tied for second in the final Pac-12
standings, matching their highest finish as
a conference member (1996).
Oregon State advanced to the
program’s first Pac-12 Tournament
Championship courtesy of a late-season
11-game win streak, the second-longest
in school history.
Each win during the dominant run was
Jamie Weisner, Sydney Wiese, Ruth Hamblin
and Alyssa Martin celebrate their win in the
NCAA women’s tournament. (Photo by Karl
Maasdam)
by at least 10 points, and three came by
20 or more. The Beavers’ average margin
of victory was 16.1 points. That unblemished five-week stretch catapulted OSU
into its first NCAA Tournament since 1996.
On March 23, the Beavers defeated
then-No. 22 Middle Tennessee, 55-36.
Their season ended in the next round,
with a 79-68 loss to No. 1 seed South
Carolina. q
Tinkle replaces Robinson as men’s hoops coach
Wayne Tinkle, who led Montana to three NCAA
Tournament appearances, has replaced Craig
Robinson as head coach of the Oregon State
men’s basketball team, Director of Athletics Bob
De Carolis announced in May.
Tinkle, 48, was head coach at Montana for
eight seasons and won 158 games, the second
most in school history. He led the Grizzlies to
Big Sky regular-season titles in 2010, 2012 and 2013 and Big Sky
Tournament championships in 2012 and 2013. His 97 conference
wins are the most by any Montana coach.
“The more I went through the process, the more
recommendations I received about Coach Tinkle,” De Carolis said.
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“I think he is a perfect fit for our basketball program, Oregon State
University, the community and this state.”
Tinkle led Montana to four consecutive postseason trips from
2010-13, including the NCAA Tournament in 2010, 2012 and 2013.
He also went to the “Big Dance” three times during his five years
as an assistant with the Grizzlies. He was named the Big Sky
Coach of the Year after the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons and the
NABC Division I All-District 6 Coach of the Year in 2012.
The youngest of 11 children (seven girls and four boys), Tinkle
is married to the former Lisa McLeod, who was a standout
basketball player at Montana and was inducted into the Grizzly
Sports Hall of Fame in 2011. They have two daughters, Joslyn and
Elleson, and one son, Tres — all competitive basketball players. q
O R E G O N S TAT E R
Pep talk
Mens’ head coach Wayne Tinkle, 6’10”
Womens’ head coach Scott Rueck, 5’4”
What do they want from the home fans?
Tinkle: “We know the fans here are educated.
We want them to show up in droves, support us while we get better and make Gill the
toughest place in the conference for visiting
teams.”
Rueck: “Arrive early. Make it a full house. Go
crazy for 40 minutes. Be the most intimidating
place in the conference.”
(Photo by Hannah O’Leary)
FALL 2014
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