Portland State wrestler Steven Dailey is a young man who is going places. But at the moment, he's not in a great rush to get there.
An academic senior with nearly straight A's (a B plus in a non-academic subject “really annoyed” him), Dailey already has been offered admission to three medical schools?Temple, Tulane and Maryland?and has yet to hear from Dartmouth, Albert Einstein (in New York City) and some others.
He applied only to out-of-area medical schools because he wants to travel and see other parts of the country.
But, he's only in his junior year of eligibility and is planning to seek delayed admission to medical school so he can spend another year on the PSU campus. He's just having too much fun.
“I've talked to doctors who say that you're really into your career after the first year in medical school and there's not a lot of time for anything else. I've met some of the best friends of my life in the wrestling program here and I want to spend another year with them. I'm having a lot of fun at PSU,” said the 21-year-old athletic standout from Molalla High School, who is wrestling at 149 pounds.
The school has been a good fit for Dailey, but he almost didn't end up here.
A state champion wrestler and all-state football player at halfback and defensive back, several Ivy League schools recruited him as a wrestler. Football held greater interest, though, so he accepted an offer to play football for Willamette University.
Following a frustrating freshman year at the Salem Division III school (he was injured and felt that “I wasn't fitting into the football program”), he'd decided to return to wrestling and to spend a year at Clackamas Community College.
“PSU had an open mat during the summer and I worked out with the wrestlers here and got to know some of them,” Dailey recalled. When first year head coach Mike Haluska offered him a partial scholarship, he grabbed it.
Wrestling was a sport he began early. At a sixth grade birthday party he was wrestling around with a friend, “who did a pretty good job of beating me up. He was involved in wrestling and talked me into going out. Pretty soon, I could beat him,” Dailey said.
He likes wrestling because it is a “unique balance of the physical and art. It brings together technique, power and agility. It's artistic in the way you combine moves to try to manipulate your opponent.”
And, he believes, his wrestling activity, combined with volunteer time at Willamette Falls Hospital and a medical mission through PSU to Honduras, has helped bring him to the attention of medical school admission officers.
Playing sports and carrying a near four-point gpa has been tough. “This was the first example of all that hard work paying off. When I got my first acceptance letter I was running through the park blocks just screaming with excitement,” he said. He also credits PSU's strong pre-med program along with some important people in his life.
Dailey's parents “have been very supportive and I really appreciate that. They go out of their way to let me know they're pleased with what I'm doing. Not everyone has that kind of relationship with their parents.”
Molalla insurance executive Terry Holden, who provides a college scholarship for Molalla High graduates, and his wife Cheryl have been “guiding lights for me. I could not have done this without them and my parents.”
So, for the moment, Steven Dailey is a wrestler and an outstanding student who several medical schools think has the makings of a fine future doctor. In the meantime, though, he's also a person who is enjoying the trip toward that future and who wants to appreciate a lot of the things that life has to offer along the way.
