THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
WOOD CHOPPING
PAGE 9B
Arden Cogar Sr., left, and Arden Cogar Jr. compete in the chainsaw competition, slicing slabs from a timber in mere seconds at the Mountain State Forest Festival in Elkins, W.Va., on Oct. 5, 2013.
West Virginia family enjoys lumberjacking thrills
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Chain saws are buzzing, axes are flying and let the wood chips fall where they may.
The chain saw competition at the Mountain State Forest Festival pitted father and son for bragging rights as to which West Virginia could fell more timber in the fastest time. Then as Arden Cogar Jr. struggled to start his machine, his 79-year-old father sliced through three slabs of timber, drawing hoots and hollers from the crowd as the machine's roar died down.
"He can still whoop my butt any day of the week," Cogar Jr. said of his father.
Chopping through wood is a family tradition for a West Virginia-based clan that boasts at least 20 members who've cut timber in various forms of lumberjack competitions.
Members of the Cogar family stay busy competing about 20 weekends out of the year. And three of them soon will take their skills against competitors from more than 20 other countries at the Stihl Timbersports Series World Championships Oct. 25-26 in Stuttgart, Germany.
Arden Cogar Jr. held the national title for four of the past six years but was unseated in June by cousin Matt, who at 26 became the youngest U.S. overall champion of the Stiil Timbersport circuit.
The two veterans of the global circuit will be joined by Matt's father, Paul Cogar, whose decades of work in the logging industry finally paid off when he qualified for the five-member U.S. team for the first time.
"It's going to be a pretty proud moment doing that," said Paul Cogar, 56.
Local and regional competitions keep the Cogars' skills sharp. In all, six family members earned prizes at the recent festival in Elkins, although theirs wasn't the only one with multiple generations competing.
Other fathers and sons threw hatches at a red bull's eye on a wood target and worked the long saw in teams as sawdust piled up on the stage.
Logging has long been a way of life in heavily forested West Virginia, where the arrival of the railroads in the late 19th century contributed to the rapid rise of the hardwood logging and coal industries.
The Cogar family's roots in logging date to the 1930s,starting with Arden Cogar Sr.'s father and brothers.
Eventually, family members began taking part in competitions that included a variety of ax, and cross and chain saw events. Arden Cogar Sr. began competing
a half century ago and set dozens of world records in lumberjack sports. His son, Arden Jr., has been at it for more than 25 years.
While some might think lumberjack competitions require the brute strength of Paul Bunyan, Arden Cogar Jr. said it's more about timing and precision — similar to golf.
Your technique is the most important thing," he said. "It's how you deliver the ax. It's how you deliver the saw. It's not the amount of pressure. It's how you use what you have."
Arden Cogar Jr. dusts off any injuries he's accumulated over the years.
"You play with sharp objects, you get cut. That's a fact of life," he said. "I have a lot of really neat scars."
For his part, Paul Cogar has been in the logging industry for 39 years. Matt and Arden Cogar Jr. followed their respective fathers into lumberjack sports but not the logging industry.
The burly Arden Cogar Ir. is a former power weightlifter who approaches his day job as a civil defense attorney the same way he does his role as a competitive lumberjack — with preparation and more preparation.
It's a wonderful release after a heck of a work day," said Cogar, who occasionally hosts practice sessions with his cousins. "For me, there's nothing more rewarding
The 6-foot-4 Matt Cogar, who has a biology degree and works as a firearms sales associate for an outdoors retailer, started competing at age 12 and won his first trophy a year later.
than finishing off a day by going home and hitting something that can't hit me back."
His ultimate goal is to earn a world championship, which he'll have the chance to do this month. He also wants to become one of the few U.S. lumberjacks to win an underhand chopping title against a strong field in Sydney, Australia.
But Matt Cogar said the required degree of focus skyrockets when the chips start flying.
"My daughters have felt that every woodchopping contest that they go to is a family reunion," Arden Cogar Jr. said.
sport.
Now family members are gearing up for the world championships. Matt, Paul and Arden Cogar Jr. are entered in the team relay event, while Matt Cogar is scheduled for some individual events, although he said he may drop out of that in order to focus on the team race.
"Once you step up to the log, it's time to go," Matt Cogar said. "There's one thing I definitely learned a long time ago. It's not about the person you're racing against. It's just a competition between you and the log. You've got to chop that log and the next guy has to chop his log. That's what the competition is all about."
New Zealand has been the gold medalist in two of the past three years, but Arden Cogar Jr. says: "We all had very successful seasons and we will push them hard."
Paul Cogar said there is a sense of camaraderie with the competition.
"Prestige comes with winning," Matt Cogar said.
MLB
Jackson leads revamped Detroit lineup ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT — A revitalized Austin Jackson delivered in manager Jim Leyland's revamped lineup as the Detroit Tigers built a big lead and held on this time, beating the Boston Red Sox 7-3 Wednesday night to even the AL championship series 2-2.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Game 5 is Thursday night in Detroit. The Tigers' Anibal Sanchez faces Boston's Jon Lester in a rematch of Game 1, which was won by Detroit 1-0.
The Cogar men aren't the only ones who enjoy the family tradition. Kristy Cogar, Arden Jr.'s wife, won a world women's title in her fourth year of competing, and the couple's two daughters, Kiara and Carmen, also are active in the
Detroit Tigers' Austin Jackson hits an infield single in the fourth inning during Game 4 of the American League baseball championship series against the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday, in Detroit.
Torii Hunter had a two-run double and Miguel Cabrera drove in two runs after Leyland dropped the slumping Jackson to eighth in the order and moved almost everyone else up a place following the Tigers' 1-0 loss in Game 3. Jackson drew a bases-loaded walk off Jake Peavy for the first run of Detroit's five-run second inning.
Doug Fister allowed a run in six innings, and after blowing a 5-0 lead in Game 2, Detroit kept the Red Sox at bay Wednesday.
Jacoby Ellsbury had four hits for the Red Sox, finishing a homer shy of the cycle.
The Tigers lost Games 2 and 3, wasting gems by Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Jackson was 3 for 33 with 18 strikeouts in the
The Red Sox had a chance to halt that rally when Jose Iglesias hit a potential double play grounder to second, but Dustin Pedroia couldn't field it cleanly and Boston had to settle for a forceout at second that brought another run home.
Jackson found himself batting in a crucial situation right away, with the bases loaded and one out in the second. Peavy walked him on four pitches to force home the game's first run.
postseason before Wednesday, and although Leyland left him in the lineup, he changed the batting order. Jackson hit eighth, and with others moving up a spot, it made for an odd-looking order. Hunter hit leadoff for the first time since 1999 and Cabrera was second for only the third time in his career — first since 2004.
Hunter followed with a double down the line in left to make it 4-0, and Cabrera added an RBI single. After walking three batters in the second inning, Peavy was in trouble again in the fourth. After a leadoff double by Omar Infante, Jackson slapped a single past a diving Pedroia to bring home a run. Cabrera's single made it 7-0, and the Detroit third baseman — who has been running even slower than usual over the last month or so because of groin problems — caught reliever Brandon Workman and the Boston defense napping when he stole second without a throw. In the fifth, Cabrera looked healthy enough when he charged Pedroia's slow grounder, barehanded it and threw to first for the out.
Peavy allowed seven runs on 1-0.
Peavy allowed seven runs and five hits in three-plus innings.