Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
Denver sports teams the Nuggets and the Avalanche canceled last night's games because of Tuesday's shootings at a Denver-area high school.
Pro Baseball
Thursday
April 22,1999
Section:
B
Page 1
Jeff Bagwell exploded for three home runs and six RBI yesterday against the Cubs.
SEE PAGE 8B
SEE PAGE 3B
Softball
The Kansas softball team split two games with Southwest Missouri State yesterday.
SEE PAGE 2B
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Pitcher key figure in win
Above: Sophomore outfielder Doug Dreher digs up dirt trying to get to third base. Dreher was called out during the third inning. The Jayhawks defeated Rockhurst College 5-4 last night. Lower right: Freshman catcher Lukas McKnight shows the ball to the umpire after tagging Rockhurst's Tim Dougherty at home plate. McKnight got the call, and the Jayhawks went on and won the game in 10 innings. Photos by Graham K. Johnson/KANSAN
Bad streak ends with successes on mound, plate
By Matt Tait
sports@kansan.com
Kansas sportwriter
Through the players' body language and subtle looks of relief it could be sensed, and through the final result on the scoreboard it could be realized — the losing streak had finally ended.
The Kansas baseball team snapped a 12-game losing streak in dramatic fashion last night by defeating Rockhurst College 5-4 in 10 innings.
"King Kong jumped off some of our backs tonight," coach Bobby Randall said of the team's much-needed win.
The 'Hawks were held in check for more than eight innings as Rockhurst pitcher Jonathan Krysa had given up only two runs on five hits through eight innings.
But in the ninth inning, the team's luck changed. Trailing 4-2, the Jayhawks were down to their final out and Krysa, who had tallied 12 strikeouts, was down to one batter.
John Nelson, who pinch hit in the seventh for the Jayhawks, stepped in to the batter's box and worked the count full before being walked. With Nelson on first the tying run was at the plate, and for the Jayhawks
there would have been no better guy to beat at bat than the team's home run leader, Brandon O'Neal.
O'Neal hit his fifth homer of the season and, as he said, was destined to do it again.
As the ball cleared the fence. Randall, who was coaching third base, leaped into the air.
"We went out
Judging by the jubilation of the Jayhawks' dugout, the team apparently knew O'Neal had it as well.
Not one to mess with fate,
O'Neal launched Krysa's 2-1
pitch over the left field fence for
his sixth homer of the year and
tied the score at 4-4.
and played hard, and we were destined to win." O'Neal said.
"I knew I had it," O'Neal said.
"Was that a seen from The Natural?" Randall asked.
"When the light hit the scoreboard in that movie, that was Brandon O'Neal tonight. He had a great game." In the 10th
In the 10th the Javhawks manufactured the winning run by capitalizing on two Rockhurst errors and won the game 5-4.
O'Neal accounted for three of the four Kansas runs, sent the game to extra innings, hit two home runs and extended his hitting streak to 10 games. He also
went to the mound in the top of the 10th and retired Rockhurst three up, three down.
O'Neal's performance earned him the MVP of this game as well as his second win of the season as a pitcher.
His first came in similar fashion a few weeks ago in Oklahoma when he again hit a late-inning home run and retired the Sooners' batters to earn the victory.
Lost in the drama of last night's 5-4 victory was the pitching of Jeff Davis and Pete Smart. Davis and Smart combined to pitch 6/13 innings, and gave up only four hits and no runs.
"Jeff, Pete and Brandon all did an excellent job of pitching for us tonight," Randall said.
The win moves the Jayhawks' record to 11-30 overall and 4-20 in Big 12 play, but more importantly it provides them with some much needed relief going into this weekend's series at
Texas A&M.
"We definitely didn't need to lose to Rockhurst before going down to play A&M," O'Neal
Thanks to his heroics, they didn't.
—Edited by Melody Ard
Commentary
NBA reality settling in for Pollard
There was Scot Pollard that Friday night in mid-October 1986, sashaying around the Allen Fieldhouse floor wearing a red dress with matching "Revlon Vixen" fingernail polish, celebrating the Late Night festivities with his Jayhawk basketball teammates. Later that same night, at midcourt, he proposed to his then-girlfriend, now-wife Mindy, who burst into tears of acceptance.
Life was good. No worries.
Kansas would finish 34-2 that season. Polkard's solid play for a team that was ranked No.1 for 15 straight weeks — he averaged 10 points and eight rebounds a game — vaulted his NDA 98 status.
And about three months after the Jayhawks season-ending loss to eventual champion Arizona, the 6-foot11, 265-pound Pollard was picked 19th by the Detroit Pistons.
Then reality set in.
During his two-year NBA career — which has landed him with the Sacramento Kings after being traded from Detroit to the Atlanta
Mike Harrity sports@kansan.com
Hawks earlier this season, who then released him — Pollard has been shaken and stirred by the sometimes cold reality dished out by a money-making machine such as the NBA. The culture shock of leaving a basketball bastion such as Lawrence, where students camp out for seats weeks in advance and 16,300 raucous fans fill the fieldhouse every game, to play in a league where may be half of the arena is full on game night, half of which arrive late and leave early, hasn't been easy for Pollard.
Mindv Pollard explains.
"When you're in Kansas, and they know who you are and you're doing so well, you have all that confidence," she says. "And then, you get to a place, and they don't play you, then you slowly see all that smiling that he does and the happiness just slowly draining away."
Maybe he he's not as happy as his days at Kansas, but Pollard realizes that things could be a lot worse. He's guaranteed payment on the three-year contract he signed as a rookie, worth roughly $2.3 million. He and Mindy have been bought a home in West Lawrence. And he's even allowed himself one splurging binge—he's getting the 1972 Cadillac convertible, that he named Marvin and drove while he was a student, customized.
See POLLARD on page 3B
Athlete rows her way back to top boat
By Matt James
mjames@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
Few athletes look forward to a "completely exhausting" three-hour practice. But Tuesday's workout wasn't an ordinary practice, and Laura Hubert isn't just any athlete.
The Lawrence junior earned the No.7 seat in the first varsity boat this week in practice and will help the Jayhawks battle stiff competition this weekend on the West coast.
The Kansas rowing team races Sacramento State Friday in Sacramento, then travels to San Francisco Saturday to face Stanford and University of California-Davis and Santa Clara.
Hubert has been the stroke, which is the pace setter, on the second varsity boat during the spring season, before being moved up to first varsity after Tuesday's grueling seat races.
Stanford and University of California-Davis, and Santa Clara Sunday.
The three-and-a-half-minute races, which are held during practice periodically throughout the season, match individuals against each other by racing the
unite eight-person first and second boats, then switching two rowers between the boats and racing again. Coaches can tell from the times who is the stronger rower.
"I'ts very intense," she said. "Even if you aren't the one racing, you still pull as hard as you can because it's good training."
The resilient rower finally fought her way back into shape again and returned to the first boat after Tuesday's performance.
Hubert was involved in one of nine seat races Tuesday to decide boat members for this weekend.
"She works really hard, and she's a real asset to our boat," said Nikia Rosenberger, first boat coxswain. "She won her race and we definitely want the fastest person in our first boat."
Just as the spring season was getting under way and things were beginning to look up for Hubert, she pinched a nerve in her back during a spring break practice in New Orleans, and had to sit out once more.
"It was very frustrating because when I finally got well, it took forever to get back in shape," she said.
Most rowers want to be in the first boat, but Hubert had extra motivation going into Tuesday's seat races. Last year and this fall she had been in the first boat before a kidney infection caused her to miss most of the team's winter training.
"Coaches can tell from the size of the puddle from your ear whether you are rowing hard," Hubert said. "You're not really paying attention to who's in your boat, you just want practice to end."
Being in the second boat on this year's Kansas rowing team is nothing to be ashamed of.
The rowers say the seat races, which at first seem to be relatively arbitrary, are very accurate.
"It didn't bother me at all," Hubert said of her stint on the second boat. "This year the second boat is a lot more competitive, and we have good rowers in every boat."
That second boat will be crucial as Kansas tries to quality for nationals. The second boat, along with the first boat and varsity four, make up the team competitors.
"All year we've been racing intensely, if we keep it up this weekend we should do fine." said Tara Lynn, Independence, Mo., junior. "We need good competition to get into nationals and we should get that this week."
-Edited by Melody Ard
OVERLAND PARK—Final approval was given yesterday to a plan for all 310 Division I schools to help pay off the largest judgment ever levied against the NCAA.
The Associated Press
The $64.5 million payment stemmed from a class action suit representing about 2,000-3,000 assistant coaches whose salaries the NCAA illegally capped at $16,000 per year.
The payment plan, first advanced last week by the NCAA management council, is
The payment plan, first advanced last by the NCAA management council, designed to head off a ruinous fight between the big- and small-time schools about the suit regarding what the NCAA called restricted earnings coaches.
The major powers, who employed most of the affected coaches, will end up paying roughly $200,000 each. The smaller schools, some of which never even had a restricted earnings coach
an nevertheless voted for the rule and share in the wealth produced by the majors, will be assessed about $80,000 each.
The plan was given final approval yesterday by the NCAA's board of directors and executive committee.
"The subcommittee did an excellent job in developing the plan," said Graham Spanier, chairman of the NCAA board.
"It is a very workable solution, even though there will be schools both large and small that may have preferred a different formula. As the president at Penn State, I would like to
have paid less. But as members of the board, we have to look at the big picture, and we agreed that this is a solution that will work."
The coaches will still have to wait a while for their money.
"We hope to have the money distributed within six to eight months, assuming the court approves the settlement and plan of distribution," said Lori Schultz, one of the coaches' lead attorneys. "Until we know the total number of coaches who submit a claim,
we cannot estimate the amount each
extent will receive payment in addition to their actual loss of income."
Most of the money will come from future funds schools get from the CBS contract for the men's basketball tournament. That money, which the NCAA does not have on hand, will be
now working its way through the Indiana Legislature.
The board also looked at modifications of test score requirements used in freshman eligibility standards that were found illegal by a federal judge in Philadelphia.
The board hopes to have a modification of the standards, known as Proposition 16, in place after its meeting in August, Spanier said. The rules remain in place under a stay issued by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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