4B SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 25. 2008
BIG 12 FOOTBALL
Coaches have mixed reactions to new play clock
Kansas State coach Ron Prince yells to his team during the first half of a football game against North Texas in Mahanahan on Saturday, Aug. 30. "Brass said that relaying information during a game could get very hectic, and that laptops would be helpful if the NCA allowed them.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY TAYLOR BERN tbern@kansan.com
Forty seconds changes time, depending on whom you talk to.
quicker.
said.
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, whose team is 3-0, said his offense had performed the same as it did with the 25-second play clock.
With 33 percent of the season past for most teams, coaches at Monday's Big 12 teleconference discussed their thoughts on the NCAA's new 40-second play clock. Thus far, the reviews are mixed.
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel agreed with Gundy's assessment, and even said it was better for his offense than last year.
"We haven't had any issues with it," he said. "I like it because there is more consistency in when the ball is marked ready for play. A team can play as fast it wants."
"It actually gives us more time to substitute, and we can get plays off quicker," Pinkel
However, not everyone is excited about the new rules. Baylor lost to Connecticut 31-28 on Friday night, and first-year coach Art
Briles
Brites said the clock played a role in the game.
"It affects our game plans a bunch," Briles said. "It ties our hands some. We use a lot of formations, with shifts and motion. That's where the clock limits you."
COMPUTER ASSISTANCE
In Notre Dame's loss at Michigan State last week, in the Fighting Irish assistant coach in the upstairs booth was caught with, and stripped of, a laptop computer.
The NCAA has a rule that bans the use of any computers by assistant coaches or anyone affiliated with the team. Kansas coach Mark Mangino said he was unaware of Notre Dame's situation, but said he could see how a laptop could provide an unfair advantage.
"I guess it would be a short cut," Mangino said. "When we ask about tendencies during the game, I'll ask our coaches upstairs and they have pencil and paper and they're trying to add them up, and give them to me by down and distance or field position. I guess you could enter them into a computer and have it
spit them right out at you."
Kansas State coach Ron Prince said he had first-hand experience with the first- effortas an assistant to keep up with the game and spot future trends.
"It can get pretty hectic" Prince said. "The guy recording everything, he's like a court reporter. I guess a laptop could be handy if it was legal."
GAMBLIN' MAN
Press conferences with Texas Tech coach Mike Leach are so often off the topic of his team's play on the field, that for him off-topic is on-topic.
On Monday, Leach was asked if he believed coaches thought about
the point spread involving their teams as the game drew to a close
Kansas, a gambler's dream — or nightmare — with a 12-1 record against the spread last season, fell
one-yard shy of beating the spread with a last-second touchdown in its week one game.
Likewise, a meaningless safety in the last minute of the Iowa-Iowa State game earlier this year swung the point spread in favor of the Cyclones.
"After some ball games, I might get a letter from somebody who says, 'I wish you would have made that last field goal.' "Leach said.
This year, Texas Tech is 1-0-1 against the spread.
Mangino
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his young receivers would understand they have to do more than catch passes.
Refusing to settle for generic coach-speak, Mangino reached deeper and pulled out his inner poet.
"I hope so," Mangino said. "They still have to earn their way back. They'll have plenty of opportunities at practice to show they belong there."
Kansas is one of five Big 12 teams facing an idle Saturday this week, and Mangino said his team
"You have to earn your way, every day, or you don't play," he say. "I didn't mean for it to rhyme, but it came out that way."
welcomed the extra time off.
Last week,
Mangino placed
early season
starters Dezmon
Briscoe and
D day mond
Patterson on
the bench. The
idea is that
Did it work?
Part of that time will be devoted to figuring out the starters at wide receiver.
- Edited by Kelsey Hayes
The University of Kansas Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the School of Fine Arts, and the Department of Art invite you to attend on
Friday, September 26, 4-6:30 p.m.
Multidisciplinary Research Building (MRB)
2030 Becker Drive, West Campus
Featuring work by KU Graduate Students
Artists' Reception
Tammy Keiser Mari LaCure Jody Wood
1. enjoy refreshments, and
2. free parking available.
OLYMPICS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Members of China's gymnastics team, from left, Yang Yilin, Li Shanshan, He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Deng Linlin listen to their national anthem after winning the gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The investigation into the ages of the them has been extended to include members of the 2000 team that won a bronze in Sydney.
Chinese team from 2000 now scrutinized
ASSOCIATED PRESS
China's gold medal gymnasts aren't the only ones whose ages are getting a closer look.
The investigation into the eligibility of the Chinese women's team in Beijing has been expanded to include members of the 2000 squad, which won the bronze medal in Sydney, The Associated Press has learned.
International gymnastics officials are examining whether Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao, in particular, were old enough to compete.
"IIf we had a look at all the articles that came before, during and after the games, there were always rumors about the ages of China's athletes in Sydney," Andre Gueisbuhler, secretary general of the International Gymnastics Federation, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
"We did not have another choice," he said. "If we want to remain credible, then we have to look into things"
"It's a work in progress," said Emmanuelle Moreau, spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee. "Until the work has been completed, there is nothing we can say."
No other Chinese teams are being investigated, Gueisbuhler said.
"At this moment in time, we just have concerns about 2000 and 2008," he said.
Yang's age has long been an issue for debate.
In a June 2007 interview that aired on state broadcaster China Central Television, Yang said she was 14 at the Sydney Games.
Gymnastics rules require athletes to be 16 during an Olympic year in order to compete.
"At the time I was only 14," she said in the interview, done in Chinese. "I thought that if I failed this time, I'll do it again next time. There's still hope."
That interview, which has been widely reported, contradicts her official birthdate, which is listed as Dec. 2, 1984 and made her eligible for Sydney.
Dong's birthdate is listed as Jan. 20,1983, making her 17 at the time of the Sydney Games. Her blog, however, includes a reference to being born in 1985.
Yang is now engaged to Olympic all-around champion Yang Wei. Dong was a national technical official at the Beijing Olympics, serving as the secretary on vault. She was not part of any judging panel.
Kui Yuanyuan, Ling Jie, Liu Xuan and Huang Mandan were the other members of China's 2000 squad.
Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s, after the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 in an effort to protect young athletes, whose bodies are still developing, from serious injuries. Younger gymnasts are also thought to have an advantage because they are more flexible and are likely to have an easier time doing the tough skills the sport requires. They also aren't as likely to have a fear of failure.
The minimum age was raised to its current 16 in 1997.
There were questions about the ages of China's Beijing squad months before the games, with media reports and online records suggesting several of the gymnasts on the six-woman squad might be as young as 14.
In August, The Associated Press found registration lists previously posted on the Web site of the General Administration of Sport of China that showed He Kexin and Yang Yilin were too young to compete. A Nov. 3 story by the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, suggested He was only 14.
But Chinese officials insisted — repeatedly and heatedly — that all of its gymnasts were old enough, and they had not cheated their way to their first Olympic team gold. The FIG and IOC hoped the matter had been put to rest before the games, when the IOC said it had checked all of the girls' passports and found them to be valid.
The controversy never went away, though, and the IOC announced three days before the games ended that it had asked the FIG to investigate one more time.
China turned over birth certificates, passports, ID cards and family residence permits for He, Yang, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin and Li Shanshan.
If evidence of cheating is found, it could affect as many as four of the six medals the Chinese women won in Beijing. In addition to the team gold, He won gold on uneven bars and Yang got bronze medals on bars and in the all-around.
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