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MEN’S SOCCER vs. Appalachian State (scrimmage), 7 p.m. Friday CONTACT IIS CROSS COUNTRY at Charleston Southern, Aug. 30 WOMEN’S SOCCER vs. Birmingham Southern, Aug. 30 Story ideas? Questions? Comments? VOLLEYBALL at Michigan State tournament, Aug. 30-31 E-mail us at gamecocksports%hotmail.com FOOTBALL vs. New Mexico State, Aug. 31 Holtz has Gamecocks aiming high BY KYLE ALMOND THE GAMECOCK You almost have to feel sorry for the USC football players after listening to their head coach, Lou Holtz, talk about preparing them for the upcoming season: “I’ve been tougher and more de manding this year than I ever have been,” he said, “and that’s a longtime.” Thirty years, to be exact, and in every one of those years, Holtz has been an intense, and at times, in timidating presence on the side lines. It’s hard to imagine Holtz being any more fiery than he has before. After all, this is the same man who put a referee in a head lock during a game while coaching at Notre Dame. But don’t cry for the Gamecocks — Holtz is hard on Holtz them because he believes in their ability to win. an SEC Championship. i wm nui unuerseu uus 1001 ball team,” Holtz said. “I think we can win the (SEC) Championship.” USC is coming off two of its best seasons ever. After finishing with an 8-4 record in 2000, the Gamecocks finished last season 9-3 and beat Ohio State in the Outback Bowl for the second-straight year. In the final polls, the Gamecocks were ranked No. 13 in the country. With the tremendous turnaround the team has had since its depressing 0-11 season in 1999, there is reason to believe that the Gamecocks can take the next step and win their first conference title. “Our fans think we’re going to win the championship,” Holtz said. “They should feel that way. It’s exciting.” For all his optimism, however, Holtz issues a warning: “There are some reasons to be excited, but there are also some question marks.” The Gamecocks lost 13 starters from last year’s team, including quarterback Phil Petty, whose leadership and dependability steadied an offense that was the worst in the nation three years ago. Other talented starters gone Countdown to Kickoff 2002 Leading up to USC's season opener Aug. 31 against New Mexico State, The Gamecock will keep you up to date on how the team is shaping up. Every issue, we’ll have the latest news out of practice, in addition to these special features: TODAY: An overview of the -Gamecocks and their expectations for the upcoming season. MONDAY: An in-depth look at quarterback Corey Jenkins and the USC offense. WEDNESDAY: A glance at the rebuilding Carolina defense along with our annual “Opponents" pull-out section detailing the Gamecocks’ 12 foes in 2002. FRIDAY: A preview of the game and a look at the special teams unit. are running back Derek Watson, go-to wide receiver Brian Scott, center Larrell Johnson, tackle Melvin Paige, linebacker Kalimba Edwards, defensive end John Stamper and defensive backs Sheldon Brown, Andre Goodman and Willie Offord. Watson was dismissed from the team in the spring after being ar rested on a drug charge. Edwards, Stamper and the defensive backs were all taken in the NFL Draft. “Who do we have coming back?” Holtz asked at the SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama. ‘No real receiver. We lost our cen ter, lost our tackle, lost our quar :erback, lost our linebackers, lost )ur secondary. This is realism. But [ love the attitude and the work babits, and this football team is go ing to make the people in the state rf South Carolina very proud.” Corey Jenkins, a 25-year-old se lior, will take over for Petty, and, given the nature of the position, las the most attention going into :he season. But Holtz says he’s ex cited to see what Jenkins will Dring to the team. ► FOOTBALL, SEE PAGE B7 Football tickets sell out again BY KYLE ALMOND THE GAMECOCK Even when the USC football team was on a 21-game losing streak, it still sold out every game at Williams-Brice Stadium. So, now with a winning team, it should come as no surprise that tickets are already sold out once again for the upcoming season. According to Chris Massaro, USC’s senior associate athletics director for ticket Operations, tick ets are officially sold out for the sixth straight season. “We’re in an overflow situa tion,” Massaro told the Associated Press. “People want more tickets, no one’s giving them up. It’s like trying to fill a full glass of water.” USC sold a school record 61,700 season tickets, surpassing the record set last year by more than 4,000 tickets. “I try not to be surprised by Carolina fans’ support,” Massaro said. “But every year, I am a little bit.” USC students are the only ones who can still obtain tickets direct ly through the school, as the ticket office has set aside thousands of student tickets as it normally does every season. Tickets could become available after student distribution if the students do not pick up all the tick ets allotted to them, a rare occur “I try not to be surprised by Carolina fans’ support. But every year, I am a little bit.” CHRIS MASSARO SENIOR ASSOCIATE ATHLETICS DIRECTOR FOR TICKET OPERATIONS rence. But other than that, non students have to explore other op tions for getting tickets in Williams-Brice, which has a ca- * pacity of 80,250. There isn’t any thing the USC Ticket Office can do to help, although it’s not that it doen’t want to. Massaro wishes he could add more seats to the stadium himself. “I’m ready to get my hammer and nails and go over there right now,” he said. Massaro said there are prelimi nary plans to add about 8,000 seats to the north end of the stadium, but not much has came of it yet. “I expect that’s going to be , more of a front-burner issue as we move deeper into fall,” Massaro said. Tickets for the Aug. 31 opener against New Mexico State will be distributed to students Aug 26-28 in room 205 of the Russell House from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Students must bring their USC ID cards to get a ticket. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com WHILE YOU WERE GONE... PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK The USC women’s track and field team edged Texas and UCLA this summer to win the school its first national championship. National champions Head coach Curtis Frye received the traditional drenching after his team clinched the title. Women’s track wins USC its first NCAA title BY J. KEITH ALLEN THE HAMECOCK The USC women’s track and field team, which finished ahead of Texas and defending national champion UCLA, won the NCAA Outdoor Championship this summer in Baton Rouge, La. The Gamecocks set meet and collegiate records on their way to winning the school its first na tional title ever, in any sport. The team clinched the cham pionship by winning the 1,600 meter relay, which gave USC 82 points in the meet. Going into the event, USC needed only six points to secure the title, and while head coach Curtis Frye wanted the team to be cautious, his team wanted to close the door on their competition. “I told them to push, but not too hard,” Frye said. “But they had another ‘don’t’ in mind — Don’t lose.” The team of Tiffany Ross, Demetria Washington, Tacita Bass and Lashinda Demus ran a time of 3 minutes, 26.46 seconds to break the NCAA record for the event and win USC the national championship. “We almost ran a perfect track meet,” Frye said. “It was all due to the preparation and the time that has been spent work ing hard for this.” In addition to her part on the title-clinching relay team, Bass also finished second in the 400 with a time of 50.87 seconds. “We knew we had a chance (to win the title) if we just worked hard,” she said. “We are thrilled. I am so proud.” Demus ran a personal-best time of 51.30 right behind Bass in the same event, and she also won the 400-meter hurdles. Demus said she will enjoy the championship, but she said that she still wants to keep up the high standards. “It is all very exciting, and it makes me want to work harder to win another title,” she said. The men’s team tied for sixth place in the meet, and it also won the 1,600 relay. The team of James Law, Otukile Lekote, Otis Harris and Jon Fortenberry set a school record of 3:02.16 for the event. Both track teams returned to Columbia with a large welcome the following Sunday and brought their trophies to Sarge Frye Field at the conclusion of the baseball team’s 3-1 victory over North Carolina. They received a long ovation from the USC faith ful, and the fans went on the field to congratulate the team. ♦ CHAMPS, SEE PAGE B8 The benefits of having a winning team KYLE ALMOND GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM USC’s recent success has put us on the map. We’ve come a long way, baby. Four years ago, before I came to USC or thought about applying, this place wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen. And, like most peo ple from outside the Deep South. I wouldn’t have been able to find it on a map. Sure, you could have been nice, given me a hint and told me what city it was in, but I would have been thinking Juan Valdez, cocaine and murdered soccer play ers — not exactly your average college town. USC was only visible to me in one way, and that was from the baseball caps “cool” kids wore be cause it said “COCKS” in big red lettering. Now I admit my sense of geog raphy wasn’t the greatest at that time, but I wasn’t alone — unless you lived in South Carolina or a neighboring state, you hadn’t heard much, if anything at all, from this university. But that’s starting to change, thanks in large part to our athlet ics program, which has garnered the school some serious attention. From Lou Holtz and the football team’s remarkable turnaround, to our first national champi onship (in women’s track and field), Carolina sports have lifted this university out of obscurity and into the national spotlight. While this bodes well for the in-state kids who’ve been ignored by the rest of the country and laughed at for their state’s edu cation ranking, it’s almost a god send for us out-of-staters, who can finally tell people where we go to school without turning it into a 30-minute dissertation. You see, when you live in South Carolina, it’s easy to tell people where you go to school. All you have to say is “USC” or “Carolina,” and they know what you’re talking about. Well, that doesn’t work for the out-of-staters. If we tell someone we go to USC, they assume we’re on the other coast attending Southern California. They’re thinking Marcus Allen, or even O.J. Simpson—not George Rogers. And if we tell someone we go to Carolina, they automatically assume North Carolina. They’re thinking Michael Jordan — not David Ross. And it doesn’t matter whether we say “South Carolina,” either. The most common response to that is, “But where in South Carolina do you go to school?” Argh. The only way an out-of-stater can successfully get their point across the first time is to say “The University of South Carolina at Columbia.” But that’s a huge pain — the person is usually asleep by the word “of,” and if they actually were paying attention, they’ll need a couple of drinks by the time you’re done. That shouldn’t be the case for much longer. One of the positives about our school’s recent suc cesses on the playing fields is that people know who we are now. They see us on TV, whipping Clemson in the College World Series, and they remember that. They might not remember us for how many Rhodes Scholars we have, but they will remember how many All-Americans we have. It’s sad, but true. While the ath letics program is only a small part of a university’s makeup, it’s by far the most visible, fair or not. Come on, do you think we’d know about Notre Dame, a relatively small private school in Indiana, if it wasn’t for their prestigious football program? Those that think the athletics program gets unfair preferential treatment must realize that more attention and more exposure are good things. More attention usu ally equals more money, and, as we know, that benefits us all. I can think of three useful, worthwhile benefits just off the top of my head: 1. The new wellness center 2. The new basketball arena 3. The Sumter Street landscap ing project. OK, never mind the last one. But you get my drift — the pres tige of our sports program is im portant to the overall prestige of our school. Remember that the next time we’ve got a big game coming up on the schedule. Come out and support our athletes. After all, there’s something in it for you. Who knows, that next touch down run by Andrew Pinnock could finally fulfill our dreams and put an IHOP in the Russell House. Almond is a fourth-year print journalism student.