The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 18, 2002, Page 9, Image 9
BRIEFLY
Men’s soccer wins
last season game
The USC men’s soccer team
handed Florida International
its first loss since Sept. 7, de
feating the Golden Panthers 2
1 Sunday at the Graveyard.
The Gamecocks (11-7-1)
struck fast, scoring their first of
two goals only two minutes into
the first half. Jack Cummings
served the ball to freshman
Ryan Deter, who netted his fifth
goal of the season on an open
net from 10 yards out.
Florida International (12-5
1) scored the equalizing goal at
the 2:34 mark when Juan
Rivera scored an unassisted
goal.
In the 36th minute, Anthony
Stovall scored the game-win
ning goal. Ben Link connected
with Stovall, who slipped it
past FIU goalkeeper Roy
Rosenberg to give USC a 2-1
lead.
USC outshot FIU 12-11.
Gamecock goalkeeper Michael
Bachmeyer, playing in his final
home match of his Gamecock
career, recorded five saves.
The Gamecocks will find out
Monday if they were selected
to play in the NCAA
Tournament. The selection
show will be on ESPN News at
4:30 p.m.
Cross country 23rd
in regional meet
The USC cross country
team competed Saturday at
the Southeast Regional
Championships in Greenville,
N.C., and finished in 23rd
place.
Wake Forest won the meet
and will move on to the NCAA
Championships on Nov. 25.
North Carolina Tar Heel
Shalane Flanagan ran away
with the top -place finish in the
6-kilometer race with a time of
19 minutes, 17 seconds, beating
the runner-up by 29 seconds.
Sophomore Jenny Lake was
the Gamecocks’ top finisher,
placing 77th in 22:08.
Senior co-captain Kinsey
Eschenburg finished her USC
cross country career with a
llOth-place finish.
Gators take down
USC swim teams
The USC swimming teams
were narrowly defeated by
Florida on Friday at the
Stephen C. O’Connell Center
Natatorium.
The women’s team lost 136
102 to the No. 5 Gators, while
the men lost to their seventh
ranked counterparts by a score
of 130-104.
The Gamecocks had their
work cut out for them from the
start; Florida’s women are the
defending SEC champions, and
the men were runners-up.
There was, however, a ray
of sunshine in the loss — the
diving team. Diving coach
Todd Sherritt’s athletes put to
gether another stellar perfor
mance and came away with
victories in all but one of the
diving events.
Sophomore Andy Bradley
continued to shine as he again
won both the 1- and 3- meter
springboards for the fifth time
in as many meets. The women
were helped along by Allison
Brennan and Holly Hodges,
who placed first and second in
the 1-meter springboard.
The lone win for the swim
teams came during the wom
en’s 50-meter freestyle. USC’s
Anna Nyiry won the event
with a time of23.59.
Volleyball splits
over final weekend
The 18th-ranked USC vol
leyball team was swept again
by Florida this weekend, but it
recovered to defeat Georgia on
Sunday and earn the second
seed in the upcoming SEC
Tournament.
After losing 30-15,30-27, and
30-23 to the No. 4 Gators in
Gainesville on Friday,
Carolina (21-5,14-2 SEC) took
down the Bulldogs in four
games. USC fell behind early
and loss the first game 30-28 but
came back to win the next
three games by scores of30-22,
30-19 and 30-21.
The Gamecocks will be
matched up with No. 7 seed
Alabama in the first round of
the SEC Tournament, which
is to be held in Fayetteville,
Ark. The match takes place
Friday at 11:30 a.m. and will be
the first match of the tourna
ment.
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PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
Dondrlal Plnkins, in his first career start at quarterback for
USC, threw for 74 yards and rushed for 84.
New Roles
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8
said. “I think that’s where my fu
ture is. The bad part was that we
didn’t get the win. But, as far as
my transition, I enjoyed it.
“I’ve got some stuff to learn, but
I’ll be all right.”
Jenkins had good things to say,
about his buddy Dondrial Pinkins,
who took over as starting quar
terback.
Pinkins, a redshirt sophomore
in his first career start, finished
with 84 yards rushing and 74
yards on 8-of-17 passing.
“I am proud of him,” Jenkins
said. “I grabbed him and kissed
him on the head and told him that
I was proud of him. He came out
today and competed.
“He did his best. That is all you
can ask for. He didn’t try to do too
much or too little. He did exactly
what they wanted him to do. They
didn’t turn the ball over. That is a
plus.”
Holtz was also encouraged by
the performance Pinkins had.
“I thought Dondrial did a nice
job stepping in there,” Holtz said.
“I thought he ran his team well
and protected the ball well.”
Because of injuries to USC’s
wide-receiving corps, Holtz knew
his team was limited in what it
could do in the passing game. So
he continued to have his team
play conservative on the offensive
side of the ball.
“With the receiver problems
we have, we thought that we had
to control the football,” he said.
“And we thought we could run the
football. If you throw the ball, and
it’s incomplete on first down,
you’re behind the stick.”
On the rare occasion that
Pinkins was asked to throw the
football, he came through.
“There was only one time
where he had a guy open he didn’t
hit,” Holtz said. “He had some
misreads, but I thought for the
first game he did a nice job.”
Pinkins said he was nervous at
first but got over the butterflies as
soon as the game got going.
“You just have to go out and do
what you are told to do and what
you are coached to do and hope
things go the way you want them
to go,” he said.
While Pinkins was happy with
the way he played, he was both
ered by the offense’s inability to
put points on the board.
“We drove down the field and
got inside the 30 a couple of times
and didn’t get any points, no field
goals, no nothing,” he said. “If we
could have gotten those, they
would have been big.
Unfortunately, things didn’t work
out.”
Neither Pinkins nor Jenkins
could turn around the Gamecocks’
losing ways, but Holtz was happy
with their contributions in then
new roles and stands by his deci
sion to move them.
“I just felt like that was the best
thing to do for the team,” Holtz
said.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocksports@hotmail.com
Eliminating a team 's history
to save the good of the program
MATTROTHENBERG
GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM
UM athletics director
did the right thing to
allay NCAA sanctions.
Two weeks ago, at the
University of Michigan, athletics
director Bill Martin donned a
surgical mask and gloves to per
form a delicate, yet difficult, op
eration on his men’s basketball
program.
What he extracted from the
Wolverines were perhaps the pro
gram’s finest years and some of its
best players. Martin performed all
this surgery in the hopes that the
NCAA would not get its opportu
nity to take more out.
Essentially, because booster
Ed Martin improperly loaned
$616,000 to student-athletes
Chris Webber, Louis Bullock,
Maurice Taylor and Robert
Traylor, more than 100 victories
in which those players partici
. pated will be forfeited. These in
clude trips to the Final Four in
1992 and 1993, an NIT champi
onship and a Big Ten champi
onship. Michigan will also re
pay $450,000 in tournament
earnings to the NCAA, declare
itself ineligible for postseason
play in 2003 and be on probation
for the next two years.
In effect, these self-imposed
sanctions have made the “Fab
Five” into the “Drab Five.”
During numerous NCAA and
FBI investigations, it was deter
mined that Ed Martin had made
loans to those players. Fearing
serious consequences from the
NCAA, Bill Martin did exactly
what he had to do. It couldn’t
have been easy, but he did it any
way.
There are all sorts of sanc
tions, self- and NCAA-imposed,
I
levied every year to collegiate
athletic programs across the
country. To avoid the “death
penalty,” the theme is to punish
oneself first and then see what
the NCAA does in return.
A lot of people are being hurt
from Bill Martin’s actions, espe
cially the past and current
Wolverine basketball players
who had nothing to do with the
illegal actions. You can erase the
wins, but you can’t erase the
memories. Who will forget the
game against UNC, when
Webber called the timeout that
wasn’t?
All this could have been avoid
ed if the guys involved knew their
role. Ed Martin should have
known it was against the rules to
AVU1A UlV/ilV, J L V/
prospective
NCAA student
athletes. The
players should
have known not
to accept any.
Maybe they
didn’t realize it
then, but stuff
like this has a
tendency to come
out eventually.
I’m sure some
of those four
guys may not
have come from
the best of cir
Loans
given to
Chris
Webber
resulted in
Michigan’s
self
imposed
sanctions.
cumstances and that taking the
money was a way to help their
families. Yet it’s difficult for me
to understand why they would
complain about the sanctions
placed upon the program, when
they helped force those measures
into place.
Simply put, you get what you
deserve. When you break the
rules, you pay the price. Sure, we
all do stupid and foolish things
when we’re young, sometimes
without realizing the conse
quences. Yet it’s going to come
back to you one day, and for these
five men, it has.
I feel sorry for the current
Wolverines, who have no shot at
an NCAA bid this year because of
what past players did. But for the
younger guys and the prospective
recruits, it’s certainly a fine les
son: Basically, watch your back
and keep away from people
promising money, jobs, or what
ever else to you or your family.
I’m also disappointed in then
head coach Steve Fisher, who
still claims ignorance on this
matter. It’s understandable not
to notice $20 here or there, but a
total of over $600,000 — that’s just
unacceptable. He should know
better.
Although it hurts the program
in the short term, Bill Martin per
formed the necessary actions to
abate the situation. Hopefully, his
moves will convince other boost
ers and future players to do the
right thing in not jeopardizing
their future or that of the pro
gram.
These sanctions should serve
as an impetus for less wrongdo
ing and an overall cleaner pro
gram. Current head coach
Tommy Amaker is the perfect one
to follow through on that mission.
Even though we will probably
never be in this situation, I would
be incredibly disappointed if a
Gamecock football player was
found to have committed an in
fraction, forcing USC to forfeit its
Outback Bowl victories. But as
long as I have the memories, no
one can take them from me.
Michigan fans can keep the mem
ories, even if the wins and cham
pionships and everything else are
gone for years to come.
Had everyone involved in the
allegations followed the rules,
some of the best years of
Michigan men’s basketball would
still be recognized today.
Michigan officials decided to see
just what was swept under the
rug and saw it wasn’t pretty.
The facts might not be easy for
Wolverine fans to swallow. But
Bill Martin did the job he was
supposed to do in this matter. He
righted a wrong, no matter how
controversial it might be. In do
ing so, he may have saved his
school from a worse fate.
Rothenberg is a fourth-year
sport management student. His
column normally appears every
Wednesday in Gamecock Sports.
-1
—
For Games Played During
The Winter Break
Dec. 6, 2002 until Jan. 13, 2003
i- ' ■■■"1 ■
Temple Dec. 2, 2002
Wofford Dec. 16, 2002
Citadel Jan. 2, 2003
Ole Miss. Jan. 8, 2003
Special distribution of student tickets will be
Monday, Dec. 2 and Tuesday, Dec. 3, from
9am until 4pm. Distribution will be in Room
205 of the Russell House. Student tickets will
also be available on game day at the Arena
Ticket Office Student Ticket window from 9 am
until halftime of the game. Validation will cost
$15.00 for the games. Validations will be
available at distribution or at the Coliseum on
game night.
-Students are not guaranteed a student ticket
to each game, only the right to a ticket as
long as student tickets are available.
-Remember, the good seats go early, so get
your ticket as soon as you can.
jk Handicapped or disabled students can get
assistance by calling 777-6742
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NOVEMBER 22
I_I_I_I
Brought to you by Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2002
Carolina Productions Q.nnr_
S 777-7130 Time. 9.00p.m.
vv.sa.sc.edu/cp Location: Russell House Theater
f} Students may pick up complimentary passes
at the Russell House Information Center
beginning at 8:30a.m., day of the show.