Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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BRIEFS • EonnnuED FKOm IB against Tiger freshman Paul Koenke at No. 4 singles. B The Tigers pulled away soon after, winning the final four matches of the contest to claim the victory. USC wraps up regular season play at No. 14 Florida on Saturday. Akins picks up SEC field award Fresh off her school record discus toss of 185 feet, 9 inches, USC junior Precious Akins has been named the SEC Field Athlete of the Week. The toss was the furthest throw in the SEC and in the region this year and No. 4 nationally. The USC women are No. 12 in the latest Trackwire. com poll, while the men are tied for No. 18 nationally. Akins won the discus at the Spec Town Relays in Athens, Ga., with a regional qualifying toss of 185 feet, 9 inches on Saturday. She also finished as the runner up in the shot put at 48 feet, 10 inches. Akins’ mark in the discus broke the school record set by former Olympian Dawn Ellerbe in 1997 by more than two feet (183 feet, 8 inches). Ellerbe was the SEC discus champion in 1996 and the runner-up in 1997. MRS • C0RTIRUEDFR0IRI2 home run and Robbie Grinestaff single in the ninth gave the Gamecocks a false sense of hope, as the next three batters were retired, and Clemson finished the win. The victory gives Clemson the regular season series with a 3-1 edge over Carolina. It’s the second time the Gamecocks have lost the season series since 2001. “They’ve got a great team and if you’re going to beat them you have to be at your best,” Tanner said. “Certainly tonight we weren’t.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc. edu lVAVAVU^^H Former Bama booster had kept low profile The Associated Press TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Logan Young had gone from watching Alabama football games from his 24-seat luxury box to often buying a ticket like regular fans. Young, found dead Tuesday in his Memphis, Tenn., mansion, once prized his ties to the Alabama program. But he fell from favor when the Tide was placed on probation in 2002 partly because of his payments to steer a recruit to Tuscaloosa. Hoping to avoid any uncomfortable scenes with angry fans for his role in NCAA violations, he had kept a low profile when attending Crimson Tide home games in recent seasons, said Kirk McNair, publisher of Bama Magazine. “There were a lot of people — Alabama people — that blamed him for Alabama’s problems,” McNair said. “So he didn’t want to be anybody who stirred anything up. “He’d occasionally sit in somebody’s box. But more often than not, he had a ticket and sat down in the end zone with some other fans and didn’t say anything.” The former Alabama booster had been free pending appeal of his 2005 conviction on money laundering and racketeering conspiracy charges involving the recruitment of defensive lineman Albert Means to Alabama. A Vanderbilt graduate, Young never attended Alabama but his father was a close friend of legendary Tide coach Bear Bryant. He was one of three boosters Alabama cut ties with as part of the NCAA investigation that led to a two-year bowl ban and the loss of 21 scholarships over three years in 2002. “It hurt him badly when they disassociated him,” Neal said. “But Alabama had to do what they had to do.” McNair said Young had called him Monday morning, asking about football and basketball recruits and wondering when he could take a look at the recent athletic facility renovations. ‘*It was like nothing over the last few years had ever happened,” McNair said. Mike DuBose, who was Alabama’s coach during the recruitment of Means, said Young did some good things for the university. “He was a supporter of our university, not just the football program,” said DuBose, now head coach at Division III Millsaps. “There are a lot of positives associated with the relationship over the years.” BEIDBRV# COnTinUEO FROfTI 12 ones representing Carolina that decided to show up last night. The baseball team took the night off. And that’s the problem. This “rivalry” (if you can even call something as lop-sided as the Carolina Clemson series has been the last the last several years a rivalry) just doesn’t mean that much to the players anymore. They expect to lose to Clemson. This isn’t just baseball. This is basketball, too. Football, well, that goes without question. A putrid orange shirt worn by a Clemson fan at Wednesday’s game put it better than I ever could. It simply said, “Choke.” That is exactly what Carolina does every time they see an orange and purple paw print. It doesn’t -, ■ matter if the Gamecocks have more talent, better coaching or are having a better season; they always find a way to save their worst games of the year for Clemson. These games may as well be gift wrapped; they’re so lop sided sometimes. My father was familiar with this phenomenon. A lifelong Georgia fan, he swears that UGA is scared of Florida, and he’s right. He always says that you could take any of Florida’s players from any sport, dress them in Kentucky uniforms, and Georgia would beat them. The exact same thing could be said for Carolina with Clemson. If you were to force Charlie Whitehurst, Akin Akingbala and Tyler Colvin to don Vanderbilt uniforms, the Gamecocks would absolutely crush them. Losing to Clemson is simply a mental block — it’s got nothing to do with coaching or talent. Stopping a rivalry that’s gotten out of hand really isn’t as revolutionary as it sounds. Back in the day, Georgia Tech and Auburn used to be fierce rivals. It was so bad that Auburn fans would grease the train tracks carrying the Tech football team into town, forcing the train to stop a couple miles outside town. Tech fans once coerced a cow up a tower staircase at Auburn, requiring the cow to be slaughtered. But now, you never hear of Georgia Tech and Auburn really getting into it. They let it go. And we should, too. Carolina needs not worry about Clemson in athletics anymore. We’re in different conferences, offer different kinds of educations and barely share the same state. You could make the argument that USC battles Clemson for the top recruits in South Carolina, but the Gamecocks have to fend off overtures from the likes of Georgia, Auburn and Tennessee for those players, too, and they play in the SEC. I know it’s a matter of state pride for most Gamecocks (and myself, too, for having lived here the last three years), but the simple fact of the matter is, no matter how many times we may lose or even beat Clemson, it will never help our athletics teams win SEC titles, and that should be the primary goal. 1 DEVELOPMENT ANN I KUAN LIQUID * MILLY LAFAYETTE 148 PETIT BATEAU MAGASCHONI LEVI'S CAPITAL E TIBI * VINCE FARiNAZ ORLA KIELY CRAIG TAYLOR WHITE+WARREN * YANUK IE AN V/\ IN I WOMENSWEAR 1_