Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 1981)
When the Oregon women's soccer team plays its games in Autzen Stadium, they literally have the place to themselves To help raise funds for the squad, the team members cleaned out the stands following the Oregon-Washington football game A lesson in survival for soccer Lone survivors of the cut ranked sixth nationally By PAUL PANZER Photo* by David Coray In an effort to balance its swelling budget, the University athletic department last spring announced plans to drop funding of four varsity sports — men's gymnastics and baseball, and women's golf and soccer — effective as of the 1981-82 school year. Now with new athletic director Rick Bay already declaring himself committed to eventually restoring the sports, the Emerald Sports department has put together a series of articles dealing with the sports that were axed from the budget In a five-part ser ies, each sport will be examined in depth — the feelings of the players and coaches six months after the fact, where they are now. and their view of their sport’s future at Oregon. The last installment of the ser ies on Friday will report on the chances of these sports ever returning to the University, and how long it will take each to recover from last year’s elimination. Today, part one examines the women's soccer team — alive and still kicking. AH-Star* Women's soccer at the University of Oregon is still alive and kicking, thank you Despite its tall to club sport status, the women kickers were rated number six in the nation They're undefeated in league play and 7-0 overall after three wins over the weekend, including a 6-0 whitewash of the Washington Huskies And, if they make it through the Northwest Collegiate Women’s Soccer Association regional tournament on Nov. 14-15, a berth at nationals in North Carolina is theirs -to In addition, soccer is the only one of the four sports to survive the cut in funding, and the most successful sport being played by any Oregon team this fall What more could a team want? Try answering that one with "Money " As one player says, "Tell them we want to be varsity again Words like 'shocked and devastated' are used to describe the players' reaction when they learned last spring they would lose varsity status after just one year in the fold Small budget "I can’t tell you how surprised I was,' said coach Manfred Tschan of the move "We were one of the most successful (varsity) teams last year, and the only sport with a budget smaller than ours was women s golf They obviously didn't do it for economic reasons ” Tschan, who was the team's assistant coach a year ago, and is doing the job now unpaid, said there was a lot of frustration last spring, and that there still are feelings of animosity about the move. “But I think that by now we have a pretty positive club here," he said On the surface it may appear as if the change has held little effect on the team After all, they compete in the same league, play the same number of matches, and if they get a form signed by the athletic department they will be eligible to compete at nationals But the players say there are differences The biggest difference is money The club will get a small portion of the club sports budget (they don't know how much yet) To raise extra funds, they cleaned Autzen Stadium after the Oregon-Washington football game and Mac Court after a recent volleyball match Disadvantages add up Other disadvantages of being a club sport versus being a varisity sport add up quickly The team isn’t accompanied by a trainer on road games as in the past, and can’t qualify for free medical attention as provided for other sports Equipment once provided by the athletic depart ment must now be bought Publicity once handled by the sports information department is handled now by team members Even moving the goals on and off of the Autzen stadium turf, a job once done by maintenance crews, must be done by the team And the list goes on The lack of paid coaches doesn't seem to be hurting the squad, yet Tschan, who is a graduate student studying sports psycology, was paid a small salary a year ago as the club's assistant This year he doesn't mind his role as a volunteer coach 'They're a great team and it's fun for a coach to have a great team,'' he says ‘They're too good I couldn't just leave them I had put too much into it They deserve a coach who knows what he's doing,” The problems of being cut out of the athletic department budget are being handled for now But the biggest problem still lies ahead in recruiting Soccer coach Manfred Tachan is coaching the team for free. “They're too good They deserve a coach who knows what he's doing." By reputation only “All we can do is have our reputation do our recruiting for us." said Tschan. adding that this year it wasn't a problem since he had the nucleus of a good team already But he does concede that it will be a problem in the future "The real hotbed of soccer in the northwest is the Seattle-Tacoma area," Tschan said With Western Washington and Puget Sound having varsity programs, and with rising out-of-state tuition it's going to be next to impossible to get players from up those places the coach said "One of the things that is important for us now is that the majority of the players on the team are Oregonians So it’s a homegrown team that's nationally ranked, not a bunch of Californians representing Oregon," said Tschan "I also think that is why we survived the cut so well " Proof that recruiting was not hurt this year by the cut is the fact that All-American goalkeeper Lori Kats transferred to Eugene from Lewis and Clark in Portland despite the cuts As Tschan noted, there aren't many club sports that can boast All-American transfers Kats, along with team captain Therese Bottomly and midfielder-forward Michelle Potestio, was a member of a national all-star team that travelled to Europe this past summer, Tschan is quick to admit that as good as things seem to be going right now, he would much rather be back in the varsity fold "Of course we hope that one of these days we can get back as a varsity sport," he said "But right now we just really hope we can get to nationals," MnnHftu OrinKar 1 O 1 Qfl1
