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Autzen may have natural turf for 1999 season
Athletic
director
Bill Moos
sa ys a
JumboTron
may be
installed
in Autzen
as ea rly as
next season
By Alex Pond
Sports Reporter
Now that construction of the Ed
Moshofsky Sports Center is well under
way, Oregon officials are focusing their at
tention on how to further improve the
school's athletic facilities, Oregon athletic
director Bill Moos said last week.
Moos said next up on the list could be
the addition of a JumboTron in Autzen
Stadium, likely for the 1998 season, and a
natural grass surface could replace the cur
rent OmniTurf surface, possibly as early as
1999.
It would be the first natural grass surface
in the stadium in about 30 years. It was
built in 1967 with a natural grass surface,
but the stadium’s first artificial turf surface
was installed in 1969. The surface has
been replaced every seven to eight years
since then, with the current surface being
installed in 1991.
Keeping with the trend, the stadium will
be up for a surface replacement in the next
year or so. Moos said.
"We feel we do have a good artificial
turf that was probably the state of the art at
the time,” Moos said. “But as we approach
the need to replace it, we want to look at
the prospects of putting natural grass back
in there.”
Oregon head football coach Mike Bellot
ti said he is all for the installation of grass.
"I think it’s very, very positive,” he said.
“I’ve been told that we have several people
who would want to donate the money to
get it done. The second thing is that the
people who put in our brand-new grass
practice fields feel very strongly that those
fields will hold up under any conditions,
and if that is proven correct, I think we can
move ahead very, very quickly on putting
grass in Autzen Stadium.”
Moos said the cost of the project would
probably be between $1 million and $2
million, with the money coming from fund
raising.
Like the building of the Casanova and
Turn to GRASS, Paae 12
“ ... I think
there's no
question most
people perceive
grass to be
safer and have
less wear and
tear on the,
body. ^
Mike Bellotti
UO football head coach
Realignment
pleases UO
coaches
The Pac-10 has changed its
format from two divisions to one
for both men and women
By Tim Pyle
Freelance Spols Reporter
Where once there were two, now there is
one.
After years of abiding by a two-division
format in tennis, the Pacific-10 Conference
has unified this season.
TENNIS
A change the Oregon
coaches embrace.
“We were not in a con
ference before,” said Ore
gon men’s tennis head
coach Chris Russell. “We
played a couple ot events
and we played those schools, but we were
not treated as an equal partner.”
In the past, the Pac-10 was divided into
Northern and Southern divisions for ten
nis. The Northern Division consisted of
Oregon, Washington and Washington
State, which only has a women’s tennis
team.
The Southern Division contained the
California and Arizona universities that are
part of the Pac-10 in football (UCLA,
Southern California, California, Stanford,
Arizona and Arizona State).
When Oregon or Washington wanted to
play southern teams, they would often
have to agree to unequal terms. The confer
ence powerhouses like Stanford and UCLA
did not want to spend their time and mon
ey traveling north to play teams they con
sidered inferior, Russell said.
Because of that, the Ducks would annu
ally travel south without receiving a home
match in return.
“It’s one thing to go in and get beaten by
a good team at their place,” Russell said.
“But it's another thing to go in and get beat
en by a good team and know that you’re
never going to get to play them at your
place.”
From now on, both the Oregon men’s
and women’s tennis teams will annually
alternate home matches with their Pac-10
competitors.
This commitment will do wonders for
both Oregon programs, according to Rus
sell and women’s head coach Jack Griffin.
“It’s huge for us in terms of recruiting,
fan support and everything," Griffin said.
“It’s going to make a big difference in the
next couple of years.”
Russell, Washington men’s head coach
Turn to TENNIS, Page 8
Moving on
Oregon women deal with latest setback
EMERALD
Natasha O Brien and Mendy Benson (not pictured) unit be asked to help out inside
in Meharry’s absence. Meharry andJenny Mowe are out for the season ivith injuries.
Despite wins over nationally
ranked conference opponents,
the Ducks are still not ranked
in the Associated Press top 25
Could things get any worse for Jody
Runge and the Oregon women?
Their dominating inside force (Jenny
Mowe) went down witli tendinitis in lier
right knee in November and will miss
me resi oi me season.
At the time, it
seemed like the worst
case scenario for the
Ducks.
The 6-foot-5 sopho
more was the team’s
best player and a Pacif
ic-10 Conference all
freshman selection
from a season ago.
She was expected to
Ryan
Frank
carry the young Ducks all the way back
to the postseason.
After Mowe’s injury, common sense
said they would have been lucky to get
back to the NCAA Tournament for the
fifth straight season.
But the situation didn’t seem so bad a
few weeks later as freshmen Brianne
Meharry and Angelina Wolvert began to
play like they’d been around for years.
All of a sudden it didn’t look so un
likely that Oregon could work its way
into the tournament.
They dropped a few games here and
there, but a solid conference season and
a few big wins, especially on the road,
would’ve gotten them there.
That thinking was logical until the
worst case scenario happened yet once
again last Saturday when Meharry
crashed to the floor and tore her ACL,
putting her out of the lineup for the re
mainder of the season.
The injury is obviously tough for
Meharry, who was leading the team
with 14 points and 6.4 rebounds per
contest. She was well on her way to all
freshman team honors in the conference
and a possible freshman of the year hon
or, Runge said Sunday.
But i f anyone on the team has the per
sonality to handle a situation such as
this, it’s Meharry.
After the game, and before she knew
the injury would put her out for the sea
son, she was smiling and talking about
how hard she was going to work to get
back.
That kind of character is not often
found in players that age. The road back
to competition will be long and difficult
Turn to NOTES, Page 12