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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1998)
©regon^JEmeraU) TUESDAY Oct. 13,1998 Best Bet Major League Baseball Cleveland at New York 5:08 p.m., NBC Oregon vs. Portland wgwjga? T i ^ i. . Matt Hankins/Emerald After scoring on Oregon State last Friday, foiward T.J. Johnson will look for another goal against an in-state rival today at Portland. Ducks challenge unbeaten Pilots Oregon will try to hand No. 7 Portland its first loss of the season at3p m. today atMerlo Field in Portland By Tim Pyle Oregon Daily Emerald With its prolific success, Portland has placed the Northwest on the collegiate soccer map. Meanwhile, Oregon is in just its third season on the women’s soccer land scape. So today’s 3 p.m. nonconference match against the No. 7 Pilots (9-0-2 overall, 1-0 West Coast Conference) at Merlo Field in Portland represents a measuring stick of sorts for the Ducks (4 3-2,1-0 Pacific-10 Conference), who will be finding out where they stand com pared to the region’s elite program for the first time. “For us it’s great to go up and experience playing a team of that level,” Oregon head coach Bill Steffen said. "I think Port land’s been a great role model in the sense that they’ve been very successful.” Successful may be an understatement. The Pilots had advanced to three straight NCAA Tournament Final Fours until they were upset in the first round by UCLA, 1-0, last season. Head coach Clive Charles is third among active NCAA Division I-A women’s soccer coaches with a winning percentage of .806. He also coaches the Portland men’s team and served as an assistant coach for the U.S. men’s World Cup team last summer in France. This season, the Pilots have outscored their opponents 31-5 and have only been denied a perfect record by road ties at Virginia on Sept. 25 and at Nebraska on Oct. 9. “They’re very intelligent players, and they’re also very good players,” Steffen said, before noting that Port land has been reduced to two substi tutes in recent games because of in Turn to SOCCER, Page 12 Basketball fan disappointed by greedy players My first glimpse of the NBA came to me in the fourth grade when I won a pair of tickets to a Portland Trail Blazers game. I re member sitting maybe 15 rows behind the basket, awe-inspired by the seven-foot tow ers who were battling in the paint. From that moment on, 1 was hooked on basketball. I think I became interested in the sport just in the nick of time, be ucium; i gui iu sue many great athletes whom I will some day tell my kids about. Who could ever forget the re spected rivalry between Lar ry Bird and Magic Johnson, or the rough play of Bill Laimbeer and the Detroit Pistons? Michael Jordan graced the nation with his aerial ma neuvers, and local heroes like Clyde Drexler and Terry Opinion Scott Pesznecker i unci pui rurutuiu un uie map. Who could forget watching the Dream Team playing in the Olympics in Barcelona? Simply watching the medal cer emony — with the NBA’s greatest basket ball players standing together atop the podium of victory — was an experience 1 will never forget. Yes, a few years ago basketball was head ing in the right direction, and as I sit and think about that golden age of basketball legends and world-class athletes, only one question comes to mind. What went wrong? Typically at this time of the year, 1 am ready to listen to the Trail Blazer preseason games on the radio, but not this year. And that is hard to accept for a person like me. I love basketball, and ever since 1 attend ed that game in fourth grade, I have loved the NBA. But something has happened in the world’s most exciting game that has made it more frustrating than fun. Perhaps the problem can best be exposed by talking about an experience that my old er sister had. She was at a party near the Oregon State campus when she ran into one of the basketball team’s star players. Like myself, my sister is an avid basket Turn to PESZNECKER, Page 12 ESPN’s Gameday will broadcast from Rose Bowl Saturday The Oregon UCLA game will mark College Gameday’s first regular season broadcast from the West Coast By Rob Moseley Oregon Daily Emerald The No. 11 Oregon football team (5-0 overall, 2-0 Pacific-10 Conference) travels to Southern California to face No. 2 UCLA this Saturday for one of the biggest games in the history of the program. The game’s importance has apparently not been missed by the rest of the country. ESPN’s College Gameday, which since 1993 has trav eled to the site of the nation’s best game of the week, will be on hand for its first-ever regular season broadcast from the West Coast. “We try to be at the best game every week, and this is one of them,” ESPN communica tions coordinator Dean Diltz said. “After both teams beat up on their opponents this weekend, it solidified the pick.” Last weekend, the Ducks downed Wash ington State, 51-29, in Pullman, while the then-No. 3 Bruins defeated Arizona, 52-28, in Tucson. Diltz said the network’s staff makes lists of about eight games from each week before the season begins, then shortens the list as teams lose and games become less attractive. “We knew UCLA would be tough, and we have people who live and breathe the sport who thought that Oregon could be good,” Diltz said. Due to various circumstances, the Oregon UCLA matchup has been the only game con sidered for this week end by ESPN for “a couple of weeks," Diltz said. Had either team lost over the past two weeks, Gameday would have been broadcast from its home in Bristol, Conn., he said. It will actually be the second trip west for the crew, as Gameday was based at the Rose Bowl for the postseason classic in January. The producers considered traveling to Seat tle for last season’s Nebraska-Washington contest, but another game was deemed more attractive, Diltz said. This weekend may actually be the start of a trend, Diltz said, as the Ducks’ Halloween night matchup with the Wildcats is still un der consideration as a host site by Gameday. “It’s a slim possibility [after the Wildats’ loss to the Bruins), but it’s there,” Diltz said. As for the Washington State game, the win was filled with many ups and downs for Ore gon, particularly for defensive end Terry Miller and wide receiver Damon Griffin. Miller put on a show in the first half, sack ing Cougar quarterback Steve Birnbaum three times, one more than he had recorded in the rest of his career. “1 was really fired up for this game, being from Washington and all,” said Miller, a na tive of Vancouver. “I had some family here and was really excited for this game, and that, combined with being in the right place at the right time, did it for me. ” A former walk-on, Miller moved from fullback to end in the spring of 1997 and ended up starting the final eight games of Turn to FOOTBALL, Page 10 (( We try to be at the best game every week, and this is one of them D Dean Diltz ESPN communications coordinator
