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TUESDAY
Nov. 10,1998
Best Bet
U.S. Soccer
U S. National Team at
Australia
9 p.m., ESPN
Hamed is
Clown Prince,
nothing more
So I was sitting in a janky hotel in Tuc
son, ready to type a story about the
Ducks’ 38-3 loss to Arizona earlier
that evening and about to watch
HBO’s enlightening and informative docu
mentary detailing the horrible plight ofthe
victims who are forced to labor as dancers
in the adult entertainment industry, when I
witnessed one ofthe more fascinating—
and at the same time pitiful — spectacles of
my sports-television viewing career.
With a well-lit ring in the background, a
shrouded figure began playing an organ in a
cloud of smoke surrounded
Opinion
Rob
Moseley
by mock grave stones. Le
gions of cheering fans
flashed signs showing sup
port for their favorite athlete,
while a laser-light show that
would make Pink Floyd jeal
ous blazed overhead.
Great, I thought. An hour
of professional wrestling just
before 1 could fully appreci
ate the pi ight of the poor ex
otic dancers on “Strippers,”
the newest edition of HBO’s
America Undercover series.
Just then, however, the figure at the organ
turned around and whipped off his shroud.
His boots looked like the average wrestler’s,
his pants looked maybe a little baggy, but
other than that, he was a typical looking
lightweight wrestler.
Except for one thing: his gloves. This jok
er was wearing gloves, boxing gloves, and at
that moment, all the respect I had left for the
sport in the wake of Mike Tyson’s lobe
lunch with Evander Holyfield was gone.
Some ding-dong named Prince—Prince!
— Naseem Hamed made his way to the ring
and flipped over the top rope to fight an
unassuming Irishman named Wayne Mc
Cullough. Hamed is apparently a fighter of
some esteem, as his 30-0 record showed,
but he did nothing to prove it in his unani
mous decision over McCullough. What
Hamed did prove was that boxing is closer
to wrestling in terms of athletic integrity
than it is to any other legitimate sport.
Pro wrestling enthusiasts will tell you
that it’s not the competition but the enter
tainment value that sells their sport, and
boxing is going down that road as well.
Wrestling thrives on the grudge matches
and soap operas that provide so much fod
der outside the ring, but no legitimate ac
tion once the bell rings.
Considering the multi-year fiasco in
volved in the last Tyson-Holyfield bout and
all of its subplots (rape, jail, loss of ear) or
the difficulty persuading Lennox Lewis to
fight first Riddick Bowe and now Holyfield,
it seems boxing has decided to follow the
formula so profitably exploited by
wrestling. Eschew the real action, but pro
vide the audience with all the drama it can
handle in front of the camera.
Hamed may in fact one day support his
claim of being the best pound-for-pound
fighter ever, but he did no such thing
against McCullough. Instead he proved
that running from one’s opponent, throw
ing unorthodox, no-look punches that fail
to connect and displaying fancy but useless
footwork can just as well earn two million
dollars as can actually wading in and slug
ging it out.
Rob Moseley is assistant sports editor ofthe
Emerald. He can be reached via e-mail at dod
Mrfan@glctdstone.iioregon.edu.
OREGON SOCCER
_____-_a
Nick Metlky, 'Hmenilii
Freshman forward Chalise Baysa’s team-leading nine goals equaled the Oregon record, which was set by fellow forward Erin Anderson in 1996
Oregon greedy for winning season
ey iimryie
Oregon Daily Emerald
Greed is not always a vice.
Take head coach Bill Steffen and
the Oregon women’s soccer team,
fresh off their best season since the
program’s inception just three
years ago.
The Ducks are not satisfied with
their records — 6-10-2 overall and
3-6 Pacific-10 Conference — be
cause they believe they could have
done better.
But Steffen knows the appear
ance of greediness bodes well for
his program’s future.
“I want to get as many wins as
we can, and I felt like we could
have had more wins,” Steffen said.
“At the same time, I’m very aware
that we’ve seen some tremendous
improvement in our players. And
as a result, we can be happy about
that. I think the greed actually
comes in that when I see 11s play
well I want us to play that well or
better all the
SOCCER
time.”
Following con
secutive five-win
seasons, Oregon
had the opportu
nity to finish at
.500 overall and
with a winning Pac-10 record un
til the final weekend of this season.
But after taking a 1-0 first-half lead
over California last Friday, the
Ducks stumbled to the season’s
finish line with a 2-1 overtime loss
to the Golden Bears and a 4-0 de
feat at the hands of Stanford on
Sunday.
Steffen lists that loss to the Car
dinal among Oregon's worst per
formances of the season, along
with a 4-0 loss at Southern Califor
nia on Oct. 25 and a pair of 1-1
home lies with San Francisco and
Portland State on the weekend of
Oct. 2-3.
However, there were plenty of
good moments as well.
The Ducks opened their new
home, Pape Field, successfully
with a pair of impressive noncon
ference victories over Tennessee
and North Carolina-Greensboro on
Sept. 4 and 7, respectively. Fresh
man forward Chalise Baysa, who
wound up leading the team with
nine goals and 18 total points,
made a scintillating debut that
weekend by scoring all five Oregon
Turn to SOCCER, Page 8
(( I want to
get as many
wins as we
can, and I
felt like we
could have
bad more
wins. ”
Bill Steffen
Women’s soccer
coach
Ho-Ching hopes to rally Ducks’ running game
By Rob Moseley
Oregon Daily Emerald
With 61 yards on 32 carries, a 1.9 yard
average, the Oregon running game on Sat
urday wasn’t much of an improvement on
its performances in the past two weeks.
The Ducks, who moved up one spot to
No. 20 in the Associated Press poll after
their 27-22 win over Washington, are now
averaging 2.8 yards per carry without
Reuben Droughns.
Although Droughns, who broke his leg
against UCLA on Oct. 17, won’t return this
season, freshman Herman Ho-Ching pro
vided 47 yards on 17 carries Saturday in
his first action since Sept. 19.
“Overall, Herman played pretty well,”
Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said.
“That last fumble was obviously something
that you never want to happen again, but
overall I do think he gave us a spark in
terms of the running game.”
Despite Ho-Ching’s last-minute fumble
that allowed the Huskies to score their final
touchdown and attempt an on-side kick,
which Oregon’s
Brandon McLemore
Football Notes
recovered, the fresh
man said he was for
the most part pleased
with his perfor
mance.
“Right now I’m
picking up speed lit
tle by little,” Ho-Ching said. "I’m not ex
plosive like I was in the UTEP game [in
which Ho-Ching scored three touchdowns
on Sept. 12], so hopefully by next week I’ll
be full speed and ready to go again."
Ho-Ching has been out since straining
knee ligaments in the Ducks’ third game of
the season against San Jose State. He began
Saturday as the fourth tailback listed on the
depth chart but got more than half of Ore
gon’s carries after entering the game with
just less than five minutes remaining in the
first quarter.
Bellotti said on Sunday that it was still
too early to tell whether Ho-Ching would
start against Arizona State this week.
“That will be evaluated during the
week,” Bellotti said. “Certainly he’ll get
more work. He didn't get a lot of work last
week; he kind of eased into it. Based on his
performance, lie'll move up, but we’ll de
termine the starter probably Wednesday of
Thursday.”
True freshman Harris could miss rest of
the season with torn anterior cruciate liga
ment.
Ho-Ching is just one of four true fresh
man to see action for Oregon this season,
and while Saturday was a new beginning
for his season, it may have been the end for
another first-year Duck.