Oregon daily emerald., January 26, 2000, Page 7, Image 7

No figuring the
peculiar Pac-10
Stanford is starting to look like
it's old self in women’s action,
and surprising USC is unbeat
en on the men’s side. See Pac
10 notes. PAGES 8,12
Scoreboard
Wright reprimanded
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (AP)—Arizona’s
Michael Wright was reprimanded by the
Pac-10 Conference on Tuesday for an
apparently intentional blow he deliv
ered to the face and neck of Southern
California’s Abdullah Elmagbari in a
game last week.
Wright also was placed on probation for
the remainder of the season by Pac-10
commissioner Tom Hansen.
“Any blow to the head area in athletics
competition is a serious matter, and
when it is struck away from the ball
when a competitor has no reason to ex
pect contact, it has a high chance of
causing serious injury,” Hansen said.
Hansen said Wright would have been
ejected from Saturday night’s game at
USC if officials had seen the incident.
The Trojans defeated Arizona 80-72.
USC coach Henry Bibby called the repri
mand “ridiculous.”
“It’sa slap on the wrist,” he said. “The kid
should have been tossed out of the game
that night and suspended. I don’t know how
there couldn’t have been a foul called.”
Rodman might be a Mav
DALLAS (AP) — Dennis the Maverick?
Stay tuned.
Dennis Rodman spoke with the Dallas
Mavericks again Tuesday, just as the team
was placing Gary Trent on the injured list.
The move opened a roster spot and left
Dallas in need of a starting power forward.
“I think everybody is kind of ready for a
bit of a gamble,” coach and general
manager Don Nelson said before the
Mavericks played the Golden State War
riors. “If it works out, that’ll be fine.”
If a deal is struck, Rodman would get
$500,000 for the final 41 games, begin
ing Thursday night at home against the
Los Angeles Clippers.
Rodman flew in Monday and met for
two hours with Nelson and Mark Cuban,
who is buying the team. The flamboyant
fo/ward and Internet billionaire contin
ued talking Tuesday to decide whether
the two sides made a good fit!
Thomas has surgery
MIAMI (AP) — Derrick Thomas under
went more than four hours of surgery
Tuesday to rebuild part of his spine and
doctors said his spinal cord was not
damaged as badly as feared.
Thomas’ spinal cord was severely
bruised, neurosurgeon Barth Green said.
Doctors originally thought it might have
been severed when Thomas, 33, was
thrown from his car Sunday after losing
control on an icy highway near Kansas
City, Mo. Thomas broke his spine and
neck and wound up semiconscious with
no feeling in his legs.
Though the NFL star remained para
lyzed from the chest down at Jackson
Memorial Hospital, doctors expressed
hope he’d walk again.
“There have been cases of people with
similar injuries who have recovered and
there have been people who haven’t re
covered," Green said. “Anybody who
knows Derrick knows that you don’t bet
against him. But it’s too early to tell right
now. We just have to see how he does.”
Best Bet
NCAA Basketball
Arizona vs.
Arizona State
7 p.m., FoxSports
Net
x Wednesday
January 26,2000
Volume 101, Issue 83
Enterakl
On and off the colirt,
Guillermo Carter has been a calming
influence on the Ducks
Hue
kind of
took me
under his
wing last
year. He
set a good
example
for me on
what an
Oregon
tennis
player
should be.
David
Becker
junior,
Oregon A
tennis //
By Matt O’Neill
Oregon Daily Emerald
It’s great when you don’t
have to sell a school to a re
cruit.
It’s an add«d bonus when
that athlete really wants to
play for your team.
That was the case Oregon
men’s tennis coach Chris
Russell when he found
Guillermo Carter four years
ago.
“He wanted to come
here,” Russell said. “It is al
ways nice to have a player
who wants to play at your
program. More often than
not you have to sell the bank
to get a player to come.”
Carter met Russell while
he was coaching Stanford
players at a tournament in
Mexico. Russell saw Carter’s
potential while he played
against a Stanford player
who Russell was coaching.
“He was very competi
tive,” Russell said. “He had a
good presence on the court
and I knew he was going to
get better. I knew right away
that he could play at the col
legiate level.”
For Carter, coming to Ore
gon involved more than just
playing tennis. He turned
down other schools, includ
Azle Malinao-Aivarez Emerald
Senior Guillermo Carter has returned to the Oregon squad even better than when he left.
ing Texas El Paso and Fort
Lauderdale College, mainly
because a friend recom
mended Oregon.
“I had a good friend here
and I heard it was very
beautiful up here,” Carter
said. “It was also a [Pacific
10 Conference] school...”
As part of Russell’s first re
cruiting class, Carter quickly
became the cornerstone of
Oregon tennis. His calm de
Turn to Tennis, page 8
Fans not worthy of Super Bowljoy
St. Louis and
Tennessee fans
don’t support
‘their’ teams
the way
Houston and
L.A. fans did
X 7" Super
\ j Bowl orfly
\nj four—yup,
▼ T four —days
away, everyone seems ex
cited about the pairing of
two new, exciting teams to
breathe new life into the
National Football League.
But I’m definitely not.
Instead, I look at the
game between the St. Louis
Rams and Tennessee Titans
and I feel sad. Nothing
against the players or the
coaches, because they
proved all year long that
they deserve to play in the
grandest game of them all.
But rather, I feel sad for
the cities of Houston and
Los Angeles — a city I de
spise mind you.
Only six years ago, both
cities were homes to the
Houston Oilers and Los
Angeles Rams, and it was
those fans who did all of
the suffering.
It was those fans who
watched, year after year, as
their teams ached through
another frustrating losing
season.
It was those fans who
had their hearts broken as
money-hungry owners Bud
Adams and Georgia Fron
tiere shipped their teams to
brand new cities.
And in those brand new
cities came a new crop of
“die-hard” fans.
Give me a break.
I watched as some of
those new fans went wild
in an exuberant celebration
after the Rams knocked off
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
They celebrated as if they
had been in Los Angeles
themselves throughout the
years watching their team
lose.
But they weren’t.
Granted, St. Louis sports
fans are some of the best in
sports. For example, last
Turn to Jeff Smith, page 9
Jeff
Smith