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Sports
Tuesday
July 18,2000
Volume 102, Issue 8
Emerald
Notre Dame
DIDN’T ERN IT
■ Oregon men’s basketball coach Ernie Kent turns his
back on more money and national exposure to continue
coaching at the school he once played for
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
The news broke during the
early evening of Wednesday
night: Oregon head basketball
coach Ernie Kent was Notre
Dame’s No. 1 candidate to fill
the Fighting Irish’s head coach
ing vacancy.
The news
finally
reached a
conclusion
late Thurs
day night:
Kent decid
ed to stay at
his beloved
alma mater
and continue coaching the up
and-coming Ducks.
But between that approxi
mate 30-hour window, Kent’s
name was being thrown around
all over the nation on sports
Web sites and TV stations.
Heck, he even was featured
during the opening theme song
of ESPN’s SportsCenter late
Wednesday night.
Which, in the end, seems to
have worked out to Oregon’s ad
vantage — and you better be
lieve Kent realizes this.
“It’s been a hectic 48 hours for
me, my family, my team and the
administration,” said Ken on
Friday in a quick media tele
phone conference call. “At the
same time, it’s a tribute to have a
school as prestigious as Notre
Dame to ask to sit down with
me.”
Granted, Notre Dame is a top
notch school with a national
reputation that is heads and
shoulders above Oregon.
But what everybody seemed
to be missing in this whole sce
nario is that Notre Dame’s actu
al basketball program is not that
much better than the one Ore
gon has going for itself.
Kent has built a solid pro
gram during his first three sea
sons with the Ducks, taking
them to the NIT Final Four in
1999 and then to only its second
NCAA Tournament appearance
in 39 years this past season.
His team lost three valuable
seniors in Alex Scales, A.D.
Smith and Darius Wright, but
the four recruits he has coming
in are, in Kent’s words, “spe
cial.”
Headlined by McDonald’s
All-American Luke Ridnour —
the No. 1-ranked point guard on
the West Coast — the Ducks are
building something in Eugene
that has the potential to do great
things. Ridnour will be joined
by two of the top high school
players in the West in forward
Luke Jackson and guard James
Davis. Minnesota prep standout
Jay Anderson, a 6-9,220-pound
center, rounds out the class.
The foursome gives Oregon a
recruiting class that was ranked
No. 1 in the West.
Jackson, for one, was the first
recruit to make public that half
the reason he chose Oregon was
because of Kent.
Kent insists that this Notre
Dame experience will not affect
his current recruiting this year
or in the future, saying that it is
“only a positive for recruiting.”
Notre Dame, on the other
hand, is also on the rise after its
NIT appearance this season.
The Fighting Irish’s overall
record of 22-15 marked their
most wins since the 1986-87
season. They were boosted
greatly when consensus All
American forward Troy Mur
phy decided to return to the
school for his junior season.
But it still wasn’t enough to
woo Kent, who interviewed for
the job with Notre Dame athlet
ic director Kevin White on
Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Kent said that right away it
was clear to both him and White
that his love and loyalty be
longed to Oregon and that it
would be hard for him to leave.
“After sitting down with
Notre Dame, I felt that there
were a lot of unfinished goals at
Oregon,” said the 45-year-old
Kent, who was a member of the
Ducks during the 1970s. “We
both agreed that I still had a
tremendous amount of passion
and a very strong drive towards
reaching those goals I have set
for my program.”
That still didn’t stop White
from reportedly presenting
Kent with a contract offer that
would have been worth $4.9
million — a seven-year deal for
approximately $700,000 a sea
son. Kent currently has three
more years left on his contract
at Oregon, which pays him ap
proximately $420,000, so he
proved that his decision was
not about the money.
In the end, it all came down
to his family, his school and the
community of Eugene. Kent did
grow up in Rockford, 111., which
is only a two-hour drive away
from South Bend, Ind., but his
family now calls Eugene home.
His two eldest sons Marcus, 17,
and Jordan, 15, are both prep
Turn to Earning it, page 6
Emerald
Oregon fans will not have to say goodbye to the passionate coaching style of Ernie
Kent. Kent liked Notre Dame, but said, “They have an outstanding program, but
they could sense and I could sense what we have going on at Oregon.”
Eugene Emeralds ride an upward swing to first-place seat
i ne receni success ot
the Ems puts Eugene
baseball back in the
winner’s circle, and
headed for a
showdown for the
Southern Division of
the Northwest
League
Championship
ey jen >mitn
Oregon Daily Emerald
After a loss earlier in the month,
Eugene Emeralds manager Danny
Sheaffer slowly shook his head in his
office and seemed puzzled at his
team’s play.
“We just haven’t been playing A-B
C baseball,” Sheaffer said back then.
Almost two weeks have passed
since that loss and the Emeralds are
getting used to playing the type of
baseball that awards you with three
different letters in the alphabet.
Those letters would, of course, be
W, I and N.
Winning is contagious, and the
more you win the more you want to
avoid losing.
“It’s a pretty good feeling,” right
fielder Nic Jackson said. “We’re a lot
better of a team than we’ve been
showing, and it’s starting to come to
gether for ourselves.”
In the ninth inning on Sunday,
however, the visiting Spokane Indi
ans were threatening to steal the win.
The Indians trailed 3-2, but had two
men on and only one out.
Sheaffer then brought in relief
pitcher Eric Albright, who proceeded
to record two strikeouts to preserve
the win and give his team its fifth win
in six games.
At the exact moment when Al
bright’s final pitch found catcher
Ryan Jorgensen’s mitt, Eugene general
manager Bob Beban pumped his fist
in celebration.
Beban's enthusiasm was echoed by
the 3,383 fans who packed Civic Sta
dium for the season’s first day game
amid the 90-degree weather.
The win pushed the Ems (14-12)
into sole possession of first place in
the South Division of the Northwest
League.
The Ems extended their first-place
standing even more so last night
when they beat the division rival
Portland Rockies 8-3 on Monday
night in Portland’s Historic Civic Sta
dium to move one-and-a-half games
ahead of the Rockies. The two teams
close out the three-game set with
games tonight and Wednesday.
This is the first time that the Ems
Turn to Upward swing, page 6
Azle Malinao-Alvarez Emerald
Wilton Chavez continued his sparkling season on Sunday by pitching 6.1 innings, raising
his record to 4-0. He also upped his strikeout total to 31, giving up only 12 walks.