Tuesday
Best Bet
NBA: Philadelphia at Miami
5 p.m., TBS
SPORTS EDITOR: JEFF SMITH Smittside@aol.com
Time for Oregon
to bring back the
national pastime
THE HOME STRETCH
ROBBIE McCALLUM
Ahh ... springtime in Oregon.
Saturday market is starting back up. Daf
fodils are blooming. The hail is driving side
ways.
Track and field athletes have come outdoors. So have
tennis players. The local golf courses are beginning to fill
up. And in the distance you can hear the crack of bats.
Wait a minute. Those are aluminum bats! And the ball
is big and yellow! This isn’t baseball!
More power to head coach Rick Gamez and the Oregon
softball team, but the one thing lacking in the Oregon
sports lineup is a good old-fashioned, all-American base
ball team.
While the rest of the country enjoys apple pie and the
American pastime, we in Eugene are left with tofu and
track and field.
Unlike 335 other NCAA Division I schools, Oregon
does not field a baseball team, and it’s a crying shame.
Oregon is one of the only major athletic programs in the
country to not offer the men’s sport (Wisconsin and Col
orado are the others).
Budget cuts and NCAA rulings led to the baseball pro
gram’s demise in the early ‘80s.
Title IX, the educational amendment created to prohib
it sex discrimination in educational-programs that re
ceive federal financial assistance, made college institu
tions have at least one more women’s athletic program
than men’s. That, coupled with the university’s million
dollar budget cut in 1981, meant the 104 year-old pro
gram was first on the chopping block.
On May 13,1981, the Ducks played their last game
ever, a 5-1 loss to Washington to end the season with a
record of 16-21.
“Like every game, we played to win,” subdued coach
Mel Krause told Emerald reporter Tamara Swenson. “It
was our last game, but we played without any fanfare.”
While other schools around the country enjoy a third
marquee sport to follow the football and basketball sea
sons, Oregon fans are left in the lurch.
It is time for the Athletic Department to bring back base
ball as a varsity sport.
Imagine lazy Sunday afternoons at Howe Field, packed
with the same rowdy Oregon fans who packed Autzen
Stadium and McArthur Court, cheering on baseball play
ers who, for all they know, could end up in the majors.
If you’ve had the fortune to attend a Eugene Emeralds
minor league baseball game, you’ll know that baseball
runs deep in Oregon. Balmy summer evenings at Civic
Stadium are everything that is all-American. The only
problem is, everyone has long left campus for home.
Sure, we have the softball team, but does Mac Court get
as noisy for the women’s basketball team as they do for the
men? Alas, no. In fact, many more fans packed the Pit for
the men, who barely finished the season at the .500 mark,
than the NCAA-Tournament-qualifying women’s team.
And this is not to say that I am against women’s athlet
ics. I would encourage the Athletic Department to add oth
er women’s programs in addition to men’s baseball. Most
schools around the Pacific-10 Conference have crew, gym
nastics, swimming, lacrosse and water polo as women’s
varsity sports.
The worst part of the whole situation is that our dastard
ly neighbor to the north, Oregon State, has a fine baseball
program. Not only are the Beavers one of the better pro
grams in the Pac-10, they have been one of Oregon State’s
winningest programs ever.
Are we going to let Oregon State take the baseball spot
light in the state of Oregon? I say no.
Robbie McCallum is a sports reporter for the Emerald. He can be
reached at coach_robbie@lycos.com.
Pac-10 continues dominance
■ Competition is at its best in
the Pac-10, where five softball
tea ms a re ra n ked i n the top
nine
By Adam Jude
Oregon Daily Emerald
This season, the Pacific-10 Confer
ence reached a historic landmark in
football and basketball.
Three Pac-10 teams — Arizona,
Stanford and USC — reached the Elite
Eight in the NCAA men’s basketball
tournament last month, and three
teams finished the football season
ranked in the top 10 in the final Asso
ciated Press poll (Oregon, Oregon
State and Washington). The only oth
er conference to ac
complish such a
feat was the South
eastern Conference
in 1986.
While the popu
larity of football
and basketball
have brought the
Pac-10 national recognition, as well
as high revenues, other conference
sports have dominated the national
limelight in a greater fashion.
Take Pac-10 softball, for example.
No other conference has won more
NCAA softball titles than the Pac-10.
And no other conference has a con
stant stream of talent coming into ifs
programs like the Pac-10.
“There is no doubt, for anyone
who follows the sport, that the Pac
10 is far and away the best softball
conference in the country,” said
Larry Cain, director of media rela
tions for the National Fastpitch
Coaches Association. “It’s the only
conference where virtually the en
tire membership has the ability to
be ranked in the top 25 at the same
time. And there’s not a word of
protest from any other conference
because it’s legitimate.”
Turn to Softball, page 8
Emerald
No. 1 UCLA began its season undefeated but is just 3-3 in the nation’s toughest conference. Seven
of the eight Pac-10 teams are ranked.
Two key’Cats decide to jump to NBA
Arizona's Michael Wright (left) and Richard Jefferson (right), seen here guarding Oregon’s Bryan
Bracey, have opted to head to the NBA following their junior seasons.
■Just seven days after playing in
the Final Four, Arizona loses two
of the stars who accounted for
much of its success
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
Apparently just reaching the NCAA
men’s basketball championship game
was enough for two of Arizona’s
skilled juniors.
On Sunday, for
ward Richard Jef
ferson followed his
“lifelong dream”
and announced he
would forego his
senior season to
declare himself for
the NBA draft.
And then on Monday — one week
after Arizona’s season ended — for
ward Michael Wright followed Jeffer
son’s lead and decided that he, too, has
played his last game in a Wildcat uni
form.
“I think we are all working towards
the goal of being professionals, and I
think this is my time to go after it with
all my energies,” Wright said.
The loss of Jefferson and Wright is
Turn to Basketball, page 12