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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 5, 2001)
Tuesday Best Bet MLB: Texas at Seattle 7 p.m., Fox Sports Net SPORTS EDITOR: JEFF SMITH Smittside@aol.com The NCAA Championships: a look back in pictures Left: Oregon’s Santiago Lorenzo celebrates a successful attempt in the high jump. Below: Florida’s Geno White takes off in the 400-meter final on Saturday. Inside The NCAA Track and Field Championships photo essay continues with athletes preparing before and exhaling after their races. PAGE 12 UO club dance is aiming to be known ■The club dance team is a relatively new sport with high expectations toward becoming more established in the future By Jessica Richelderfer Oregon Daily Emerald When Sarah Taft wears her Oregon Club Sports dance team jacket around campus, she receives many curious looks. “People have approached me to ask what the dance team is all about,” said Taft, a junior. Some may re member watching them perform at the Moshofsky Center during halftime of home football games or at McArthur Court during basketball games. But they are not cheerleaders, nor are they associated with the flag team — two of the groups sponsored by the Oregon Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. Rather, this team is funded through the Club Sports department and is held to gether solely by its members’ dedication and shared love of dance. The Oregon dance team, formerly known as Dance Force, was started three years ago by a couple of disgruntled Uni versity students. After being barred from the flag team, the two girls decided to form a dance team of their own. With the help of Club Sports, they managed to acquire a budget and recruit a large enough group to form a squad. Today, the team’s roster has grown to 13 members, but it still has no coach and a limited budget. “It’s really difficult not having a coach,” Taft said. “We have 13 girls, all with differ ent opinions and ideas, throwing them out there at the same time.” Freshman Laura Kizer agrees that the hardest thing about being on the team is the lack of organization and the lack of Turn to Dance, page 10 Cash back for sports? The Fire are on to something TWO MINUTES FOR CROSSCHECKING PETER HOCKADAY This column is guaranteed to make you laugh, or we’ll give you your money back. Where is sports advertising go ing? If you were lucky enough, you read an advertisement in last Thursday’s Ore gonian for that city’s WNBA team, the Portland Fire. The ad proclaims a Fire game is: “A blast! Guaranteed.” The word “guaran teed” had an asterisk, so naturally you i^ead the fine print. “If you are not enjoying your game ex perience, bring your ticket stub to the Rose Quarter ticket office immediately following the game and we will gladly ex change your ticket for another one of equal or greater value to the game of your choice, while supplies last.” If only this revolutionary idea could be applied to other sports. Fans of the Ore gon softball team would flock to the ticket office, because there was nary an exciting game to be found this spring. Those who attended the chilly Oregon Preview track and field meet March 17 would finally get their dues for sitting in sub-50 degree temperatures for four hours, watching a not-very-exciting meet. But Oregon sports aren’t the only ones that could use money-back guarantees. We could finally get cash back for watching Anna Kournikova on a cold day, for seeing the Lakers demolish another opponent or for attending a mid-season matchup between the Montreal Expos and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. No longer would we pay for attending a golf tournament without Tiger Woods. You would get a free ticket if you mistak enly blundered into a Major League Soc cer game between the Kansas City Wiz ards and the Columbus Crew. A John Rocker outburst after an Atlanta baseball game would be worth two free tickets. If only there were guarantees on yacht races, cycling and figure skating. Minor league basketball, power boating and pro fessional water-skiing would all provide opportunities for cash back. But don’t you really wish you could get time back for watching worthless sporting events on television? You could get two hours back for that Saturday morning you were hung over and watched pro bass fishing. You could get infinite hours for the times you’ve ac cidentally landed on a NASCAR race, wondered if it was cool and then changed the channel when you finally realized what was going on. The Cardinals-Reds game on ESPN Sun day night? Two hours. The final quarter of 76ers-Bucks, game seven? Half an hour. The final eight rounds of the NFL draft? Twenty-four hours. All that time, back in your pocket, to watch worthwhile sporting events! Go ahead, watch game six of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Go hog wild and sit down for a Mariners game as Alex Rodriguez and the Texas Rangers enter the unfriendly con fines of Safeco Field. Best of all, go see a Fire game. That is the only sporting event, of course, where you can actually get your money back. For now. Peter Hockaday is a sports reporter for the Emerald He can be reached at phockaday@yahoo.com.
