Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com
Friday, May 23,2003
-Oregon Daily Emerald --
Sports
Best bet
NHL Playoffs:
New Jersey at Ottawa, Game 7
4 p.m., ESPN
Prefontaine’s
legend lives
through time
I remember the first time I heard about
Steve Prefontaine.
Like a true child of the Multiplex Era
(sort of like the Mesozoic Era or the Paleo
zoic Era, only with better television
shows), I learned about Prefontaine
through the wonderful world of Disney.
It was sixth grade. I was putting on a
pair of track spikes for the first and almost
last time, for a PE.
class at my Califor
nia middle school. A
tall, lanky kid, who
was about to beat
me by about 30 me
ters in the 100-me
ter dash, struck up a
conversation.
“Hey,” he said.
“Ever heard of
Steve Prefontaine?”
“Uh, no,” I said,
having one of those
sixth-grade mo
ments where I felt
completely and utterly worthless for not
knowing who this Prefontaine was.
“Who’s that?”
“He’s this cool runner guy from up in
Oregon. He was really fast and stuff,
then he got in a car crash and died while
he was still real young. I just saw the
movie ‘bout it.”
That’s how we — the children of the
post-Pre age — all start our relationship
with the legend, isn’t it? Pre transcends
all time and all places.
He was really fast and stuff.
We fill in the details. He held tons of
American records and virtually all of Ore
gon’s distance records. He made the cover
of Sports Illustrated. He was Nike’s first
Michael Jordan when the company was
birthed at Hayward Field. He stood up for
athletes’ rights and helped start the re
form movement that led to professional
athletes in the Olympics.
Then he got in a car crash and died.
While he was still real young.
Every year before this Prefontaine
Classic meet, I dip into the Emerald
archives, back to June 2,1975. The words
of Emerald writer Dave Bushnell always
send chills up my spine and through my
head and across my face.
“The legendary feats of Steve Pre
fontaine will be no more, but the legend of
the man lives on.
“Not only was the shock of Pre’s death
early Friday in the hills of eastern Eugene
felt in Oregon, but waves of disbelief car
ried throughout the country and the world.
“While the Eugene community was sleep
ing, totally unaware of the fate which its most
famous citizen had met, the East Coast was
awakening to the news of Pre’s death. A
phone rang at the apartment of a University
of Oregon student — it was a friend from
Massachusetts calling to find out if the news
was true. Another student received an early
morning call from a friend in New York, in
quiring about the same subject. ”
The closing line of that story is this:
“How much he accomplished in five
years. How much he could have accom
plished in future years is left to speculation.
We must be content with what he gave us. ”
Now I’m left without my own words.
All I have is stories. So I’ll tell one more.
Yesterday, I ran to Pre’s Rock. I sort of
ran. Ten years after I learned about Pre,
I’m still not a runner. So I stopped for a
long time at that rock, examined the fa
mous inscription, “Pre 5-30-75 R.I.P.”
There were track bib numbers
Turn to Hockaday, page 8A
Peter
Hockaday
Two minutes for
crosschecking
The Oregon softball team rose to unexpected heights
and broke UO records by playing together instead of apart
Softball
Mindi Rice
Sports Reporter
Forget the superstars. Ignore the hotshots. Never mind those
who say “it’s-all-about-me.”
The team that plays together wins together.
The 2003 Oregon softball squad is proof.
A unanimous choice by Pacific-10 Conference coaches to finish
last in the conference, the Ducks made a surprise run to finish tied
for third in the Pac-10.
“What a tremendous season,” head coach Kathy Arendsen said
after Oregon’s final game Sunday. “This team fought until the very
end and always found ways to put ourselves in a position to win.”
The Ducks’ 10 wins in Pac-10 play are the most since the 1999
squad won 10 conference games — out of 29 Pac-10 matchups as
compared to 21 this season.
The Ducks also set a new Pac-10 record for saves. Pitchers
Andrea Vidlund and Amy Harris combined for 17 saves during
the season.
Oregon led the conference in sacrifice bunts this season with 54
— 11 more than Washington and Stanford, who finished second in
the conference.
However, working as a team doesn’t mean there aren’t stand-out
players. Each Oregon starter contributed in some way to the
Ducks’ winning season.
Vidlund, who earned third-team All-American honors Thursday,
broke two Oregon single-season records and one career record in
her final year. She is the first Oregon player named as an All
American since 1991.
In the Ducks’ final win of the season — a 9-2 showdown with
Louisiana-Lafayette — Vidlund hit home runs No. 15 and 16 to set
a new single-season Oregon home run record. It also gave Vidlund
37 for her career, to move her to the No. 1 spot on the all-time
home run list.
Vidlund, who started 48 games, primarily in left field, also held
the role of closer for the Ducks. She set another Oregon record
with 11 saves.
Harris, the ace of the pitching staff, struck out a single-season
record 180 batters in her first season as a Duck. Harris had a 1.97
Mark McCambridge Emerald
Andrea Vidlund, an All-American, set the Duck record for career home runs.
earned run average on the season, the second lowest ERA at Ore
gon since Kim Gampfer’s 0.80 ERA in 1994.
She finished third in the Pac-10 with six saves, and seventh with
her total strikeouts.
Utility player Amber Hutchison finished third in the Pac-10 with
19 stolen bases on the season. She finishes her Duck career at
eighth on the all-time steals list.
Shortstop Breanne Sabol was Oregon’s only player to start all 56
games during the season. She and second baseman Erin Goodell
combined for 20 double plays — good for third in the conference
in double plays.
Turn to Softball, page 8A
Season ends for Panova and Naele
Adam Amato Emerald
Daria Panova (left) and Courtney Nagle (right) advanced to the final 16
at the NCAA Tournament, but fell to a Virginia Commonwealth duo.
The Duck duo is knocked out
at the NCAA Championships,
but Daria Panova earns special
recognition for her special season
Tennis
Ryan Heath
Freelance Sports Reporter
A year that began for Oregon women’s
tennis in October with preseason indi
vidual tournaments came to a close yes
terday with All-American honors for
Duck junior Courtney Nagle and sopho
more Daria Panova.
The duo closed out the year with a loss
in the doubles quarterfinals of the NCAA
Tournament in Gainesville, Fla.
“They have absolutely nothing to
hang their heads about,” head coach
Nils Schyllander said. “They should be
very proud of what they accomplished
this year.”
The Ducks battled Virginia Common
wealth’s Silvia Urickova and Barbora
Zahnova for a chance at the Final Four,
but fell, 6-2,6-2, in a match that lasted a
little less than an hour and a half.
“I think we just made a few too many
mistakes,” Nagle said in an interview
with gatorzone.com. “They were pretty
solid — they didn’t miss much.”
Urickova and Zahnova knew the road
to the semifinals would not be easy, but
they had faith in their strategy.
“The key is to stay aggressive,” Uricko
va said. “The return is key always, and a
good serve.”
No. 33 Nagle and Panova battled the
Virginia Commonwealth duo earlier in
the year, but the result was the same.
“We’d beaten (Nagle and Panova) al
ready this season, so we were confident,”
Urickova said.
The earlier match was in the regular
season pro-set form, and the Rams duo
took it, 8-3.
“(Urickova and Zahnova) weren’t too
flashy,” Nagle said. “At key times, I think
we made easy volley errors or we’d get up
in a game, and we wouldn’t close it out. I
think that made a big difference because
we weren’t able to put enough pressure
on them throughout the match by mak
ing those key points.”
The Rams move on to the Final Four
and will take on California’s Christina Fu
sano and Raquel Kops-Jones. Fusano and
Kops-Jones knocked out No. 2 Agata
Tu rn to Tennis, page 6A . Y