Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
petertiockaday@dailyemerald.com
Thursday, June 5,2003
-Oregon Daily Emerald
Sports
Best bet
Stanley Cup Finals:
Anaheim at New Jersey, Game 5
5 p.m., ABC
Perfect
Duck decathlete Santiago
Lorenzo lives the decathlon life
and is looking to score another
NCAA Championship next week
Men’s track and field
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
Normally, when doing a feature story
on an athlete, a writer tells an athlete’s
story from top to bottom. Like a nice
porterhouse steak, the author picks out
the tasty bits, trims off the excess fat and
hopes the reader eats up the rest.
But Santiago Lorenzo isn’t an athlete.
He’s a decathlete.
The decathlon sounds like one event,
but it isn’t. It counts as one event. But
really, it’s 10 track events, from javelin to
high jump to a 1,500-meter race to hur
dles. Athletes compete in the 10 events
over two days—five on the first day and
five on the second.
And Lorenzo is the ultimate
decathlete.
“We’ll be out doing hill workouts, and
he’s the guy pushing everybody,” fellow
decathlete Jason Slye said. “It’s like he’s
one step ahead of everyone else.”
He competed in everything from ten
nis to field hockey as a high schooler
growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He settled on track, but, ironically, set
tled on the one track event that’s more
than one event.
He has a dynamic personality and an
NCAA Championship under his belt...
but we’ll get to all that.
In honor of the decathlete, we pres
ent Santiago Lorenzo’s story in 10 parts
over two days.
Event 1:
iViva Argentina!
Buenos Aires sits on the northeast
ern coast of Argentina. It’s a city of
12.5 million people and an almost
equal tonnage of smog.
Argentina has a rich soccer tradition
that includes two World Gup crowns.
The soccer sun is so bright there it
dwarves most other sports.
“In Argentina, nobody, basically,
gives a damn about track,” Lorenzo
said. “It’s all about soccer.”
That made it tough for a young Argen
tinian named Santiago to choose track
over soccer and the whole host of other
sports he played as a kid. By mid-high
school, Lorenzo was a member of Ar
gentina’s junior national teams in both
field hockey and track.
Every day for a year, Lorenzo went to
school until 5 p.m., jaunted over to the
national training facility and worked out
with the field hockey team for a couple
hours, then walked 150 feet to the track,
where he threw the javelin and vaulted
for an hour.
Something had to give.
Event 2:
Hockey... field hockey
Lorenzo said field hockey is tied with
rugby and tennis as the silver-medalist
sport in the hearts of Argentinians.
Lorenzo’s father, Gerardo Lorenzo,
was a two-time Olympian for the Argen
tinian field hockey team. That, and the
country’s apathy toward track, made it
tough for Santiago Lorenzo to leave field
hockey behind.
But he did so at his father’s urgings.
“My dad always told me, ‘Do whatever
you want in sports because you have the
ability to succeed in whatever you want,”’
Lorenzo said. “He said just do only one.”
So Lorenzo focused on track for the
rest of his high school career and soon
found the decathlon. He finished as the
best Argentinian decathlete in 1997 and
1998, and finished in the top two at five
different South American champi
onship events.
He took two years to train after high
school, with the full intention of making
Turn to Lorenzo, page 16
Adam Amato Emerald
Santiago Lorenzo had several choices of schools, but ended up winning a national decathlon title for the Ducks.
Milking Title IX
for all it’s worth
I hate Title IX,
Not because the legislation, originally passed in 1972, adds
women’s sports or “forces” institutions to cut men’s sports, but
because there’s so bloody much of it that it’s confusing.
Have you ever tried to milk a chicken?
Wonder why anyone would try?
Good. Now you’re confused enough to talk about Title IX.
In February, the President George W. Bush-appointed Commis
sion for Opportunity in Athletics released its recommendations
about changes to Tide IX after 31 years.
Many of the changes were agreed on by
all 15 members of the committee. Howev
er, eight of the 23 recommendations were
not kosher with two committee members.
Donna de Varona, a former Olympic
gold medalist, and Julie Foudy, a U.S.
women’s soccer player and the only cur
rent athlete on the commission, issued a
minority report the same morning the
Commission’s report was released.
“The findings and recommendations of
the Commission’s report fail to address key
issues or to reflect an understanding of the
discrimination women and girls still face in
obtaining equal opportunity in athletics,” the minority report said.
Despite 31 years of Title IX, there is still a lack of opportunities
for women and girls in sports.
There are 1.1 million fewer high school participation
Turn to Rice, page 16
Mindi
Rice
The girl
and the game
Danielle Hickey Emerald
Junior Mike Sica provided many bright spots for Oregon this season.
Golfers remember
2002-03 campaign
Oregon men question the season that could have
been; the women look to a brighter season next year
Golf
Scott Archer
Freelance Sports Reporter
In a year that saw the Oregon men’s golf team reach the pin
nacle of collegiate golf, few if any quarrels about how the sea
son turned out could be made. However, that is the notion that
has the team wondering “what if?”
Oregon reached the NCAA Championships last week, ending a
four-year hiatus. The tournament run included many brilliant in
dividual performances but never culminated in anything more. Af
ter a horrendous opening-round performance in the champi
onships, the Ducks regained their form, shooting a second-best
team score in round 2, followed by another top-10 score in round 3.
However, prior to teeing off in the third round, Oregon learned
that it would need to finish in the top 18 to make the surprising
cut implemented midway through the tournament by the NCAA.
“We were disappointed we didn’t play better in the first round,”
head coach Steve Nosier said. “We lost control of our destiny, but
we thought we could play back. If we had a first round score more
similar to the second round, we would have been right there.”
And it is with that speculation the Ducks ended their season.
The NCAA tournament was a microcosm of the entire Ore
gon season, as the team progressed through “many ups and
downs,” as Nosier put it.
“However, it was quite a successful season,” he said.
Turn to Golf, page 14