Oregon daily emerald., May 17, 2005, Image 9

Oregon Daily Emerald
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
“I’m a sentimental old fool. ”
Jack Nicklaus announcing that July’s British Open will be his last tournament
■ In my opinion
BRIAN SMITH
LEFTY SPECIALIST
Great sports
writers have
the talent to
define eras
If there is one thing that I have learned in my
time of writing sports, it’s this:
Sports writing is underrated.
It is comparable to any other skill in life,
but as we all know, there are some people
who just do it better.
There are thousands of really good sports
writers in the country but only a few dozen
truly great ones.
During the weekend, I was proud to be part of
a workshop dedicated to the life of one the best
sportswriters in history: Jim Murray.
Before Thursday, I had never heard of Jim
Murray — mainly because of generational differ
ences and partly because my paper didn’t run his
syndicated column. By Saturday, I was wishing
that my introduction could have been sooner.
Murray was one of those writers that peo
ple both hated and admired for the skill and
ease by which he so easily took a prominent
sports figure and showed him as a neighbor,
a friend, a normal human being — much like
people hate and love the awe-inspiring skills
of some of the greatest athletes.
“Sandy’s fastball was so fast some batters
would start to swing as he was on his way to the
mound,” Jim Murray wrote in a 1961 column
about Dodger pitcher Sandy Koufax. “His curve
ball disappeared like a long putt going in a hole
... Even if he does rout the record book, you will
never know by looking at him. He will be the nice
young man with the gentle brown eyes standing
in the corner looking as though he had come in
for autographs.”
ur:
“His vicinity is anywhere between the foul
lines,” Murray wrote in a 1962 column about
Willie Mays. “Sometimes the left fielder is in
structed to go after only foul balls to keep out of
Mays’ way.”
It’s hard not to want to be able to write like
that, but as young writers, we’re given a tempo
rary poetic license to borrow from great writers of
the past. After all, we don’t really know what our
voices are yet. The only voices we know are those
that we have grown up reading.
The point being that sooner rather than later,
we take what we can learn and go off in search
of that unique, singular “way with words.”
Remember: Borrow, don’t steal.
Great athletes are known when they can be
discussed daily in class, on the bus or as the
genesis of spontaneous conversations with
total strangers.
Conversely, great sports writers can be identi
fied when the athlete is the most prominent part
of the story instead of the writer’s sterling gram
mar' or snappy prose.
Great sports writers are able to define their era,
bringing out both the best and worst aspects and
treating them both with equal grace and scrutiny.
And with different eras .come different athletes
with different stories.
I never covered Pete Rose.
I was never able to watch the rare ability of Ko
ufax to win a game by just showing up on the
lineup card.
SMITH, page 12
■ Women's tennis
Season ends with loss to Stanford
The team dropped two doubles
and three singles matches in its
second-round loss at the NCAAs
BY ALEX TAM
DAILY EMERALD FREELANCE REPORTER
The Oregon women’s tennis team’s run at
the NCAA championships ended Saturday
when the Ducks fell in the second round to
No. 1 Stanford, 4-0, in Stanford, Calif.
Defending national champion Cardinal con
tinued its undefeated season, winning all 23 of
its matches. Oregon (17-8 overall) finished
with its second straight 17-win season.
“Overall, it was a fantastic season, and
these players have nothing to be ashamed of,”
Oregon head coach Nils Schyllander said.
The Cardinal captured the doubles point
and took a 1-0 lead with doubles victories at
the No. 1 and No. 3 positions. The
36th-ranked duo Amber Liu and Anne Yesley
defeated Oregon’s doubles team Daria Panova
and Dominika Dieskova, 8-5, at the top spot.
At the No. 3 doubles slot, Oregon’s Davina
Mendiburu and Ester Bak lost to Stanford’s
Joanna Kao and Theresa Logar, 8-4.
“I thought we played solid doubles, but
Stanford grabbed the point, and the momen
tum was in their favor,” Schyllander said.
In singles action, Jamie Marshall, Anna
Leksinska and Bak were defeated in each of
their matches to give Stanford the 4-0 victory.
Panova, Dieskova and Mendiburu did not
finish their singles matches because Stanford
i had already clinched the victory.
The Ducks advanced to the second
round after defeating Fresno State, 4-2, on
Friday. The win ended Fresno State’s eight
match winning streak. Marshall led Oregon
with a victory in both her doubles and
singles matches.
Marshall and Leksinska teamed up to defeat
the Bulldogs’ Lucia Tallo and Jacqui Haskett,
8-4, at the No. 2 position. Marshall was then
victorious against Courtney Jantz in straight
sets, 6-4,6-1.
“We’ve had a lot of players step up for us
TENNIS, page 12
Nicole Barker | Photographer
Dominika Dieskova and the rest of the Ducks fell to Stanford, 4-0, in the NCAA Championships.
Geoff Thurner | Oregon Media Services
Johnna Nealy competes today at the NCAA Championships in Sunriver.
■ Women's golf
Nealy to represent
Oregon at NCAAs
Johnna Nealy received one of only two seeds given
to players competing from a non-qualifying team
by sconadams
DAILY EMERALD FREELANCE REPORTER
Johnna Nealy will compete at
the NCAA Championships in Sun
river today as the lone representa
tive of the Oregon women’s golf
team. The senior from Grants Pass
will be one of 126 golfers playing
in the finals, scheduled for four
rounds at the par-71, 6,312-yard
Meadows Course.
Nealy has been a driving force
for the Ducks all season, delivering
consistent performances each
week. She has finished in the top
12 in four of the last six tourna
ments and leads Oregon with an
average score of 74.8.
Nealy earned her first invite to
the finals thanks to her outing at
the NCAA West Regional two
weeks ago; she tied for sixth place
following a nail-biting two-hole
playoff victory against Laura
Leuthke of Fresno State.
Nealy said she is thrilled to have
the opportunity to play among the
nation’s best.
“I am excited, but 1 wish my
whole team was there, so that’s
kind of disappointing,” Nealy said.
“I’m really excited to go play and
see how I match up against the
rest of the country.”
Nealy garnered one of two indi
vidual seeds given to players com
peting for a non-qualifying team
from the West Regional— Oregon’s
lOth-place finish at the Regional
was not enough to land the Ducks
NEALY, page 12