Sports
7A
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Th e Observer
Frontier Conference reshuffl es football schedule
Eastern Oregon to open, close season
against in-state rival Southern Oregon
The Observer
LA GRANDE — The
Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity football team now will
open and close the season
with the Small School Civil
War.
The Frontier Conference
Monday announced its new
modifi ed schedule for the
2020 football season, which
was forced to be altered by
the COVID-19 outbreak.
The National Association
of Intercollegiate Athletics
in early June reported foot-
ball schedules would be
cut from a maximum of 11
games to nine.
The altered schedule for
the Frontier has each team
now playing eight games.
Eastern Oregon, which was
originally going to open
the season with an Aug. 29
home game against Mon-
tana Tech, now will face
Southern Oregon in a night
game Sept. 12 in the latest
installment of the in-state
rivalry.
The last time Eastern
opened the season with
a home matchup against
SOU was in 2016, when the
Mountaineers won a 45-40
thriller against the then-No.
2 Raiders. That also was
the last time EOU topped
SOU at Community Sta-
dium. Their last three wins
against Southern have come
in Ashland.
It will be the fi rst of
two home games for EOU
to start the season, as it
will follow with a meeting
against Montana Tech
on Sept. 19. Road games
at Montana Western and
Rocky Mountain College
follow on Sept. 26 and Oct.
3 with a conference-wide
bye week on the 10th.
EOU will open the back
half of the season Oct. 17
with a home contest against
MSU-Northern, then a road
game at Carroll College. On
Halloween, the Mountain-
eers will host Interstate-84
rival College of Idaho in the
only matchup between the
schools this season, then
fi nish with a road game at
Southern Oregon Nov. 7.
Typically, EOU would
face three opponents twice
in a season — SOU, C of
I and one of the confer-
ence’s Montana schools.
This will be the fi rst time
since the Yotes reinstated
their program that EOU and
C of I won’t meet twice in a
season.
FBI investigating noose left in
NASCAR stall of black driver
By Jenna Fryer
Associated Press
TALLEDEGA, Ala.
— Federal authorities on
Monday confi rmed they are
investigating the discovery
of a noose found in the Tal-
ladega Superspeedway
garage stall of Bubba Wal-
lace, NASCAR’s only black
full-time driver who suc-
cessfully pushed the stock
car series to ban the Con-
federate fl ag at its venues
earlier this month.
U.S. Attorney Jay Town
said his offi ce, the FBI and
the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division were
reviewing the situation.
“Regardless of whether
federal charges can be
brought, this type of action
has no place in our society,”
Town said.
The stock car series,
founded in the South more
than 70 years ago, has tried
to distance itself from the
fl ag for years at the risk of
alienating a core group of
its fan base. At Wallace’s
urging, it went ahead with
the ban as the nation grap-
ples with social unrest
largely tied to George
Floyd, an unarmed Black
man who died in the cus-
tody of Minneapolis police.
NASCAR has not out-
lined how it will enforce
the restriction and this
week’s race at Talla-
dega, in the heart of the
South, presented the series
with its biggest test in
the early going. Disgrun-
tled fans with Confederate
fl ags drove past the main
entrance to the Alabama
race track prior to Sunday’s
race, while a plane fl ew
above the track pulling a
banner of the fl ag that read
“Defund NASCAR.”
Hours after the race
was postponed by rain,
NASCAR said the noose
had been found. The sanc-
tioning body vowed to do
everything possible to fi nd
who was responsible and
“eliminate them from the
sport.”
“We are angry and out-
raged, and cannot state
strongly enough how seri-
ously we take this hei-
nous act,” the series said in
a statement. “As we have
stated unequivocally, there
is no place for racism in
NASCAR, and this act only
strengthens our resolve to
make the sport open and
welcoming to all.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey
said she was “shocked and
appalled” by the “vile act”
against Wallace, an Ala-
bama native.
“There is no place for
this disgusting display of
hatred in our state,” Ivey
said. “Bubba Wallace is
one of us; he is a native of
Photo by Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press
Bubba Wallace stands for the national anthem before a
NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, June 14, in Home-
stead, Florida.
Mobile and on behalf of all
Alabamians, I apologize to
Bubba Wallace as well as to
his family and friends for
the hurt this has caused and
regret the mark this leaves
on our state.”
Richard Petty, sev-
en-time NASCAR cham-
pion and owner of Wal-
lace’s famed No. 43, was
headed to Talladega to sup-
port his driver. Petty has
not attended a race during
the coronavirus pandemic
and said in a statement he
was “enraged by the act of
someone placing a noose in
the garage stall of my race
team.”
“There’s absolutely no
place in our sport or society
for racism,” Petty wrote.
“This fi lthy act serves as
a reminder of how far we
still have to go to eradicate
racial prejudice and it gal-
vanizes my resolve to use
the resources of Richard
Petty Motorsports to create
change. This sick person
who perpetrated this act
must be found, exposed and
swiftly and immediately
expelled from NASCAR.
“I believe in my heart
this despicable act is not
representative of the com-
petitors I see each day in
the NASCAR garage area.
I stand shoulder to shoulder
with Bubba, yesterday,
today, tomorrow and every
day forward.”
Reaction from Wal-
lace’s fellow drivers was
immediate as they prepared
for the rescheduled race
Monday afternoon. Retired
four-time champion Jeff
Gordon called it a “cow-
ardly” act and Ryan Blaney,
one of Wallace’s closest
friends, tweeted: “You’re
my brother and always will
be. Don’t let the people who
are lower than life to try
and bring you down.”
Observer fi le photo
Eastern Oregon University’s defense celebrates following a stop in a 2019 game against
MSU-Northern. The Frontier Conference announced its updated 2020 schedule, which
has been altered due to COVID-19. The Mountaineers will open and close the 2020 cam-
paign against in-state rival Southern Oregon.
MLB players’ board rejects 60-game season
by Ronald Blum
Associated Press
NEW YORK — The
executive board of the
Major League Base-
ball Players Associa-
tion rejected a proposed
60-game schedule by a
33-5 vote, daring Com-
missioner Rob Manfred to
give a unilateral order for
the regular season’s start
and provoke what fi gures
to be lengthy and costly
litigation over the impact
of the coronavirus.
The union’s vote was
confi rmed by a person
familiar with the meeting
who spoke to The Asso-
ciated Press on condition
of anonymity because no
announcement was made.
With the collapse of
a negotiated deal, play-
offs are set to remain
at 10 teams rather than
expand to 16, and the
proposed expansion of
the designated hitter to
games involving NL
teams would be off. Also
falling through for now is
a planned experiment that
would have had a runner
start each extra inning on
second base.
Spring training was
suspended March 12, two
weeks ahead of scheduled
openers, and the sides have
reverted to the familiar
fi nancial infi ghting that
fractured the sport in the
past. An initial deal March
26 called for players to
receive prorated salaries,
but that agreement did not
require MLB to play in
empty ballparks.
Players refused to alter
from their insistence on
prorated salaries, and
MLB fi nally agreed last
week during a meeting
between Manfred and
union head Tony Clark.
But the sides remained
about $275 million apart
after weeks of talks.
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