SPORTS
Clackamas Community College
' June ì, 1988
Page 17
Crane running
to the top at CCC
by Steven Ziolkowsla
^^aKe^Zrane, freshman track’
star at Clackamas Community
College, played basketball and
competed in relays since grade
school, but didn’t really find his
niche in track until he attended
Newberg High School. “I didn’t
grow enough in junior high
school—I was too short for
basketball—and that set me off
for varsity basketball in my
junior and senior year,” Crane
said.
“The track coach at Newberg
saw me playing basketball and
soccer and he hounded me to go
out for track,” Crane added. “So
I did.” The coach’s name was
Monte Bradley.
Crane was no newcomer to
track in high school. Even though
basketball was his first choice he
was on the junior varsity track
team and ran the low hurdles in
junior high. He also competed in
the team relays and the mile.
“I did the mile in the fifth
grade. It was my first big race. I
took off and held onto first,”
Crane says. His dad must have
been proud too, “He gave me ten
bucks for winning.”<
Coach Bradley at Newberg
wanted his new recruit to go out
for the 1600 relay team. All four
knew each other at school—but
the real surprise was when
Bradley suggested the in
termediate hurdles.
“Bradley tried me at the in
termediates but found that I was
really good at the 110 highs,”
said Crane. But he wouldn’t get
to participate in his first meet of
the year because he sprained his
ankle the night before playing
basketball.
He remembers his first meet in
high school well. At Hillsboro he
ran the third leg—and the team
won. “I ran it in 3:31. After that
we went to the Centennial Invita
tional and I ran a sub 0:48 in my
leg of a 400 relay, bringing us to
third overall in the race,” Crane
remembered.
Talking about the hurdles he
starts to light up. “At Sunset I
had lane eight. I won. I was a se
cond off the school record.”
Crane laughs, “I felt like I was
going way too high over the
hurdles, but it was fun as far as
endurance goes ”
At Clackamas Crane broke the
old 110 hurdles record bringing in
a time of 14.8 seconds. The old
record was held by Steve Kuchab-
sky at 14.9, set in 1983. Crane’s
key to success: “Being a hurdler
I’ve doubled my time spent on
stretching. I have to be a lot more
flexible?’
When Clackamas Track Coach
Mike Hodges first tried to recruit ’
Crane he couldn’t reach him.
“He called several times while I
wasn’t at home. When I got back
from a trip to California I called
him back,” Crane remarked. '
“Clackamas had the best track
team. I liked the facilities arid the
coaches were fun to hang
around,” he added. Crane gives
Hodges and Assistant Coach
Wynia credit for his improve
ment, “They have a lot of con
structive pointers.”
What’s in the future? “I’m not
exactly sure as a freshman, which
way I want to go yet. I like my
management and English
classes—long range I’d like to get
into sports business and try to
work towards the management
end of that,” Crane comments.
Photo by Both Cot toy
Freshman Gabe Crane finds his niche in track.
Photo by Beth Coffey
CCC Rally for 1987-88: Wendy Jensen, Cathi. Pearson, Joy Harris, Rebecca iulley and
Stephani Veff.
Cougar rally brought back
by Stephan! t. Veff
Opinion/Copy Editor
This past winter brought
something new to Clackamas
Community College basketball
games - a rally squad. Although
there have been rallies at CCC
in the past, it had been several
years since the last one cheered
the team on. That is until
freshman Cathi Pearson came
along.
Pearson, a graduate of Sandy
High School, was involved with
rally during high school and
took on the challenge of getting
a rally together at CCC because
she thought it would be
something to do to try to pro
mote school spirit at
Clackamas.
“I was told that no one ever
attended the games and so I set
out to try to get some atten
dance at the games and give
them (the basketball team) some
support since we have an ex
cellent basketball team, said
Pearson.
And so the idea of a CCC
basketball rally was born.
Tryouts consisted of about
three weeks of learning a cheer
to be performed by ofte’s self
and of making up a dance
routine with two or three peo
ple.
Thé judges’ decision called
for six girls to be on the 1987-88
basketball rally: Kris Ball, Joy
Harris, Wendy Jensen, Pear
son, Rebecca Tulley, and
Stephani Veff. Kris Ball later
resigned from the squad due to
personal reasons.
The squad then began the
frantic tasks of learning more
cheers, working on stunts
(pyramids), and the most fran
tic of, all finding uniforms
before the first game in early
December.
It was decided by the group
that they would look for some
sort of sweater or sweatshirt at
the local shopping malls and
have the skirts made by a
seamstress. This plan worked
well enough, but the practices
for the cheers and stunts were
another story.
When five people are re^
quired to work their schedules
around practices, problems
generally arise and such was the
case here. Not only were all of
the girls attending school full
time, but all of them were also
working part time and soon
time conflicts arose.
“If you want to have a decent
squad, you’ve got to be there
and practice. You’ve got to
have everyone there because if
one person’s gone the whole
squad loses it,” stated Pearson
when asked her thoughts on the
topic of practice.
All too soon it was time to go
in front of the crowd. It was
now a matter of acceptance. “I
don’t think it (the rally) was ac
cepted entirely because the
squad wasn’t very unified, we
were lacking in experience, and
we didn’t get a chance to prac
tice enough and a lot of people
didn’t know we were there,”
responded Pearson.
Despite the difficulties the
rally faced this year, Pearson
would like to have rally con
tinue next year.
Her first step will be the Stu
dent Success Day that is held
before classes begin Fall term
for all new students. “I figure if
you go around to each one of
those classrooms, you’re going
to have a bunch of new students
on campus who are just coming
put of high school who have still
got all that spirit,” commented
Pearson about recruiting next
year’s sauad.
Tryouts are going to be run
differently next year. This
year’s rally will make up a
dance routine “so that
everyone’s doing the same exact
dance routine, but give the girls
enough time to rehearse it so
that they’ve got it down for
tryouts, so that those who want
to be on rally again don’t have
too much of an advantage,”
Pearson stated.
The dance routines will be
performed in groups of three,
but tHe cheer will be one-on-one.
“You do it yourself. Make up
the motions yourself. You’ve
already got the words...so that
they (the judges) can hear your
voice and see if you can be pep
py without the others,” she
said.
There will be certain re
quirements for the cheer that
the girls will have to work into
their own personal routines so
that technique and sharpness
will be more easy to judge,
“because this year it was really
difficult to tell because it wasn’t
a rally style,” noted Pearson
about the dance routines at this
year’s tryouts.
Pearson commented that the
most important thing about a
good rally squad is unification
and that this is going to be
stressed this year. She also said
that, “A lot more emphasis
needs to go on sharpness,
technique, and the way you use
your voice, the way you use
your body. You don’t just go
out there and jump around. It’s
a sport.”
Next year’s squad is going to
be asked to sign contracts about
dedicating time to rally, so that
schedule conflicts don’t inter
rupt practices, “They’re just
going to have to work their
schedules around practice.
That’s just the way it’s going to
have to be,” said Pearson.
She is hoping for a bigger tur
nout at tryouts next year with
more experience and more
motivation from the contestants
which she hopes will include
some guys. “That was our pro
blem this year, I mean we were
all on our own. The school
didn’t help us, we didn’t have
an advisor. I mean we were just
out there doing our own thing,”
commented Pearson.
One of her most important
projects for next year is finding
a new rally advisor, “We need
to get a rally advisor, someone
who knows what in the heck
they’re doing. Someone who
would do something,” she said.
In conclusion, Pearson com
mented on how well this year’s
rally did: “For a first year I
guess it was okay, considering
that we were lacking in ex
perience. We could have done a
lot better, but once again you’ve
just got to get your squad work
ing together.”