The BulleTin • Sunday, april 25, 2021 B3
MOTOR SPORTS | NASCAR
Prep sports
Harrison Burton, 20, set for Cup Series debut at Talladega
Continued from B1
“It would probably be a little bit
more simple to go to a short track
and just kind of run where you’re
going to run and do all that. But
gosh, it’s a crazy opportunity. I’m
excited for it.”
BY JOHN ZENOR
Associated Press
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Jeff Burton,
the former NASCAR driver, sees some
benefits to his son making his Cup Se-
ries debut at Talladega Superspeedway.
Jeff Burton the father is more anx-
ious about it.
“As mom and dad, it’s going to be a
little nerve-racking,” Jeff Burton said.
“Obviously Talladega is a nerve-rack-
ing place.”
Harrison Burton, all of 20 years old,
will make his debut on NASCAR’s top
circuit Sunday, barreling onto a track
that can prove harrowing even for the
most veteran drivers. It’s not always
easy on the parents either, even one
who won 21 Cup races, though none
of the victories came on the 2.66-mile
oval known for its wrecks.
The elder Burton, now a commen-
tator for NBC Sports, said he even got
nervous walking in on Harrison’s film
session from old Talladega races. Har-
rison, the reigning NASCAR Xfinity
Series rookie of the year, will drive the
No. 96 Toyota for Gaunt Brothers Rac-
ing this weekend.
He is set to become the first driver
born in the 21st century to run a Cup
Series race. This will be his eighth
stock car start on a superspeedway
and fourth at Talladega. He was 23rd
in ’Dega last October, his best finish at
the massive track.
Burton said he definitely doesn’t feel
comfortable about Talladega racing,
but feels “comfort with the discomfort.”
He is familiar with the track and the
intensity of stock car racing’s top driv-
ers from growing up in a racing family.
“Those Cup guys are aggressive,
man,” Harrison said. “Those guys are
Slama
Continued from B1
Slama graduates this spring with a
bachelor’s degree. She plans to work on
a master’s in business administration
next year, but Slama’s long-term goal is
to attend physical therapy school.
That is, once Slama has exhausted
professional golf opportunities.
Slama says she’ll assess how she’s
playing after the OSU’s 2022 season as
to whether she’ll attempt a run at the
LPGA.
In the meantime, Slama has a chance
to become the best player in Oregon
State history.
The top three season scoring av-
erages at OSU belong to Slama. Her
career scoring average is more than a
stroke better than No. 2. Slama is tied
for career tournament victories, and has
more top-10 finishes than any Beaver.
She’s the only player to earn first-team
all-conference honors.
“I’ve always looked at Oregon State
sports my whole life and been a huge
fan. To be one of the best would be re-
ally amazing,” said Slama, a Salem na-
tive.
Unless Slama wins an NCAA title,
there will be some debate as to whether
she’s Oregon State’s best ever. Because
there is a national champion in the
school’s history, even if it’s not reflected
Judo
Continued from B1
The judo project is, by any
account, an outside-the-box
idea. Because the sport, known
by insiders as “the gentle way”
of martial arts, has little empha-
sis on striking and is considered
less violent than some of its
brethren, some leaders in judo,
and in policing, saw an oppor-
tunity to use the discipline to
rethink officer training. Last
summer’s headlines pushed
these courses, which had been
in development since 2018, to
the top of the priority list.
The main concept over the
week of classes held at the
Wyoming Law Enforcement
Academy centered on teaching
cops how to engage suspects
verbally, then employ physical
judo techniques if needed, to
deescalate confrontations with-
out using deadly force.
The goal is to avoid situations
the likes of which led to Floyd’s
death and, two weeks ago, to the
death of Daunte Wright, whose
funeral was Thursday. Wright
was shot and killed by an officer
who said she thought she was
reaching for her Taser when it
was, in fact, her gun.
Jim Bacon, a former athlete
on the U.S. judo team who now
serves as a police officer in La-
fayette, Colorado, says the most
damning police-on-suspect en-
counters — many now caught
on police body cameras or by
onlookers holding iPhones —
— Harrison Burton, NASCAR driver
all about wrecks every lap. And being
prepared for that and understanding
that there’s going to be discomfort and
trying to find a way to handle that ad-
versity is something I’m excited about.
“It would probably be a little bit more
simple to go to a short track and just
kind of run where you’re going to run
and do all that,” he said. “But gosh, it’s a
crazy opportunity. I’m excited for it.”
Harrison Burton is scheduled to
start 39th on Sunday, a day after mak-
ing start No. 50 in the Xfinity Series.
Starting in the back of the pack and
taking some time to get acclimated to
the car isn’t such a bad position for a
youngster, especially with the absence
of practice time these days.
“It’s a race track where he really
doesn’t have to just take off and have
all the pressure of staying on the lead
lap and all those kind of things,” Jeff
Burton said. “He can kind of work up
to understanding the car.”
Burton will be behind the wheel for
the part-time team’s fourth Cup race
this season. Veteran Ty Dillon ran the
previous three races.
Burton won four Xfinity Series races
last season with 15 finishes in the top
five. His best finishes through the first
seven races of this year entering Satur-
day were third at Daytona and Atlanta.
Ryan Blaney, who won at Talladega
in each of the past two years, said he
was struck by how quickly everything
happens in his first go at the Cup level.
“I remember it just happens quick,
and you and your spotter have to be in
sync with your movements and kind of
how you’re going about your race and
things like that and your lanes,” Blaney
said. “That’s something that he’ll learn
very quickly and I’m sure he’ll pick it
up right away. … You can’t really pre-
pare for that, you just have to experi-
ence it.”
Harrison, who started racing at
age 4, is used to being the young kid
on the track. Burton was the young-
est Division I winner in the NASCAR
Whelen All-American Series in 2014 at
age 14. The following year he became
the youngest driver to compete in the
K&N Pro Series West.
With COVID-19 restrictions, Jeff
and Kim Burton won’t get to hang out
with their son before the start of his
first Cup race. They plan to watch ei-
ther from the stands or a family suite,
and will probably have some white-
knuckle moments along with Harri-
son.
“It’s just a crazy race track,” the elder
Burton said. “It always has been, but
it’s something that’s part of our racing.
If you want to race and you want to be
in NASCAR, Talladega and Daytona
are two places you’re going to go and
you’re going to go there often.”
in the OSU women’s golf records.
In 1974, Oregon State’s Mary Budke
won the AIAW national title. It was be-
fore women’s golf was under the NCAA
umbrella.
Women’s golf was loosely a sport at
Oregon State. Budke, who became a
doctor and is now retired, said they had
no more than four players on the team
during any year of her college career.
Practice wasn’t organized; it was on the
individual.
Golf certainly wasn’t year-round.
Budke also played volleyball and bas-
ketball at Oregon State. Spring was a
time for golf.
But make no mistake. Budke, who
grew up on a farm in Dayton, was a
serious golfer. She won the 1972 U.S.
Amateur, and is an eight-time Oregon
Amateur champion. She won the 1974
AIAW title by four strokes over a field
Budke recalls had 25 to 30 teams. Two
years later, future LPGA Hall of Famer
Nancy Lopez won the AIAW champi-
onship.
What kept Budke from pursuing golf
at the highest level was two-fold. She
wanted to go to medical school, and
frankly, the idea of weekly travel to play
professional golf had no appeal.
Even as women’s golf has advanced
and become a year-round pursuit,
Budke doesn’t think her career would
change.
“I would have trouble with a lot of
structure,” she said.
Budke knows of Slama, just from
what’s she read and watched, but the
two have never met.
“She has been a wonderful player,”
Budke said.
Beginning this weekend, Slama hopes
to add some important lines to her col-
lege resume. Slama is looking to qual-
ify for her second NCAA tournament,
where she finished 103rd in 2019. Slama
is looking to contend for the conference
title this weekend at Stanford; her best
previous Pac-12 finish is a tie for eighth.
Slama enters the Pac-12 tournament
on a roll. She won the Silverado (Calif.)
Showdown earlier this month, and is av-
eraging 71.1 strokes over her past nine
competitive rounds. Earlier this month,
Slama competed in the Augusta Na-
tional Women’s Amateur, a field that in-
cludes the world’s best female amateurs.
Slama’s short-term ambitions are
more than individual heading into post-
season. Oregon State is ranked No. 29
heading into the Pac-12 tournament.
The Beavers are a threat to make it past
regionals and into the NCAA Tourna-
ment, where they have one appearance
(1998) in school history.
“Making it to (nationals) my soph-
omore was fun, but it’s not the same
as being with your team,” Slama said.
“That would be amazing.”
Oregon State’s Ellie Slama won the 2018
Oregon Women’s Stroke Play tournament.
The junior has her sights set on becoming
the best golfer ever at OSU.
Steve Helber/AP
Cousins Harrison Burton, left, and Jeb Burton talk prior to the start of the rain-delayed
NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Virginia, on April 11.
have this in common: “The
cop resorts to higher levels of
force than should’ve been used.
If they have more skills, they
might not have to rely on the
gadgets on the belt,” he said.
The workshop also offered a
window into the different role
an Olympic organization, and
maybe the Olympics them-
selves, can play in society at
large. The USA Judo P3 Pro-
gram is sponsored by USA
Judo, the six-person operation
in Colorado Springs, Colorado,
that has helped Kayla Harrison
and Ronda Rousey, now of Ul-
timate Fighting Championship
fame, bring Olympic medals
back home, but that also must
constantly nourish its own
grassroots system.
The national governing body
has been losing ground on both
fronts, most recently because
of the pandemic, and over the
years because of the growing
popularity of other martial arts.
With an emphasis not on hit-
ting, but rather on using lever-
age and body position to exe-
cute holds and takedowns, judo
has long been easy to overlook.
“This hits a societal issue,”
USA Judo CEO Keith Bryant
said. “And for us, it has potential
to get more people on the mat.”
In an exercise that cut to the
core of the judo training, con-
ference planners Taybren Lee
and Mike Verdugo played sus-
pects who were impaired, or
mentally unstable, and chal-
lenged the officers to use judo
Courtesy Oregon Golf Association, file
“The public wants police
officers to be better trained.
That’s why we’re trying to
integrate judo, so we can
be more effective in these
situations without hurting
the other person.”
— Jim Bacon, a former athlete
on the U.S. judo team who now
serves as a police officer in
Lafayette, Colorado
Eddie Pells/AP
Michael Johnson of the Billings, Montana, Police Department grabs
hold of instructor Mike Verdugo’s arm while Harley Cagle, also with
Billings Police, captures the action on his cellphone during a training
workshop in March in Douglas, Wyoming.
to deescalate the situations.
The scenarios were acted out as
though they were happening in
public, with pedestrians shoot-
ing the action from every angle
on their phone cameras.
“If we can talk to you, if we
can keep you up, that’s going to
change the whole visual, espe-
cially when people have their
iPhones recording,” Verdugo
said.
Lee says the public would be
alarmed at how little training
the average police department
provides to officers for street
confrontations. And because
so many more interactions are
now caught on video, police are
being scrutinized in ways pre-
viously impossible.
“Sometimes, the depart-
ments haven’t spent the money
for the training, and in a lot of
ways, the training hasn’t caught
up to the realities of the tech-
nology that’s out there,” said
Lee, an officer with the Los
Angeles Police Department
who also teaches judo for the
youth-based Police Athletic
League, a sponsor of the train-
ing program.
Spearheading this sort of en-
deavor is hardly the traditional
role for leaders at an organiza-
tion such as USA Judo, whose
most high-profile mission is to
help Americans bring home
Olympic medals. But this could
be an ideal time for the non-
profits that make up the back-
bone of the U.S. Olympic sys-
tem to reinvent themselves.
USA Judo was among the
70% of U.S. national govern-
Swimming, basketball and
wrestling teams are now al-
lowed to gear up and plan for
their upcoming seasons, which
start May 10. After watching
the “fall” sports of Season 2
(specifically football) sweat
out the decision from the
OHA, the news breaking sev-
eral weeks prior to the start of
the season came as a surprise
to wrestling and basketball
coaches.
“I was expecting them to an-
nounce the Friday before we
can start,” Combs said. “I was
blown away they announced it
this week.”
The added time before the
season starts allows for wres-
tling programs to determine
the parameters of competitions
come mid-May. Wrestling is a
sport that features many tour-
naments, with lot of teams
competing at one site. Now
teams have some time to iron
out those details amid the ev-
er-changing guidelines.
Three weeks to prepare is
also beneficial for basketball,
said Summit High boys basket-
ball coach Jon Frazier. While
his team has taken a couple of
out of state trips to play games,
the squad has not been allowed
to scrimmage. Now it can,
which Frazier hopes will help
kids stay healthy and in shape
once the team returns to a nor-
mal practice and game sched-
ule after a year off.
“I just assumed it was going
to be May 7 that we were going
to get the green light,” Frazier
said. “One of my concerns was
not having any ramp-up pe-
riod, and that you would see a
lot of injuries because they ha-
ven’t gone full-contact or full-
speed. Suddenly you are play-
ing six days a week — that is
how kids get hurt.”
The Bend High girls basket-
ball team was starting to lose
its motivation, according to
coach Allison Gardner, espe-
cially as the COVID-19 case
numbers recently began to rise
again.
The thought among the
players was that winter sports
would not stand a chance of
being played this spring.
About 30 minutes before a
skills session with the team,
word was announced that
there would indeed be a sea-
son.
“There were tears of joy and
relief,” Gardner said. “It was
nice to deliver good news for a
change.”
Just like wrestling teams,
the clock is ticking to fill out
a schedule for basketball teams.
“Now the scramble begins to
schedule games and get ready
for the season,” Gardner said.
“We are trying to play as many
local schools as we can. We
have to get creative and find
teams that are willing to to play
us.”
e e
Reporter: 541-383-0307,
brathbone@bendbulletin.com
ing bodies that asked the gov-
ernment for loans under the
federal government’s Paycheck
Protection Program during
COVID-19. It currently has
one Olympic medal contender,
Angelica Delgado. Bryant
sees judo as one of those rare
sports that has a spot both in
a competitive venue and in re-
al-world situations.
Among the program’s task
force members are 2004 Olym-
pic judoka Nikki Kubes An-
drews, now a detective for the
Fort Worth Police Department.
And Bacon, the former U.S.
national team member who is
now an officer in Colorado.
“The public wants police
officers to be better trained,”
Bacon said. “That’s why we’re
trying to integrate judo, so we
can be more effective in these
situations without hurting the
other person.”
USA Judo is offering free
memberships to officers who
participate in the training, and
has hopes the police initiative
could spark new interest in the
sport.
Bryant is also acutely aware
that there are other ways to
measure success during a diffi-
cult time in America.
“We sat down and started
talking,” Bryant said, “and we
agreed that when you look at
George Floyd, and all these sit-
uations, we felt like if these of-
ficers had been trained in judo
appropriately, it wouldn’t have
happened.”