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S PORTS
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THE BULLETIN • THUrsday, OcTOBEr 21, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
COLLEGE
SPORTS
Prep volleyball
UO to build new
practice facility
EUGENE — The Ore-
gon Ducks will have a new
indoor practice facility.
UO unveiled plans for a
new 170,000-square foot
facility where the current
outdoor football practice
fields are.
Current plans call
for a 130,000 square-
foot practice field and
40,000-square-foot con-
nector between the field
and the Hatfield Dowlin
Complex to be built by
2024. The connector will
include an “expanded
weight room and players’
lounge” and outdoor ter-
race for team use and to
host events.
The new facility will
create “additional access
to the Moshofsky Cen-
ter” for Oregon’s other
sports teams, which share
the 23-year-old facility
with the football team.
Opened in 1998, the Mo-
shofsky Center was the
first indoor practice facil-
ity in the then-Pac-10.
The cost of the new
indoor practice facility
is not specified and will
be funded “entirely with
private philanthropy and
will be managed through
the UO Foundation,” per
a release.
The exterior shell will
be made from Northwest
timber in the form of the
Oregon “O,” with the the
center of the roof made
of tinted polymer panels
supported by a steel ca-
ble system, “which allows
natural light to reach the
field without glare while
insulating against heat,”
according to the release.
A ventilation system will
be available for use to
mitigate air quality issues
from wildfires, though the
new facility will largely
rely on natural ventilation
and daylight and be pow-
ered with renewable en-
ergy generated on site.
Ravens reclaim IMC title
And the Lava Bears clinch their first Mountain Valley Conference championship
BY BRIAN RATHBONE • The Bulletin
REDMOND — Three sets
was all it took for Ridgeview
to recapture the Class 5A
Intermountain Conference
volleyball title Tuesday night
against Crook County.
It is the Ravens’ third IMC title
in four years, reclaiming it from the
Cowgirls, who won the conference
during the pandemic-shortened sea-
son last spring.
INSIDE
“We worked re-
ally hard for it,” said
• High school
senior libero Kylee
scores and
results in
Rost. “I hope every-
Scoreboard,
one appreciates how
A6
cool it is to be IMC
champs. Especially
after last year when we lost to Crook
County for the IMC, so that makes it
even better.”
In a clash between two of the top
teams in Class 5A, the 3-0 (25-22, 25-
20, 25-16) final score did not show
how close the match was. Each of
the three sets were close, as Crook
County held a lead in all three sets
at one point before the Ravens were
finally able to pull away from the
short-handed Cowgirls.
“They gave us a run each time,”
said Ridgeview coach Randi Vig-
giano. “Crook County hustled, we
matched their hustle, and at the end
of the day we got the job done. It feels
really good.”
Both the Ravens (13-4 overall,
9-0 IMC) and the Cowgirls (13-7,
7-2) are headed to the postseason.
Crook County will have a tough test
Brian Rathbone/The Bulletin
The Ridgeview volleyball team celebrates clinching the Class 5A Intermountain Conference title with a victory over Crook County
on Tuesday night at Ridgeview High School.
“We worked really hard for it. I hope everyone appreciates how cool
it is to be IMC champs. Especially after last year when we lost to
Crook County for the IMC, so that makes it even better.”
— Kylee Rost, Ridgeview High senior libero
against Redmond on Thursday with
playoff-seeding implications, while
Ridgeview, with a conference title
in its back pocket, will enter its final
match of the regular season still with
a goal to accomplish.
“We want an undefeated con-
ference championship,” said Vig-
giano, adding that the Ravens went
unbeaten in IMC play in 2019 and
ended up with a state title.
“Then we get a week of practice to
work and fine tune some of the little
things and get better. Now we get to
host a playoff game, which is amaz-
ing.”
Also sealing a conference title
Tuesday evening was Bend High,
which clinched the program’s first
Class 6A Mountain Valley Confer-
ence championship since it joined in
2018.
See Volleyball / A6
— The Oregonian
COLLEGE
FOOTBALL
Lawyer: Rolovich
firing ‘unlawful’
Former Washing-
ton State football coach
Nick Rolovich’s termina-
tion for refusing to get a
COVID-19 vaccination was
unlawful and an attack on
his Catholic faith, his attor-
ney said Wednesday.
Attorney Brian Fahling
also said in a statement
that Rolovich intends to
take legal action and that
the litigation will detail
what the attorney called
athletic director Pat Chun’s
“animus towards Coach
Rolovich’s sincerely held
religious beliefs” and his
dishonesty at the expense
of the former coach.
Rolovich and four of
his assistants were fired
Monday for not comply-
ing with the governor’s
mandate that all state
employees be vaccinated
against the coronavirus.
The attorney said Rolovich
was escorted by campus
police to his car and not
allowed to speak to the
team or visit his office af-
ter his dismissal.
Rolovich had re-
quested a religious ex-
emption but it was de-
nied Monday, the state’s
vaccination deadline.
The statement didn’t
specify Rolovich’s religious
grounds for seeking an
exemption. Pope Francis
and the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops have
stated that all COVID-19
vaccines are morally ac-
ceptable and that Catho-
lics have a duty, responsi-
bility or obligation to be
vaccinated.
— Associated Press
COLLEGE FOOTBALL | OREGON STATE
NBA
League struggles during 1950s, QB Chance Nolan ‘just
begins its rise later in decade
little things away’ from a
bounceback performance
BY BRIAN MAHONEY
AP Basketball Writer
A career in the NBA
seemed such an uncertainty
as the 1950s arrived that Bob
Cousy considered driving
school a better option than
playing for a team he didn’t
even know how to find on a
map.
“Basketball was at the bot-
tom of the totem pole,” said
Cousy, one of the sport’s few
bankable stars at the time.
The NBA, known today
as a leader when it comes to
culture and racial issues, was
anything but at a time when
segregation divided the coun-
try. It was a powerless, fledg-
ling league trying to find its
footing. Franchises were fold-
ing and few paid much atten-
tion to the NBA.
When Jackie Robinson be-
came Major League Baseball’s
first Black player in 1947,
Cousy remembered it being
major national news.
Three years later, Cousy’s
Boston Celtics made Chuck
Cooper the NBA’s first Black
player to be drafted.
“And to this day I have yet
to read a story about Chuck
Cooper breaking the color
line in the NBA, because as I
say nobody gave a damn what
color we were or what we were
doing,” said Cousy, now 93.
The powerless NBA largely
sat idly by, watching events
like the Supreme Court ruled
on Brown v. Board of Educa-
tion challenging racial segre-
gation in public schools, Rosa
BY NICK DASCHEL
The Oregonian
AP file
New York’s Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton (8) and Boston’s Bob Cousy (14)
race for a loose ball in an opening period of a game Nov. 12, 1955, at
Madison Square Garden, in New York.
Parks refusing to give up her
seat on a bus in Montgomery,
Alabama, and national guard
troops being sent to Little
Rock, Arkansas, to enforce
desegregation and protect the
Little Rock Nine at Central
High School.
However, a foundation was
being built for what, as the
NBA begins its 75th season,
is one of the most influential
sports leagues in the world
— on and off the court. The
1950s would bring in the
league’s first Black stars. The
decade also saw the advent
of the 24-second shot clock,
which sped up the game and
made it a more attractive
product.
Outspoken and fiercely in-
dependent Black stars like Bill
Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and
Elgin Baylor became part of
the NBA fabric in the 1950s.
They brought a higher level
of all-around skill and athlet-
icism — along with attributes
that would later make the Hall
of Famers social and cultural
icons off the court — and pre-
decessors for today’s All-Stars.
“I think one thing that’s
true in sports throughout
time is that our heroes are
people that, on some level
we identify with them,” said
Johnny Smith, a professor of
sports history at Georgia Tech
whose research focuses on the
history of sports and Ameri-
can culture.
“But if you go back to the
’50s and the ’60s, this was a
moment of the civil rights
movement, when Black ath-
letes were breaking through,
integrating professional sports
leagues — the NBA, the NFL,
you go back to Jackie Robin-
son and Major League Base-
ball — and they became sym-
bols of racial pride, symbols
of Black achievement and that
mattered to folks in the Black
community,” Smith said.
See NBA / A7
CORVALLIS — Nine games
into his career as a starting
college quarterback, Oregon
State’s Chance Nolan already
sounds like a veteran.
There’s no ‘I’ in team, and
there’s rarely an ‘I’ in Nolan’s
answers. It’s about we.
Nolan’s successes are Ore-
gon State’s successes, and his
struggles are part of the offen-
sive unit.
It’s been a mixed bag for No-
lan this season. His first few
starts were razor sharp. Throws
were crisp and accurate, quar-
terback runs were used spar-
ingly but effective.
But of late, the passing game
has stalled, forcing the Bea-
vers to heavily lean on their
running game to move the
ball. Eventually, that’s not go-
ing to be enough, and perhaps
as soon as Saturday when the
Beavers face Utah. The Pac-12
South leaders aren’t known to
allow offenses to gash their de-
fense with the running game.
With Oregon State on a bye
last week, Nolan spent the ex-
tra time getting back to funda-
mentals and figuring out how
to make the Beavers’ passing
game a threat again.
“Offensively, we can be a lit-
tle bit sharper. There’s some
things on my end, a lot of
things on my end that I can
clean up,” Nolan said. “We’ve
got to get back to what we do.
We had success early on in
the year. There’s a lot of things
where, we’re just right there.
We’re just little things away
from putting a lot more points
on the board.”
If that sounds heavy on
vague and light on specifics, it
is. That’s much how offensive
coordinator Brian Lindgren
described OSU’s troubled pass-
ing attack the past two games,
against Washington and Wash-
ington State.
Nothing major, but a lot to
clean up, from details of cer-
tain pass routes to timing of
throws and protection issues.
Lindgren said some of it’s as
simple as finding the pass plays
and routes that work, and build
off those. And the ones that ar-
en’t working, either fix or junk
them.
Yes, the passing game is
about we, but it starts with
the quarterback. And Nolan
— who completed 18 of 40
passes for 206 yards collectively
against UW and WSU — has
had a hand in the misfiring.
Lindgren believes he’s see-
ing improvement from Nolan
since the Washington State loss
on Oct. 9.
“I really like the way he’s
been practicing. When you
struggle at times, you’ve got to
go back to work on the practice
field,” Lindgren said.
See Nolan / A6