Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 2021)
INSIDE: COMICS, OPINIONS & CLASSIFIEDS S PORTS B Stay connected with local sports! Get text alerts with up-to-date scores and schedules from Central Oregon high school sports events. Sign up at bendbulletin.com/text or scan the QR code. THE BULLETIN • SaTUrday, NovEmBEr 13, 2021 bendbulletin.com/sports MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL NBA COMMENTARY Coaches vs. Racism educating youth Blazers president Chris McGowan announces resignation WASHINGTON — The executive director of the Coaches vs. Racism cam- paign that brought men’s college basketball teams from Michigan and Prairie View A&M to the nation’s capital says he found inspiration for his new project from Coaches vs. Cancer. “We wanted to make it a full experience, rather than just a basketball game. Our vision is to kind of model it after Coaches vs. Cancer — (Dick Vitale) and ESPN have done a really good job of keeping the nar- rative alive of fighting cancer,” Darryl Woods said in a telephone interview. “Cancer is a dreaded dis- ease, and we look at rac- ism as a disease. No one is born with it, but it can be brought upon you in vari- ous ways.” Coach Juwan How- ard and his No. 6-ranked Wolverines (1-0) will face Prairie View A&M (0-2) in a Big Ten vs. Southwest- ern Athletic Conference matchup Saturday night. The inaugural Coaches vs. Racism contest is about more than the game. Among other as- sociated events, Michigan was scheduled to visit the National Museum of Afri- can American History and Culture on Friday. “Part of our mission is to educate, especially with this current gener- ation,” Woods said. “Our message is bridging the racial divide through sports.” He said his hope is to eventually schedule “mul- tiple games in multiple cities” under the Coaches vs. Racism banner, and include women’s basket- ball, as well as perhaps other sports. — Associated Press BY JOHN CANZANO The Oregonian Craig Mitchelldyer/AP file Portland Trail Blazers owner Jody Allen, center, watches warmups with general manager Neil Olshey, left, and president Chris McGowan, right, before the team’s game against the Denver Nuggets in Portland in 2019. Well, it wasn’t the resigna- tion the franchise deserved but when Chris McGowan an- nounced on Friday that he’s de- cided to leave the Trail Blazers I wasn’t surprised. He’s apparently had enough. McGowan has long been viewed as a rational, sane, grounded corner of the dys- functional NBA operation. The team president told me on Friday that his departure had been in the works for months. He resigned officially on Nov. 1 and when I asked the question everyone will naturally ask, McGowan offered, “My leaving has nothing to do with that.” That — is the independent investigation the organiza- tion is currently conducting. It centers around allegations of a toxic and hostile workplace fostered by general manager Neil Olshey. The Blazers have hired an independent law firm to re- view complaints and presum- ably wash Olshey’s mouth out with a bar of soap and send him packing. A franchise source told me “we are no- where near” close to complet- ing the probe and didn’t expect any other major announce- ments on Friday. Olshey stays on the job, for now. Jody Allen is still the owner. Which is only to say that Trail Blazers, Inc. didn’t get any happier and healthier with this personnel move. But we got a good peek into how uncom- fortable it must be to work in a place that doesn’t line up with your value system. McGowan knows the optics and timing of his resignation will raise ques- tions. He could have stayed on the job, per his contract, through June but he threw in the keys. Don’t miss the signifi- cance of that. Said one team source: “Good for Chris. It’s tough to stick around when you don’t share the values of the organization and it got worse when Jody ar- rived. It’s just a bunch of bad people treating good people really bad.” See Blazers / B2 PREP FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS On a hot streak After navigating a tough schedule, La Pine travels to Warrenton for a Class 3A quarterfinal game Saturday BY BRIAN RATHBONE • The Bulletin The state football playoffs just began last week, but La Pine feels as though it has been in the postseason since the season began in Ryan Brennecke/Bulletin file early September. La Pine’s Dylan Hankey (20) runs through the Junction City defense during a game earlier this season at La Pine High School. When the No. 5 Hawks (6-3) kick off their Class 3A quarterfinal game on the road against No. 4 Warrenton (7-2) at CMH Field in Astoria Satur- day at 1 p.m., it will be the ninth time in their 10 games that they have faced a team that made the playoffs. On a four-game winning streak — which in- cludes their first playoff win since 2000, 36-6 over Amity last week — the Hawks have outscored op- ponents 166-28 and are one of the most feared teams in the 3A postseason. “That was the purpose of the tough schedule,” said La Pine coach Bo DeForest. “Most of the teams we have played this year are still playing.” But before the winning streak and before be- coming the bullies of Friday nights, the Hawks were a team staring at a losing record through their first five games, and all three of the losses came down to a handful of plays and as many points. In many of those losses, DeForest said, it was his team losing the game rather than the other team beating them. In a late-September game against Henley, a team that advanced to the 4A quarter- finals, the Hawks turned the ball over four times, committed untimely penalties, and yet still had a chance to win until a game-winning drive stalled inside the 10-yard line. “If you look at our games in the past and the games that we have lost, if we play clean in these then we are winning by multiple touchdowns,” De- Forest said. “We have shot ourselves in the foot.” To compound the worry about the potential of SKIING Shiffrin ramping up training COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. — Mikaela Shiffrin is once again putting her mending back through extreme tests: double training sessions filled with twists, turns and crouching into a tuck po- sition to generate speed. Outside of a little stiff- ness — “Nothing that is not manageable,” the two-time Olympic gold medalist said — every- thing has checked out just fine. Another good sign is that Shiffrin was back out there at the U.S. Ski Team’s speed center at Copper Mountain on Friday, 24 hours after her first dou- ble dose of practice on the slopes in weeks. It’s a long way from when her training was hampered by a back ail- ment she likened to a muscle spasm or strain. She remains intent on not sitting out any upcoming World Cup races. One caveat: She will be careful. There are big goals ahead, after all, as the Beijing Games ap- proach in February. “I’m moving in the right direction. So that’s comforting in a way,” Shiffrin said. “(The back) still gets aggravated sometimes, but that was a really, really big step forward (double training sessios).” For now, her sched- ule looks like this: Slalom races next weekend in Levi, Finland, followed by a Nov. 27-28 stop in Kil- lington, Vermont. Then speed events at Lake Lou- ise in Canada in early De- cember. — Associated Press missing the playoffs, La Pine had its first game of the season canceled due to poor air quality. When there are only nine regular-season games, missing a game can ruin playoff chances. Even the head coach admitted that some were concerned that perhaps they might be on the out- side looking in at the 16-team 3A playoff bracket after some of the early season losses. But DeFor- est said he did not feel that from his players, who showed up after losses ready to get back to work. “Every Monday when we showed up they never wavered,” DeForest said. “It was unnecessary worry, kids were already aware we are a great team. I was afraid that we were buried in a hole with our schedule.” See La Pine / B2 2022 WINTER GAMES U.S. Olympians face uncertain road to Beijing BY EDDIE PELLS AP National Writer DENVER — Making an Olympic team is hard enough. This winter, those who earn their spots on the U.S. squad might find it takes even more work to get to Beijing. Among the slow trickle of information coming out of China in advance of February’s Olympics was news that, with virtually no flights operating between North America and China, Olympians very well might have to get to Beijing through a still-undetermined set of connecting flights that could more than double their travel time. As things stand this month, most of the 250 or so athletes who make the U.S. team will need to take a charter that con- nects them to Beijing-bound flights scheduled out of four cities, none of which are in North America. The uncertainty has turned what is already a logistical chal- lenge — getting all these Olym- pians and their thousands of pounds of equipment to China — into something even more complex. And it has turned what is already an event be- set with unprecedented chal- lenges — less freedom of move- ment, a vaccine mandate and the prospect of competing in a country that is poised to re- strict negative coverage, includ- ing over widely documented human-rights abuses — into something even more difficult. “We’re very used to being flexible with our planning and schedule,” U.S. skier Mikaela Shiffrin said in a recent in- terview with The Associated Press. “But we very rarely don’t have a plan at all. So that is defi- nitely another added source of stress.” Difficult travel is nothing new for Olympic athletes, and their schedules have only be- come more jumbled in the wake of the COVID-19 pan- demic that reshuffled compe- tition schedules and, with New Zealand mostly shut down, made it even harder to find snow during the offseason. The U.S. Olympic team’s sponsor, Delta Airlines, might still be able to arrange charter flights directly from the U.S. to Beijing, but with 11 weeks until the start of the Games, every- thing is still up in the air. As of this week, approved flights into Beijing are expected to depart from Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Paris. The U.S. ski and snowboard team’s ten- tative plan is to charter flights from Los Angeles to one of the points in Asia, then switch to Olympic charters. Further complicating the issue is that some of these athletes are in Europe for the World Cup season. Without normal com- mercial options available, the task of moving them around is more difficult. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is ul- timately in charge of getting Andy Wong/AP file Visitors wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walk by a statue featuring Winter Olympics figure skating on display at the Shougang Park in Beijing in May. the ski team and the rest of the U.S. teams, outside of hockey, to Beijing. With an extra con- nection through Asia, or a stop in Europe, travel times could be around double what would normally be a 12-hour journey from the U.S. West Coast to Beijing. Rick Adams, the USOPC’s chief of sport performance, said everyone was aware that the quick turnaround after the Tokyo Olympics and the COVID-19 protocols “would make planning for Beijing very complex.” “That said, we are exploring all options to get our Olympic and Paralympic athletes — as well as support staff — to the Games safely and efficiently,” he said. Much of the travel confusion stems from U.S. and Chinese carriers’ decisions to reduce the number of flights between the countries from more than 300 a week to single digits. See Games / B2
