SPORTS
January 6, 2014
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 9
Asians in American sports w Asian Americans in world sports
Mariota and Niumatalolo win big in college bowls
By Mike Street
Special to The Asian Reporter
BOWL WINS. Navy Midshipmen head coach Ken Niumatalolo (left photo, center)
led his team to victory over the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, 24-6, during the Armed
Forces Bowl college football game in Fort Worth, Texas. Marcus Mariota (right photo,
#8) of the University of Oregon is pursued by Caleb Bluiett (#42) of the University
of Texas at Austin during his team’s 30-7 win over the Longhorns at the Valero Alamo
Bowl in San Antonio, Texas. Both games were played on Monday, December 30, 2013.
season and he led the team to an
easy victory.
On the first drive of the game,
Reynolds added another rushing
score, making him the first
quarterback to reach 30 in a
season and one of just four FBS
players to reach that mark.
MTSU could only respond to the
score with a field goal, struggling
to move the ball, as they would all
day.
MTSU’s frustration became
evident by their increasingly
physical play. After having his
eyes gouged, Reynolds had a visor
added to his helmet to prevent
further problems. The player who
did so was later ejected after two
unsportsmanlike conduct calls,
half of all such penalties assessed
against the Blue Raiders, who
also committed two personal
fouls.
Despite these infringements,
the Midshipmen kept their cool
and kept scoring. The Blue
Raiders only added another field
goal during the course of the
game, while Navy cracked the
game open with two more touch-
downs in the fourth quarter.
Reynolds scored again to boost
his season total to 31, finishing as
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the game’s leading rusher with
86 yards and its leading scorer.
Navy’s bowl game victory was its
first since 2009, and with
Reynolds at quarterback for the
next two seasons, Niumatalolo
should see continued success.
Similarly dominant in their
bowl game, Marcus Mariota and
the Oregon Ducks entered this
season with high expectations
despite
offseason
changes,
including losing head coach Chip
Kelly to the Philadelphia Eagles.
The season before leaving, Kelly
lost starting quarterback Darron
Thomas, the team’s all-time
leader in touchdown passes, to
the National Football League
draft.
As his replacement, Kelly
chose Mariota as Oregon’s first
freshman in 21 years to start the
season at quarterback, bypassing
Thomas’ backup, the older Bryan
Bennett. Mariota repaid Kelly’s
confidence by leading the Ducks
to the nation’s second spot,
throwing a touchdown in all 13
starts and setting a conference
freshman scoring record. He led
the nation in completion percen-
tage and set a new Oregon record
for points scored in a season with
AP Photo/Eric Gay
AP Photo/Matt Strasen
A
side from Samoan line-
men, few college teams
feature Asian players,
and even fewer have Asian
coaches. This year’s bowl season
contained two of these rarities:
Oregon quarterback Marcus
Mariota and Navy head coach
Ken Niumatalolo. Both emerged
victorious in their respective
bowl games, solidly trouncing
their opponents.
Niumatalolo became the first
Samoan head coach in college
football history and the second
Polynesian head coach in
Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)
history when he was named the
Navy head coach in late 2007.
Since then, he’s gone on to
establish a new standard of
excellence with the Midshipmen.
Among other records, he has
won the most games (40) of any
coach in his first five seasons, and
his win total is already the
school’s fourth best. Next season,
he should win the seven games
needed to tie Navy’s all-time
leader, George Welsh. Niumata-
lolo is also the first coach to lead
Navy to a bowl game in each of his
first three seasons, and the first
Service Academy head coach to
win the Commander-in-Chief’s
trophy in his first two years.
Niumatalolo continued to rack
up the wins this season, with a
9-4 overall record that included
an undefeated home record. Un-
like the slow, grinding offenses of
the past, this year’s Midshipmen
have averaged more than 33
points per game, including two
games scoring more than 50
points, and four more topping the
40 mark. And most of these
games weren’t shooting matches:
Navy’s average margin of victory
was more than 18.
After
a
strong
season,
Niumatalolo and his Middies
faced the Middle Tennessee State
University (MTSU) Blue Raiders
in the Bell Helicopter Armed
Forces Bowl. Navy sophomore
sensation, quarterback Keenan
Reynolds, entered the game with
29 rushing touchdowns this
228, which ranked 14th in the
country.
Under its new head coach this
season, Oregon started out
strong, but failed to deliver on
lofty expectations. The team won
its first eight games but stumbled
against Stanford and Arizona,
finishing the season 11-2 and
ranked 10th.
Mariota entered the Stanford
game with a knee brace, having
sprained his MCL in the previous
contest. That he played under
such conditions shows his endur-
ance; that his team could not win
without him at his best shows his
importance. Whatever the reason
for those two losses, they kept
Oregon from reaching a BCS
bowl for the first time in five
years.
Instead, they settled for an
Alamo Bowl matchup against the
unranked Texas Longhorns. A
healthy Mariota helped the
Ducks trample the Longhorns,
who wanted the win for its
departing coach, the legendary
Mack Brown. But emotion wasn’t
enough to overcome the quick-
hitting offense and smothering
defense of the Ducks.
Although Texas had the ball
first, Oregon’s Avery Patterson
intercepted a pass from quarter-
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back Case McCoy and ran it back
for the game’s first score. Oregon
scored again on its first
possession, with Matt Wogan
hitting a short field goal, and
when Texas responded with a
touchdown to trail by just three,
the game looked like it might be
competitive. Instead, Oregon
added a field goal a few minutes
later, then a touchdown on a
shovel pass from Mariota to Josh
Huff with just under a minute to
play in the half, and the rout was
on.
This was the last offensive
touchdown that the Ducks would
score in the game, as Wogan
kicked one fewer field goal in the
game than he had all season.
Mariota experienced cramps on
the team’s first drive in the
second half; this and the lopsided
score shifted the game plan to a
more conservative and slower
pace.
Regardless, Mariota led all
players in rushing yards with
133, eclipsed McCoy in the air by
throwing 253 yards to McCoy’s
48, and was named Player of the
Game for his accomplishments.
As rare as it is to see a Samoan
under center, Oregonians can
expect to see Mariota excelling
again for the Ducks in 2014.
Cave in Indonesia reveals
history of ancient tsunamis
Continued from page 2
cy.”
Despite the long record
preserved in the cave,
Rubin said it did not
provide any clear clues
about tsunami frequency
or when events might
happen in a relatively close
period of time.
Geologist Kerry Sieh,
director of the Singapore
group and also part of the
cave investigation, has
predicted that another
monster quake could rock
the area in the next few
decades. They tend to come
in cycles and the 2004
temblor
heaped
more
pressure on the fault.
However, the history is so
variable, it’s impossible to
make an exact forecast.
“By learning about the
type of tsunamis that
happened in the past,
maybe we can do planning
for mitigation for the next
tsunami,”
said
Nazli
Ismail, head of the physics
and
geophysics
department at Syiah Kuala
University in Banda Aceh
who worked on the project.
Indonesia
is
an
archipelago located on the
so-called “Ring of Fire,” a
horseshoe of fault lines and
volcanoes surrounding the
Pacific Basin. It is home to
some of the world’s biggest
and
deadliest
seismic
activity.
Mark your calendar! The Year of the Horse begins January 31, 2014. Our special issue celebrating the Lunar New Year will be published on January 20, 2104.