Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Sports Photo by Jessa Love Adams/The Eagle September 8,2011 Page 4 Utah State University-Eastern volleyball Lady Eagles returned to the court after the summer break. They were the first students to return to campus, and the first team to play on the new court. The Lady Eagles began three-a-day practices on Monday, Aug. 15. Returning as sophomores players include Nicole Roberts, Abigail Ericson, Danee Mer- rell, Joy Malone, Kylie Cordon, Miranda Parkinson, and Kristine Reddington. New players to the team are Sa- mara Wells, Beth Liddell, Megan Peterson, Malorie White, Lindzee Bair, and Whitney Fieldsted. The team comes from Utah, Idaho and Montana. Co-head coaches Chelsey Warburton and Grant Barra- clough were pleased with the way the team started off their practice season. “We had good three-a-day practices where the girls worked hard. You could tell who had not worked out as much over the break, and who was a little out of shape. They stepped up and made up the difference quickly,” Barraclough commented. Typical with the beginning of most athletic seasons, there are bound to be injuries. Barraclough said, “We are working to rehab those with injuries.” The Lady Eagles began their season play with a tournament invite to the College of Southern Idaho on August 26-27, 2011. The first games proved the team had little time to prepare. Many other schools at the tournament had been practicing since the first of August. “We were weeks behind because the other teams had been playing together for almost a month,” said Barraclough. The team won a set in a match against a four -year school, Carroll College from Helena, Montana. Warburton said, “We tried dif- ferent rotations to see who could play well together.” Barraclough added, “The dif- ferent rotations we tried didn’t gel well together. Carroll had really tall girls, who put us out of rhythm.” Saturday fared better for the Lady Eagles. “Once we found the rotation that fit, it was too late to pull ahead,” said Barraclough. Warburton added, “The girls played better on Saturday. We went five games against North- west College. There were a few service errors, but we worked better together.” They team visited Salt Lake Community College on Septem- ber 2-3, for another four-game tournament. Friday’s games had the Lady Eagles losing in three games against Western Wyoming. They then played North Idaho College and lost in five games. Saturday was also a struggle against Western Nebraska and Southern Idaho. Coaches have great expec- tations for this year’s team. Barraclough said, “We have a good defensive team. The de- fense makes other teams work hard to play us. We have the offensive tools to beat teams with, but we have a strong and solid defense.” Coach War- burton said, “I expect the girls to become more comfortable with playing with each other. I also want to make our program better and stronger.” The team will travel to Arizona for a three-day tourna- ment September 8-10. They will finally be back in home territory on Sept. 16, for an All-Star game at 7 p.m. in the BDAC. David Osborne Jr. sports editor [email protected] T-E-A-M, that spells team. Okay, it’s only those with good memories or who have been here awhile who remember “Smurf Turf,” the thinking person’s sports column. “Smurf Turf” took a couple of years off while the columnist did what many young men of his faith do shortly after reaching the age of 19: We pin a name tag on our suits and head off for a couple of years and answer to the name “Elder.” But I’m back now, and so is Smurf Turf. Why not pick up where we sort of left off, going back to a column published in December 2008? The title of that piece was “Earth to Craig Thompson,” and it was a call out to the Mountain West Conference (MWC) com- missioner to “expand now or pay the price.” Fast forward to now, and Har- old Camping could only wish he had the Smurf’s crystal ball. Most of the dust has settled, and the MWC looks as though it got left behind. That gasping noise you hear is from a conference that is sputtering. BYU? Announced their own football independence, Utah? Set sail for the Pac-12. TCU? Headed to the Big East. Just like that, the three big- gest draws are gone. Sure, Boise State signed on, and that would have been a nice little coup, had the three other schools stayed around the schoolyard to play ball with the Broncos. BSU becomes the consolation prize. One good school in, three better schools out. While the MWC may be gasp- ing for air, the original Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is on life support. First, the Broncos defected. But that was only the warm-up. Hawaii, Fresno State, and Nevada are bolting for the MWC next year. Conference czar Karl Benson went on an expansion hunt that turned more into an ex- pansion scramble. He tried to play it cool, pulling the “no worries,” card from the bottom of the deck, but the future of the WAC is about as bright as a Sunday morning in Seattle. So the WAC settled for the sure thing, which is to say it settled for less. During the WAC’s expansion scramble, it continually said that “universities with football pro- grams will be the focus.” Well, it sounded good, but in the end, the WAC invited the University of Texas-San Antonio (this will be the inaugural football season for the school), University of Denver (no football program, but a great hockey tradition ... close enough, I guess), Texas State (yep, got a football program, although the winner of just four games last year), Seattle University (no football) and University of Texas- Arlington (no football, but vague promises to launch a program in the next five years). Reports say that six schools from the Big Sky Conference were invited to join the WAC and all of them quickly said, “No thanks.” Big Sky Commissioner Doug Fullerton couldn’t resist throwing a little dirt in the general direction of the WAC when he said, “We’re in a better place than the WAC,” and you could hear the gulps all up and down the Continental Divide. Fullerton then followed up with comments about maybe the Big Sky should invite WAC teams Utah State and Idaho into the fold. Double gulp. Fighting words, anybody? Let’s bring this a little closer to home. In case the WAC hasn’t noticed, there’s an up-and-coming sports program at Utah Valley University, just over the hill from here. Sure, UVU doesn’t have a football program, but remember, neither do Denver, Seattle and U-T Arlington. UVU was chomping at the bit to join the WAC but never got invited to the dance. It’s a shame, because UVU is a rising star in athletics. The past two seasons, their major sports programs have posted a 75-25-1 record. And that stat DOES NOT include a UVU baseball team that has gone 48-4 in the last two years. And the basketball team has 26 consecutive winning seasons. Ridiculous! Some of you are thinking, “But it’s the academics ...” Not so! UVU’s academic standing has been on a steady upward swing, too. And the school once known as the place where kids went because they couldn’t get into BYU now boasts a larger student population than the campus higher on the hill. Who’s laughing now? So here’s my take on it: UVU, don’t settle for the WAC. You can do better. The light is dimming on the WAC. And if the MWC wants to blow the candle out on the WAC, it should invite Utah Valley to the Mountain West. Of course, that football program hurdle will need to be worked out, but that’s not impos- sible to do. More changes are in store. Texas A&M accepted an invite to the South- eastern Conference (SEC) at press time. The PAC-12 (or 16) is sitting pretty as the premiere conference west of the Mississip- pi. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East may merge. More moves and changes are likely to come in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the MWC, WAC, Big Sky and bunches of other small conferences are listen- ing for the clock to strike twelve and then preparing to turn into pumpkins. How will they survive? I Don’t know. It’s a tough old world out there. You’ve got to be creative. You have to think outside the box. You’ve got to take some risks. Maybe it’s time to call little ol’ Rexburg, Idaho, and see if a once- mighty JC sports program there is willing to be resurrected. Who knows? Such a bold move might be just enough to reduce the Endangered Conference List by one. KC Smurthwaite editor and chief [email protected] The endangered conference list Smurf Turf: Katie Bigelow Staff writer [email protected] Early season woes Whitney Fieldsted goes up for the hit during a practice in preparation for upcoming games. Photo by Jessa Love Adams/The Eagle T-E-A-M, that spells team. You can ask any first or second grader that you know to spell team, and hopefully, if our educational system isn’t completely failing, they will spell it that way. It really doesn’t take an English major to tell you that there is not an “i” in the middle of team. We are in the middle of baseball season and football season started last weekend. With all of this go- ing on, I was thinking about what makes these sports so great. It isn’t necessarily watching a batter hit a walk-off home run in baseball or watching a football player run a kickoff back for a touchdown as time expires on the clock. The most thrilling thing about these sports is watching two different teams try their hardest to win. A team is like a clock, from the outside, looking at the face of the clock you cannot see everything that is going on inside to make it all work, you just see the hands move to tell you what time it is. But if you remove the face and take a glance at the inside, you will see cogs and gears that are different in many ways all working together for the outcome that we see when we go back and look at the face. Teams are the same basic concept, many different moving parts that all work together to make the whole machine work, and hopefully win. Last basketball season, I had the chance to go up to Idaho to watch the men’s basketball team play in their conference tournament game. Unfortunately, we lost the very first game that we played against Salt Lake Community College, and I admit that I was rather bummed. The lesson I learned that night will never leave me though. While sitting in the lobby of the hotel with the assistant coaches, I learned an important concept about teams. Assistant coach Chris Skinkis, was blaming himself for the loss, saying he hadn’t worked hard enough and hadn’t been a good enough coach because the team lost. The other assistant coach, Chris Romney said that it was Skinkis’ fault because he made the entire team miss their free-throws and jump shots. What I realized was that it wasn’t the coaches’ fault that they lost, it was the teams’. The old adage, “win as a team, lose as a team” had never hit me so hard. Teams that work together, play together and either fall short or are enshrined in glory together. Just like a sports team, we all have a group that we work with, whether it be an athletic team, an academic group, or even just the group that we hang out with. We are a part of the cogs and gears in that group helping to drive and work the machine that we are. T-E-A-M; it is that simple, a group working together and no individu- als. This is why teams have been on the tee.
The Eagle
Mar 24, 2016
Student newspaper
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Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Cyan Magenta Yellow Black
page 6 Sports Page 5
Photo by Jessa Love Adams/The Eagle
September 8,2011Page 4
Utah State University-Eastern volleyball Lady Eagles returned to the court after the summer break. They were the first students to return to campus, and the first team to play on the new court. The Lady Eagles began three-a-day practices on Monday, Aug. 15.
Returning as sophomores players include Nicole Roberts, Abigail Ericson, Danee Mer-rell, Joy Malone, Kylie Cordon, Miranda Parkinson, and Kristine Reddington.
New players to the team are Sa-mara Wells, Beth Liddell, Megan Peterson, Malorie White, Lindzee Bair, and Whitney Fieldsted. The team comes from Utah, Idaho and Montana.
Co-head coaches Chelsey Warburton and Grant Barra-clough were pleased with the way the team started off their practice season. “We had good three-a-day practices where the girls worked hard. You could tell who had not worked out as much over the break, and who was a little out of shape. They stepped up and made up the difference quickly,” Barraclough commented.
Typical with the beginning of most athletic seasons, there are bound to be injuries. Barraclough said, “We are working to rehab those with injuries.”
The Lady Eagles began their season play with a tournament invite to the College of Southern Idaho on August 26-27, 2011. The first games proved the team had little time to prepare. Many other schools at the tournament had been practicing since the first of August. “We were weeks behind because the other teams had been playing together for almost a month,” said Barraclough.
The team won a set in a match against a four -year school, Carroll College from Helena, Montana. Warburton said, “We tried dif-ferent rotations to see who could play well together.”
Barraclough added, “The dif-ferent rotations we tried didn’t gel well together. Carroll had really tall girls, who put us out of rhythm.”
Saturday fared better for the Lady Eagles. “Once we found the rotation that fit, it was too late to pull ahead,” said Barraclough.
Warburton added, “The girls played better on Saturday. We went five games against North-west College. There were a few service errors, but we worked better together.”
They team visited Salt Lake Community College on Septem-ber 2-3, for another four-game
tournament. Friday’s games had the Lady Eagles losing in three games against Western Wyoming. They then played North Idaho College and lost in five games. Saturday was also a struggle against Western Nebraska and
Southern Idaho. Coaches have great expec-
tations for this year’s team. Barraclough said, “We have a good defensive team. The de-fense makes other teams work hard to play us. We have the
offensive tools to beat teams with, but we have a strong and solid defense.” Coach War-burton said, “I expect the girls to become more comfortable with playing with each other. I also want to make our program
better and stronger.”The team will travel to
Arizona for a three-day tourna-ment September 8-10. They will finally be back in home territory on Sept. 16, for an All-Star game at 7 p.m. in the BDAC.
David Osborne Jr.sports editor
T-E-A-M, that spells team.
Okay, it’s only those with good memories or who have been here awhile who remember “Smurf Turf,” the thinking person’s sports column. “Smurf Turf” took a couple of years off while the columnist did what many young men of his faith do shortly after reaching the age of 19: We pin a name tag on our suits and head off for a couple of years and answer to the name “Elder.”
But I’m back now, and so is Smurf Turf. Why not pick up where we sort of left off, going back to a column published in December 2008? The title of that piece was “Earth to Craig Thompson,” and it was a call out to the Mountain West Conference (MWC) com-missioner to “expand now or pay the price.”
Fast forward to now, and Har-old Camping could only wish he had the Smurf’s crystal ball. Most of the dust has settled, and the MWC looks as though it got left behind. That gasping noise you hear is from a conference that is sputtering.
BYU? Announced their own football independence,
Utah? Set sail for the Pac-12.TCU? Headed to the Big East.
Just like that, the three big-gest draws are gone. Sure, Boise State signed on, and that would have been a nice little coup, had the three other schools stayed around the schoolyard to play ball with the Broncos. BSU becomes the consolation prize. One good school in, three better schools out.
While the MWC may be gasp-ing for air, the original Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is on life support. First, the Broncos defected. But that was only the warm-up. Hawaii, Fresno State, and Nevada are bolting for the MWC next year. Conference czar Karl Benson went on an expansion hunt that turned more into an ex-pansion scramble. He tried to play it cool, pulling the “no worries,” card from the bottom of the deck, but the future of the WAC is about as bright as a Sunday morning in Seattle.
So the WAC settled for the sure thing, which is to say it settled for less. During the WAC’s expansion scramble, it continually said that “universities with football pro-grams will be the focus.” Well, it sounded good, but in the end, the WAC invited the University of Texas-San Antonio (this will be the inaugural football season for the school), University of Denver (no football program, but a great hockey tradition ... close
enough, I guess), Texas State (yep, got a football program, although the winner of just four games last year), Seattle University (no football) and University of Texas-Arlington (no football, but vague promises to launch a program in the next five years).
Reports say that six schools from the Big Sky Conference were invited to join the WAC and all of them quickly said, “No thanks.” Big Sky Commissioner Doug Fullerton couldn’t resist throwing a little dirt in the general direction of the WAC when he said, “We’re in a better place than the WAC,” and you could hear the gulps all up and down the Continental Divide. Fullerton then followed up with comments about maybe the Big Sky should invite WAC teams Utah State and Idaho into the fold. Double gulp. Fighting words, anybody?
Let’s bring this a little closer to home. In case the WAC hasn’t noticed, there’s an up-and-coming sports program at Utah Valley University, just over the hill from here. Sure, UVU doesn’t have a football program, but remember, neither do Denver, Seattle and U-T Arlington. UVU was chomping at the bit to join the WAC but never got invited to the dance.
It’s a shame, because UVU is a rising star in athletics. The past two seasons, their major sports programs have posted a 75-25-1 record. And that stat DOES NOT include a UVU baseball team
that has gone 48-4 in the last two years. And the basketball team has 26 consecutive winning seasons. Ridiculous!
Some of you are thinking, “But it’s the academics ...” Not so! UVU’s academic standing has been on a steady upward swing, too. And the school once known as the place where kids went because they couldn’t get into BYU now boasts a larger student population than the campus higher on the hill. Who’s laughing now?
So here’s my take on it: UVU, don’t settle for the WAC. You can do better. The light is dimming on the WAC. And if the MWC wants to blow the candle out on the WAC, it should invite Utah Valley to the Mountain West. Of course, that football program hurdle will need to be worked out, but that’s not impos-sible to do.
More changes are in store. Texas A&M accepted an invite to the South-eastern Conference (SEC) at press time. The PAC-12 (or 16) is sitting pretty as the premiere conference west of the Mississip-pi. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East may merge. More moves and changes are
likely to come in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, the MWC, WAC, Big Sky and bunches of other small conferences are listen-ing for the clock to strike twelve and then preparing to turn into pumpkins.
How will they survive? I Don’t know. It’s a tough old world out there. You’ve got to be creative. You have to think outside the box. You’ve got to take some risks. Maybe it’s time to call little ol’ Rexburg, Idaho, and see if a once-mighty JC sports program there is willing to be resurrected.
Who knows? Such a bold move might be just enough to reduce the Endangered Conference List by one.
KC Smurthwaiteeditor and chief
The endangered conference list
Smurf Turf:
Katie BigelowStaff writer
Early season woes
Whitney Fieldsted goes up for the hit during a practice in preparation for upcoming games.Photo by Jessa Love Adams/The Eagle
T-E-A-M, that spells team. You can ask any first or second
grader that you know to spell team, and hopefully, if our educational system isn’t completely failing, they will spell it that way. It really doesn’t take an English major to tell you that there is not an “i” in the middle of team.
We are in the middle of baseball season and football season started last weekend. With all of this go-ing on, I was thinking about what makes these sports so great. It isn’t necessarily watching a batter hit a walk-off home run in baseball or watching a football player run a kickoff back for a touchdown as time expires on the clock. The most thrilling thing about these sports is watching two different teams try their hardest to win.
A team is like a clock, from the outside, looking at the face of the clock you cannot see everything that is going on inside to make it all work, you just see the hands move to tell you what time it is. But if you remove the face and take a glance at the inside, you will see cogs and gears that are different in many ways all working together for the outcome that we see when we go back and look at the face. Teams are the same basic concept, many different moving parts that all work together to make the whole machine work, and hopefully win.
Last basketball season, I had the chance to go up to Idaho to watch the men’s basketball team play in their conference tournament game. Unfortunately, we lost the very first game that we played against Salt Lake Community College, and I admit that I was rather bummed. The lesson I learned that night will never leave me though.
While sitting in the lobby of the hotel with the assistant coaches, I learned an important concept about teams. Assistant coach Chris Skinkis, was blaming himself for the loss, saying he hadn’t worked hard enough and hadn’t been a good enough coach because the team lost. The other assistant coach, Chris Romney said that it was Skinkis’ fault because he made the entire team miss their free-throws and jump shots. What I realized was that it wasn’t the coaches’ fault that they lost, it was the teams’. The old adage, “win as a team, lose as a team” had never hit me so hard.
Teams that work together, play together and either fall short or are enshrined in glory together. Just like a sports team, we all have a group that we work with, whether it be an athletic team, an academic group, or even just the group that we hang out with. We are a part of the cogs and gears in that group helping to drive and work the machine that we are.
T-E-A-M; it is that simple, a group working together and no individu-als.
This is why teams have been on the tee.
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