Tom Taylor – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Fri, 12 Jul 2013 09:51:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Tom Taylor – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Taylor: Soccer has a place in American sports https://stanforddaily.com/2013/07/12/taylor-soccer-has-a-place-in-american-sports/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/07/12/taylor-soccer-has-a-place-in-american-sports/#respond Fri, 12 Jul 2013 09:51:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1078032 On Sunday, June 30, the San Jose Earthquakes welcomed the Los Angeles Galaxy to Stanford Stadium in another California Clásico rivalry game. A year ago I was lucky enough to watch the same contest from the media box high above the field. The stadium looked packed, you could even hear the cheering throughout from the heavens, and the Quakes edged an eventful 4-3 contest to seal a home win. I had never seen Stanford Stadium that full or that loud; I was impressed.

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Probably for the first time ever, I feel I did July Fourth right this year.

Warming up two days earlier, I went to see the Cubs’ first-ever appearance at the Oakland Coliseum. America’s favorite pastime rewarded me with a three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth and a thrilling comeback for the A’s. On the day itself, I ate a secret-family-recipe apple pie before rowing out onto the Bay to watch the fireworks light up the night sky above Redwood City.

But it was the events right here on campus a few days earlier that made this year’s holiday special for me.

On Sunday, June 30, the San Jose Earthquakes welcomed the Los Angeles Galaxy to Stanford Stadium in another California Clásico rivalry game. A year ago I was lucky enough to watch the same contest from the media box high above the field. The stadium looked packed, you could even hear the cheering throughout from the heavens, and the Quakes edged an eventful 4-3 contest to seal a home win. I had never seen Stanford Stadium that full or that loud; I was impressed.

But watching live sports isn’t really about watching live sports; it’s about living them. So this year, instead of watching from safety and security up high, I went and sat down in the stands to join everyone else.

Once the sun had set and my friends and I could actually look out across the field without risking vision damage — I realize now why those seats were so cheap — I could finally focus both on the game and on my surroundings. The Galaxy played a better first half and headed into the break ahead 1-0. And strangely, I was enjoying that fact. Not because I’m an LA fan, but because the fans weren’t happy. Even little kids were berating the referee and groaning in despair each time the Quakes lost out to bad play or bad calls. It was clear this game really meant something to those around me.

This contest wasn’t thrilling every second of the way through, but that is no criticism; such games are a vanishing rarity in any sport, even the American ones. The last two baseball games I went to — a walk-off home win in the tenth for the Padres and the comeback win for the A’s — were frustratingly slow for sizeable chunks. Real fans, though, know that, and I appeared to be surrounded by them.

Things went from bad to worse in the second half for the Quakes. LA scored again, and though San Jose got one back in the 68th minute, Victor Bernandez’s being sent off just nine minutes later reduced the Quakes to 10 men. There was just no way the home team was going to win this one.

The locals around me were suffering. It was awesome. No one left.

I hope that it wasn’t just because of the post-game fireworks, but whatever the reason they stayed, it doesn’t really matter. That Sunday night, complete with the Stars and Stripes arriving by parachute, troops marching out across the field during the half-time break and even a rather strange incident with a flag-laden airship — whose wobbly flight out of the stadium didn’t quite inspire confidence — soccer felt as American as apple pie. And to top it all, 50,000 people, most of them locals, were treated to one of the best last-gasp showdowns I’ve seen.

The LA fans were already celebrating victory over their bitter NorCal rivals when Shea Salinas pounced on a loose ball deep in injury time to level it from close range. Barely a minute later, Sam Cronin’s cross picked out Alan Gordon and the forward’s header from close range stunned the visiting team and fans into silence. The rest of the stadium was on its feet in deafening applause.

Whatever their feelings pregame, it’s hard to imagine that anyone left that game still unconvinced as to whether soccer really has a place in this country. Unlike the big four of the MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL, the MLS cannot claim to be the best league in the world, but it can certainly fight its own corner.

The battle is finally won: Soccer might not be America’s favorite pastime, but it is now an American sport.

Tom Taylor came out of retirement to write an encore piece because The Daily refused to give him a retirement package. Beg him not to sue The Daily at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Taylor: The Daily gave this graduate student the true college experience https://stanforddaily.com/2013/06/04/taylor-the-daily-gave-this-graduate-student-the-true-college-experience/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/06/04/taylor-the-daily-gave-this-graduate-student-the-true-college-experience/#respond Wed, 05 Jun 2013 05:21:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077677 Where do I start? I should probably be taking this opportunity — my last-ever column in these pages — to tear into Sam Fisher, Monday night sports desk editor and author of all the abusive contact lines at the end of my columns this past year. But however easy that might be, taking aim at […]

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Where do I start?

I should probably be taking this opportunity — my last-ever column in these pages — to tear into Sam Fisher, Monday night sports desk editor and author of all the abusive contact lines at the end of my columns this past year. But however easy that might be, taking aim at Sam might give you entirely the wrong idea about how it feels to be leaving this place. Not just the Farm, but The Stanford Daily itself.

Almost four years ago, a shy and awkward grad student showed up on the doorstep of the Lorry I. Lokey Stanford Daily building with the crazy idea of trying his hand at the one thing most other engineering students avoid like the plague: writing. Back at Stanford after a long break from my studies, having originally left due to funding problems and then struggling with injury during my leave of absence, walking into a room full of fresh-faced undergraduates half-a-generation younger than me was a bit daunting.

I’m sure they were also a little bemused to have a grad student signing up for what was, and still is, an almost exclusively undergrad institution. Likewise my grad student friends continue to be puzzled by why I would want to spend my free hours away from research sleeplessly working, for free, with these same undergrads at The Daily.

The truth is, by accident more than design, I stumbled across a unique place on campus that September evening back in 2009, somewhere I could cross the gaping grad-undergrad divide and live just a little bit of that true American college experience. Not in a sketchy way — I’ve never been to Full Moon on the Quad or hung around outside Exotic Erotic, that’s just plain creepy — but instead as just one of the many Dailies that make this publication more than just a few sheets of paper.

Along the way I experienced the highs and lows of Stanford sports both home and on the road, defended The Daily’s honor in the Ink Bowl, its annual rivalry game against The Daily Californian, ate far too much CoHo and Treehouse food, stayed up until the small hours of the morning arguing and joking about nothing in particular while we put together a paper, and made some awesome — hopefully lifelong — friends.

Grad students constitute the vast majority of Stanford’s population, but this is not our university. I’m walking at Commencement, but I’ll never be in the Class of 2013. In a few years’ time, undergrads will be invited back for Homecoming; I won’t. That’s just the way it is. Our community is not the life and soul of this place. Just hang around a few extra days after the end of spring quarter and you’ll see this; though most grad students are still around, campus is dead.

But at The Daily I got to be just as much a part of things as any overachieving undergrad. There aren’t many organizations like this one on campus. Student-run and independent from the University — minus some help from Special Fees — its very survival is linked to the success or failure of its writers, editors and business team. It might be a far smaller institution than the New York Times, but the pressures it faces are no less real.

I once complained that grad students aren’t involved enough in Stanford sports. I realize now that this was shortsighted; the field and the bleachers are just the most obvious place where we fail to represent.

Grad friends complain that The Daily is undergrad-focused, and of course it is. Without grad students on staff, stories are far more likely to be drawn from the world of undergrads. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and it shouldn’t.

We’re all in this game together. Issues that affect undergrads also affect grads: access to housing, the Alternative Review Process, divestment, the University’s alcohol policy, etc. Whether you realize it or not, The Stanford Daily speaks for you.

Unfortunately, my time here at Stanford has run out, and the East Coast is now beckoning. For many of you, though, it’s not too late to be part of this. To apply your intelligence and talent to more than just homework, to learn all those writing, graphics and teamwork skills not by taking some abstract course, but by working hands-on in a real media organization. To improve and expand The Daily’s coverage of grad student issues and to get the inside track at Stanford on anything from the ASSU and GSC to the football team’s challenge for next year’s BCS National Championship.

And perhaps to discover why this grad student will miss this ragtag band of undergrads more than anything else on the Farm.

Tom Taylor’s departure leaves Sam Fisher without a purpose in life. Tom, you will be missed more than you will ever know. To thank Tom for his years of service to Stanford, email him at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Taylor: Fearing a Stanford football letdown https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/27/taylor-fearing-a-stanford-football-letdown/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/27/taylor-fearing-a-stanford-football-letdown/#comments Tue, 28 May 2013 02:43:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077436 I have to admit it’s been a good week. I also have to hold up my hands and be honest that sports hasn’t really been on my radar for the last few days, so I hope you’ll forgive me for straying a little bit from the subject. On Friday I faced one of the hardest […]

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I have to admit it’s been a good week. I also have to hold up my hands and be honest that sports hasn’t really been on my radar for the last few days, so I hope you’ll forgive me for straying a little bit from the subject.

On Friday I faced one of the hardest challenges of my time here at Stanford, something that would decide whether or not I’d leave this place with another handful of letters to my name — my Ph.D. defense.

Logically, I should have walked into that room calm as can be. My academic advisor wouldn’t have even let me think about defending if I wasn’t guaranteed to walk out victorious. But faced with a panel of six professors about to unleash all manner of hellishly technical questions, I defy anyone not to feel at least a little bit anxious.

Fortunately, though, it all went more or less to plan. A couple of hours later, after being temporarily ushered out of the room while a decision was made, my advisor happily informed me that I’d passed.

I should have been elated, ecstatic, running crazily around campus in celebration, but my overriding emotion was just relief. I was happy, sure, but mostly just relieved.

Because the expectation of success was so high, passing didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary — though failure, of course, would have been catastrophic. That is not to say that I was guaranteed to pass — people do fail — but the deck was heavily stacked in my favor. Not only did I get to schedule the defense only once I felt ready, but I also got to pick the panel that would judge me.

Turning my attention back to sports, all reports so far seem to suggest that next year Stanford football could be similarly favored. Ranked perhaps as highly as No. 2 in the preseason, the Cardinal could be in a position to make a serious run for the national title, while a worst-case-scenario consolation Rose Bowl trophy should be guaranteed. Right?

I can’t be the only ex-student — or soon-to-be ex-student — who has already thought about this, who has at least tentatively ensured that they have no major conflicts scheduled for early next January and perhaps has mentioned to friends who will still be students to keep them in mind for any spare tickets.

How quickly we’ve moved on. Just a few short years ago, even the thought of BCS bowl defeat would have been a dream. Now, at or near the height of its powers, we fans demand far more of Stanford football. Anything less than an appearance in Pasadena next January — the site of both the Rose Bowl Game and BCS National Championship Game next year — would be a gut-wrenching failure.

The expectation for success is now so high, not just because the football program in general has raised its stature and ability to recruit new talent, but because it is also returning so many key players from last year’s defensive line. It also faces an impressive end-of-season run-in that, should the Cardinal go undefeated, will guarantee the sort of national respect usually reserved exclusively for SEC teams. Perhaps rising junior Kevin Hogan isn’t Andrew Luck ’12, perhaps head coach David Shaw isn’t Jim Harbaugh; perhaps none of that matters. The deck is stacked, or at least as stacked as it’s ever going to be for this little non-football school.

But knowing all of that, how on earth are we expected to enjoy next year?

One day soon — probably far sooner than we’d like — the tables will be turned. Our nemesis from across the Bay will get some payback, those schools down in SoCal will eventually break their curse, and then there is that burning yellow-on-green Eye of Sauron glaring menacingly down at us from the North.

The aim for next year isn’t to go out and surprise people by winning contests. Stanford isn’t expected to win but to find some way not to lose a single one — the Cardinal is expected to win them all, at least until the end of the regular season. It will be a game of survival as all the many Davids try and take down this Goliath.

And if it escapes to the National Championship Game unscathed, my overriding emotion will be relief.

Stanford football has survived the loss of Toby Gerhart, Jim Harbaugh and Andrew Luck, but can it survive the departure of Tom Taylor? Try to convince Tom to stay at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Taylor: Remembering David Beckham and his attitude https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/20/taylor-remembering-david-beckham-and-his-attitude/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/20/taylor-remembering-david-beckham-and-his-attitude/#respond Tue, 21 May 2013 05:53:40 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077314 Just a week after Sir Alex Ferguson retired from his job as manager of Manchester United, David Beckham has also finally hung up his boots. On Saturday Beckham played his last home match for Paris Saint-Germain, the club he joined less than four months ago. After walking off to a standing ovation, it’s likely he’ll […]

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Just a week after Sir Alex Ferguson retired from his job as manager of Manchester United, David Beckham has also finally hung up his boots.

On Saturday Beckham played his last home match for Paris Saint-Germain, the club he joined less than four months ago. After walking off to a standing ovation, it’s likely he’ll finish on that high and not play to the bitter end in PSG’s final road match this season at Lorient this Sunday.

Ferguson and Beckham’s careers were inextricably linked. Beckham was lucky enough to play for both the club he supported as a kid and Ferguson at United. Over 10 years, six Premier League titles, two F.A. cups and a Champions League trophy later, Ferguson also played a key role in Beckham’s exit, too.

After an F.A. Cup defeat to Arsenal in 2003, Ferguson lost it in the locker room, kicking a boot across the room and accidently hitting Beckham above the eye. It proved to be the final nail in the coffin, and by summer Beckham was on his way to Real Madrid.

Arguably, Ferguson had the greater success from then on — another five Premier League titles and one Champions League trophy compared to Beckham’s single La Liga title, two MLS Cups with Los Angeles Galaxy and PSG’s recent Ligue 1 win — and deserves serious consideration for the title of best manager of all time.

Beckham, meanwhile, was never FIFA World Player of the Year even once in his 20-year career, though true all-time great Pele nominated him among the 100 best living players in 2004, and he never won the greatest prize of all, a FIFA World Cup.

But Beckham will still go down as a true legend of the game; more than anyone else, he defined what it means to be a soccer superstar.

He was clearly a talented player, but his status, his pop-star wife — Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice — and his worldwide appeal were every bit as important. Real Madrid and Galaxy paid so much for his services because of his marketability — his lethal ability to cross the ball was an added bonus.

Now that he has finally kicked his last ball as a professional, it is that image that will likely live on: the global superstar who draws hoards of fans no matter what and the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador whose charitable works have extended far beyond the confines of his sport.

Away from the soccer field, the manicured world of public relations will brush over any of the blemishes from his career.

But that’s not the way I want to remember it.

Back in 1998, a new kid on the international scene, Beckham so incensed England fans for being sent off for retaliating against Argentina’s Diego Simeone in the last 16 of the World Cup that he even received death threats.

Even as recently as last June I got to see his temper flare up on the field when the San Jose Earthquakes hosted the Galaxy at Stanford Stadium. In the dying moments of the game, with San Jose appearing to be wasting time, Beckham deliberately kicked a ball at the referee, who was tending to an injured player.

But those moments weren’t those of an English-style soccer hooligan, they were of a player who loved to play so much that occasionally his emotions would get the better of him. It is hard to criticize any Englishman for lashing out when faced with soccer arch-nemesis Argentina, and last year, after working so tirelessly to promote the 2012 London Olympics, Beckham had just found out that he would not be included in the British soccer team at the Olympic Games.

It also appears that Beckham is actually a good guy; I’ve even heard reports of him pulling over to help a stranded motorist change a tire. I can’t imagine many other multimillionaires even having those sorts of rumors spread about them.

When he signed for Paris Saint-Germain, some criticized the move, after all, why was the French team wasting money on an aging superstar well past his best?

But then Beckham donated his entire salary to a local children’s charity and did what he does best, putting his all into PSG’s title bid. He quickly won over the fans, and many were sad that he spent just a fleeting moment at their club.

I never got to talk to Beckham last year at the Earthquakes game. He refused to give interviews because he just didn’t want to talk about his exclusion from the Olympics; it was still too raw. But I can forgive him that.

He may not have brought home that elusive World Cup, but he put his heart and soul into soccer. I would forgive a few extra yellow and red cards if only there were more Beckham’s out there.

Tom Taylor’s editor can’t help but notice his column’s retirement trend. To wish Tom luck on his thesis defense Friday, email him at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Taylor: Patience is key to sporting success https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/13/taylor-patience-is-key-to-sporting-success/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/13/taylor-patience-is-key-to-sporting-success/#respond Tue, 14 May 2013 01:47:38 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077155 Will they never learn? Sunday saw the retirement of perhaps the greatest-ever soccer manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. It is impossible not to respect the phenomenal achievements that the departing boss of Manchester United had in his 26 years in charge, whether or not you hate him for that success. He bullied referees and players around […]

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Will they never learn?

Sunday saw the retirement of perhaps the greatest-ever soccer manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. It is impossible not to respect the phenomenal achievements that the departing boss of Manchester United had in his 26 years in charge, whether or not you hate him for that success.

He bullied referees and players around and arrogantly refused to ever see blame in his actions, or in those of his team. He also took Manchester United to 13 English Premier League titles, two Champions League trophies and five F.A. Cups, plus a sprinkling of other trophies. In the process, he turned United from a mid-level club into one of the handful that can claim to be the biggest and best in the entire world. Few fans in their right mind would not wish he had been in charge of their favorite team instead.

On the same weekend that he finally stood down, across the other side of Manchester, rival Manchester City was on the brink of waving goodbye to its own manager in far less friendly circumstances. Following an uninspiring performance in Saturday’s F.A. Cup Final loss to Wigan, a game in which City was the clear favorite to win, Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini was fired Monday.

In Mancini’s short four-year spell at Manchester City, his team picked up one English Premier League title and one F.A. Cup. It also qualified for the Champions League for the first time in club history in 2011 and has repeated that feat in the following two seasons. However, performances in the top European competition have left a lot to be desired, and an overall winning percentage of 59.2—for comparison, Ferguson’s was 59.7—will not save him.

Turn the clock back 20-odd years though, and Ferguson had a far worse record. Joining the club halfway through the 1986-87 season, he could only rescue 11th place in his first year. A second-placed finish the next year hinted at future success, but that was followed by 11th and 13th in his third and fourth seasons, respectively. Only an F.A. Cup trophy in 1990 saved his job, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In today’s world, Ferguson would not have survived. The average life of a Premiership manager is painfully short. Just five of the current 20 have been in their posts longer than Mancini while 11 were appointed within the last 12 months. The expectations of immediate and lasting success have gotten out of hand; the threat of the axe perhaps even makes that very success impossible, as managers are never given the breathing space or time to mold the club in their image.

Viewed through this same lens, the Stanford women’s water polo team has had a poor season and perhaps head coach John Tanner should be worried. On Sunday, it came up short for the third time this season against USC, losing the NCAA Final in quadruple overtime.

This shouldn’t have happened, of course. The national champion over the previous two years, Stanford was joined by three gold-medal winning Olympians this season, including freshman Maggie Steffens, who was named the Most Valuable Player of the women’s water polo tournament at the 2012 London Olympics. The Cardinal was justifiably the preseason favorite, expected to cruise to a third-straight national title in an undefeated fashion.

But it didn’t. Not because the players failed, not because Tanner failed the players, but because there are simply no guarantees in sports. The best personnel that money can buy—or recruiting can secure—will never guarantee success.

Stanford has a lot in common with some of the world’s biggest soccer clubs. It has far more money than it could ever need, and few would turn down the opportunity to play or coach at Stanford. But the Cardinal’s approach to success is the complete opposite; this university could teach all the soccer clubs a lot.

Faced with men’s basketball head coach Johnny Dawkins’ struggle to live up to the expectations set by Cardinal athletics in general, Stanford’s approach is to stand by him. Though he may need a place in the 2014 NCAA Tournament to save his job, few other colleges might have even given him that chance at salvation.

As a fan, Stanford’s refusal to give up on Dawkins can seem frustrating. Less than 10 years ago this university was a men’s basketball power, a far cry from this past season’s failure—in the NIT.

But the alternative—drifting mindlessly from new signing to new signing in the desperate hope of a miracle—could be far, far worse. Lasting success is never guaranteed, but it can also only come from putting faith in a coach, even in the darkest days of his career.

The Stanford Daily is still waiting for its decade of patience with Tom Taylor to pay off. To tell Tom it’s a lost cause, email him at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Taylor: Is football the future of sports? https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/06/taylor-is-football-the-future-of-sports/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/06/taylor-is-football-the-future-of-sports/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 03:02:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076977 Is football the future of sports? In the wake of this year’s NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers took a gamble on an athlete with absolutely zero football experience. Lawrence Okoye, an Olympic discus thrower, was signed as a free agent and reportedly will play defense on a three-year deal. Every April hundreds of college […]

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Is football the future of sports?

In the wake of this year’s NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers took a gamble on an athlete with absolutely zero football experience. Lawrence Okoye, an Olympic discus thrower, was signed as a free agent and reportedly will play defense on a three-year deal.

Every April hundreds of college players who have actually handled a football are not even picked up as free agents, but 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh chose Okoye over them, obviously not for his on-field displays but instead for his vital statistics, for his headline-making performance in the NFL Super Regional Combine. Like the Scouting Combine but open to those not invited to that showcase, the test breaks down what it means to be a football player into a series of skills and abilities, attempting to measure a prospect with cold, hard statistics seemingly detached from the actual game of football.

“He’s just an Adonis. Just a great physical specimen of a man. Our creator created a beautiful man,” Harbaugh said, explaining the decision to sign Okoye.

Perhaps this is a glimpse of the future. Football has been described as chess on a playing field, and whoever said that might just be right. The real players are no longer on the field but on the sidelines, controlling a set of pieces with their own highly specific, but limited, abilities. Harbaugh doesn’t need his pawns to know anything about the game they’re playing; he just needs them to hold the line and move up the board when he tells them to.

It’s maybe not quite how Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane would design a team. Statistics are just as crucial across the Bay but in a different way. Beane cares more about in-game numbers than physical attributes; there is no way he’d pick up a player who never even stood on a baseball diamond. He might, though, celebrate the attempt to think outside the box.

This is not the first time that the NFL has looked beyond football to find tomorrow’s stars. Teams once tried—unsuccessfully—to lure legendary fly-half Jonny Wilkinson across the Pond, offering millions of dollars to the player who kicked England to glory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. New York Jets tight end Hayden Smith, meanwhile, made the switch from rugby last year. Smith, though, is one of those frustratingly talented athletes—he played basketball through college and if he ever gets tired of football, who knows which sport he’ll choose to succeed at next.

But there are also many more out there who clearly could earn their place on a football field. Rugby is perhaps the easiest place to look because football evolved directly from that sport and there are still some obvious similarities between the two, but breaking down a player into his key abilities leaves the door open to many other athletes. Track sprinters would have the explosiveness weightlifters the strength and perhaps wrestlers would be able to take down players far bigger than they are. Even some soccer players might be able to kick themselves onto a team.

Football is unlikely to be able to gut the brightest talent from those sports—no soccer star is going to take the risk of switching sports to make less money and earn far less respect as an NFL placekicker—but there is little reason that the smaller sports should feel secure.

In just a single year a player could earn far more gold on the gridiron than he will ever win in Olympic medals. Turning down even the minimum starting salary of an NFL rookie would be a hard thing for most; give me $405,000 and I’d willingly get crushed week after week on the line of scrimmage.

Whether this tactic can work, though, I’m not yet convinced. Impressive as the Athletics have been during his tenure, Beane still doesn’t have that World Series to his name. Maybe attention to statistics can only take you so far.

Or perhaps it is just that I don’t want this approach to succeed. Though the scientist in me is fascinated by Beane’s and Harbaugh’s experimentation, there is something distinctly unappetizing about it all.

Surely football and baseball are more than just a process of assembling neatly defined pieces.

Tom Taylor was assembled from two sprinters, three rugby players and an Olympic shot-putter. Unfortunately, it went horribly wrong. To remind Tom about the ending of Frankenstein, email him at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Taylor: Something for soccer fans to chew on https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/30/taylor-something-for-soccer-fans-to-chew-on/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/30/taylor-something-for-soccer-fans-to-chew-on/#respond Wed, 01 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076857 A little over a week ago, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was caught on camera biting an opponent. While most agreed with the punishment handed out for this offense, those closest to him, his club and his manager did not. They are wrong, of course.

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It’s hard to ever be truly unbiased as a sports fan. Decisions by referees that help your team are usually correct; decisions that hurt it are often wrong, or at least questionable. Sometimes, though, a player manages to do something so utterly stupid that only the most delusional can’t agree.

A little over a week ago, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was caught on camera biting — yes, biting — Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic during a contest between their two teams. Though unpunished during the game, the English Football Association took it upon itself to review the incident in the ensuing days and subsequently banned Suarez for 10 matches, a punishment that will keep him out of action not just this season, but for a hefty chunk of the start of the next, too.

In case you’re not familiar with the name Suarez, you might remember him as the Uruguayan player who infamously crushed Ghana’s dreams of making it to the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup by keeping Dominic Adiyiah’s header out of the net with his hand. His rap sheet, though, is longer and much more damning than that. He has already served a seven-match ban — also for biting — from his time at Ajax, an eight-match ban for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra and a one-match ban for making an abusive gesture towards Fulham fans — yeah, he’s not exactly a role model.

To their credit, many Liverpool fans, including the official supporters club, came out in support of the FA’s decision. Suarez may have been the club’s top scorer over the last year, but any number of goals doesn’t make it ok to behave like a naughty first grader.

The club, though, has taken a rather different approach, expressing shock and disappointment over the severity of the punishment.

“If I had more players of a similar mentality, we would be in a different position,” said manager Brendan Rodgers, referring to the team’s current seventh-place position in the league standings and Suarez’s goal-scoring abilities, not his taste for human flesh. “He has not let me down one bit.”

Now I understand that Rodgers has a responsibility to stand up for his players, but he also has the responsibility to keep them in line, to ensure they play the game and don’t constantly get banned for their behavior. And ultimately the buck for everything that happens on and off the field stops with Rodgers. Turning a blind eye does not make you a strong manager, nor does criticizing a player make you disloyal.

Is Suarez’s punishment harsh? Was the FA probably influenced by his troubled reputation? And does a lengthy ban fail to address the root causes for why he would bite someone? Yes, yes and yes. But it is still unquestionably the correct decision.

Suarez has clearly earned his reputation, and a lighter touch this time would only send the wrong message. Fines have little impact on star soccer players because they don’t make much of a dent in their huge salaries. The only real punishment is a ban, not just stopping them from playing the game they love, but even making repeat offenders less attractive to big clubs; there is little point in signing a talented player who is just going to spend his career on the bench.

Whether this will work with Suarez is unclear. It’s hard to imagine the bite was premeditated — if so he’s far from the smartest cookie. Whether the referees saw it or not, the television cameras were clearly going to. And if it really was a spur-of-the-moment reaction, sitting out for a few games probably won’t, on its own, change much — though his opponents at least won’t be in danger of being bitten for the next few months.

If he can be changed, that is not the FA’s responsibility but that of Liverpool and Suarez himself. Instead of laying the blame on the punishment, they could both do everything that they can to ensure he doesn’t spend any more time on the sidelines. His $180,000-a-week salary would easily cover a few sessions of anger-management therapy, and he now at least is free for a couple extra hours a week.

But most of all it sends a clear message that this behavior will not be accepted in the sport. Making an example of the biggest players will teach aspiring young players that no amount of talent will make up for any amount of violence or racism. No one’s role model is the guy who never plays.

Tom Taylor is currently appealing his 12-match IM soccer ban for assault with a banana. To help Tom with his appeal, email him at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Lacrosse players earn MPSF weekly honors https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/23/lacrosse-players-earn-mpsf-weekly-honors/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/23/lacrosse-players-earn-mpsf-weekly-honors/#respond Wed, 24 Apr 2013 05:08:02 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076687 Following last weekend’s sweep of Oregon and San Diego State, two Stanford lacrosse players were given Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) honors on Monday.

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Following last weekend’s sweep of Oregon and San Diego State, two Stanford lacrosse players were given Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) honors on Monday. Junior attacker Rachel Ozer was awarded her second Offensive Player of the Week award on the season and freshman midfielder Lucy Dikeou earned Rookie of the Week for the first time.

(ZETONG LI/The Stanford Daily)
Freshman midfielder Lucy Dikeou (above) was named MPSF Rookie of the Week. (ZETONG LI/The Stanford Daily)

Ozer recorded a total of eight goals and three assists in the Cardinal’s two wins, while Dikeou found the back of the net four times and also picked up seven ground balls, forced four turnovers and was awarded two draw controls. Both players have been a key part of Stanford’s success so far this season. Ozer leads the team on attack with goals (39) and assists (18) and Dikeou has helped control the midfield with the leading number of turnovers (23) and strong numbers on draw controls and ground balls.

No. 14 Stanford (10-4, 5-1 MPSF) will finish its regular season on the road this week, facing UC-Davis on Thursday followed by archrival Cal on Saturday.

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American football just does it better https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/22/american-football-just-does-it-better/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/22/american-football-just-does-it-better/#respond Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:24:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076641 It’s that time of year when I can escape this no longer. The college football season is long past—even Spring Game can’t make that not true—and the end of the Madness was sealed two weeks back. With American pro sports failing to really capture this fan’s hopes and dreams, and—in spite of a half-hearted attempt […]

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It’s that time of year when I can escape this no longer.

The college football season is long past—even Spring Game can’t make that not true—and the end of the Madness was sealed two weeks back. With American pro sports failing to really capture this fan’s hopes and dreams, and—in spite of a half-hearted attempt to pretend otherwise—my empty, loveless relationship with baseball, I can’t keep deceiving myself.

This year, the feeling’s worse too. As the clock begins to run out on my time as a PhD student, the realities of my situation are becoming harshly clear. Once I get that diploma in my hands, this home won’t be home anymore. I might appear to fit in out here—at least until my accent gives it all away—but my visa says otherwise. Given the choice, I’m not sure whether I would stay in the US, but I’m not given that choice.

Pretty soon I’ll likely be on a plane back to England. Back to the rain, the cold, the infamous food. And back to the soccer.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love soccer. It is the greatest sport on the face of the Earth, no question. But it is also the one sport that can rip my heart to shreds. Something it does on a far too regular basis.

Here I’ve been able to escape for a little while the torture of all this. When things go well the homesickness kicks in and I spend many an hour trawling the web for news and commenting on Reading FC’s latest successes. But when things go badly I can hide. I can’t distract myself with football or basketball, or even my PhD. I can’t go outside, too, without the fear of meeting someone who might remind me of the pain, or, worse, catching a glimpse of the latest failure on a TV or in a newspaper.

And, in case you hadn’t quite realized, things aren’t going well.

Just a year ago Reading surged up from near the bottom of the Championship table to win the division and earn promotion to the Premier League. We had also been acquired by a consortium that included a Russian billionaire, offering the chance of serious investment in the club for the first time in many years. And the new owners had thrown their support behind the coach, hinting at the sort of stability that is essential for any club to succeed long term.

Now, all that optimism has been crushed into the dirt. Reading are now dead last at the foot of the table, 10 points from safety, with a goal difference of -28 and just four games remaining. However much I might want to believe, there is no way we can scrape enough points from the total of 12 available to escape the drop. Worse, the manager who took us up a year ago, and perhaps the only man with the slightest hope of keeping us there, was sacked in mid-March. Reading are clearly going down.What’s next, I don’t know. The Championship is no easy league to escape from, and even with Premiership money, clubs can sink like stones. Blackburn Rovers, Premier League champions in 1994-95 and a top-flight club less than 12 months ago are in danger of not even being a Championship team next year. The leagues further below are littered with the carcasses of former big teams.

Perhaps I should look on the bright side and be grateful. Grateful that I have one less distraction from what I should be doing right now: writing my thesis, and then finally joining the real world.

But the real world is just far too scary a place to contemplate—why else would I have been in school so long? And all those years as a student have taught me one thing and one thing only: Why do now what you could get done in a coffee-powered all-nighter hours before the deadline?

Instead, searching for solace away from my studies and away from heartbreak, and trying somehow to fill that soccer void in my life, I signed up for IM soccer. I hit two goals past our first opponents a week ago, but our most recent game ended in a 4-0 defeat.

As much as I might be trying to escape, it seems that the harsh realities of life and soccer are coming for me.

Tom Taylor’s teammates don’t have the heart to tell him that his two goals went in the wrong net. If you have the courage to give Tom the bad news, email him at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

 

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Taylor: Persevering through the Boston Marathon tragedy https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/15/taylor-persevering-through-the-boston-marathon-tragedy/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/15/taylor-persevering-through-the-boston-marathon-tragedy/#respond Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:50:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076465 I wrote this week’s column a day early, sent it into my editors and then, free of any important distractions, sat down to work on my thesis on Monday. But then it happened. I’m sure you all know this by now, but yesterday, several explosions tore through one of the world’s oldest and biggest sports […]

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I wrote this week’s column a day early, sent it into my editors and then, free of any important distractions, sat down to work on my thesis on Monday.

But then it happened. I’m sure you all know this by now, but yesterday, several explosions tore through one of the world’s oldest and biggest sports traditions, the Boston Marathon.

When I found out–and I found out late–I had that sick feeling of déjà vu. It felt like July 7, 2005, all over again.

That day, I had just gotten home from the gym and was sitting, having breakfast, when news of explosions on the London Underground first began to spread. At first it seemed like there may have been some sort of terrible accident, but, bit by bit, the horrible truth was pieced together. It was weird, scary. Not because I felt personally threatened–the little village I was in was safely tucked out of harm’s way in the English countryside–but because I know a lot of people who live and work in London and others who head to town on a regular basis.

Events in 2001 were obviously far, far worse, but 9/11 was surreal. It was a scene from a horrific movie, distant and unbelievable. Too big and devastating to even comprehend.

Boston, like London, though, was terrifyingly real, scarily believable. Living, now, in America certainly made events feel closer to home, but also I know Boston. My best friend moved to the United States when I was in middle school, to Concord, Mass. Every year I’d come out to visit, flying in to Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Worse, my cousin was there this year, in the race.

We used to see each other at least once a year, even after her family moved to the United States. But then life got in the way, and I haven’t seen her in over ten years. We’re Facebook friends, of course, so I know she’s taken up running in a pretty serious way, but that’s not the same. I miss hanging out.

Fortunately, though, she was already back in her hotel room when the first two explosions hit. She could see smoke and pandemonium out the window, but she was safe.

Others, of course, were not as lucky. As I write this, three people have been confirmed dead, and more than 100 more are injured. Many others in the race, the city and across the world will be shocked and saddened, too.

Right now, the exact cause is not yet clear, nor is the suspicion that someone could have been behind this, but with two separate explosions near the finish line, it is hard to imagine that this wasn’t a planned attack. Perhaps by the time you read this, the facts will be clearer.

I’ve written about sports in the face of tragedy before, about the hard decision of whether to play on in the face of such events. The next seven days will bring that question sharply into focus.

This Sunday, the London Marathon, an event every bit as big and prestigious as the Boston Marathon, will be held around the streets of the United Kingdom’s capital. It’s an annual festival that sits close to my heart–I’ve made it across the finish line three times, once dressed as a giant cat.

Organizers, now, are suitably concerned. Any large gathering of people in a free society is inherently risky, because freedom is not something that can be policed. It is something that relies on the good-natured sanity of all present. Changes seem inevitable, not just to tighten up security but also to show respect for those who weren’t so lucky yesterday.

But without question, London must go on, as must the 2014 Boston Marathon. The North American race is the world’s oldest marathon and has been held continuously since 1897–not even two World Wars could interrupt it.

Because the best way–the only way–to remember those we have painfully lost and heal these mental scars is not to give in. To give no quarter to those who might seek to destroy our way of life through violence and threats. To celebrate everything that is good about sports and what it means to live in a free and open society. To play on.

The Stanford Daily’s thoughts are with the victims of Monday’s tragedy. Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter at @DailyTomTaylor.

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Beyond Title IX https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/12/beyond-title-ix/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/12/beyond-title-ix/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:07:04 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076405 Julie Foudy '93 was just one year old when the groundbreaking Title IX equality law, passed in the summer of 1972, kick-started a revolution in women’s college sports by enforcing a balance between the funding of men’s and women’s programs. Looking back from the clarity of our position 40 years later, the impact of Title IX is obvious and striking. Over the past two weeks, The Daily has told the story of Title IX and women’s sports at Stanford, from the program’s history to the experiences of both players and coaches. But what is next?

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This is the final part of a six-part feature series on Stanford women’s sports.

SPO FEA graphic_12
At the center of the revolution in women’s sports, the Farm has played host to three-time Olympic gold winning beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings ’00 (left), two-time national champion coach and US basketball Olympic gold-winning coach Tara VanDerveer (center) and two-time World Cup winner and two-time Olympic gold medalist soccer player Julie Foudy ’93 (right). The question now is whether Stanford can play a role as equality is expanded outside of the college world. (DURAN ALVAREZ/The Stanford Daily)

Julie Foudy ’93 was just one year old when the groundbreaking Title IX equality law, passed in the summer of 1972, kick-started a revolution in women’s college sports by enforcing a balance between the funding of men’s and women’s programs.

Looking back from the clarity of our position 40 years later, the impact of Title IX is obvious and striking, but in Foudy’s early childhood, the implications of the higher education equality law on women’s sports were not clear. The NCAA claimed its implementation was illegal and continued to resist its regulations until the 1981-82 season, when in a rush it introduced 12 new women’s sports, raising the total number from just two to 14.

Over the past two weeks, The Daily has told the story of Title IX and women’s sports at Stanford, from the program’s history to the experiences of both players and coaches.

Foudy’s story exemplifies how far we have come. Already a World Cup winner (1991), she was still unaware of the law’s implications when she received Stanford’s first ever women’s soccer scholarship in her senior year. As women’s sports began to receive a more equal footing, she went on to win two Olympic gold medals (1996, 2004), another World Cup (1999) and when she finally hung up her professional boots, she became a sports broadcaster. Completing the circle, she commentated for ESPN on Stanford’s first NCAA women’s soccer national title in 2011.

But enough of the past, now it’s time to look to the future.

***

The reality of college sports today is that memories of life four decades ago seem distant and hazy. The incessant four-year turnover of athletes and students ensures this, and all current college stars grew up long after most of the dust had settled on Title IX.

“The interesting thing to me is that the girls — at any school, for that matter — at this point, they have no idea what it was like,” said Anne Gould ’72 MA ’80, who coached the Stanford women’s tennis team from 1976-79. “You kind of expect a scholarship, you expect great coaching, you expect a trainer … it’s just a whole different ballgame.”

Current Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer agreed that female athletes today have far more opportunities that she did growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

“[They] play on teams, travelling teams, high school teams, go to basketball camps,” VanDerveer said. “It really is all night and day, and I really would kill to trade places with any one of [my players].”

Growing up in the post-Title IX era, Olympic beach volleyball triple-gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings ’00 never even had to face the prejudices and lack of opportunity characteristic of previous generations.

“I had every single door opened for me, I think very much so because of Title IX, the house I was raised in and the situations I was presented with,” Walsh Jennings said. “I just consider myself an athlete, not a female athlete.”

While the war for equality in college sports seems won, there are, however, still battles being fought.

In 2002, thirty years after Title IX was born, the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics was put together to review its application and effects. It ultimately produced a report that Foudy, a member of the panel, was highly critical of. Together with two-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Donna de Varona, she feared it laid too much blame on the law for the loss of men’s sports and it would roll back many of the gains made in collegiate athletics.

“Universities often used the excuse of Title IX when they talked about cutting programs,” Foudy explained. “[They] didn’t want to talk about the fact that they’re pouring money into programs that maybe aren’t making money, but they’re still going to try to pour money into them.”

The American Sports Council also unsuccessfully sued the Department of Education in 2011 over similar fears that the enforcement of quotas in high school could remove opportunities for boys to play sports and lead to the loss of boy’s teams.

Beyond the legal enforcement of equality in school sports, though, the media-driven perception of women’s sports still noticeably lags behind that of men’s, Take, for example, the case of Stanford’s two basketball teams.

Every single regular-season Stanford men’s game this year was screened live on television, but the same cannot be said of the women’s games. The men’s NIT loss to Alabama in March was broadcast on ESPN’s main channel, while the women’s clash with then-reigning national champions and No. 1 Baylor in November was omitted from the television schedule entirely. And though the No. 1 vs. No. 2 clash between Stanford and Connecticut late in December was picked up by ESPN, it was relegated to the ESPNU channel to make way for the New Era Pinstripe Bowl (ESPN) and the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (ESPN2).

***

Perhaps, though, it is now time to look beyond both Title IX and college athletics and concentrate on professional sports. University varsity programs help generate a huge pool of talent, but in comparison to male athletes, there exist relatively few opportunities for female athletes to turn their passions into careers.

The largest professional women’s sports league in the United States, the 12-team WNBA, lags considerably behind the 30-team NBA. ESPN’s new deal with the WNBA is worth $12 million a year; the NBA’s current deal with the same broadcaster is worth $930 million annually; $1 million per team compared to $31 million.

“I think that we’re behind,” VanDerveer said. “The men’s NCAA has been around for 75 years, we need more players playing, more really good players, and more opportunities for women. I think [athletic equality for women] has come a long way, but probably the media, the television exposure is an area [for improvement].”

The WNBA is, though, an exception to the rule. Stanford has had five players drafted in the first round of the WNBA draft in the last five years: Candice Wiggins ’08 (No. 3), Jayne Appel ’10 (No. 5), Kayla Pedersen ’11 (No. 7), Jeanette Pohlen ’11 (No. 9) and Nnemkadi Ogwumike ’12 (No. 1). Two of those players already have WNBA winner’s medals — Wiggins (Minnesota Lynx, 2011) and Pohlen (Indiana Fever, 2012) — and all are virtually guaranteed to be able to play out their careers as professionals. The same cannot be said of many other women’s sports.

“[Women’s success at the collegiate level] has to translate a little better to some of the other professional leagues,” said Stanford tennis head coach Lele Forood ’78. “Unfortunately, the soccer league can’t seem to stay afloat. So I guess that would be the next wave, where it can translate.”

1992: Julie Foudy.
In her professional soccer career, Julie Foudy ’93 won two World Cups, the first of which came while still a Stanford student in 1991, and two Olympic gold medals.

In the 1990s, women’s soccer had unparalleled success in the USA, in stark contrast to its standing in more traditional soccer countries. U.S. women’s national team won the inaugural tournament in 1991 and then as hosts, won both the inaugural Olympic tournament in Atlanta in 1996 and the World Cup again at the end of the decade in 1999. Women’s soccer players became national heroes and household names, far more famous than their US men’s counterparts over that period: Foudy, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Brandi Chastain, Michelle Akers and others.

The hype generated by this success led to the founding of the Women’s United Soccer Association in February 2000, but three seasons later, in the week before the 2003 Women’s World Cup, the eight-team WUSA folded. A second attempt was made in 2009 with the Women’s Professional Soccer league, but that too suspended operations last year after just three seasons.

“Professional leagues are basically what the market can bear,” Foudy said. “It’s hard to create a sustainable model right now … but I do think we can get there. I don’t think the model is we have to look exactly like the men’s professional leagues, which I think is the mistake we make. Trying to grow too big too early.”

Hoping to learn from past mistakes, the third attempt to create a women’s professional league in the U.S. kicks off tomorrow, with FC Kansas City and Portland Thorns FC playing in the inaugural game of the new, eight-team National Women’s Soccer League. Former Stanford goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart ’04 will feature for Kansas City and defender Rachel Buehler ’07 is on the Portland team. Stanford’s presence will also be felt elsewhere in the league in Teresa Noyola ’12 (Seattle Reign FC), Kelley O’Hara ’10 (Sky Blue FC), Rachel Quon ’13 (Chicago Red Stars), Mariah Nogueira ’13 (Boston Breakers) and Alina Garciamendez ’13 (Washington Spirit).

Foudy believes that the key to the success of this new league may be its intention to try to avoid copying existing professional leagues too closely.

“There is a model out there that balances it, where you can create a really good product … an entertaining product and create a really loyal fan base,” Foudy said. “Maybe it’s not 80,000 [fans] a game, but maybe its 10,000, 15,000.”

This realization may be a sign that women’s sports are maturing to the point they no longer need to try to fashion themselves in the image of their male counterparts.

“People are comparing women less to men now, and just appreciating female athletes for who they are,” Walsh Jennings said, “I think those are really important trends — you can’t compare apples to oranges. That’s not fair to anybody.”

***

Foudy, Walsh Jennings and many other ex-Stanford stars and benefactors of Title IX have served as important role models for aspiring girls, exemplifying what they can achieve on the field or court and inspiring them to dream big.

“When you have that many kids playing and they have a chance to finally follow a team — I never had that chance — [and] have a chance to finally watch girls playing the sport in front of big crowds, that dream suddenly becomes much more realistic for them,” Foudy said.

But the future battlegrounds for athletic equality are no longer in college and the inspiration that Foudy and Walsh can give young girls may, on its own, not be enough. The challenge now is to tear down the barriers that persist in professional sports and focus the media spotlight more fairly on men’s and women’s athletics. The question is whether the Farm can play as key a role in that as it has in the revolution of college sports.

Seeking equality within a university like Stanford may be a noble cause, but without real opportunity in the world outside, it is not really equality at all.

Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Previous installments in The Stanford Daily’s women’s sports feature series:

Women’s sports dominance began with ‘innovative’ approach in ’70s

University looks to promote equal support at all athletics events

Tara VanDerveer, mastermind of Maples

Stanford women’s athletes dominate at highest level

This Swimmer’s Life: Andie Taylor

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Taylor: The land of the free, the forefront of women’s sports https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/08/taylor-the-land-of-the-free-the-forefront-of-womens-sports/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/08/taylor-the-land-of-the-free-the-forefront-of-womens-sports/#respond Tue, 09 Apr 2013 06:29:35 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076268 Sometimes it’s hard to see prejudice or lack of access to opportunity quite so clearly when it’s not really personal. I’m white, I’m male, I’m middle class, and I grew up in a comfortable part of a first-world country. The struggles that I’ve faced have been unfortunate and tough, but none were predicated on my […]

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Sometimes it’s hard to see prejudice or lack of access to opportunity quite so clearly when it’s not really personal. I’m white, I’m male, I’m middle class, and I grew up in a comfortable part of a first-world country. The struggles that I’ve faced have been unfortunate and tough, but none were predicated on my place of birth or my DNA.

But last summer my brother and his girlfriend had their first child, a girl, technically my niece even if I refuse to accept that I’m old enough to be an uncle–I will never be that old. Living on the other side of the world means I still haven’t met the kid, and I have to admit being slightly scared by small children. But as I started to write my feature for The Daily’s women’s sport series, due out this Friday, suddenly I realized I had a stronger connection than ever before to this issue.

Last year’s U.S. Election seemed a little crazy to this impartial observer, especially with respect to the issue of women’s rights. For all its many flaws, it made me feel good about my own home, the U.K. How could such basic human rights be challenged in a modern, open and free society?

But when I look instead at equality in my chosen field of interest–sports–I have to admit feeling far less comfortable about the U.K. when it comes to the issue.

Title IX has no equal back home, perhaps in large part because college sports there are virtually nonexistent. With perhaps the lone exception of the rowing teams of Oxford and Cambridge, the idea of varsity sports just doesn’t really exist. Unless you’re on one of the many club teams, you would never care about that specific team. They’re not on television, they get no appreciable funding and no one gets an athletic scholarship to go to school.

Talented athletes don’t, as a general rule, go to universities–why waste several years of your professional career getting a degree?

As a result, after high school, women’s sports are left to the mercy of this professional world, which doesn’t exactly have a good track record in acceptance of new sports.

In the US, even the biggest and most important sport on this planet–soccer–has struggled to gain its place alongside the Big Four. Vice versa, none of America’s favorite pastimes have managed to eke out more than a specialist niche in the U.K.; the indigenous sports–soccer, rugby union, rugby league and cricket, to name but a few–are just too popular and too powerful.

However, the key difference between these two countries is that the U.S. college system provides, effectively, a professional outlet for amateur high school players. As a direct result of Title IX, it also generates a huge number of professional women athletes, making it much more likely that professional women’s leagues can build a following and compete on talent and ability with the men’s.

The WNBA, while being considerably smaller and poorer than its older brother, the NBA, has still operated as a professional league since 1996 and recently signed a new TV rights deal with ESPN that will bring in $1 million per team annual

The same cannot be said of U.K. professional sports, which remain a distinctly male affair. There are flashes of equality every time the Olympics roll around, but even the highest level of women’s soccer in England, the Women’s Super League (WSL), remains just semi-professional.

Where the WNBA draws in average crowds over 7,000, the WSL struggles to pull in even 700.

It is easy in such an environment to be unintentionally and unconsciously sexist, and I will hold my hand up and admit my own personal guilt in that respect; until stepping foot on U.S. soil, I had pretty much zero interest in women’s sports. Luckily, though, Stanford’s Athletics Department showed me the error of my ways.

But too many back home haven’t yet seen that light and too many girls growing up with athletic ambitions will never be given the chance to succeed. The Land of Opportunity for women’s athletes is the United States, and any dreams of athletic stardom are American Dreams.

Tom Taylor’s niece shrieked the first time she saw him on Skype. If you have the same reaction when you see his mug shot in the paper, email him at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Taylor: Falling in love with sand volleyball https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/01/taylor-falling-in-love-with-sand-volleyball/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/01/taylor-falling-in-love-with-sand-volleyball/#respond Tue, 02 Apr 2013 05:54:35 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076083 About this time last year I got exciting confirmation that I was going to be volunteering in the Olympic News Service at the 2012 London Olympics. Cryptically, I was due to work as a Flash Quote Reporter at the BV competition–it took me a while to figure out that meant Beach Volleyball and even longer […]

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About this time last year I got exciting confirmation that I was going to be volunteering in the Olympic News Service at the 2012 London Olympics. Cryptically, I was due to work as a Flash Quote Reporter at the BV competition–it took me a while to figure out that meant Beach Volleyball and even longer to discover that my enviable role meant I would be one of the first people to chat with the athletes as they left the court post game. Many other volunteers never even got close to seeing the inside of any of the venues.

I’ll admit, though, that there was an initial hit of disappointment and some teasing by my friends: “Yeah, sure they just randomly assigned you to the sport with the most skimpily dressed athletes.” But most of all I was a little daunted. Twelve months ago I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about beach volleyball. I didn’t even know who Kerri Walsh Jennings ‘00 was.

Turn the clock forward a full year, and things have gone full circle. Later today, Stanford will host its inaugural game in its newest varsity sport; at 3:30 p.m. the women’s volleyball team will switch from indoor to beach and face Santa Clara in the opener of the NCAA Sand–aka Beach–Volleyball 2013 season.

In case you say don’t care, or you have the standard prejudice that beach volleyball is more about the party than the play, you’re wrong. It is a bona fide sport in spite of the beer and bikinis. If you get the chance and can find it on the TV or Internet somewhere, you should watch a replay of last year’s Olympic men’s final, perhaps one of the best contests I’ve seen in any sport. I’m a little bit biased–not only was I there and I got to interview the players after the match, I also went and played on the court late after the event was over and the dust had settled–but seriously, watch it.

I’m guessing that the women’s final got better coverage over here; it featured two American teams, one of which was the force of nature pairing of Misty May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings. There were so many members of the American press waiting to interview the players after the game that the floor partially collapsed. As great as it was to see them win their third-straight Olympic gold, though, they clearly outclassed Jennifer Kessy and April Ross. It really wasn’t that close.

The men’s final, however, had everything. A No. 3 German team, Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann, from a continent that had never won Olympic gold in the event squaring up against the No. 1 Brazilian team of Alison Cerutti and the legendary Emanuel Rego. There were thrills, spills, missed calls and impossible digs. It was only right that the teams would split the first two sets and treat us to a tiebreak, though perhaps unfair that one of these pairs had to walk away with just silver; Emanuel was heartbroken yet magnanimous in defeat in the post match media conference.

If you can watch that contest from start to finish and not become beach volleyball’s newest devotee, you must have a heart of stone.

Time has flown by since I walked out of that deserted beach volleyball stadium sometime in the early hours of a morning way back in August. The venue is long gone and it will be weird to visit Horse Guards Parade the next time I make it home. I haven’t watched a single minute of beach volleyball since–writing and editing for The Daily, and working on a PhD in my spare time, are not exactly conducive to having time to sleep, let alone anything else–but thankfully that streak stops today.

It was at the Olympics when I first heard that the NCAA was putting its support behind sand volleyball, but that was long before it was confirmed that Stanford would do the same.

My expectations might have been built up slightly by watching Olympic-level beach volleyball and there are surely going to be some growing pains with this new sport. Even Walsh Jennings admitted that her first year switching to sand was a humbling experience, so the learning curve may be pretty steep for the indoor players. It also puts greater demand on the athletics budget and space on the sand courts may be harder to get hold of, but trust me on this, it’ll be more than worth it.

Tom Taylor will be patrolling today’s match to keep out beer and bikinis. To help him with his constant vigilance, email him at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Women’s basketball faces Georgia in Regional Semifinal https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/29/womens-basketball-faces-georgia-in-regional-semifinal/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/29/womens-basketball-faces-georgia-in-regional-semifinal/#respond Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:01:20 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076013 This evening in Spokane, Wash., the Stanford women's basketball will face Georgia in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. Joining them in the Evergreen State, both the Pac-12 Conference and SEC will be doubly represented, with California and LSU due to face off on the same hardwood two-and-a-half hours later.

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This evening in Spokane, Wash., the Stanford women’s basketball team will face Georgia in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. Joining that pair in the Evergreen State, both the Pac-12 Conference and SEC will be doubly represented, with California and LSU due to face off on the same hardwood two-and-a-half hours later.

After struggling against the physical play of Tulsa in the First Round, the No. 1 seed Cardinal (33-2) impressed at home against Michigan on Tuesday, crushing the Wolverines 73-40. However, the No. 4 seed Lady Bulldogs (27-6) will almost certainly line up tactically closer to the Golden Hurricane.

Stanford junior guard Sara James kept Michigan senior guard Kate Thompson quiet from the floor on Tuesday, hitting just one-of-11 from the field. (MICHAEL KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)
Stanford junior guard Sara James kept Michigan senior guard Kate Thompson quiet from the floor on Tuesday, hitting just one-of-11 from the field. (MICHAEL KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)

“I think Tulsa surprised our team a little bit in how aggressive they were, and we were on our heels a little bit,” said Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer. “I don’t think that will happen against Georgia. We know it’s coming.”

The Lady Bulldogs are unlikely to make the mistake Michigan did against Stanford. Lining up in a zone defense, the Wolverines successfully frustrated the Cardinal’s National Player of the Year contender, junior forward Chiney Ogwumike, but gave other players the space to shoot from outside. Led by senior forward Joslyn Tinkle, Stanford seized the chance to hit 12 3-pointers, five-for-five coming from Tinkle.

Georgia is led by senior forward Jasmine Hassell, with 12.8 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, and senior guard Jasmine Jones, with 10.8 and 3.5, respectively.

VanDerveer and her team will be expecting a physical game more similar to that played by other SEC schools, and also the sort of challenge faced by Stanford in recent contests against Colorado, UCLA and Tulsa.

“We don’t play against it a whole lot,” VanDerveer said, “but I think it was beneficial for us to play against a team like South Carolina. It was beneficial to play against Tennessee … Quite honestly, that’s exactly what [sophomore guard] Amber [Orrange] likes playing against, so that’s good. I think [junior guard] Sara [James] likes that too.”

James played a crucial role in the team’s victory over Michigan. She held the Wolverines’ top scorer, senior guard Kate Thompson, to one-for-11 from the field, including zero-for-six from beyond the arc, despite a six-inch height disadvantage. Prior to that contest, Thompson was shooting .402 from the field and .387 from 3-point range on the season.

“Our team needs the toughness that she brings,” VanDerveer said. “Our team needs the competitiveness, the high-energy person that she is… She will guard anyone, she wants to be out there so badly that whether it’s guarding 6-4 [Michigan senior guard Kate] Thompson or whoever we ask her to guard, she gives it her very best.”

After three close previous games, in the last two contests of the Pac-12 Tournament and the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, the Michigan game showed clearly what other players, and not just Ogwumike, are capable of. VanDerveer will be hoping that the team uses the experience and momentum of a big win to launch her team into the Regional Final, and even further to the Final Four in New Orleans.

“[Tuesday] was a little bit of a statement game for our team, to just say ‘hey, we are a No. 1 seed and we’re gonna play like one,'” VanDerveer said.

“I think it was a really important lesson for our team,” VanDerveer said. “That other people are capable and [junior forward] Chiney [Ogwumike] did a great job of trusting her teammates, not trying to go one on three, one against two.”

This will be Stanford’s third trip up to Washington this season, having defeated Gonzaga in Spokane at the beginning of December and faced the Washington schools on the road in the final two games of regular conference play. However, Georgia may feel that it is even more familiar with the surroundings; the Bulldogs played their first- and second-round games in Spokane and so will not have had to travel far for the Sweet Sixteen.

The winner of the first game today will face either No. 2 seed Berkeley (30-3) or No. 6 seed LSU (22-11) in the regional final on Monday. If Stanford meets its cross-bay rival in that contest it would be their third game this season. The two teams played back-to-back games in January, both winning on the road to split this year’s series one-apiece.

The game between Stanford and Georgia will tip off in the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena at 6:04 p.m. PT and will be available live on ESPN and KZSU. The following matchup between California and LSU will be broadcast on ESPN2.

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Stanford cruises into Sweet Sixteen https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/26/stanford-cruises-into-sweet-sixteen/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/26/stanford-cruises-into-sweet-sixteen/#respond Wed, 27 Mar 2013 03:28:21 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075980 With a 73-40 victory over Michigan at Maples Pavilion on Tuesday, the Stanford women's basketball team booked its place in the Spokane Regionals next weekend. Senior Joslyn Tinkle hit a career-best five three-pointer in her final game at Maples Pavilion.

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With a 73-40 victory over Michigan at Maples Pavilion on Tuesday evening, the Stanford women’s basketball team booked its place in the Spokane Regionals next weekend.

The No. 1-seed Cardinal (33-2) rebounded from a slow start to the NCAA Tournament against Tulsa on Sunday and led the No. 8 Wolverines (22-11) by 41-16 at the half. Eight three-pointers helped put the game out of reach with 20 minutes of the contest remaining, and the team added four more in the second half to get a season-best 12 baskets from downtown.

In her last game in Maples Pavilion, Stanford senior Joslyn Tinkle hit a career-best 5-5 from beyond the arc. (MICHAEL KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)
In her last game in Maples Pavilion, Stanford senior Joslyn Tinkle hit a career-best 5-5 from beyond the arc. (MICHAEL KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)

In her final game on Maples hardwood, senior forward Joslyn Tinkle led the field with 21 points and a career-high 5-for-5 clip from three-point range. Junior forward Chiney Ogwumike recorded her 27th double-double of the season, with 12 points and 15 rebounds, and sophomore guard Amber Orrange hit 11 points and handed out six assists. Fellow starters redshirt junior forward Mikaela Ruef and junior guard Sara James, together with sophomore guard Bonnie Samuelson, all added another nine points each.

Michigan, meanwhile, struggled to get its leading players going against a strong defensive display by Stanford. Though guard Jenny Ryan was perfect from the field and beat her season average of 10.2 with 11 points, fellow seniors guard Kate Thompson and forward Rachel Sheffer could not get into double figures, ending with seven points apiece.

A key part of frustrating Thompson, who went just 1-for-11 from the field, was handing 5-foot-10 James the task of guarding Michigan’s 6-foot-4 leading scorer, a player shooting .393 from three-point range this season.

“I give her a lot of credit because [James] will do whatever we ask her to do,” said Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer. “We just said, ‘You’re guarding this girl [Thompson]. No threes. If she scores a three, then you’re coming out.’”

Thompson went 0-for-6 from three-point range and though she was fouled shooting from beyond the arc, it was Ruef, not James, who sent her to the line.

Michigan attempted to frustrate Stanford by targeting Ogwumike and playing zone defense, but while it succeeded in keeping her relatively quiet early on, the home team responded by consistently knocking down its outside shots.

“In practice the last couple of days, the zone looked really good,” said Michigan head coach Kim Barnes Arico. “Just looking at their last couple of games, they hadn’t made that many threes, but teams were playing man — now I see why they were playing man.”

“We really tried to key on [Ogwumike],” continued Barnes Arico, “and I also don’t think that we really recognized what kind of range they had on their jump shots because they weren’t just threes, they were pretty far back behind the line … We obviously had to get out of the zone at that point but we were already in a pretty good hole.”

With the attention focused on her teammate, Tinkle made Michigan pay with one of the best games in her career, hitting 70 percent from the field, including a perfect record from outside and from the charity stripe.

“I feel like it just showed what we’re capable of,” explained Tinkle. “There are a lot of things we can improve on from watching this game. We can use it to fuel us for the sweet 16 and going into Spokane. There was just so much contribution from everyone, the starters and from the bench. We don’t need Chiney to dominate every single game. We want to have her back and help her out and spread that out a little bit.”

Senior forward Joslyn Tinkle (right) celebrates with junior forward Chiney Ogwumike (left) in her final game on campus. (MICHAEL KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)
Senior forward Joslyn Tinkle (right) celebrates with junior forward Chiney Ogwumike (left) in her final game on campus. (MICHAEL KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)

In the first round, the other No. 1 seeds, Baylor, Notre Dame and Connecticut, had all put down serious markers, winning by margins of 42, 33 and 58 points, respectively. In comparison, Stanford had struggled against No. 16 Tulsa, recovering from an early six-point deficit to tie the Golden Hurricane at the half before edging ahead to win 72-56.

“I think that when you’re a No. 1 seed and you’re tied at halftime with a No. 16, everyone says Stanford isn’t that good,” VanDerveer said. “Tulsa played us well. I thought we were sloppy. That got our team’s attention. I said before the game [against Michigan], ‘show people the good play that I see in practice.’”

It worked. That sluggish start to the NCAA Tournament was blown away in the first period against Michigan; looking around the country, the Cardinal’s performance was at the very least as impressive as the other top seeds’. Baylor won by 38, Notre Dame by 17 and UConn equaled Stanford’s margin of 33.

“I was super impressed with them tonight,” Barnes Arico said. “I thought they were tremendous. Obviously, [Ogwumike] is a superstar but the rest of them — they’re great basketball players as well, and they really stepped up tonight. I feel like if they continue to play that way they could challenge for the national championship.”

Stanford will now face No. 4 Georgia (27-6) in the Sweet Sixteen in Spokane, Wash., while rival No. 2 California (30-3) will square off against No. 6 LSU (22-11). If they win, the two Bay Area teams would face each other in the Regional Final on Monday, with a Final Four spot on the line.

The Cardinal’s game against the Lady Bulldogs will tip off at 6:04 p.m. PDT and be broadcast live on ESPN and KZSU, while Berkeley’s contest with the Lady Tigers is scheduled for 8:32 p.m. PDT and will be live on ESPN2.

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Stanford overcomes Tulsa to head into second round https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/24/stanford-overcomes-tulsa-to-head-into-second-round/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/24/stanford-overcomes-tulsa-to-head-into-second-round/#respond Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:24:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075961 The Stanford women's basketball team recovered from a difficult start to defeat Tulsa 72-56 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Maples Pavilion on Sunday. It will now face Michigan in the second round on Tuesday evening after the Wolverines defeated Villanova 60-52.

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The Stanford women’s basketball team recovered from a difficult start to defeat Tulsa 72-56 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Maples Pavilion on Sunday. It will now face Michigan in the second round on Tuesday evening after the Wolverines defeated Villanova 60-52.

The No. 16 seed Golden Hurricane (17-17, 9-4 Conference USA) appeared undaunted by playing the No. 1 seed Cardinal (32-2, 17-1 Pac-12) on its home court in the opening round of the NCAA tournament and forced three turnovers in just the first minute of play. However, Stanford fought back from an early six-point deficit to tie the game 24-24 at the half and when it returned after the break its offense finally began to click, opening up enough of an advantage to win and head through to the Second Round.

“I think that teams tailor some things to us,” said Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer. “I think they were more aggressive than what we’ve seen. They were coming in fighting for their life and we were fighting for our life. Their defense was probably more extended than what we’d seen in other games.”

Stanford sophomore guard Amber Orrange (33) and junior forward Chiney Ogwumike (13) both scored double figures to overcome Tulsa in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament at Maples Pavilion on Sunday. (DON FERIA/isiphotos.com)
Stanford sophomore guard Amber Orrange (33) and junior forward Chiney Ogwumike (13) both scored double figures to overcome Tulsa in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament at Maples Pavilion on Sunday. (DON FERIA/isiphotos.com)

Stanford junior forward Chiney Ogwumike lead her team with 29 points and eight rebounds and sophomore guard Amber Orrange added another 14 points. Narrowly missing out of double-figure scoring, both senior forward Joslyn Tinkle and sophomore guard Taylor Greenfield hit nine points, Tinkle also making three blocks. Though redshirt junior Mikaela Ruef was the lone starter not to hit a basket, her eight boards, seven of them defensive, helped the Cardinal limit the Hurricane.

At the other end of the floor, senior guard Taleeya Mayberry and freshman guard Kelsee Grovey both scored double figures, with 18 and 12 points, respectively, and senior forward Tiffani Couisnard grabbed the most rebounds of anyone on the court, with nine.

A ferocious start by Tulsa caught Stanford slightly off-guard as it returned to action after a two-week break. The Cardinal’s offense struggled to be effective against the Hurricane’s aggressive defense and in the first half Mayberry succeeded in slowing down and frustrating the home team’s playmaker, Orrange, limiting her to just three points and a single assist. In Stanford’s previous game, the Pac-12 Tournament final, Orrange had contributed a career-best 20 points to lead her team past UCLA.

The highlight for the Cardinal in this early period was Ogwumike, who quickly topped the three points she had scored in her last game, the Pac-12 Tournament final. Still, Stanford looked in danger of repeating history. Back in 1998 Harvard became the first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the history of the Tournament, men’s or women’s, winning 71-67 at Maples Pavilion.

Any height advantage that Stanford may have had over the Golden Hurricane — a combined 11-inch difference over the starters from Tulsa — had seemed to have little effect. The road team grabbed just as many boards (18) as the home team in the first half, edging the offensive boards.

However, Stanford began to battle back into the contest. A Greenfield three brought the Card its first lead of the game — 15-14 with 11:04 left in the first half — but Tulsa refused to give in and when the teams finally headed to the locker room for the break, they were locked in a tie.

“We keep a pretty consistent mood,” Greenfield said. “We don’t get rattled. I think that’s one thing that keeps us so strong. The message was that we could have twenty minutes left of our season. We don’t want it to end, we love playing together. Everybody got motivated. The first half was over; the score was zero to zero and we stepped up in the second half.”

When the two teams returned for the second half, Stanford quickly made the breakthrough to open a healthy lead. A Couisnard layup gave the Hurricane a one-point advantage with almost two minutes gone, but from then on the Cardinal began to click offensively.

“We knew in the second half they were going to make a push and we just hoped that that push wouldn’t be too significant,” said Tulsa head coach Matilda Mossman. “There was about a six or eight minute period in there where they outscored us by 12 or 14 and then we couldn’t recover from that.”

The No. 1 seed would end the half shooting 65.5% from the field, in comparison to Tulsa’s 34.3%, and owned a 36-18 advantage in the paint by the final buzzer. It also better used its size advantage to lead the final rebounding 40-31, and while Ogwumike’s teammates added just 10 points to her 14 in the first period, they contributed 33 to her 15 in the second.

“It took us a little time to get some traction and get going,” VanDerveer said, “but I’m really proud of how our team battled. We definitely looked like we had two weeks off and we played like that in the first half. But in the second half, we started to get things going … We’re moving on and we’re very excited to play whoever wins over there.”

Stanford will now play No. 8 seed Michigan (22-10, 9-7 Big Ten) in the second round at Maples Pavilion at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The contest will be broadcast live on ESPN2 and on KZSU.

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Women’s basketball earns No. 1 seed https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/18/womens-basketball-earns-no-1-seed/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/18/womens-basketball-earns-no-1-seed/#respond Tue, 19 Mar 2013 01:45:04 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075923 No. 1 seed Stanford women's basketball is due to face No. 16 Tulsa in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament at 2:20 pm PT in Maples Pavilion on Sunday.

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The Stanford women’s basketball team was given the No. 1 seed in the Spokane Regional when the full bracket for the women’s NCAA Tournament was revealed on Monday.

With Maples Pavilion as one of the host sites for the first and second rounds, the Cardinal (31-2, 17-1 Pac-12) will open tournament play at home against No. 16 Tulsa (17-16, 8-8 Conference USA). The winner of that contest will then face the winner of the other first-round game on campus, either No. 8 Michigan (21-10, 13-4 Big Ten) or No. 9 Villanova (21-10, 9-8 Big East).

The Golden Hurricane earned its place in the Big Dance with a 75-66 win over UCF in the Conference USA Tournament final on Saturday and is led by senior guard Taleya Mayberry (18.7 ppg and 4.2 rpg) and Tiffani Couisnard (8.5 ppg and 9.1 rpg).

Elsewhere, archrival California received the No. 2 seed in Stanford’s region, possibly setting up the third game between the two schools this year. In January, the Cardinal won 62-53 on the road in Berkeley, but dropped the return game 55-67 five days later in Maples. An expected rematch between the two schools was postponed last week when UCLA knocked the Golden Bears out of the Pac-12 Tournament 70-58.

The other No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament are Baylor (32-1, 15-0 Big 12), Notre Dame (31-1, 16-0 Big East) and Connecticut (29-4, 14-2 Big East). Stanford has split games against Baylor (defeating the Bears 71-69 in Hawaii in November) and Connecticut (losing 35-61 at home in December) but has not yet faced the Irish this season.

The game against Tulsa will tip off at 2:20 p.m. PT in Maples Pavilion on Sunday.

 

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Dawkins given one more chance https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/16/dawkins-given-one-more-chance/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/16/dawkins-given-one-more-chance/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2013 00:26:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075905 After a disappointing season, Stanford men's basketball head coach Johnny Dawkins will be back next year, but athletics director Bernard Muir stressed his high expectations for the season to come: an NCAA berth.

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After a disappointing 89-88 overtime loss to Arizona State in the opening game of the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Stanford’s first-year athletics director Bernard Muir confirmed Friday that men’s basketball head coach Johnny Dawkins will return for one more year in 2013-14.

Men's basketball head coach Johnny Dawkins (above) will be back on the Farm next year despite missing out on the NCAA Tournament in each of his first five seasons at the helm of the Cardinal program. (KYLE TERADA/StanfordPhoto.com)
Men’s basketball head coach Johnny Dawkins (above) will be back on the Farm next year despite missing out on the NCAA Tournament in each of his first five seasons at the helm of the Cardinal program. (KYLE TERADA/StanfordPhoto.com)

However, Muir stressed his expectation that next year the Cardinal would return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2007-08 season, Trent Johnson’s last year in charge. That year, Stanford earned a No. 3 seed on the back of a 24-6 (13-5 Pac-10) regular season and an appearance in the Pac-10 Tournament final, but it fell 82-62 to No. 2 seed Texas in the Sweet Sixteen in Houston.

The two most famous Cardinal players in recent memory, the Lopez twins, left at the end of that season, deciding to enter the NBA Draft rather than return for their junior years. Brooke was taken 10th overall by the New Jersey Nets and his brother Robin was chosen 15th by the Phoenix Suns. Johnson also took the head coaching job at LSU the very same offseason.

Since then, the team has struggled to meet expectations, compilinga five-year record of just 93-73 with the lone highlight of last year’s NIT crown. This five-year stretch marks Stanford’s longest run without making it to March Madness since 1989.

Muir is backing his head coach to end that drought next season, but the pressure is on Dawkins.

“Next year is a critical year for us,” Muir told the San Jose Mercury News. “We’ve now had ample time for him to really get us to take that next step.”

This season, Dawkins’ team finished up 18-13 (9-9) in the regular season and failed to make it past the Sun Devils in Vegas. As the defending champion, Stanford is expected to be invited back to the NIT, but few fans will see back-to-back appearances in that competition as a positive step forward. Surrounded by football and women’s basketball teams that have ranked consistently in the top 10 in recent years — and national titles from many of the other varsity sports — men’s basketball has a lot to live up to.

“We want to be playing for a [conference] championship,” Muir said. “We think we have the caliber of kids who can do that. And we want to play in the NCAA (tournament). The goal has always been and will not change: We want to play well into March on the grand stage of March Madness.”

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Taylor: You have got to see her play https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/11/you-have-got-to-see-her-play/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/11/you-have-got-to-see-her-play/#respond Tue, 12 Mar 2013 06:24:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075788 Last week a fellow columnist wrote about struggling to find time to support all of the different athletics teams this university has to offer, and I get it. Even the athletes get it; they’re students too, they realize the pressures we’re all under, and as much as they would love to have you out there […]

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Last week a fellow columnist wrote about struggling to find time to support all of the different athletics teams this university has to offer, and I get it. Even the athletes get it; they’re students too, they realize the pressures we’re all under, and as much as they would love to have you out there cheering them all on every minute of every day, they know that’s just not going to happen. The number of successful teams and other distractions are just too many, and the number of students and hours in the day simply too few.

But among all the storied reasons, even at a place that is so accustomed to success that it has won the NACDA Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup 18-straight times—  something which makes the second place in the inaugural 1993-94 season look like abject failure —  some episodes still stand out. Times when it feels like history is unfolding right in front of you; times like right now.

You might not have been to or even watched a single women’s basketball game this season, but it’s still not too late to jump on the Chiney Ogwumike fan train.

It seems like bad timing to be writing this column right now, right after a game that could rank as the Stanford junior forward’s very worst. Following week-after-week of record-after-record, she set a different sort of marker in the Pac-12 Tournament final on Sunday, her record low in scoring. But don’t be fooled by one result and just three points.

At the beginning of this season, the James Naismith Player of the Year award was a shoe-in for the 6-foot-8 dunking sensation from Houston: Baylor’s reigning — and certain No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft — All-American senior forward Brittney Griner. Sure, a few other players were added to the preseason watch list, but everyone knew this was a one-horse race.

That’s not to say that opposition teams, coaches and even the press didn’t respect, and even fear, Ogwumike. Last year I remember an opposition player sitting in the Maples Pavilion media room, fresh off another schooling by the Cardinal women, complaining about just how tough it was to play not just her sister, Nneka Ogwumike ‘12, but also “little Nneka”.

However, in the wake of her sibling’s departure to the pros, this season she exploded from very good to not just great, but perhaps legendary. Her junior year has been so phenomenal that she could just — whisper it — leave the Farm next year as statistically the best ever player to have pulled on a Cardinal jersey and graced the Maples hardwood.

Barring the impossible, Chiney Ogwumike will be Player of the Year and the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft in 2013-14, but added to that she may well etch her name permanently at the top of the record books. When Candice Wiggins ‘08 was here, she scored an astounding, never-to-be-equaled, 2,629 points. Until this year, three of Wiggins’ seasons ranked in the school top-10 for points scored. In comparison, neither of Ogwumike’s freshman or sophomore years made that list.

Nneka Ogwumike, meanwhile, posted the first- and fifth-best point-scoring seasons during her collegiate career, coming as close as anyone was ever going to get to Wiggins with 2,491 points. She also recorded the most rebounds in a single season, 376, but came just third on the all-time rebounding list, behind former teammates Kayla Pedersen ‘11 (1,266) and Jayne Appel ‘10 (1,263).

After her sophomore year Chiney Ogwumike was on course to more-or-less equal her sister’s career; to be among Stanford’s top players of all time, though not quite the absolute top.

And then it happened. She seized upon her role in the team and ran with it. The contribution of her teammates to her success shouldn’t be underestimated; they have shown unselfishness in getting the ball to her and helping her rack up point-after-point. As a result, rarely have other Cardinal players out-scored her — sophomore guard Amber Orrange’s 20-point career game in the Pac-12 final being a notable exception — but even given that, the statistics are still astonishing.

This season alone, Ogwumike has 28 double-doubles — from just 33 games — recorded the first ever 20/20 game in Pac-12 Tournament history, set the single-season (431) and single-game (24) school rebounding records and currently has posted enough points (738) to be fifth on the single-season all-time list. Her career totals of 1,703 points and 1,086 boards give her a career-average double-double (16.2 ppg and 10.3 rbg) and puts her a dead cert for overtaking Pedersen by April 2014, and maybe even Wiggins too.

There are a maximum possible six more games left for the Cardinal this year. If Stanford reached the NCAA final, and Ogwumike continued her current consistency, she would finish this year taking another record off her sister. Nneka Ogwumike’s single-season best was 809 points; at 22.4 ppg, Chiney Ogwumike would have 872. Another year of that and Wiggins’ mark is hers.

And for those “lucky” enough not to be going anywhere for Spring Break — yes, grad students, I’m talking to you — two of those remaining games are going to be played right here on the Farm: the First and Second Rounds of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday Mar. 24 and Monday Mar. 26. Can you really afford not to be there?

 Tom Taylor will be at the First and Second Round games holding a “Chiney Will You Marry Me?” poster. If you would like to be a part of his proposal and possibly another record breaking performance by Ogwumike, email Tom at tom.taylor@stanford.edu and follow him on twitter @DailyTomTaylor. 

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Zimmermann adjusts to life in the front row https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/07/zimmerman-adjusts-to-life-in-the-front-row/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/07/zimmerman-adjusts-to-life-in-the-front-row/#respond Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:44:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075682 Fans of the Stanford men’s basketball team may have spotted a couple of all-too-familiar faces in the student section this year. Towering above most of the rest of the Sixth Man Club, two of last year’s NIT-winning stars, Andrew Zimmermann ‘12 and Jack Trotter ‘12, have been not-so-quietly making their presence felt. Intrigued by the […]

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Fans of the Stanford men’s basketball team may have spotted a couple of all-too-familiar faces in the student section this year. Towering above most of the rest of the Sixth Man Club, two of last year’s NIT-winning stars, Andrew Zimmermann ‘12 and Jack Trotter ‘12, have been not-so-quietly making their presence felt. Intrigued by the role reversal of athlete-turned-fan, I sat down with Zimmermann last week to learn the full story.

In an interview last year, Zimmermann explained that though he hoped to eventually study for both an M.D. and MBA, he wasn’t quite ready to give up on basketball. His plan after graduation was to head off overseas and play perhaps in Europe or Japan for a couple of seasons before returning to school.

Those plans, though, had to be put off when Zimmermann developed an injury towards the end of his junior year. He suffered cartilage tears in both hips that made training and playing progressively more painful, but he was reluctant to have an operation to fix the problem immediately.

“I chose not to have surgery after my junior year because the best-case scenario was a six-month rehab [and] the worst-case scenario was a year, and so I figured I would just try to manage the injury,” said Zimmermann. “That went well until about halfway through the season my senior year… and by the end of the season I had to sit out a couple of games because it was difficult walking, it was difficult running.”

Andrew Zimmerman '12
Andrew Zimmerman ’12 has pivoted from the court to The Sixth Man seats in his first year as a Stanford men’s basketball alumnus.             (CARL ROMANOS/The Stanford Daily)

Luckily for Zimmermann, though, he was able to stay on for an extra year at Stanford — not as a student, but as a researcher in the School of Medicine — allowing him to keep in touch with the physical therapists and trainers on the basketball team and get the best possible rehab. Seven months out from the last of two operations, he played his first game of five-on-five basketball in the last couple of weeks and is on track to head overseas later this year.

Exactly where he’ll end up, and what team he’ll end up playing for, is, though, still undecided.

“At the end of the day, it’s what you’re willing to play for,” said Zimmermann. “I’m not positive I’ll find the perfect situation, just because I’m coming off of injury, but we’ll see. And if the perfect situation doesn’t arise, then maybe it’s time to call it quits and say, ‘Well, I’ve put everything into it, but it’s just not meant to be.’”

Whenever Zimmermann does decide to finally hang up his boots, he plans to make a career in medicine, possibly seizing the Bay Area startup bug and exploring medical entrepreneurship. This last year he has been working as a life science research assistant in Stanford’s School of Medicine, but even before graduating last June he had already been gaining considerable experience in his chosen field.

Zimmermann had a rather unusual route to the Farm, by way of first Santa Clara and then Foothill College. So when he finally made it to his senior year at Stanford, he needed just once more class to graduate with a degree in biology. However, NCAA rules required that he still register for at least 12 units of coursework, so Zimmerman spent most of his final year working in a plastic surgery laboratory investigating wound regeneration.

Talking about his longer-than-usual college career, Zimmermann had no regrets.

“I wouldn’t change it,” Zimmermann said, “and it’s just one of those things that probably helped me grow along the way, deal with some adversity, kind of mature to be able to do what I did when I came to Stanford.”

He was originally recruited by Santa Clara head coach Dick Davey, but by the time he had made the trip out from his home town of Oostburg, Wisc., Davey had retired. Zimmermann did not see eye to eye with the new setup at Santa Clara and started just one game in a frustrating freshman year.

“There’s a lot that went on behind the scenes, good for him [Davey], bad for him,” said Zimmermann. “The whole situation was a lot more messy than what was portrayed. It was disappointing for sure, because he came out and recruited me. I really liked him; my parents really liked him. I really felt good about him being my coach.”

When Davey then took up an associate head coaching position with Stanford’s newly appointed head coach, Johnny Dawkins, his and Zimmermann’s paths would finally cross again, though not immediately. Zimmermann transferred to Stanford at the end of his freshman year, but because he was not immediately released by Santa Clara, he could not receive a scholarship to come to the Farm straight away. He instead opted to spend a year at Foothill College, staying in touch as much as possible with the basketball program and training with the team over the summer.

Zimmermann may have started his collegiate career as a Bronco, but it is clear that Stanford has now won his heart.

“The Cal game last year at home was great,” said Zimmermann. “They came in, they had to beat us to tie for the championship and to be able to take that from them, being our rivals, was pretty awesome.

“It’s serious,” continued Zimmermann about the rivalry. “There’s a lot of guys on the team I don’t like. It’s funny ‘cause I’m sure if I played with them I’d be buddy-buddy with them, they’d probably be cool and I’m sure they think the same about us.”

Andrew Zimmerman '12
Andrew Zimmerman ’12 is spending this year, his first out of school, as a life science research assistant at Stanford’s School of Medicine.     (MIKE KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)

He likens himself to ex-Cal player Jorge Gutierrez, someone opposition fans loved to hate, and it’s easy to see why. Standing at 6-foot-8 and weighing in at 230 pounds, Zimmermann stood out from the rest of the clean-cut Cardinal last year with a shaggy mane of hair and scruffy beard that matched his on-court persona.

“After my junior year, they kept bringing up Matt Howard from Butler,” Zimmermann said. “How he just plays hard, he doesn’t care what people think of him. He had the crazy hair, unkempt. He had baggy socks, and he just had a game that just showed that he didn’t care what other people thought. He was going to play how he played.”

The clean-shaven Dawkins turned a blind eye to Zimmermann’s new look, perhaps because it matched his forward’s approach to every minute of every contest.

“You hear those people who say they’d run through a brick wall,” said Zimmermann. “Well, I felt that that was kind of who I was, and then my goal was to get everybody to have that same kind of passion and fire and work ethic and enthusiasm. So when we stepped out onto the court, teams saw that this is who Stanford is, we’re not the smart, educated, soft team. We’re smart and educated, and we’re also willing to run through a wall.”

Though he is no longer on the team and can no longer inspire from the hardwood, Zimmermann has not relinquished his motivating role. Chest painted, caveman look still in full swing, jumping up and down and yelling at the opposition, he has instead become one of the most visible members of the student group that used to cheer him on from the sidelines, Stanford’s Sixth Man Club.

“I remember watching Stanford games, the Sixth Man used to be one of the best student sections in the country,” Zimmermann said. “I did everything as an athlete at Stanford to try and build the basketball program, and I figured while I’m here, lets see what I can do to help get the student section back to the prestigious level it was.”

In Zimmermann, the team, and the university as a whole, has a fan that has clearly been drinking the Stanford Kool-Aid.

“I’m a big proponent of supporting each other as athletes,” said Zimmermann, “but even going to theater performances… different musical events, dance events. That’s just the thing about Stanford, there are so many amazing opportunities [that] sometimes you don’t realize how many things you could do, or it’s overwhelming to think, ‘Today there’s a soccer game, a baseball game and a volleyball game, and I have homework.’”

He also knows much more intimately than most both what it is like to be on a college basketball team and exactly how much work and determination the current players put in not just at game time but behind the scenes in practice. Frustrated as he might be by losses and poor performances, it’s a unique relationship for any fan to have with his team and something that makes it much harder to criticize coach or players.

But perhaps after his sojourn overseas Zimmermann could be tempted to do something a bit different. Davey praised his player’s coaching abilities in an interview last year, and Zimmermann has been trying his hand at coaching kids at Saratoga and Los Altos high schools and helping with a basketball program in East Palo Alto. Could Zimmermann one day make it back to Maples Pavilion to trade in his player and fan roles for something rather different?

Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu.

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Taylor: Searching for inspiration https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/04/taylor-searching-for-inspiration/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/04/taylor-searching-for-inspiration/#respond Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:55:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075533 It’s crunch time, the final few minutes of winter quarter, the seconds ticking steadily by, the scoreboard burning painfully bright with a simple message: I’m down, maybe—hopefully—not by much, and I’m certainly not feeling on top of this situation.

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On Friday it hit me. An innocent email from my Managing Editor at The Daily informing me of this week’s budget tipped me over the edge.

Four stories due from me next week; 3,600, hopefully well-chosen, words; six stories by other people due on my editing night, Tuesday, equaling another 4,400 words for me to sift through and check, before helping out with the whole layout process of the next day’s paper.

And I’m supposed to be a full-time student, supposed to be busy writing my doctoral thesis—200-plus pages of far less comprehensible text.

It’s crunch time, the final few minutes of winter quarter, the seconds ticking steadily by, the scoreboard burning painfully bright with a simple message: I’m down, maybe—hopefully—not by much, and I’m certainly not feeling on top of this situation.

To add insult to injury, my MacBook Pro, perhaps the most important thing in my life right now, also threw in the towel on Friday. Instead of a nice helpful cursor, I was treated to the Spinning Beach Ball of Death, my files and applications frustratingly out of reach behind the frozen screen of my laptop.

Last week, one of my fellow columnists wrote about everything other people get from literature that he gets from sports. On an average week, I’d say my relationship with sports doesn’t go much deeper than simple light-hearted entertainment, but there are some times—this week, for example—that I need something more: inspiration.

Sure, books can be inspiring, but rarely in quite the same way. Fiction feeds a healthy imagination, but I think most of us realize that when all is said and done, it is just fiction. Achieving the impossible in the virtual world is far less impressive than even achieving average things in the real world.

Non-fiction can be much more inspiring, reading real accounts of how ordinary people did extraordinary things, how they went from nothing to something and changed the world. It’s hard not to take at least something from such stories, not to start believing that even we can do something special with our lives.

But even that falls a little short because though it might be true, it lacks the reality of a story unfolding right now, before our very eyes. What’s done is done, we know how it is all going to end. There are few surprises in non-fiction.

I’ve never really understood why fans might want to watch a game they have already seen again in its entirety. Perhaps the highlights, to marvel again at a few key moments and better understand them but not to sit down to try and relive the action play-by-play. Especially not when there is far too much going on in the real world, both inside and outside of the realm of sports, to enthrall anyone.

Sports—live sports—are inspiring because anything can happen. You might be down, but you’re never out of it until the final whistle or buzzer is blown. It can of course be disheartening too, because that is the yin to inspiration’s yang. When your team gets torn to pieces or crumbles of its own accord, it’s pretty depressing, but without that emotion lurking behind every defeat the highs wouldn’t be quite as high.

You can go down in style too. David doesn’t always get to beat Goliath, but against much bigger opposition he can still inspire us all with the way he plays the game—the teamwork, the togetherness, the against-all-odds, the never-say-die attitude.

As much as we might not realize it, we’re a team outside of sports too. College is a game and the dreaded curve means you’re often competing head-to-head with your closest friends. Homework and exams are just a cruel obstacle course we must negotiate; succeeding at them doesn’t prove for certain that you learned anything anymore than failing means you learned nothing.

And just when everything looked hopeless for me, my own team stepped up. My fellow women’s basketball beat writer and desk editor volunteered to grab my editing duties and at least once of those stories due, and a lab mate jumped in to help get my computer running again.

It’s now week nine of winter quarter. Dead Week and then finals are just around the corner. Problem sets and papers are piling up, and it seems unthinkable right now that you’ll make it to spring break.

But you got this. Go you!

Put on your pom-poms and cheer Tom on at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Women’s basketball clinches Pac-12 title https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/02/womens-basketball-clinches-pac-12-title/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/02/womens-basketball-clinches-pac-12-title/#respond Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:17:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075464 The Stanford women's basketball team finished off another successful regular season on Saturday, defeating Washington State 72-50 and winning its 13th-straight conference title. Cross-Bay rival California then defeated Washington 73-60 to ensure that the Card must share the title this season.

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The Stanford women’s basketball team finished off another successful regular season on Saturday, defeating Washington State 72-50 and winning its 13th-straight conference title. Cross-Bay rival California defeated Washington 73-60 on the same day to ensure that the Card must share the title this season.

Junior forward Chiney Ogwumike (13) netted 28 points and grabbed 13 points in helping the No. 4 Cardinal dominate Washington State 72-50 in Pullman. With the victory, Stanford shares the conference title with No. 6 Cal and owns the tiebreaker over the Golden Bears for the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament.  [BOB DREBIN/Stanfordphoto.com]
Junior forward Chiney Ogwumike (13) netted 28 points and grabbed 13 points in helping the No. 4 Cardinal dominate Washington State 72-50 in Pullman. With the victory, Stanford shares the conference title with No. 6 Cal and owns the tiebreaker over the Golden Bears for the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament. [BOB DREBIN/Stanfordphoto.com]
The win for the No. 4 Cardinal (28-2, 17-1 Pac-12) over the Cougars (10-19, 6-12) also means it will bring home its 22nd all-time conference title and has clinched the No. 1 seed for next week’s Pac-12 Tournament. The Card last tied for the conference title at the end of the 2004-05 season, when it had to share the honor with Arizona.

No. 6 Cal (26-2, 16-1) defeated Washington (19-9, 11-6) to end that nine-year run and make amends for an upset five years ago, when California also entered the final day tied with Stanford for the lead, and when both schools faced the same opponents in Seattle. That day, the Cardinal also defeated Washington State, but the Golden Bears slipped up against Washington to lose 74-66 and hand sole possession of the title to Stanford.

Starring for the Cardinal, consensus National Player of the Year candidate junior forward Chiney Ogwumike grabbed her 24th double-double of the year (and 54th all-time) with 28 points and 13 rebounds. She also broke another couple of records with this performance, setting a career-high in points as well as taking yet another honor away from her sister Nnemkadi Ogwumike ’12 by setting a new school and conference single-season mark of 381 boards.

Elsewhere for Stanford, senior forward Joslyn Tinkle added 13 points, senior forward Mikaela Ruef scored seven and pulled down 10 rebounds and junior guard Sara James contributed nine points and six rebounds.

In comparison, no single Washington State player made double figures in either points or rebounds, though scoring and rebounding duties were much more evenly shared among the Cougars. Twelve of the 13 players that saw action for the home team added to the points total and every single one grabbed at least one rebound.

Leading the Cougars, freshman sensation guard Lia Galdeira could not live up to her 14.9 season average in points, hitting just eight, but her seven rebounds did beat her season mark of 5.2. WSU, though, was undoubtedly hurt by the absence of sophomore guard Tia Presley, who tore her right ACL against Oregon at the end of January. Until that season-ending injury, Presley was scoring 13.3 points and grabbing 4.3 rebounds per contest.

Washington State was also hurt by poor shooting, hitting just 28.6 percent from the floor compared to Stanford’s 42.9 percent, and was rushed into poor choices on offense by the conference’s best defensive team. Overall, the Cardinal stole the ball seven times and blocked six shots. The Cougars also struggled to contain Ogwumike, doubling up on her to no avail as she still broke her points record.

The large lead—Stanford was ahead by 30 points at 63-33 with just over 10 minutes gone in the second half—allowed Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer to rest key players, including Ogwumike, who sat out with 11:28 still remaining in the game. That might prove crucial now that the regular season has ended. The Pac-12 Tournament is just five days away and with Stanford hoping to win the title it will need to play—and win—games on three consecutive days.

Stanford will now look ahead to a return to Washington this Friday, when it will start its tournament play after receiving a bye through the first round. The two NorCal teams of Stanford and California will be hot favorites to square off in the final on Sunday, a game that may have much wider implications that just deciding the Pac-12 Tournament. The Cardinal is currently on the line between receiving a No. 1 or No. 2 seed into the NCAA Tournament and Berkeley is hot on its heels. No. 5 Duke’s 69-65 loss to Miami on Thursday is likely to drop it below Stanford, but any of one these teams could arguably make the case for one of the top-four seeds, if it can win out.

Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor@stanford.edu.

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Chiney Ogwumike named to Ann Meyers Drysdale Midseason Watch List https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/27/chiney-ogwumike-named-to-ann-meyers-drysdale-midseason-watch-list/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/27/chiney-ogwumike-named-to-ann-meyers-drysdale-midseason-watch-list/#respond Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:20:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075349 Stanford women’s basketball’s junior forward Chiney Ogwumike was picked by the U.S. Basketball Writer’s Association in its 2013 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Top 20 Midseason Watch List on Tuesday.

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Stanford women’s basketball’s junior forward Chiney Ogwumike was picked by the U.S. Basketball Writer’s Association in its 2013 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Top 20 Midseason Watch List on Tuesday.

On Senior Night last Sunday, the Cypress, Texas native notched up the first 20/20 game in her collegiate career, hitting 27 points and pulling down 24 boards, and set a new school record of 52 double-doubles. She also became the sixth member of the 1,000-1,000 club for points and rebounds on The Farm.

Stanford will close out the regular season on the road this weekend, playing Washington at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Washington State at noon on Saturday.

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Taylor: Cardinal sinners, repent! https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/25/taylor-cardinal-sinners-repent/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/25/taylor-cardinal-sinners-repent/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 06:37:13 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075304 It seems like blasphemy to even ask this question, the sort of uneducated heresy more likely to be uttered by a student from that university across the Bay, but: Is Stanford evil?

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It seems like blasphemy to even ask this question, the sort of uneducated heresy more likely to be uttered by a student from that university across the Bay, but: Is Stanford evil?

It can’t be, right? I love this place. I honestly struggle to get dressed in the morning and not find myself wearing something Cardinal. Out of 14 football games last season, I missed just two away games, and I shudder to think how many days of my life I have spent in my second home, Maples Pavilion.

There are few sports teams that I live and die for: Reading FC, the England soccer team and now the ensemble of Stanford Athletics too. It wasn’t always that way, I used to find the whole concept of “school spirit” rather distasteful, but reporting for this publication, chatting with athletes and coaches alike and simply sharing far too many happy memories alongside other Stanford fans eventually wore me down.

It can’t, then, be evil. I’m one of the good guys, right? When I missed my bus home from Los Angeles on Presidents’ Day, I ended up buying two tickets. One for me and one for another passenger in a similar predicament, except with an empty wallet. Not because he asked—I didn’t even give him the chance to do that—but just because it was the right thing to do.

So I wouldn’t support something that was downright evil, right? Surely someone or something that I like and have respect for can’t be that bad.

But then Stanford—admittedly not the athletics department—goes and sells out us students over the summer, letting Starbucks invade Tresidder, does its best to kill off a popular and charitable food truck, banishing NetAppetit from the Farm (though it has since been allowed to return under heavy restrictions), and now threatens to poison the lifeblood of Suites, handing control of its student-run eating clubs over to outsiders.

Wait, that can’t be my Stanford, can it? My Stanford—seen through my rose-colored glasses—is the good guy, the quirky little school that has made it to the top without compromising its identity and idealism. Not the sort of place that would just roll over for the first corporation that comes knocking, that values profit above anything else.

A lot of debate on campus centers around the Israel-Palestine conflict and whether Stanford, an incredibly rich and influential organization, should divest from certain companies with dealings in the Middle East. The main idea being that investing in these companies supports the status quo and indirectly leads to flagrant abuses of human rights, and thus by removing this money, the university could enact positive change.

Whether that will work and exactly who is and isn’t responsible in the first place probably isn’t a topic I should be subjecting you sports fans to, but I wouldn’t be scribbling this down if I didn’t see some thing in common here.

I can’t blame the athletics department directly for the sins committed elsewhere, but like it or not, there is a deep connection between all the various subsidiaries of Stanford Inc. I also have a lot invested in Cardinal sports—not money, of course—but something worth far more: my hopes and dreams.

So should I—could I—divest—myself from all this? Even though attendances at football games aren’t exactly multitudinous, I doubt a single fan would be missed, and since most of my tickets I get for free, I wouldn’t exactly be cutting off a lucrative revenue stream. But regardless of the futility of it all, is it the right thing to do?

Reading FC is a soccer minnow struggling to stay alive in the world of the Premier League. Though technically now owned by a Russian billionaire—or at least a consortium including him—it has not let this go to its head, valuing the team ethic over expensive and extravagant superstar players or managers.

Even the England team doesn’t appear too bad. Yes, the Football Association—the governing body of English soccer—is poorly run and makes some terrible decisions, but it looks like a shining example in comparison to FIFA. England is also helped out by its repeated and catastrophic failure on the international stage; it has not won anything in 47 years. It is far easier to love a bad loser than a bad winner.

Stanford, though, lays claim to one of the most successful programs in the history of collegiate athletics. Winning might never be easy, but it certainly comes naturally here. All of that I could live with, if it wasn’t for the creeping fear in my heart that Stanford is becoming a bully. If money is power and power corrupts then things don’t look good for a school that raked in a billion dollars in fundraising last year.

Turning away from the people and teams in Stanford colors that have been a major part of my life for the last few years would be impossibly hard, but maybe it would be worth doing.

If your wallet is empty, Tom Taylor will give you lunch money as long as you promise to avoid Starbucks. Tell him why that makes him a good person at tom.taylor ‘at’ stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Stanford celebrates seniors Joslyn Tinkle and Mikaela Ruef https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/24/stanford-celebrates-seniors-joslyn-tinkle-and-mikaela-ruef/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/24/stanford-celebrates-seniors-joslyn-tinkle-and-mikaela-ruef/#respond Mon, 25 Feb 2013 07:26:42 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075256 This weekend, the Stanford women’s basketball team comfortably defeated the bottom two schools in the Pac-12 conference, starting with a 90-53 rout of Oregon State on Friday night and following that up with a 74-50 win over Oregon on Senior Night. The No. 4 Cardinal (26-2, 15-1 Pac-12) pulled ahead early against the Ducks (4-24, […]

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This weekend, the Stanford women’s basketball team comfortably defeated the bottom two schools in the Pac-12 conference, starting with a 90-53 rout of Oregon State on Friday night and following that up with a 74-50 win over Oregon on Senior Night.

The No. 4 Cardinal (26-2, 15-1 Pac-12) pulled ahead early against the Ducks (4-24, 2-14) on Sunday, holding the visiting team scoreless for almost five minutes in the first half on a 12-0 run for Stanford, thus extending its winning streak over Oregon to 17 games.

[Mike Kheir/The Stanford Daily]
Junior forward Chiney Ogwumike contributed 19 points to the Card’s 90-53 win against Oregon State on Friday. [Zetong Li/The Stanford Daily]
Meanwhile, though, No. 6 Cal (25-2, 15-1) seemed in trouble at halftime across the Bay, trailing Oregon State (9-19, 3-13) 30-18; the Golden Bears recovered to sneak ahead 58-56 by the final buzzer and stay tied for the lead of the Pac-12 conference with Stanford.

Sunday’s game marked the final appearance of senior forward Joslyn Tinkle in a regular season game at Maples Pavilion—though she will be back for the NCAA Tournament First and Second Rounds in a month’s time—and perhaps the last for redshirt junior forward Mikaela Ruef, too. Ruef found out last week that she has been accepted to coterm in civil and environmental engineering but was unsure if this would be her last season or not.

“I am a senior this year,” Ruef said. “I came in with Jos [Tinkle], and I would like to come back, but we don’t really know what could happen or whatever next year. I do have an extra year of eligibility, so it would be awesome to come back, but we never know. I’m celebrating Senior Night with my best friend Jos.”

Tinkle, however, knows for certain that last night’s game was her final true home game. It was also the first time in her collegiate career that both of her parents, Wayne and Lisa Tinkle, were at Maples together for one of her games since her father has had to balance a busy schedule as the head coach of the Montana men’s basketball team.

“It was an emotional day, I’m going to probably choke up now,” Tinkle said. “I can picture myself yesterday walking through this campus and falling in love with it right away, coming in as a freshman, meeting Mikaela for the first time just in this hallway down here. It’s surreal, it really hasn’t sunk in, really hasn’t hit me.”

Against Oregon State on Friday, four Cardinal players scored double-figure points: junior forward Chiney Ogwumike, sophomore forward Taylor Greenfield, sophomore guard Amber Orrange and Tinkle, with 19, 18, 15 and 11 points, respectively. Greenfield’s tally, which include 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, tied her career-high set earlier this season against Gonzaga and Tinkle’s score earned her the honor of being the 34th member of Stanford’s 1,000-Point Club. Ruef’s 10-6-6 on rebounds, points and assists also marked another big game for the Beavercreek, Ohio native.

On Sunday, doing her best to steal the limelight from seniors Tinkle and Ruef, Ogwumike grabbed her school-record 52nd double-double with her first ever 20/20 game. Alongside her 27 points, the 24 boards that she brought down took the single-game rebounding school record away from her older sister Nnemkadi Ogwumike ’12 and made her the sixth member the 1,000 rebounds club. It also made her just the sixth Stanford player to have recorded both 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.

However, other players made important contributions of their own, including 12 points from Orrange and eight from each junior guard Sara James and sophomore forward Bonnie Samuelson. Ruef also grabbed nine rebounds even though she played limited minutes.

Ogwumike was quick to point out the importance of her teammates in the records she set, especially highlighting the roles that Ruef and Tinkle have had in her three seasons so far at Stanford.

“Mikaela taught me that you should always work hard, there’s no off-season,” Ogwumike said. “Every day is a chance for you to get better. I think she might have worked the hardest of our team in the off-season because she wanted to have a chance to play. She was always on the gun, every day in the summer. During her breaks in between classes she’ll come and shoot, so she definitely sets a standard.

“And then Joslyn. There’s some people that make you realize it’s so much more than a game and Joslyn’s one of those people. Her energy that she brings in life in general, you just see a little glimpse of it on the court, but off the court she’s just a special person. I don’t know one person that does not like Joslyn Tinkle.”

Stanford will now head north at the end of this week to close out Pac-12 conference play against Washington in Seattle on Thursday at 7 p.m. PT and then Washington State in Pullman on Saturday at noon. With Cal still tied for first place and the top seed in the Pac-12 Tournament still up for grabs, the Cardinal will need to win both contests.

Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor@stanford.edu.

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Chiney Ogwumike leads women’s basketball to Los Angeles sweep https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/18/chiney-ogwumike-leads-womens-basketball-to-los-angeles-sweep/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/18/chiney-ogwumike-leads-womens-basketball-to-los-angeles-sweep/#respond Tue, 19 Feb 2013 05:49:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075024 Over Presidents’ Day weekend, the Stanford women’s basketball swept both Los Angeles schools on the road, first defeating USC 79-55 on Friday night and then earning a 68-57 victory over UCLA on Sunday. The wins ensured that the No. 4 Cardinal (24-2, 13-1 Pac-12) would stay tied for top spot in the Pac-12 Conference with […]

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Junior Chiney Ogwumike (above)
Junior Chiney Ogwumike (left) picked up her record-breaking 20th double-double of the season as Stanford topped USC and UCLA. (SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily)

Over Presidents’ Day weekend, the Stanford women’s basketball swept both Los Angeles schools on the road, first defeating USC 79-55 on Friday night and then earning a 68-57 victory over UCLA on Sunday.

The wins ensured that the No. 4 Cardinal (24-2, 13-1 Pac-12) would stay tied for top spot in the Pac-12 Conference with No. 6 Berkeley (23-2, 13-1), which also defeated both Southern Californian schools this past weekend.

The Trojans (8-17, 5-9) meanwhile dropped to eighth place in the table, and the No. 15 Bruins (19-6, 10-4) look to have lost their chance to return to the head of the pack. With just four games remaining for each team in the regular season, UCLA would need both Stanford and California to lose three games and newly third-placed Washington to also slip up at least once.

On Friday, junior forward Chiney Ogwumike stood out for the Card, grabbing her record setting 20th double-double of the season, with 26 points and 15 rebounds. Joining Ogwumike in double figures, senior forward Joslyn Tinkle recorded her second double-double of the season with 17 points and 11 rebounds, senior forward Mikaela Ruef scored 12 points and sophomore guard Amber Orrange netted 10 points. Ruef also set a personal points-in-a-game record, topping the 11 she made against Arizona a week ago.

Trojan sophomore forward Alexyz Vaioletma and junior forward Cassie Harberts netted double-figure points, with 13 and 14, respectively. But crucially for the Cardinal, sophomore guard Ariya Crook, who alongside Harberts is the only other USC player with a double-figure season scoring average, hit just six points.

Ogwumike again put in another strong performance on Sunday, hitting 26 points to keep her record of double-figure scoring in every game this season still alive. However, Ruef also continued her strong run of form, grabbing her second career double-double, with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Junior forward Joslyn Tinkle was just shy of joining Ruef, too, hitting 10 points and grabbing nine rebounds. Among the guards, sophomore Amber Orrange might not have made double figures in any one category, but her nine points, seven assists, six rebounds and five steals show how much her all-around play contributed to Stanford’s win.

The biggest three scoring threats to the Cardinal from UCLA before the game looked likely to be senior forward Alyssia Brewer, redshirt junior forward Atonye Nyingifa and senior guard/forward Markel Walker, all with double-figure point averages. True to form, Nyingifa, Brewer and Walker hit 12, 10 and 10 points, respectively.

UCLA fell behind by nine points after a Stanford 9-2 run midway through first half but clawed that back to within two points after increasing the pressure on the Card and preventing the visiting team from comfortably settling into its lead. When Stanford freshman forward Tess Picknell was called for a flagrant foul two minutes before the break, it looked like the momentum had completely turned.

However, the Cardinal opened the lead back out to five before halftime, and returning from the break, it stretched further ahead to earn 16 points of breathing space with ten minutes left in the game.

UCLA struggled when freshman guard Kari Korver had to leave the contest after picking up a cut on her right cheek when she tried to defend Ogwumike. Korver had looked particularly dangerous, hitting 2-of-3 from downtown and helping motivate and drive her team forward, and her absence did not help the Bruins.

UCLA did again narrow the gap, but it was too little too late, and Stanford was not going to let the lead slip away again. Though the Bruins pressed Orrange hard, she paid them back, breaking through and making crucial steals on defense even when the momentum seemed to be swinging back in UCLA’s favor.

As time wore down, a fired up Ruef helped seal the result for both her team and herself. With just 20 seconds remaining, she grabbed her 10th board and was fouled in the process, sending her to the line to score her ninth and 10th points, sealing her double-double performance.

Stanford now returns to The Farm to face the Oregon schools this weekend, first the Beavers on Friday night and then the Ducks on Sunday. The contest against Oregon will be Senior Night for Tinkle and Ruef, but both hope to play on home court during the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament in March.

Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu.

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After wrestling, what’s next to go in the Olympics? https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/18/after-wrestling-whats-next-to-go-in-the-olympics/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/18/after-wrestling-whats-next-to-go-in-the-olympics/#respond Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:37:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075014 When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced last Tuesday that it was dropping wrestling from the Olympic Games in 2020, I started to wonder if they were just trying to wind us sportswriters up. I mean seriously, folks, wrestling? One of the few sports that we can be more or less certain the ancient Greeks […]

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When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced last Tuesday that it was dropping wrestling from the Olympic Games in 2020, I started to wonder if they were just trying to wind us sportswriters up. I mean seriously, folks, wrestling? One of the few sports that we can be more or less certain the ancient Greeks included in the original Olympiads? It’s not called Greco-Roman for nothing.

As much as current IOC President Jacques Rogge might have ingratiated himself with me after flattering my entire country at last year’s summer games in London, waxing lyrical about Britain’s role in sporting history, it’s hard not to see the insanity in this decision.

Technically it’s not yet entirely over for wrestling, as it now joins a shortlist of seven other sports — from wushu to wakeboarding — looking to be added in 2020 as an additional event, but it is far from certain which of those might make it.

According to the IOC, the exact makeup of the Games is reviewed after each Olympiad in an effort to ensure the tournament remains relevant to fans. And sure, maybe wrestling isn’t the biggest crowd pleaser, but didn’t the Olympics used to be about this amateur spirit? When was it ruled purely by money and popularity?

Also, I’d really like someone to explain to me how some of the more bizarre events are considered better value than wrestling. I honestly don’t know anyone — or at least not a single person I know will openly admit to this — who cares about speed walking. In a nutshell, this “sport” involves people trying to get from point A to point B without running. Since biomechanically that doesn’t make any sense, in the races I’ve seen, the leaders usually get disqualified.

Back in 2000, I was lucky enough to visit Sydney during the XXVII Olympiad, and my brother and I managed to get tickets into the Olympic Stadium on one of the lower-key athletics days. One of the highlights of that experience was the final of the women’s 20-kilometer race walk, but not in a good way.

Over the Games, Australians were happily cheering on any other Australian, so when Jane Saville took the lead in this race — after the original frontrunner was disqualified — the atmosphere in the stadium, where the crowd was watching the action on the big screens, began to build. As Saville approached the entrance to the main arena, where she would need to complete just one lap to take gold, even cynical old me was getting excited.

But then she never emerged from the tunnel onto the track. Saville had been disqualified just yards from making her big entrance. Bemused, the crowd fell silent. It was pretty funny.

The setup of the Games, though, ensures that we will still get to “enjoy” speed walking. The sport that is broadly titled “athletics” groups together everything from sprinting to race walking. Viewed in that way, it becomes harder to kick out the “sport” of speed walking, because that would take with it, as a serious casualty, the 100-meter final. Wrestling, meanwhile has no such safety in numbers.

Whatever. If popularity and money were really all that the IOC cared about, we’d have a very different Games. Why not add in American football — the Super Bowl always gets a good crowd — and maybe Formula 1 — cyclists and equestrians already bring wheels and horsepower to the Olympics anyway.

Though I can’t remember back to when this was a truly amateur festival of sport, I thought the Olympic Games were supposed to be about more than just money, and maybe even more than pure popularity. It lies somewhere between the ancient Greek tournament, including sports like running and wrestling, and a chance for all the smaller sports out there, such as table tennis and taekwondo, to gain some honor and recognition. It was never a place for any sport in which the Olympics wouldn’t be the pinnacle of that discipline.

What happens now to wrestling, I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine that golf, which is being added for the Rio 2016, has been hurting that much by not being included, or that it will gain substantially by being an Olympic sport. Real wrestling — not that fake WWE trash — however, doesn’t get on TV very often and isn’t an industry worth tens of billions of dollars. Losing the biggest prize in a minor sport, the biggest recruiting tool, could be devastating.

Tom Taylor can fight for wrestling, as long as he doesn’t take away beach volleyball. To become signature No. 2 on Tom’s petition, email him at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Stanford women’s basketball starts SoCal trip in style https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/16/stanford-womens-basketball-starts-socal-trip-in-style/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/16/stanford-womens-basketball-starts-socal-trip-in-style/#respond Sat, 16 Feb 2013 08:56:39 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074989 On Friday night the Stanford women's basketball team defeated USC 79-55 to ensure it kept joint share of top spot in the Pac-12 Conference with California, which earlier beat UCLA 79-51 across the other side of Los Angeles.

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On Friday night the Stanford women’s basketball team defeated USC 79-55 to ensure it kept joint share of top spot in the Pac-12 Conference with California, which earlier beat UCLA 79-51 across the other side of Los Angeles.

The No. 4/5 Cardinal (23-2, 12-1 Pac-12) broke away from the Trojans (8-16, 5-8 Pac-12) just before half time with a 12-2 run and extended the lead after the break. The victory takes its winning streak against USC to 12 games. Meanwhile, the No. 6/6 Golden Bears (22-2, 12-1 Pac-12) kept things tight at the top of the Pac-12 with an almost identical scoreline against the No. 15/16 Bruins (19-5, 10-3 Pac-12).

Stanford junior forward Chiney Ogwumike is now just one double-double away from the all-time record. (http://stanfordphoto.com)
Stanford junior forward Chiney Ogwumike is now just one double-double away from the all-time record. (http://stanfordphoto.com)

Standing out for the Card, junior forward Chiney Ogwumike grabbed her record setting 20th double-double of the season, 26 points and 15 rebounds, and now is just one shy of her sister Nnemkadi Ogwumike’12, who made a career total of 51 double-doubles in her time on the Farm. Joining Chiney Ogwumike in double figures, senior forward Joslyn Tinkle got her second double-double of the season, 17 points and 11 rebounds, senior forward Mikaela Ruef scored 12 points and sophomore guard Amber Orrange hit 10 points. Ruef also set a new career points record, beating the 11 she made against Arizona a week before.

For USC, sophomore forward Alexyz Vaioletma and junior forward Cassie Harberts made double-figure points, with 13 and 14, respectively. However, sophomore guard Ariya Crook, who, alongside Harberts, is the only other USC player with a double-figure season scoring average, hit just six points.

The visiting team was simply more accurate from the start, ending the game with 43.5% shooting in comparison to the home team’s 33.3%. The Trojans did actually shoot more accurately than the Card in the second half, but never recovered from hitting just 24.1% in the first period.

Stanford now faces UCLA at 12:30pm on Sunday, needing a victory to ensure California cannot break free in the Pac-12 standings. The contest will be broadcast live on Pac-12 Networks and KZSU.

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Women’s basketball faces LA rivals in critical road trip https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/14/womens-basketball-faces-la-rivals-in-critical-road-trip/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/14/womens-basketball-faces-la-rivals-in-critical-road-trip/#respond Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:39:04 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074963 The Stanford women’s basketball team faces USC on the road tonight to start a crucial away trip to Los Angeles. After playing the Trojans, the team will then square off against UCLA on Sunday.

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The Stanford women’s basketball team faces USC on the road tonight to start a crucial away trip to Los Angeles. After playing the Trojans, the team will then square off against UCLA on Sunday.

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Senior forward Joslyn Tinkle (above) earned her first double-double of the season with 13 points and 11 rebounds against Arizona State University as Stanford swept the Arizona teams last weekend. (ZETONG LI/The Stanford Daily)

When the Trojans (8-15, 5-7 Pac-12) visited campus on Jan. 20, they were tied for the top spot in the Pac-12 Conference with rival UCLA, but they have since slipped to seventh after losing seven out of their last eight games. The No. 15 Bruins (19-4, 10-2 Pac-12), however, have continued their strong season, so far only losing in conference play to the two Northern Californian schools.

The No. 4 Cardinal (22-2, 11-1 Pac-12) and No. 6 Cal (21-2, 10-1 Pac-12) have shared the top of the Pac-12 table since the LA schools visited the Bay Area and may well have to share the title unless someone can stop either team. UCLA, third in the Pac-12, could see this weekend as the perfect chance to do just that. If USC loses both games and UCLA wins, it would create a three-way tie for the top.

Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer is aware of the significance of Sunday’s game but is wary of focusing on the Bruins just yet.

“USC gave us one of our toughest games—they came back against us, they’re athletic.” VanDerveer said. “We have to really prepare for everybody; we’re not looking ahead.”

Stanford junior guard Toni Kokenis is struggling with illness and is doubtful for this weekend, so junior guard Sara James and redshirt junior forward Mikaela Ruef are expected to keep their starting places alongside senior forward Joslyn Tinkle, junior forward Chiney Ogwumike and sophomore guard Amber Orrange.

Ogwumike has solidified her place as one of the nation’s best college players this season. In 24 games she has recorded 19 double-doubles and has scored in double figures in every game. For comparison, her sister Nnemkadi Ogwumike ‘12, the No. 1 pick in last year’s WNBA Draft, hit double figures in 35 out of 36 games in her final season on the Farm.

However, VanDerveer has been pushing all season for Ogwumike’s teammates to share some of the burden, and her persistence seems to be working. Last Sunday, sophomore forward Bonnie Samuelson scored a career-high 19 points, and, over the weekend, both Tinkle and Ruef grabbed double-doubles, marking Tinkle’s first of the season and Ruef’s first in her collegiate career.

“I just feel like we’re scraping and scrapping every game, figuring out a plan,” VanDerveer said, “Against USC, we have to contain their very quick athletic guards and an all-conference player with [junior forward Cassie] Harberts.”

Harberts leads USC with 17.9 points and 7.9 rebounds per game, ranking third and seventh on those statistics in the Pac-12. Ogwumike leads the conference in both. Sophomore guard Ariya Crook is the only other Trojans player with a double-figure scoring average.

UCLA, on the other hand, has a variety of players who can threaten Stanford. The Bruins count on a trio with almost identical scoring and rebounding averages: senior forward Alyssia Brewer (11.6 ppg and 8.0 rpg), redshirt junior forward Atonye Nyingifa (11.3 and 7.4) and senior guard/forward Markel Walker (11.1 and 7.7). Junior guard Thea Lemberger is also just shy of double figures in points, with 9.4 ppg.

“[UCLA] is playing a big lineup—they’re not starting their small point guard anymore,” VanDerveer said, noting that several Bruins have done well in their return from injuries.

The contest tonight between Stanford and USC will tip off at 8 p.m. PT from the Galen Center in Los Angeles, and the game on Sunday against UCLA is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. PT in Pauley Pavilion. Both will be broadcast live on Pac-12 Networks and on KZSU.

“This trip separates the girls from the women,” VanDerveer said. “UCLA has been more consistent, but USC is very dangerous. We’re just going to have to play well on both nights.”

Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor@stanford.edu.

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Wrestling closes out season against Central Michigan https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/13/wrestling-closes-out-season-against-central-michigan/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/13/wrestling-closes-out-season-against-central-michigan/#respond Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:43:24 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074869 Last Saturday, the Stanford wrestling team defeated San Francisco State 28-11 on campus before falling 24-13 to CSU Bakersfield on the road the following day. Next up it faces the tough task of No. 12 Central Michigan at Senior Day this Saturday.

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Last Saturday, the Stanford wrestling team defeated San Francisco State 28-11 on campus before falling 24-13 to CSU Bakersfield on the road the following day.

Though the Cardinal (6-15, 1-4 Pac-12) defeated the Gators (8-8, 2-2 Rocky Mountain Athletics) out of conference, the loss to the Roadrunners (8-5, 2-3 Pac-12) almost ensured that it would finish the season second-to-last in the six-team Pac-12 Conference. Should Cal Poly defeat Arizona State on Friday, the Mustangs could climb to tie with Stanford for fifth.

Stanford junior heavyweight Dan Scherer took his fifth major decision against CSU Bakersfield on Sunday.
Stanford junior heavyweight Dan Scherer took his fifth major decision against CSU Bakersfield on Sunday.

With a frustrating season behind it and the Pac-12 Championship starting in just over two weeks time, this weekend’s bout with No. 12 Central Michigan provides a crucial last chance to turn things around right at the end of the year. Not only are the Chippewas highly ranked, but they will also square off against Stanford’s in-conference rivals Cal Poly and CSU Bakersfield two days later.

The Cardinal overcame San Francisco State with an 8-2 decision, including a forfeit decision in the heavyweight class on Saturday. The wins came thanks to sophomore Brendan Ter Wee, with the forfeit decision, redshirt freshman Evan Silver, senior Timmy Boone, junior Garrett Schaner, junior Kyle Meyer, freshman Thomas Kimbrell, junior Alan Yen and redshirt freshman Michael Sojka.

Silver picked up his fourth major decision of the year and now leads the team with 24 wins on the season. Meyer also wrestled in the 165-pound category even though he only weighs in at 157 pounds, giving his teammate, junior Bret Baumbacha, a chance to rest.

In the loss to Bakersfield, Stanford lost six of the ten matches, including a default loss in the 133-pound class. The Cardinal victories came from junior Dan Scherer, Boone, Baumbach and Sojka. Baumbach took his fifth major decision of the year and has a 19-9 record on the season. Boone came back from trailing the Roadrunners’ redshirt junior Dalton Kelley in the third period to force four rounds of overtime and finally take the win.

Stanford will now host Central Michigan at Senior Day this Saturday. The Chippewas (12-3, 4-0 Mid-American) appear to be serious competition in the Cardinal’s last home bout of the season. CMU is on a six-contest winning streak, and hasn’t allowed the opposing team to score even double-figure points in its last three matchups.

The Chippewas are lead by senior Ben Bennett in the 184-pound weight class, who has a perfect 20-0 record so far this season, a No. 2 InterMat ranking and the top ranking in the Mid-American Conference. Central Michigan also has the No. 11 wrestler in the 125-pound class and the No. 7 in the 133-pound class, seniors Christian Cullinan and Scotti Sentes, respectively.

The bout between Stanford and Central Michigan will start at 12 p.m. PT at Burnham Pavilion and will be streamed live on the Pac-12 website.

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Beware the abuse of statistics in sports https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/11/beware-the-abuse-of-statistics-in-sports-writing/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/11/beware-the-abuse-of-statistics-in-sports-writing/#respond Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:48:02 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074844 The Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o scandals exposed some deep flaws in the professionalism of sports journalists: a willingness to believe the unbelievable and not dig deep lest we scratch the shiny surface of a perfect story. Both made headlines — and I even wrote a column on the subject — but there is perhaps […]

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The Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o scandals exposed some deep flaws in the professionalism of sports journalists: a willingness to believe the unbelievable and not dig deep lest we scratch the shiny surface of a perfect story.

Both made headlines — and I even wrote a column on the subject — but there is perhaps a more subtle and far more pervasive problem in the world of sports journalism: the (ab)use of statistics.

First things first, numbers are an invaluable tool to any sports journalist; they allow writers to back up arguments with hard incontrovertible facts. But perhaps too often they distract us from the truth; sometimes even the unjustifiable can appear justified through statistics.

Michael Lewis’ bestseller “Moneyball” explained pretty effectively how a cold, hard approach to statistics was behind the Oakland Athletics’ improbable ability to make the playoffs year after year, arguing that the rest of the MLB’s unwillingness to really embrace sabermetrics presented a huge opportunity for the A’s.

But much of that assumes we start with the right statistics in the first place. Even then, baseball is a very different beast compared to most sports. Play is broken down so much that it becomes possible to win games using a deeply mathematical analysis of skills. That is rarely feasible in other sports. Perhaps in the tactical nature of football, but even then, the game can break down and players find themselves forced into a role that none of their personal statistics can have prepared them for.

There are simply too many things we can’t measure because they are too subtle or because we just would be overwhelmed with information. Statistically, junior forward Chiney Ogwumike is by far Stanford women’s basketball’s best player this season. Without her almost guaranteed double-double performance in every game, the Cardinal might not have a 22-2 record so far this season. In comparison, a player like junior guard Sara James may have had a statistically solid season, but has not exactly lit up the box scores.

Except that ignores all the intangibles of James’ contribution. Few players look as fired up as she often has this year, diving all over the court to force jump balls, spurring her team on and providing that spark of determination that can turn the momentum back in its favor. None of those show up in the numerical story of a game, but without a doubt they have had their effect on the scoreboard.

Last week, the BBC released a league table of managers in English soccer. As a patriotic subject of Her Majesty, it pains me to say it, but if you are looking for an example of journalistic statistical failure, this surely was it. The BBC did nothing more than add up the number of points each manager had won — three for each win, one for each tie — and divide it by the number of games they had been in charge.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson — who has won countless trophies in his time at Old Trafford and whose team is now 12 points clear at the top of the Premier League — came in first, but below him the rankings quickly became nonsensical.

For example, Doncaster Rovers’ Brian Flynn was sixth, out of a total of 122 managers. No offense to Donny, which currently sits second in League One, but there is a huge difference between competing in the top flight of English soccer — arguably the best league in the world — and fighting it out two tiers below. But even that isn’t the most embarrassing error of judgment made by the BBC. At the time that table was released, Flynn had been in charge for just three games. While his 2.0 points per game might look impressive, you don’t need to have taken even a single statistics class to realize how meaningless it is to draw conclusions after so few matches.

On this basis, a new manager drafted in for just a single game could become either the best ever coach in the history of sport or the absolute worst, all depending on that one outcome.

Perhaps I’m taking this a little too personally — after all, Reading FC’s Brian McDermott, the Premier League’s Manager of the Month for January was ranked just 99th — but I really don’t think it is unreasonable to have high expectations of major news organizations.

In the Internet age, a simple relaying of statistics — even with a little bit of mathematical manipulation to squeeze out some new numbers — is no longer a job for real journalists. Live box scores already provide fans with the same resources that many of us use to study and analyze games. If we really want to add value to a story, journalists should be reading between those figures and, in order to tell the real story, sometimes even ignoring them entirely.

Tom Taylor’s most-read column of the last 30 days comes in at 239th place in total page views. To console Tom on the “small sample size” of a 30-day window, email him at tom.taylor@stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Women’s basketball routs Wildcats on Friday night https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/08/womens-basketball-routs-wildcats-on-friday-night/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/08/womens-basketball-routs-wildcats-on-friday-night/#respond Sat, 09 Feb 2013 04:46:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074774 The Stanford women's basketball team routed Arizona 73-43 at Maples Pavilion on Friday night to stay tied for first place in the Pac-12 Conference with California, which defeated Arizona State 66-53 an hour later across the Bay.

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The Stanford women’s basketball team routed Arizona 73-43 at Maples Pavilion on Friday night to stay tied for first place in the Pac-12 Conference with California, which defeated Arizona State 66-53 an hour later across the Bay.

After a scrappy start, the No. 4 Cardinal (21-2, 10-1 Pac-12) pulled comfortably ahead to lead the Wildcats (11-11, 3-8 Pac-12) by 16 points at the half. Picking up where it left off after the break, Stanford extended its lead and gave head coach Tara VanDerveer the freedom to bench her starting players in the final minutes of play.

Junior forward Chiney Ogwumike led Stanford with another double-double, her 18th of the season, grabbing 18 points and 12 rebounds, but her fellow starters made highlights of their own in the win. Senior forward Mikaela Ruef scored a career-best 11 points and added 10 rebounds to make her first ever double-double in her collegiate career; senior forward Joslyn Tinkle hit 15 points from just 15 minutes after struggling with foul trouble; and both junior guard Sara James and sophomore guard Amber Orrange made four assists, James tying her career record. James and Orrange also added nine and six points, respectively.

From the bench, sophomore forward Bonnie Samuelson added a further eight points and Samuelson, sophomore forward Taylor Greenfield and redshirt freshman guard Jasmine Camp all played for long stretches of the contest.

“This week in practice we’ve had a couple of people out, including Jos [Tinkle], and we just said, ‘We can’t just be a one-trick pony,'” VanDerveer said. “It can’t be all about Chiney [Ogwumike] and the low block … when you play with somebody like Chiney, she makes it look so easy, she gets 32 points and other people need to assert themselves more.

“I’m really excited by how Mikaela [Ruef]’s been practicing really well, and they’re a physical, athletic team, and she got in deep and she scored on them. I’m excited for her.”

Much of the first half was scrappy, with both sets of players missing shots early on. At the first timeout, with 15:47 remaining, Arizona was shooting 28.6 percent and Stanford just 22.2 percent. By the break, though, both had improved, Arizona up to 33.3 percent and Stanford jumping to 46.4 percent. The Cardinal then continued to shoot well in the second half, while the Wildcats struggled.

Crucially, Arizona, featuring a player with the Pac-12 Conference’s second-best record on assists, senior guard Davellyn Whyte, did not click as a team. The Wildcats made just two assists to the Cardinal’s 16.

“We dropped passes — we didn’t finish all the passes that we did connect on,” said Arizona head coach Niya Butts. “We didn’t make those layups or make those shots. I don’t think they were bad shots — I think we shared the ball pretty well. Obviously our assist total, it didn’t indicate that. I think a lot of that was missed opportunities, just that we missed in general as a team.”

In the absence of junior guard Toni Kokenis, out with illness, several other Stanford players were called upon to help run the floor and keep Arizona’s stars quiet.

“We missed Toni [Kokenis] a lot,” Tara VanDerveer said. “It wasn’t just the press — we didn’t have a second guard that really looked to help handle, and it really threw us out of whack a lot. But it was a great opportunity for Jas [Camp] when she came in, and she did some really nice things. Other people had to make some plays for us, including Sara James and Taylor [Greenfield] … I thought we were gonna miss Toni more on defense, and I thought Sara James did a really nice job.”

Ruef’s performance, too, may mark a turning point in Stanford’s play. All season VanDerveer has been pushing for her and her fellow teammates to contribute more alongside Ogwumike and to fully grasp their potential.

“When I went back in, I was trying obviously to get two rebounds,” said Ruef, ”and then it happened, and I was happy. It’s weird because I never though I would score 11 points in a game. That’s way too much.

“I know how to [score], but … I felt like normally in the past it hasn’t been my job to score. I like passing more, but I’m making a concerted effort to try and score.”

As Berkeley continues its winning streak on the other side of the Bay and as both the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments get closer, it may be the play of teammates like Ruef that makes the difference.

Stanford will next host Arizona State (11-12, 3-8 Pac-12) at Maples Pavilion at 2 p.m. PT on Sunday. The contest will be broadcast live on KZSU.

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Women’s basketball faces Arizona squads https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/07/womens-basketball-faces-arizona-squads/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/07/womens-basketball-faces-arizona-squads/#respond Fri, 08 Feb 2013 07:53:19 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074747 The No. 4 Stanford women’s basketball team will play host to Arizona tonight at Maples Pavilion. It will be the only scheduled meeting between the two teams this season and marks the first time that Arizona has visited the Farm in over two years.

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The No. 4 Stanford women’s basketball team will play host to Arizona tonight at Maples Pavilion. It will be the only scheduled meeting between the two teams this season and marks the first time that Arizona has visited the Farm in over two years.

Amber Orrange (33)
Sophomore guard Amber Orrange had 17 assists in two games last weekend to lead the Cardinal to two victories. Stanford will look to continue its winning streak against the two Arizona teams this weekend. (MIKE KHEIR/The Stanford Daily)

The Cardinal (20-2, 9-1 Pac-12) is currently tied for top spot in the Pac-12 Conference with No. 6 Cal, while the Wildcats (11-10, 3-7 Pac-12) lie tied for eighth place with in-state rival Arizona State. The Sun Devils (11-10, 3-7 Pac-12) will be playing the Golden Bears (11-11, 3-7 Pac-12) tonight, before crossing the Bay to face Stanford on Sunday.

Stanford leads the all-time series against Arizona 57-12 and has won the last 21 matchups between the teams. The Wildcats also enter this contest on a run of five straight defeats while the Cardinal has strung together six wins since Cal dealt it its first loss in the Pac-12 since January 2009.

Adding extra incentive to this game, with just eight outings left in this year’s Pac-12 Conference for the Cardinal, it is closing in on a 13th straight title and a bye through the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament in early March. If Stanford wins out, it will be guaranteed both, but to take sole possession of the conference crown and the top seed for the tournament, it may need a little luck. Cross-bay rival Cal is showing little sign of slowing down and is currently ranked nationally just a couple of places lower than the Card.

Last time out, against Oregon State in Corvallis, Stanford junior forward Chiney Ogwumike made headlines with a huge double-double performance, recording a personal best 32 points and adding 18 rebounds. Her play in the 65-45 win helped bring her a record-tying fifth Pac-12 Player of the Week award on the season and means that, with a career total of seven, she is just one honor away from Stanford greats Candice Wiggins ‘08 and Jayne Appel ‘10.

The Wildcats will look to senior guard Davellyn Whyte and junior guard/forward Kama Griffitts, who transferred from North Idaho College last season. Both Whyte and Griffitts boast scoring averages in the double figures this season, with 16.4 and 12.0 points per game respectively. Whyte has also handed out 4.81 assists per game, the second-highest in the Pac-12.

Ogwumike, though, has twice as many boards as Arizona’s leading rebounder. The junior has 12.3 rebounds per game compared to junior forward Alli Gloyd’s 6.1 and also leads the conference in three crucial statistical categories: scoring (22.4 points per game), field-goal percentage (58.4) and double-doubles (17).

However, as Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer has stressed several times this season, the Card will need big contributions from elsewhere on the roster. It cannot rely purely on Ogwumike if it hopes to win more silverware and return to the NCAA Final Four for a sixth straight season.

Against the Oregon schools last weekend, sophomore guard Amber Orrange took up that challenge, controlling the play and handing out 17 assists over the two contests. She also took home 12 points against OSU and is fourth in the Pac-12 in assists (4.27 apg). Fellow sophomore Bonnie Samuelson also had a major contribution—in her 11 minutes on the floor, the forward went 4-5 from downtown. She currently ranks second on three-point shooting percentage in the conference (36.8).

So far this season, Stanford has been unbeatable away from home, with a record of 13-0, but has dropped two games at Maples, against No. 3 Connecticut and California. However, those contests were against two of the nation’s top-ranked teams, and so the Cardinal should certainly be the favorite when hosting the two unranked Arizona schools.

As a team, Stanford is first in the Pac-12 in six statistical categories, including its scoring defense, holding teams to an average of just 53.0 points per game, and scoring margin, with an average gap of 17.3 points between Stanford and the opposing team.

The Cardinal can also count on a height advantage that may prove useful in the battle for rebounds. Stanford’s relatively small starting line up against Oregon State was still a combined two inches taller than Arizona’s against Washington State, and the Card boasts six 6-foot-3 players on its roster, while the tallest two Wildcat players are just 6-foot-2.

Friday’s game between Stanford and Arizona will tip off at Maples Pavilion at 7 p.m. PT and will be broadcast live on KZSU.

Contact Tom Taylor at tom.taylor@stanford.edu.

 

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Reloading your own way https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/04/reloading-your-own-way/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/04/reloading-your-own-way/#respond Tue, 05 Feb 2013 05:36:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074614 That’s it; the season is officially over. The Ravens’ 34-31 Super Bowl victory over the Niners on Sunday evening means more than that the Vince Lombardi trophy is heading to Baltimore. It means football fans now face a seven-month drought before a ball is next thrown or kicked in anger. Stadium lights across the United […]

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That’s it; the season is officially over. The Ravens’ 34-31 Super Bowl victory over the Niners on Sunday evening means more than that the Vince Lombardi trophy is heading to Baltimore. It means football fans now face a seven-month drought before a ball is next thrown or kicked in anger.

Stadium lights across the United States will be flickering off — just like they already did in the Superdome — and both professional and college players will be hoping for a little respite before serious training ramps back up again.

But don’t be fooled, it’s not quite over. In just three weeks the NFL Scouting Combine will be here, and in just a couple of months, the NFL Draft takes place. Sports coverage will still include a healthy dose of football analysis and speculation as everyone puzzles over the prized players for sale.

In case you don’t often look much further than gridiron, something equally as important happened elsewhere in the world of sports last week. On Thursday, the January transfer window slammed shut, setting in stone the team lineups in the various English soccer leagues until the end of the season — around Europe, the other major leagues followed suit just a few days later.

The near juxtaposition of the end of the transfer window and opening of draft season highlights two very different philosophies and two contrasting approaches to nurturing fresh talent in sports.

Put simply, the NFL Draft gives first choice to the very worst teams from the previous year. The result is that the most exciting and promising talent from college will likely face a frustrating first season in the pros, though it also does make it more likely that these players might get considerable game time. And while changes to the revenue-sharing system now reduce the funds available to struggling teams, the salary cap still helps ensure that the contracts of these big players-to-be won’t literally break the bank.

In comparison, the soccer transfer window makes little attempt to level the playing field. Though clubs in the Premier League do share TV money equally, the most successful team each year wins a prize of around $25 million, 20 times that given to the worst. The cruel, interconnected nature of English soccer exacerbates the inequality too, dumping the bottom three teams in the Premier League into the division below and replacing them with clubs that are usually much poorer. And when it comes to signing new or existing talent, money talks; often the smaller teams must wait patiently until the bigger fish have snapped up the juiciest prospects.

Outside of the transfer window, the big clubs boast the resources and finances to attract the most skilled young kids, training them in their soccer academies and ensuring they are already integrated into their team even before they must legally consider actually paying them.

It seems slightly ironic that a country known for its dedication to the capitalist cause is home to a league with a deeply communist approach to sharing out money and talent, and vice versa that a country proud of its socialist tendencies boasts such a rampantly free-market attitude to sports.

Finding agreement from either side of the Atlantic on which system is best is impossible though. However much they might moan and complain about the outcomes, both sets of fans often hold a deep affinity with their own system. The NFL Draft has a whole culture and ritual surrounding it, and likewise January — or July/August, when the window for preseason transfers is open — just wouldn’t be the same without the looming transfer deadline day, no matter how unfair the result always is for any team not owned by an oil sheikh.

The simple, but rather unsatisfying, truth is that these two systems are inherently tied to the very foundations of either sport. Replace revenue sharing, the salary cap and the draft in the NFL with a free-market transfer window and the smallest teams would wither and almost die, just about holding on simply as a consequence of their protected franchise status, but without any hope of a brighter future.

And with hundreds of professional and amateur teams in English soccer, connected through promotion and relegation, it becomes unthinkable that the most exciting talent would be sent down to play for the smallest clubs. As much as I might hate to admit it, star striker Robin van Persie deserves to be at Premier League leaders Manchester United far more than at League Two side Accrington Stanley — who are they? Exactly.

The Stanford Daily is in final negotiations of the transfer of Tom Taylor to Accrington Stanley for $1.99 and three dirty socks. To give Tom advice on the housing market in Lancashire, email him at tom.taylor@stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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Why do NHL “stars” still have to act like goons? https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/28/why-do-nhl-stars-still-have-to-act-like-goons/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/28/why-do-nhl-stars-still-have-to-act-like-goons/#comments Mon, 28 Jan 2013 08:18:58 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074392 Teammates and referees simply sat back and watched, letting the players fight it out, bare-knuckle style without helmets or gloves, for what felt like several minutes. And meanwhile, the 17,000 strong crowd bayed for their blood. Was I the only person who felt deeply uncomfortable about this?

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I checked off another achievement on my sports-fan resume this past weekend: I went to my very first live NHL game to watch the San Jose Sharks crush the Colorado Avalanche 4-0.

While I have to admit that I and The Daily’s chief operating officer, who accompanied me to the game, were a little confused about some of the refereeing calls made in the game—I used to think icing was the sugary layer on top of a cake—we were helped out by some friendly Sharks fans and the experience was definitely a worthwhile use of 40 dollars.

Helped by a poor performance from the Avalanche, the Sharks dominated this game. Early on, the play looked close, but as Colorado suffered with penalties it gave San Jose many chances to play with an extra-man power-play advantage. The Sharks capitalized with two goals scored at the end of the first period and never really looked back. Though the visiting team was a little unlucky with shots deflected off the Sharks’ goalposts, by the end San Jose clearly deserved victory.

However, despite the relatively cheap tickets and easy trip down on Caltrain, I’m not convinced that I’ll be back again. There is still one thing that might keep me away from becoming a regular at NHL games, a perfect example of which came at the end of the first period.

Perhaps fueled by the emotion of the contest, a fight broke out between the Avalanche’s Ryan O’Byrne and Sharks’ Brad Stuart with just over a quarter of an hour gone in the game. That in itself was perhaps unremarkable; I realize that fighting does occasionally take place in hockey and it’s not uncommon for tempers to boil over in pretty much any other sport. But what struck me most was the reaction of everyone else in the arena.

Teammates and referees simply sat back and watched, letting the players fight it out, bare-knuckle style without helmets or gloves, for what felt like several minutes. And meanwhile, the 17,000 strong crowd bayed for their blood. Was I the only person who felt deeply uncomfortable about this?

Now, I realize this attitude may mark my out as a hockey newbie, but let’s get serious here. If these players had picked their fight just outside the Plexiglas walls of the rink, they may very well have left the stadium in handcuffs. I’m also no hero, but had the same brawl broken out in front of me, I wouldn’t have stood idly by gawking. I know that because I’ve risked getting punched to intervene in and break up fights before.

How can we justify suspending our ethical and legal rules just because these players are out on the ice?

I realize, too, that fighting has a long and established tradition in hockey in North America. But “tradition” is no excuse.

Racism and sexism used to have a “tradition” in most major sports, but, while problems with both do remain, the majority of fans, players and the relevant authorities recognize that this is simply not acceptable anymore—take, for example, the racist abuse thrown at AC Milan’s Kevin-Prince Boateng earlier this month; Boateng’s teammates showed solidarity with him in walking off and abandoning the contest—. Why is calling someone a name, however deeply offensive, considered a serious breach of sporting conduct, yet smashing their face in is harmless entertainment?

Even when the sports governing bodies get it wrong, most of us have a sufficient moral code to realize what is and isn’t acceptable. FIFA President Sepp Blatter has gone on the record to threaten clubs with forfeiting matches if they abandon games due to racist abuse, and he famously declared in 2004 that the way to improve women’s soccer was to “wear tighter shorts and low-cut shirts.” It’s no wonder that most informed soccer fans have little respect for Blatter.

Call me crazy, but I honestly believe that sports is better because of its efforts to remove problems like racism and sexism. It’s hard to understand why violence and hockey should be an exception.

There may of course be some “fans” who only attend games for the fights, much as there were hooligans in the UK in the <\#213>80s who used soccer matches as an excuse to riot, and there are people whose major interest in auto racing revolves around the crashes. However, pandering to a darker side of human nature is never productive. British soccer stadiums are now seen as generally safe places for families to enjoy a game and attendance figures as a result are much higher than they were 30 years ago. And while deaths do still occur in auto racing, they are much less frequent. Equipment and rules have reduced crashes and increased safety, and as a result we no longer have to suffer loss after loss of the most exciting driving talent.

Supporters of fighting in hockey rely on nothing more than excuses to defend the indefensible. Yes, other sports are violent, but boxing has clear, defined rules that govern it and ensure the risk to competitors is kept to a minimum. While football by its very nature often leads to injury, it applies rules to prevent brawling, and most sensible sports will eject and ban players for this. Apparently fighting serves to “protect” players, to ensure certain infractions like high-sticking, elbowing and cross-checking don’t get out of hand. I guess the threat of extreme violence is far better at keeping players in line than referees actually enforcing the rules.

Don’t even try to justify this. If hockey is a worthwhile spectator sport, it simply doesn’t need the fights. It will stand up for itself and draw attention from real fans. If not, then I, for one, don’t need it in my sporting life.

 

Tom Taylor clearly has not been exposed to the excitement of NHL ‘96, when gloves come off left and right and your punching power has a meter. Tell him where to get a copy at tom.taylor@stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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W. Basketball: Stanford stays tied for top spot in Pac-12 https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/25/w-basketball-stanford-stays-tied-for-top-spo-pac-12/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/25/w-basketball-stanford-stays-tied-for-top-spo-pac-12/#respond Sat, 26 Jan 2013 04:37:29 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074364 Securing its grasp on top spot of the Pac-12 Conference, the Stanford women's basketball team defeated Utah 65-44 in Maples Pavilion on Friday night.

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Securing its grasp on top spot of the Pac-12 Conference, the Stanford women’s basketball team defeated Utah 65-44 in Maples Pavilion on Friday night.

The No. 6/6 Cardinal (17-2, 6-1 Pac-12) now holds an undefeated 16-game all-time record over the Utes (10-8, 1-6 Pac-12) and remains tied for first place in the Pac-12 with California.

The duo of senior forward Joslyn Tinkle and junior forward Chiney Ogwumike stood out for Stanford. Ogwumike made her 14th double-double of the season, with 23 points and 13 rebounds, and Tinkle scored 16 points and grabbed eight boards of her own. Utah, meanwhile, struggled with losing one of its key players to injury midway through the first half and even junior forward Michelle Plouffe’s game-leading 24 points — plus 10 rebounds to make her own double-double — could not turn things around for the Utes.

“Jos [Tinkle] and Chiney [Ogwumike], they’re on a mission,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said. “They don’t care who else plays well, they’re gonna play well. They’re aggressive , they’re making great things happen for our team, they’re being great leaders, rebounding for us.

“I think it was a Chiney and Jos show. They really got it done.”

Tinkle rebounded a couple of missed shots by her teammates and hit a three-pointer to score the first seven points of the game and force Utah to take an early timeout with just over two minutes gone. It showed an urgency and aggression that VanDerveer has been trying to instill in her team in recent weeks.

“Tara [VanDerveer] kinda brought up to me a couple days ago,” Tinkle said. “She’s been saying it in practice and it’s really kinda hitting me, is that before this game I had eight more [possible] home games here. And it just kinda hit me really hard and I know that now we’re getting into the Pac-12 season, regular season, thick here and I just want to go out there and give it my best, and do it for my teammates.”

Ogwumike entered this game as the Pac-12’s leading point-scorer, but Utah had the fifth and sixth players on that list, Plouffe and redshirt junior Taryn Wicijowski, in its starting lineup. It was a huge blow for the Utes when, already trailing by 11, Wicijowski went down with a knee injury — the same knee where she previously tore her ACL — just ten minutes into the first period and did not return to action.

“She’s a great player. Not just [because] she scores, but she’s critical in everything we do,” Utah head coach Anthony Levrets said about Wicijowski. “She’s a great passer, a great screener. She and Plouffe play really well together. And then defensively she’s just physical and strong … no one’s gonna stop Chiney [Ogwumike], but to ask someone to guard her by themselves for 40 minutes is really hard, and between the two of them it’s a different deal when you can trade back off between Plouffe and [Wicijowski], so obviously that’s a big deal.  She’s a huge part of our team.”

In her absence, Plouffe stepped up and though she did struggle with foul trouble that reduced her playing time slightly, her 24 points was well above her season average 16.1 per game. She caused Stanford problems defensively, getting sent to the charity stripe 11 times, and though her team shot poorly on returning to the court after halftime — Utah missed the first eleven shots from the floor — she made big steals that offered them a glimmer of hope.

Though Stanford stayed tied for first place at the top of the Pac-12 table, VanDerveer will be hoping for greater contributions from other players against Colorado. The No. 20/23 Buffaloes pushed No. 7/7 California hard in a narrow 59-56 defeat on Friday and will likely offer tougher competition that Utah. Excluding Ogwumike and Tinkle, VanDerveer’s other players hit just 11 out of 38 shots against the Utes.

“We’re working really hard to get more people involved offensively and we really struggled from the perimeter shooting-wise,” VanDerveer said. “[Junior guard] Sara [James] struggled, [sophomore guard] Amber [Orrange] struggled, [senior forward] Mikaela [Ruef], [sophomore forward] Taylor [Greenfield]. Basically our whole perimeter game.”

Stanford hosts Colorado at Maples Pavilion on Sunday at 4 p.m. PT. The contest will be broadcast live on Pac-12 Networks and KZSU.

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Taylor: Be careful what you wish for https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/22/taylor-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/22/taylor-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/#respond Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:37:29 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074240 Are we all just a little bit to blame for the failed fairytales of Lance Armstrong and Lennay Kekua – once-imaginary girlfriend of Lennay Kekua – ? Did we want these sports fantasies to be true just a little bit too much?

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For the last week, two personalities have dominated the coverage of just about every sports publication out there: disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong and imaginary girlfriend Lennay Kekua. The story of Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o’s nonexistent relationship even made it to the front page of the BBC News website, not usually an organization known for its coverage of American football, let alone American college football.

Armstrong may have been given a relatively sympathetic treatment by Oprah Winfrey, but most probably still feel let down by the once-superhero’s exposure as a serial drug cheat. But with his eventual admission of guilt — he was actually brought down late last year, though continued to deny the truth until last week —, hopefully now we can finally move on from the whole ordeal. In comparison, the Te’o saga meanwhile still feels suspiciously incomplete. We know that Kekua was a fictional character, but it remains unclear whether the linebacker had any part in the illusion or not.

While the media has lavished publication and broadcast space on both topics, and likely reaped the rewards in terms of greater reader, and viewership, it was at least partially complicit in both deceptions. Any self-respecting investigative journalists must be kicking themselves that they didn’t bring down one of the biggest names in sports many years earlier and one of my fellow columnists has already taken a serious swipe at Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel. Put bluntly, instead of following up on a lead that would have blown the Te’o story wide open three months ago, Thamel cut out any reference to the mysterious Kekua attending Stanford.

Partly, some of this may be down to traditional media struggling to survive in the world of social media. When you can read the news first — and for free — on Twitter, why would you ever buy a newspaper? In the rush to break the news and score the biggest online readership — the currency of the Internet — there doesn’t seem to be time to be suspicious, and why would you be anyway, when the story is already so magical?

But before you start feeling all smug, don’t think for a moment that I’m letting you off the hook either. As a society, we also have to take our fair share of the blame in these sorry sagas. It takes two parties to make any deception work and just as we journalists — and perhaps Te’o — should have been a little less naïve, you also shouldn’t have been so willing to trust us.

We all put these athletes on a pedestal and demand the superhuman from them. The average is just not interesting or acceptable. We don’t want ordinary people accomplishing difficult things; we want superheroes achieving the impossible. Like movie stars, their lives and achievements are supposed to come straight out of a Hollywood film script.

Even reaching the lowest level of professional sports takes years of dedication, getting up at dawn to train in the cold, carefully controlling your calorie intake, eschewing a normal childhood and somehow balancing school and sports. Just making it through all that is a phenomenal achievement on its own, but hardly something you could base a blockbuster film on, that’s what montages are for.

A good cyclist putting in solid performances in the Tour de France won’t make us sit up and pay attention, only a seven-time champion will. A solid defensive football player whose team goes undefeated in the regular season won’t be in the running for the Heisman Trophy, but one whose girlfriend recovers from a serious car accident only to then die heartbreakingly from leukemia — and on her deathbed dramatically imploring him to not to skip his upcoming game in order to attend her funeral — will.

And even when these people fail, we expect them to do so in an extraordinary way. Armstrong wasn’t just a drug cheat, he was the worst drug cheat ever, the chief architect behind the most calculated and nefarious attempt to deceive the authorities in the history of sports. Te’o wasn’t just a gullible kid, he was at the center of a cynical and egotistical lie intended solely to boost his national profile, bring home the Heisman and guarantee himself NFL riches.

But, when all is said and done, these people are just as normal, just as flawed — and by that I mean “human” —, as the rest of us. They’ll do, say and believe stupid things. Except, unlike the rest of us, we feed their habits. We don’t ask enough questions because we want to believe in them. Not in a conscious way where we honestly know something is up, but simply in not showing a sufficiently healthy dose of suspicion.

And just as we need to recognize the human frailties of our sporting superstars, we also need to recognize some of our own. However impartial and unbiased we may want to be or claim to be, however cynical and skeptical we think we are, we are not.

One of the cruelest ironies of The List, was how much flak sportswriters at this publication received from both fans and members of Stanford’s athletic department in its aftermath, because behind the scenes of The Daily are some of the most ardent fans of Stanford sports. Why else would we devote so much of our lives to covering even the lesser-known sports? Criticizing Stanford, criticizing players — and classmates —, does not come easily, but it is our job, and realizing that, we have to try.

Maybe coverage of the “easy” list of classes given to athletes by this publication back then was too harsh, but knowing that we have a weakness towards Cardinal sports sometimes focuses the need to treat even our own school with an overly critical eye.

We are lucky that Stanford is an exceptional place, that a lot of the time we get to write about yet another victory or another national title and so there is relatively little justification to get on the cases of coaches and players, but we cannot just sit back and believe.

If something seems too good, or bad, to be true — and any school being simultaneously ranked top ten in football and academics certainly seems suspicious — we owe it to each other to ask a few more questions, to not accept the answers we’re given on face value alone.

Tom Taylor was at one time a prospective Tour de France rider, retiring only when he found out that the race has hills. Question his fact-checking at tom.taylor@stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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W.Basketball: Stanford rebounds against UCLA to top Pac-12 https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/18/w-basketball-stanford-rebounds-against-ucla-to-top-pac-12/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/18/w-basketball-stanford-rebounds-against-ucla-to-top-pac-12/#respond Sat, 19 Jan 2013 06:01:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074201 The Stanford women's basketball team returned to the top of the Pac-12 conference table with a 75-49 rout of UCLA on Friday night. It now lies in a four-way tie with California, USC and the Bruins, all with a record of 4-1.

The No. 6/6 Card (15-2, 4-1 Pac-12) now joins the No. 7/7 Golden Bears (14-2, 4-1 Pac-12), the No. 14/15 Bruins (13-3, 4-1 Pac-12) and the Trojans (7-9, 4-1 Pac-12) in a four-way tie for top spot.

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The Stanford women’s basketball team returned to the top of the Pac-12 conference table with a 75-49 rout of UCLA in Maples Pavilion on Friday night.

The No. 6/6 Card (15-2, 4-1 Pac-12) now joins the No. 7/7 Golden Bears (14-2, 4-1 Pac-12), the No. 14/15 Bruins (13-3, 4-1 Pac-12) and the Trojans (7-9, 4-1 Pac-12) in a four-way tie for top spot.

Junior forward Chiney Ogwumike led Stanford with her 12th double-double of the season, hitting 25 points and 13 rebounds. Joining her in double-figure points, senior forward Joslyn Tinkle hit 16, including going four-for-four on three pointers and hitting three-straight in the last few minutes of the game, and sophomore guard Amber Orrange hit 15. Other standout performances for the Cardinal came from junior guard Toni Kokenis, who, though struggling in shooting, made a team high six assists, and junior guard Sara James whose aggression spurred her team on.

For the Bruins, senior forward Alyssia Brewer, junior guard Thea Lemberger and redshirt junior Atonye Nyingifa all scored in double figures, with 14, 12 and 11 points, respectively. However, senior guard/forward Markel Walker was held to just eight points and four rebounds. Entering this game she led her team on points, with 12.9 per game, and was second on rebounds, with 8.3 per game.

With both teams starting this contest ranked and UCLA leading the Pac-12 with an undefeated conference record, the game was set up to be another tough home battle for Stanford. The Cardinal had lost the two previous games at Maples to national rival Connecticut and local rival California and needed a win to turn the season momentum back its way. Berkeley’s 71-63 win over USC on Thursday also added further intrigue to the contest: it was a chance for UCLA to open up clear air between it and the chasing pack, or Stanford to regain a share of top spot.

Unexpectedly, though, both teams struggled in the early part of the first half, making ugly mistakes to finish out the first ten minutes with Stanford leading just 13-11 and with a combined 13 turnovers (seven by UCLA, six by Stanford). In that period, both teams shot far below their season average and from 21 jumpers, just five hit their target. The key to the game was which team would turn its play around first.

“We were struggling because we were trying to get a feel for the game,” Ogwumike said. “Sometimes the beginning is a little rough, trying to get a feel and see what offenses work. But I think Amber [Orrange] really breaking them down off the dribble and then I think Sara James really is the X-factor. She motivates people to go hard, she dives on the floor for loose balls, even if its gonna be a jump ball she’s still holding on.”

As Orrange and James’s impact began to count, it was Stanford that took the advantage, stretching ahead to lead 36-24 at the half. By the break it had also doubled the Bruins’ rebounding, leading 20-10 on the boards, and was 18-6 on points scored in the paint. Though UCLA had picked its play up by the first-half buzzer, recovering from a shooting low of 22.2% with 11:53 to go in the first period to head to the lockers on 30.8%, it significantly trailed Stanford‘s 50.0%.

The second half was more of the same, with the Cardinal opening on a 13-2 run to hit 49 points. It took UCLA the rest of the game just to close to that total, its lowest score of the season, as Stanford’s defense frustrated the Bruins offense.

“Our team has really focused a lot on scouting reports,” VanDerveer said , ”trying really hard to take away people’s strengths, not letting them do what they like to do. We gave up a couple of layups where they flicked the ball, or they stole the ball or there was a tackle and they come up with the ball, but I thought that people really worked hard to be physical, move their feet, get back, box out … really working hard to force shots they’re not comfortable with.”

Breaking the two-game home losing streak in style, Stanford will have helped erase memories of California and Connecticut and put itself back as the leading contender for the Pac-12 conference title. If it could capture that crown it would be the Cardinal’s thirteenth-straight.

“This was a really big win for us,” VanDerveer said. “UCLA is a top ranked team. They’re big, they’re physical, they’re athletic. I was really proud of how our team battled. I think we just saw our team learn from our last game and I was really excited about that.”

Next up, Stanford will face USC at Maples on Sunday, while UCLA heads across the Bay to face California earlier the same day. With all four teams tied at the top of the Pac-12 these will be crucial contests and two factors may make the difference:

“I think physicality is a theme here,” said UCLA head coach Cori Close. “That’s what Cal did to Stanford here before. That’s what Stanford did to us tonight. When we’ve been at our best, we’ve been the aggressor … the reality is in pressurized games and all through the NCAA tournament it’s very physical and they’re gonna let more go. I think we have to learn from tradition and from what happens in pressurized games.

“Also I think … guard play is gonna be a real key. Orrange was stepping up tonight and hitting some really big shots, controlling things late in the shot clock. It was really a backbreaker for us sometimes.”

Stanford’s contest against the Trojans will be live from 4 p.m. PT and will be broadcast live on the Pac-12 Networks and on KZSU.

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Taylor: Searching for fanhood in the NFL https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/14/taylor-searching-for-fanhood-in-the-nfl/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/14/taylor-searching-for-fanhood-in-the-nfl/#respond Tue, 15 Jan 2013 07:59:20 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074099 I know that it is a little bit late in the game, but I have just two weeks to find an NFL team. The one previous time I did watch was several years back from the U.K., but I don’t feel I can count that attempt, so for the first time ever I intend to really watch the Super Bowl this year.

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I know that it is a little bit late in the game, but I have just two weeks to find an NFL team.

For the first time ever I intend to really watch the Super Bowl this year. I realize that this admission doesn’t do much for my sports fan credentials on either side of the Atlantic — over here, that it has taken me five years on the Farm to get round to doing this, and over there, that I’m going to spend five or so hours of my life watching American football — but sometimes the truth is inconvenient.

The one previous time I did watch was several years back from the U.K., but I don’t feel I can count that attempt. The time change meant kickoff was not until the small hours of Monday morning, so surprisingly I didn’t have much company for the game. Worse than that, though, I was subjected to British-voiced commentary — I’m still not confident I can trust a British person’s football knowledge — and all those breaks in play for the famous Super Bowl adverts were filled with either dead air or, worse, more insight from said commentators.

As much as I have been sucked in by U.S. college athletics, professional sports here haven’t managed to win me over. This past season, my record of Stanford football games attended stood at 12-2 and since basketball tipped off in November, I’ve probably already spent a couple days solid in Maples Pavilion. In comparison, I’ve still failed to go to a single live NFL, NBA or NHL game — though I gather not many people have been to pro hockey games in the last couple of months — and my last MLB game was maybe ten years back.

Even as I write this column, when perhaps I should be paying attention to the NFL divisional playoff action, I’m sitting in the upper-level media desk at Maples Pavilion watching the Stanford women’s basketball team.

Part of this is simply a question of time. Not only do I have some serious sports commitments back home, including following the mighty Reading FC — my struggling English Premier League affection — , but I’m also supposed to be writing a Ph.D. dissertation.

However, it’s barely mid-January and I’m not yet quite ready to give up on my New Year’s resolutions. I’m also having college football withdrawal symptoms, and my brother is heading across the pond to come visit me the week of the Super Bowl, so I’m desperate to try and entertain him with a hefty slice of Americana.

The problem, though, is that I just don’t really know which team I should support. I cheer for Reading FC because I was born and raised almost within spitting distance of both the old Elm Park ground and the new Madejski Stadium, and nationality puts me squarely behind any English or British teams. My allegiance to Stanford is the result of too many years spent on the Farm and too many hours spent watching various Cardinal teams and covering some of them for The Daily.

I don’t have a strong connection, though, with any of the 32 NFL teams. The Dolphins have the illustrious honor of being the first I’d ever heard of as a kid and the first player I was vaguely conscious of, defensive lineman William “The Fridge” Perry, played for the Bears. Just knowing who someone is, though, is hardly an exciting justification for my devotion, especially when the reason for that is mostly their amusing nickname.

Perhaps I should cheer for New England on the basis that I’m from “Olde England.” However, it would seem a little unpatriotic to go for a team whose name appears to celebrate a rather famous — and victorious — war against my home country.

I could maybe go with Cardinal allegiance, picking either the Colts or the Vikings — now home to Stanford’s recent Heisman runners-up, Andrew Luck’12 and Toby Gerhart’10, respectively — , or perhaps just copy the majority of my football-watching friends, and go with the Packers.

Green Bay doesn’t actually seem like the worst choice. My European socialist leanings make it quite appealing to want to support any team that is owned by its local community, and it would be intriguing to be in some small way part of that.

And finally there are the local teams: the Niners and the Raiders.

Much as I might want to dress in black and pretend I am a marauding barbarian, though, I just can’t bring myself to support Oakland. From my limited knowledge of the history of the NFL I know one thing for certain: that the Raiders once committed the ultimate sports sin, deserting their fans and running away to Los Angeles in search of greener pastures. That they eventually saw the error of their ways and came crawling back doesn’t absolve them of this crime. I have nothing against Oakland fans — in fact I am humbled by your ability to forgive — but if the Raiders had been my team, burning in hell just wouldn’t be punishment enough.

Which leaves San Francisco. As my closest team, it is maybe the laziest answer, but the 49ers do tick a lot of boxes. Head coach Jim Harbaugh has Cardinal blood in his veins and of my friends that don’t support the Packers, there are a healthy number of Niners fans. It’s also nice that they haven’t won a Super Bowl since the 1994 season, because locals will be extra hungry, though at the same time, the one drawback to their past record is an unnatural winning efficiency. In title games that have featured San Francisco, the team is five-for-five. I’m just not comfortable with that sort of sporting certainty.

Except that all of this carefully weighted analysis is a little bit too late anyway. As I finish this column, from those 32 teams, just four are left: the Atlanta Falcons, the Baltimore Ravens, the New England Patriots and, yes, the San Francisco 49ers. It seems that attrition has made my mind up far quicker than I could.

Go Niners!

Tom Taylor is already taking major heat in The Daily’s office for epitomizing the evils of bandwagon fandom. Send him your grief at tom.taylor@stanford.edu and follow him on Twitter @DailyTomTaylor.

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M. Basketball: Stanford looks to bounce back against Washington State https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/09/m-basketball-stanford-looks-to-bounce-back-against-washington-state/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/09/m-basketball-stanford-looks-to-bounce-back-against-washington-state/#respond Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:34:42 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1073948 The Stanford men’s basketball team returns to campus tonight to face Washington State at Maples Pavilion. The contest opens a three-game homestand that will also include games against Washington and California. The Cardinal (9-6, 0-2 Pac-12) enters tonight’s game needing a win to erase memories of a conference-opening, two-game losing streak that has left Stanford […]

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The Stanford men’s basketball team returns to campus tonight to face Washington State at Maples Pavilion. The contest opens a three-game homestand that will also include games against Washington and California.

M. Basketball: Stanford looks to bounce back against Washington State
Stanford’s leader this season, junior forward Dwight Powell, has averaged 10 points and 6.7 rebounds per game against the Cougars so far in his career. (SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily)

The Cardinal (9-6, 0-2 Pac-12) enters tonight’s game needing a win to erase memories of a conference-opening, two-game losing streak that has left Stanford second-to-last in the Pac-12 standings. The Cougars (9-5, 0-1) have had a similar season so far and also started Pac-12 play with an 81-69 loss against the in-state rival Huskies last weekend.

The game against Washington (9-5, 1-0) will then follow this Saturday and the Battle of the Bay against Berkeley (9-5, 1-1) will be played a week later on Saturday, Jan. 19.

This will be Stanford’s longest homestand of the conference season and comes at a crucial time for the Cardinal. Ahead of the start of the Pac-12, Stanford was picked to finish fourth by conference coaches, in comparison to the Cougars’ preseason prediction of 10th, so the team will be hoping for a significant improvement.

Last year Stanford lost just two Pac-12 games at Maples and so far this season is 6-1 in home games. Washington State, in comparison, has played just one true road game this year, an early-season 58-56 overtime loss to Pepperdine, and is an even 2-2 in games played at neutral sites.

Stanford junior forward Dwight Powell’s performance will be crucial tonight. In the three games he has played so far in his career against the Cougars, he has averaged 10.0 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. He also grabbed his third double-double of the year in the 68-60 loss to UCLA last weekend, with 17 points and 13 rebounds.

Alongside Powell, the Card will look to sophomore guard Chasson Randle, who also scored 17 points against the Bruins for his highest total since late November, and junior forward Josh Huestis, who notched up his sixth double-figure rebound game on Saturday. Junior forward John Gage also had another strong performance last weekend, contributing 10 points to Stanford’s total.

However, Stanford will also hope to rely on other players like Aaron Bright, whose 31.9 percent shooting average for this season so far is in stark contrast to his career record of 16.7 percent against Washington State.

The Cougars are led by senior forward Brock Motum, with an average of 19.4 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, together with sophomore guard DaVonte Lacy (11.6 points per game) and redshirt senior guard Mike Ladd (9.4 points per game). In Washington State’s loss on Saturday to Washington, Ladd, Motum and Lacy all scored in double figures, with 16, 15 and 10 points, respectively.

Washington State also has the best defense in the Pac-12, allowing just 56.1 points per game, while Stanford’s scoring offense is just ninth in the conference, at 69.5 points per game, two spots ahead of Washington State’s 63.9.

The contest between Stanford and Washington State tips off at 7 p.m. tonight at Maples Pavilion and will be broadcast live on the Pac-12 Networks and on KZSU and KNBR radio.

 

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