Page 12 THE BATTALION WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1979 It’s time to hid farewell to basketball While sports are my love, basket ball is my mistress. Yearly, I carry on a four month affair with her, only to say goodbye at the end of each sea- notes Polo Rodeo The Texas A&M rodeo club com peted in the University of Texas rodeo in Austin last weekend. Mark Ivy and Jake Hersman brought home the only blue ribbons for the Aggies with first place finishes in calf roping and steer wrestling, respectively. In other events for Texas A&M, Jerry Todd and John Anderson finished fourth in team roping. Bud Bowman finished fifth in bronc rid ing, Joe Dutton finished sixth in sad dle bronc riding, Dorothy Sypert finished sixth in barrel racing and seventh in goat tying. The Aggies will participate in the Temple Junior College rodeo this weekend. Oliver, Rangers mix well United Press International POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — There are certain things that just naturally go together, i.e. cream cheese and bagels, pastrami on rye and white wine with veal. Al Oliver and the state of Texas have developed that kind of relation ship. It figures. Texans, it is said, love to brag and Oliver loves to be bragged about. It’s too bad for the 32-year-old outfielder that it took so long to make the connection. Oliver, one of baseball’s finest all round performers, spent the first nine years of his major league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates during which he never quite achieved the national acclaim and public adulation he felt he deserved. Last year he was traded to the Rangers and almost instantly became a celebrity. It was as if Farrah Fawcett-Majors had suddenly dis covered a cream rinse shampoo. “It was the biggest emotional high light of my major league career,’ says Oliver, whose .324 batting aver age was second only to American League batting champion Rod Carew’s. “I never had fans stand and cheer for me throughout my career, even though I did the same things in Texas I did for nine years in Pittsburgh. “I think the thing that really turned on the fans in Texas was my defensive ability which had never been discussed much in my nine years in the National League. The best thing I ever heard about Al Oliver as a defensive ballplayer was that he was adequate and there’s no thing on the field that I’m adequate at. I’m definitely above average and at the top on everything I do on the field.” See how well Oliver fits in? He has aTexas-style selfconfidence, yet, un fortunately for the Rangers, not much of Al’s self-esteem rubbed off on his teammates last season. The Rangers finished tied for second in the AL West but they won seven fewer games than the year before and were never really in the race. “The team lacked selfconfidence,” admits Oliver. “Why? I don’t know because if you look at our team on paper last year we definitely had the best team in our division, a team that could have gone all the way. But, you know, in life as well as sports, you have to have self-confidence in your ability and yourself. This is some thing we lacked last year and, as a result we just didn’t pan out as well as we looked.” A solution to the selfconfidence hangup might be to make Oliver team captain. That way he.could use his own boundless enthusiasm to help spark the team without fear that he is overstepping his role. I’m not yet ready to end this year’s involvement. These past four months she’s given me more joy and heartache than I have endured in years past. She can be a fickle wo man. viewpoint By MARK PATTERSON Battalion Staff The Texas A&M polo team is going to Somers, Conn., Friday to com pete in the National Intercollegiate Polo Championships. The Aggies will play their first game Tuesday night at 7 p. m. against University of California-Davis. UC-Davis is the defending NIP champion. Eight teams are entered from around the country, including Texas A&M, UC-Davis, California-Poly, Conneticutt, Virginia, Cornell, Yale and York (Canadian University). The Aggies will play two practice games before the tournament, against Yale on Saturday and aganist Norwich on Monday. R.J. Roberts, the captain of the Aggie team, said that Texas A&M will be the underdogs in the game against UC-Davis. The tournament is single elimination. She teased the national pollsters this season, allowing them to pick six different teams to sit atop her Top 20, only to have each team lose and be replaced the next week. Week after week, the experts continued to ignore her only major unbeaten team, Indiana State. ISU finished the season without a loss but still went into the NCAA tournament as an underdog, picked to lose in the opening rounds of the Midwest Re gional. But, as if it was her choice this season, she guided the small Indiana school through the rough times and allowed the Sycamores and their fans to relish in the joy of advancing to the final four in Salt Lake City. While the nation watched, she took Indiana State from obscurity into the center ring. My lady can show emotion. But she can also deliver the crush ing blow to others’ dreams. For the second-straight season she has dang led the prize before Arkansas’ Sidney Moncrief s eyes, only to snatch away the dream at the last moment. Ironi cally, a member of her Indiana State team, Bob Heaton, hit the shot at the buzzer that bid goodbye to Moncrief and Arkansas, the last representative of the Southwest Conference. The fickle lady smiled on the S WC this season, allowing four of its teams to play in her post-season tourna ments. But as if she was just teasing the conference, two of the teams were destroyed in the opening rounds — Texas by Oklahoma in the NCAA tournament and Texas Tech by Indiana in the NIT tournament. But for the first time in three years basketball smiled on Texas A&M, al lowing the Aggies to advance to the quarter-finals of the NIT tourna ment. But, as if to keep the Aggies hungry for more of her fruit, she let Texas A&M lose to Alabama and miss a trip to New York City and the fi nals. It was her hand in tne/M season that built my lovefa^ climax. I -was able to enjfl moods and actions as I Wal( S Aggies roller coaster tin season. ?2 f Because of the teasing, | stronger for her. I know ty Monday night’s NCAAfinal S |j to say goodbye to my woJ another year. Absence may make thelie;| fonder, but it’s going to [J summer without her. 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