M
omen’s basketball team
lagued with poor attendance
THE BATTALION Page 15
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1980
BTryTTBTnnnnrB tv b rrvTmnnra a o~B~g~gT>~B ~o~o~a~<nn» a b B BTgmnm
VILLA MARIA
ONE HOUR CLEANERS
FREE STORAGE
? ONE HOUR DRY CLEANING ON REQUEST
ONE DAY LAUNDRY SERVICE
By JOHN BRASHER
Sports Reporter
I’ The place is G. Rollie White Col-
Rseum, and the event is a women’s
basketball game between powerful,
well-known Wayland Baptist and a
strong Texas A&M team.
The interesting thing about this
game wasn’t the score, but rather the
attendance. No more than 35 people
turned out to see the game and the
sad part of it is that it was a common
scene throughout the women’s bas
ketball season.
Wayland Baptist has an enroll
ment of 1,300 students and is located
in Plainview, Texas. The Flying
Queens play their basketball games
in the 3,200-seat Hutcherson Center
and this past season averaged around
1,500 people at each home game.
1 In comparison, the Lady Aggies
he carettj played all of their games in the 7,500-
cond ga»
JyLynnBk
run homti
mil start il
■tition wl
jeatG. Rollie White Coliseum. With
| student enrollment of 31,331, the
women’s team only averaged 75-100
{^people a game.
r; Eddie Owens, the sports informa
tion director at Wayland Baptist,
btsaid, “The attendance at our
ip'omen’s games has been the best so
rj* r fer, as a matter of fact, it’s as good as
fly ; the boys.”
' ; Ownes said there are a number of
j nf.iMeasons why the attendance is so
ia | jj| ate J high. “First, our program has been
ere for 32 years and is established,
hereas A&M’s is new and is still
jetting organized. Secondly, the in-
irest in the men’s program has been
dow that of the women’s because
tirewomen have a reputation of win
ning and play some big name
schools. Finally, we promote the
sport as much as possible. ”
I Owens said the school has give
aways at the door and tries to let
some type of group get in free at each
Fame Reo' ^ ame S0 can see w ^ at t ^ ie tearn
rs w .|j J has to offer. An example was when
s the school sponsored a public schools
I I J night. Each teacher and administra-
1 five official in Plainview got in free.
, aCe Trying to put a finger on the reson
c s j," 0 1 why fan turnout at the Texas A&M
)C " ( " ls! women’s basketball games is so low is
Jpry difficult,
te student.■ ^ ne problem seems to be a lack of
ree finis™
I full maraL‘7
ill be (M
oth mens'I
e: llandn'l
3645; 5K|
icgin at Ifl
1 Marathoi
olds the
the famedl
ier this ®
ecidediflfi
unprecefc
emotion and publicity. Trying to
I'omote the sport has been a tough
job for those who have attempted it.
According to Cherri Rapp, head
coach of the Texas A&M women’s
basketball team, the University
didn’t officially go co-ed until 1970,
and the women’s athletic programs
°T weren’t recognized as part of the
Hike adds Athletic department until 1975.
ng therasiTrying to promote women’s basket-
5-5924, Efj ball at a school that used to be all
male has made the job complicated.
; “I think that in past the sports in-
^1- formation office was biased and
Cl fleaned more towards men’s athletics
cause it was a men’s school and
erything pertained to men. They
d what they had to do for the
United SjWomen and didn’t bother to do any-
age plane- thing extra because they didn’t have
i the time. It’s starting to change now
sionattbfland it’s slowly improving,” Rapp
:nse comsaid.
; man said J Kay Don, the assistant athletic
director for women’s athletics said,
irces salt "\\' c (j 0 have a problem with the
has an t publicity of women’s basketball, but
udders 1)
eaper t
it’s better.”
On the other hand, Jerry Arp, the
assistant athletic director for promo
tion and publicity, says this is no of a
problem for the women than it is for
the men.
“You could have walked across the
campus during basketball season and
the students couldn’t tell you when
the men’s basketball team played,”
Arp said.
Where is the publicity supposed
to come from?
“The sports information office has
the job of getting the publicity out
and this is where the problem lies
because there isn’t enough manpow
er to handle the enormous work
load,” Arp said.
The sports information office at
Texas A&M consists of one sports
information director, one assistant
SID, and three students. The Uni
versity of Texas, which has the same
number of varsity sports as Texas
A&M, has two separate staffs to
handle the men’s and women’s athle
tic programs. Each staff consists of
one full-time SID, two assistant
SIDs, one full-time secretary and a
lot more student help.
“I can’t imagine,” Arp said, “any
thorough office anywhere working
without a secretary. We have 16
sports at A&M and there isn’t the
manpower without a secretary.
There isn’t the manpower or the
hours in the day to cover them (the
The sports information office at
Texas A&M consists of one
sports information director, one
assistant SID, and three stu
dents. The University of Texas,
has two separate staffs, each
staff consisting of one full-time
SID, two assistant SIDs, one
full-time secretary and a lot
more student help.
sports) thoroughly like we should
with the small staff we have. Texas
doesn’t have this problem, but A&M
does and it’s a very serious problem.
It gets to the point to when you’re
burning the candle at both ends and
pretty soon it’s goin to burn out.”
Arp, Rapp and Don all agreed that
a possible solution to the problem
would be to employ a sports informa
tion director, with a full staff, to
handle the women’s athletics. As of
now, most of the major NCAA DiVU
sion I universities have this type of
setup, which consists of a separate
SID for both men’s and women’s
athletics.
Rapp said she would like to see
this system installed at Texas A&M
because it will take a lot of the bur
den off the coaches, and women’s
athletics would be publicized more.
“Sometimes I have to do the public
ity for our basketball team although I
really don’t have the time for it be
cause of my other duties.”
Marvin Tate, the athletic director
at Texas A&M, said he doesn’t feel
the university needs an SID for
women’s athletics at this time.
“We need to do a better job with
the people we already have,” he
said.
Tate continued to say that if the
Unversity had an unlimited amount
of money to spend, the university
would possibly look into it.
“With the limited amount of
money we have now,” he said, “we
need to direct our attention to other
areas such as salaries and scholar
ships.”
Tate explained that at the Univer
sity of Texas, the budget for women
is over $1 million and only $225,000
of the money is donated by the athle
tic program. At Texas A&M, the
women’s program receives around
$750,000 from men’s athletics and
the sport which pays for all of the
athletic programs at the University is
football.
“The problem comes from the fact
that people really don’t understand
the workload that is put on the SID, ”
Arp said. “The lack of knowledge
that our superiors have with what
goes on in the sports information
office is the number one hindrance
that will keep us from having a
women’s SID.”
Tate said the athletic program will
hire a secretary in September for the
sports imformation office to ease
some of the workload, but hiring a
complete sports information staff was
out of the question.
Another problem the women’s
team faces is they aren’t as popular as
the men’s programs and the people
aren’t interested because football
dominates every sport in Texas.
“Our women understand they’re
not going to take the campus be
storm, Arp said. “Women’s basket
ball just isn’t as popular as be men’s
program right now. It’s going to take
time. Let’s face it, in Texas, football
is the basic sport. We even have a
tough time selling men’s basketball. ”
One university which isn’t faced
with this problem is Old Dominion,
a university with 14,000 students lo
cated Norfolk, Va.
The Lady Monarchs play their
games in a 5,000-seat facility and De
bbie Harmison, the assistant SID,
said the gym was sold out three times
this season and averaged around
3,200 people at each game.
Harmison feels that 75 percent of
their fan turn-out is credited to hav
ing a good team.
“Last season, we had 10,270 peo
ple show up to see the Soviet Union
women’s team play our team which
was the No. 1 team in the nation, she
said. “Ticket sales were so great, we
had to move the game to another
arena.”
Harmison gave several reasons
why their attendance is high. “We do
some promotion and we also expose
our players to the media all the time.
We are also successful because there
aren’t any pro teams in our immedi
ate area, we are the only Division I
school in our area, and this part of the
country is basketball-oriented and
not football-oriented. ”
Finally, the women’s basketball
team has a problem with getting
media recognition.
“A lot has to do with the fact that
the news media “really doesn’t know
how many people are interested in
women sports, Rapp said. “If enough
people are interested and let the
media know it, then the media will
probably get out and cover it more. ’’
Harry Gillam, station manager at
KBTX-TV, said he didn’t have the
manpower to cover everything.
Don said she is very disappointed
with The Battalion because she feels
it’s very poor in the coverage of
women’s athletics.
But once again, the problem is
manpower. Mike Burrichter, sports
editor of The Battalion, said, “I agree
that we’ve been lacking in covering
women’s athletics but we don’t have
the people to get out and cover ev
erything like we should. We have an
extremely small sports staff that in
cludes myself and two others and at
the same time, we are full-time stu
dents.”
One thing is certain: the women’s
basketball teeam doesn’t stand
Two Aggies ran in Boston
hiletWfiP 116 Aggie runner finished the
ounf» i; ® oston Marathon Monday, but the
other dropped out after 21 miles.
■■■^l|Charles Blumentritt, a 43-year-
old employee of the Texas Transpor-
n _ rs .. Ation Institute, finished in 3:25,
an ExCL.i'* ),n pared to his best previous time
BUT WE ( of 3; 10.
SSES wU ITinkor Murray, a graduate stu-
1EMS, w; dent in physical education, had sto-
4acli cramps and stopped shortly af-
ST A FE* Heartbreak Hill, the last of four
RTHOFfi'!^ 65 near the end of the course,
'ill Rodgers of Boston won the
b for the third straight time, run-
g a relatively slow 2:12:11.
Blumentritt said the race was
slowed by the 75-degree tempera
tures. Most runners consider any
thing warmer than 50 degrees as un
comfortable marathoning condi
tions.
WEDNESDAY
Rock & Roll Night
No Cover
2 for 1 till 10 p.m.
Bring a rock and
get a free drink
No Boulders please
ONLY AT THE STUDIO
1401 FM 2818
Come on out to the Doux Chene Complex!
★
★
★
★
★
★
★
Manor East Mall *
proudly presents
Harriet’s
°-°O o
an opportunity to meet the stars of daytime TV’s
“All My Children”
★
★
★
★
★
★
In Person/Center
Stage/In the Mall
Saturday/April 26
11 a.m.-2 p.m.
find it all at
alone. Women’s softball, track,
swimming and tennis along with
men’s baseball, swimming, track,
tennis and basketball are all suffering
from low attendance.
No one really knows the answer to
the problem or how to solve it. In
this case, only time can tell.
ALTERATIONS
710 VILA MARIA RD.
822-3937
O o
fOPOOQOOOQO 0-fl- QOQQflflflflQflflflfl fl-ft-ft-g » W
Battalion Classifieds Call 845-2611
“I think that in past the sports
information office was biased
and leaned more towards men’s
athletics because it was a men’s
school and everything pertained
to men,” Cherri Rapp, Texas
A&M women’s head basketball
coach.
GET IN THE
S-W-l-N-G
FOR TENNIS NOW!!!
W7200 Series 01 Q QC
Sweat Pant $ I O ■ 5IO
Men’s all purpose pant in 65%
acrylic/35% cotton, features
covered elastic waistband, back
patch pocket, coordinating rib
knit leg stripes and elastic leg
cuffs. Sizes S-M-L-XL
Colors:
W7210 Navy with red & white
trim
W7229 Grey with royal, red &
grey stripes
W7500 Series
V-Neck Short Sleevah.f 4 r*C
Sweatshirt 1 I .510
Men’s V-neck sweatshirt in 65%
acrylic/35% cotton, features
stripe on shoulders and sleeves.
Sizes S-M-L-XL
W7100 Series 01 il GC
Sweatshirt 14.510
Men’s crewneck sweatshirt in
65% acrylic/35% cotton,
features striped rib knit trim on
shoulders, cut away pouch
pockets, and reinforced top
stitching. Sizes S-M-L-XL
W7300 Series <t« -7 /»»“
Short 5 f’5fO
All purpose sweat short in 65%
acrylic/35% cotton, features full
covered elastic waistband, back
patch pocket, and rib knit side
trim. Sizes XS-S-M-L-XL
Colors:
W7310 Navy with red & white
trim
W7329 Grey with royal, red &
grey stripes
Texas Avenue at Villa Merle/Bryan
SAVE 20% ON THESE COMPLETE
UH£*on TENNIS OUTFITS
FAMOUS BRAND NAME
TENNIS
RACKETS
tuition
A. WILSON ADVANTAGE C/IO QC
TENNIS FRAME
Wood racket designed to provide added power
without sacrificing control. Slimmer Aerodynamic
design.
B. HEAD PROFESSIONAL CRA OR
Aluminum Tennis Frame $04,510
(The Red Head)
Used by more teaching pros than another
racket in the world. Medium stiff fame.
C. HEAD VILLAS 0Q>| QC
TENNIS FRAME $04,510
The traditional look, feel and sound of wood,
but the dependability, quickness and playability
of a racket designed with good, solid up-to-date
technology.
D. HEADMASTER 0QQ QC
TENNIS FRAME $051,510
High tensile aluminum frame rigidly anchored in
molded handle means less head twisting on off
center hits. Nylon/plastic guides won’t interrupt
the flow of power.
E. WILSON JACK KRAMER 0A9 OR
AUTOGRAPH TENNIS FRAME... $44.5IO
Of the finest selected American White Ash, the
wood with the best ratio of
weight/strength/flexibility. Strata-Bow construction
for sensitive response and feel.
F. WILSON CHRIS EVERT
AUTOGRAPH TENNIS FRAME
(Not Shown)
Lighter overall and lighter-in-the-head for
mobility. Longer 7" tack grip for two-handed
shots.
$42.95
All Tennis Frame Prices Include Custom Stringing with Staytite Nylon
String. A Regular $12.00 Value.
BRING IN YOUR RACKET AND WE’LL CHECK ITS STRING
TENSION ON OUR STRING
TENSION METER
TRI-STATE A&M
SPORTING GOODS
3600 Old College Rd. — Bryan
846-3280
846-3570