Thursday, May 2, 1985/The Battalion/Page 11
SPORTS
^Astros get
J hot,‘Cruz’
ast Mets
Pitching, hitting mesh
ii together for 10-3 win
Women’s sports need own identity
Associated Press
National League
Astros 10, Mets 3
» NEW YORK — Jose Cruz, hom-
eicd, singled twice, drove in three
runs and scored three Wednesday
D . , . night to back Bob Knepper and the
[ JI , R , la ! l l t fouston Astros to a 10-3 victory
p I s liabilitie | erthe New York Mets.
instappro»| Knenoer. 2-0, worked five in-
By PETE HERNDON
Sports Writer
For the first home football game
next fall, at least 50,000 dedicated
Texas A&M fans will pack Kyle Field
to yell for the Aggies, a .500 team
over the last three years under Head
Coach Jackie Sherrill.
But the A&M women’s softball
team, ranked No. 2 in the nation,
was lucky to get l ,000 people out to
watch its entire Aggie Invitational
Tournament a few weeks ago.
At a university that prides itself on
the value of Aggie fans supporting
“The Ags,” attendance for women’s
sporting events falls way short com
pared to men’s events.
Tom Turbiville, A&M’s Sports In
formation Director, said some of the
attendance problems would be
solved if women’s athletics could get
more regional television coverage of
their events, creating more interest
in both the college and conference
programs.
But for that to happen, women’s
sports would need wealthy commer
cial sponsors to cover the cost of tele
vision production.
“The only real yardstick the buyer
has on the value of an event for ad
vertising is the attendance records”
Turbiville said. “If you don’t fill up
the arena, you won’t get sponsored.
The situation is sort of like a dog
chasing his own tail.”
So to have a decent chance of get
ting a crowd, you have to have ad
vertising, but to get a decent chance
at getting advertising, you have a
have a crowd.
It’s a “Catch 22” situation.
One measure taken in past sea
sons, to improve attendance at wom
en’s basketball games, was td tag
them on to the men’s games, so stu
dents arriving early at G. Rollie
White Coliseum could be exposed to
the Aggie Ladies and see the men
play.
Lynn Hickey, A&M’s Assistant
Athletic Director for Women and
Head Basketball Coach, was not at
all pleased with the results of this
strategy.
“By playing before the men’s
team,” Flickey said, “we got more ex
posure as far as the students were
concerned, but, because the games
started so early, we lost a lot of local
(Bryan-College Station) support.
“People simply couldn’t get off
work in time for the games.”
Next year, the early 5:30 p.m. ti-
poffs will change. Hickey has
planned for the Aggie Ladies to play
a separate schedule, not only to grab
local support, but also to break off
their ties to the men’s team.
“We’re in the process of building a
following for the women’s program
based on its own merits,” Hickey
said.
To build this following, some pub
lic relations problems will have to be
solved.
“Women’s athletics is taking a bad
rap because of the physical appear
ance of some of the more publicized
pros and some of the spin-off sto
ries,” said Turbiville, going into his
second year as the Aggies’ SID.
“In many areas, the media dwells
on the sideshow, rather than the
good athletes who fit the social
norms. But from my viewpoint, it
causes no problems.”
It doesn’t cause any problems for
Holly Hodges or Elizabeth Buffo, ei
ther. These two second generation
Aggies, are freshmen on Hickey’s
basketball team.
“Most people are impressed when
they find out we’re on the basketball
team,” Hodges said. “Nobody has
n assets. Ht n j n(JS giving up three runs on seven
j Knepper,
Jngs, giving
venues wen p ran R DiPino, the third Hous
ton pitcher, worked the final two in-
jrnoon couitB n 8 s f° r third save. New York’s
len Rubine ^ ( ' n Darling, l-l, who pitched a
his client, Pt shutout in his last start, gave up five
Savings an V ns < lwo of them unearned, on nine
d a group( hits in his 6 l/3 innings’ work.
r otiatingwiiip The Astros’ first run, in the sec
ts Ruhe an <),ic i i nn ing» vva s unearned, scoring
haseUPl. 0,1 an error hy Mets right-fielder
John Christensen. Cruz led of f the
i i i •7] inning with a single, and Jerry
^ Mumphrey followed with a single to
4 light. When Christensten let the ball
get past him, Cruz scored.
H The Astros scored two more in
HI 4 the fourth with the help of another
j pets error, again on a single by
A pumphrey. With one out, Cruz sin-
.4 gk‘d. Mumphrey hit a single to left-
* center that got past George Foster
^ ^ for an error, and the runners wound
up at second and third.
I One out later, Mark Bailey singled
Rj score both runners. One run was
unearned.
■ The Mets scored .twice in the fifth
to cut the deficit to 3-2. Ray Knight
led off with a broken-bat single, and
he scored on Christensen’s triple
pto the right-field corner. Chris
tensen scored on a single by Ronn
Reynolds, playing in his first game
of the season in place of injured
catcher Gary Carter.
■ The teams traded sixth-inning
mns.
*
*
See Major Leagues, page 14
Lynn Hickey (second from right on the bench), Texas A&M’s
Assistant Athletic Director for Women and Head Women’s
Basketball Coach, and the rest of her coaches and players
Photo by ANTHONYS. CASPER
hope they’ll see some larger crowds in G. Rollie White Col
iseum next season for the Aggie Ladies’ games. The women’s
team will play on different nights than the men next season.
looked down on us because we’re
athletes.”
Buffo agreed with Hodges, but
added that although she doesn’t con
done the things the “big-name” ath
letes get bad press for, she thinks the
media’s coverage is blown out of
proportion.
“Whenever an athlete does some
thing bad, it’s thrown all over the
news,” Buffo said. “Other people do
the same kinds of things and don’t
get any bad publicity.”
But not all the public image fac
tors of women’s athletics are bad.
With NCAA men’s athletics pro
gressively becoming more profes
sional, women’s sports may be the
last true haven of amateur competi
tion in the college spectrum.
“(In women’s athletics), you have
more of an opportunity to promote
the student athlete, along with the
team and the school concept,” Tur
biville said.
However, even if fans are being
programmed to watch and enjoy
women’s collegiate sports, there may
not be enough women coming out of
high school to keep the movement
going.
Jenny Adams, a former high
school coach who is currently work
ing toward her doctorate in exercise
physiology at A&M, said that most
high schools cannot provide ad
equate off-season or weight training
programs for women.
“In most school districts, girls’
coaches have to coach more than one
sport,” Adams said. “When the sea
son ends, the coach really can’t
implement an off-season program
because she has to move on to the
next sport.”
Although it seems as though
women’s athletics has a long way to
go to gain mass acceptance, a win
ning program always makes things
much easier.
In that regard, A&M is one up on
most of the competition.
During the 1984-85 season, the
women’s golf team won the SWC
championship, the Aggie softball
and volleyball teams were ranked in
the Top 20 nationally and the wom
en’s basketball team had a winning
season in Hickey’s first year as head
coach.
If A&M women’s athletic pro
gram can keep up the pace, Aggie
fans starved for a winning tradition
may start giving the Aggie women
the attention they feel they deserve.
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