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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 26, 1991)
it McCullareiii ■Ts am OKT. WlotJ m heU 1 Tuesday, February 26, 1991 ' 4 flacffi* Skrl oThens uni IWvJ orr Soo) OuRr«,;| o'" flV)FESS»W^ c ifa/kv (s i' Mj/MTim 1 • /-<soo)-i’Mrtiq nued (romps!: ed to allow id ititute to diej ■ntially lid. I 1990 the I splayed the 'I ition wantedtl denied the I ised outragecl nion^some said itwasinp other studei; fould meant of the other id. ued by arttr, i g to contimii j ts are concena including All te said, uic activity ml d the lines an Documentar. politics is in-; i images.” v 'Dobi ) FAMLl NITE ept those indcae: R EAST! t MALL M rat r rat MOOSCJi W Wit MAN SIX «•« PG-11 ' egg n wu. R ra» ' wwtjH . MrtJ R | SWC basketball will regret Hogs’ departure It’s the 1990s. And with the new decade comes change and new beginnings. The University of Arkansas will change confer ences effective in 1992. And their bas ketball domi nance this season seems to justify their decision quite solidly. » T h e y are tired of being on regional telecasts. •They want Keith Jackson to com mentate their Saturday afternoon pigskin contests. •They want A1 McGuire, Dick En- berg, James Brown and Greg Gumbel to announce their roundball affairs. And it’ll happen...soon. And it’s not only because of increased revenue and national television appear ances that the Hogs want out of the be leaguered Southwest Conference. The SWC happens to be one of the weakest leagues in the nation, partic ularly in basketball, and Arkansas is not afraid to leave it, and its sub-par teams, behind. Some of the other SWC members have blasted Arkansas since late last year, saying the Razorbacks are betray ing the other teams by departing. Each team should look at themselves, though, and see if it wasn’t actually their lack of athletic dominance and lucrative TV deals that drove the Hogs to the SEC. There’s a new perspective on college hthletics and the money associated with it. Conference chivalry and loyalty ob viously left the 1980s scene along with breakdancing and leather ties. Southwest Conference football has al ways been stable and, more often than not, decent overall. Parity finally began to enter the league several years back when some teams other than Texas began to make consistent national news. In the big picture, though, the Long horns have always had a competitive edge over most of the conference. And that’s not good. Although the Arkansas football team was manhandled by almost everyone in the conference last fall , most people know that defensive injuries and young, inexperienced players contributed to that quick downfall. Their dominance in 1988 and 1989 was, to Razorback fans and officials at least, proof that they needed a change for the better, competitively and mone tarily. Make no mistake, though, the Hogs are going to feel the heat next year. The conference took a big kick in the teeth when the Hogs fled. The credibility of the conference, nat urally, suffered with the departure of its most recently dominant team. The other SWC teams will try to bid a not-so-fond farewell to Arkansas in the Hogs’ 1991 goodbye tour. The Razorbacks will be hit hard and they’ll be hit late, and altogether beat up, See Wilson/Page 6 Craig Wilson Sportswrlter Sports The Battalion Sports Editor Alan Lehmann 845-2688 A&M faces SHSU at home, not on road ALAN LEHMANN/The Battalion A&M shortstop Jason Marshall waits on a pitch in Saturday’s first game. The Aggies, who lost two-of-three to LSU host Sam Houston State today at 3 p.m. By Alan Lehmann The Battalion The baseball game between Texas A&M and Sam Houston State today at 2 p.m. has been moved to Olsen Field and is scheduled for 3 p.m. The change was necessitated by heavy rains in Huntsville yesterday. SHSU comes into the game with a 8-1 mark after beating Houston 7-4 Sunday. A&M (10-4) lost two of three games to Louisiana State over the weekend. The Ag gies fell one place to number 13 in the Base ball America poll announced Monday. Coach Mark Johnson said that he was glad for the opportunity to play LSU, even though his team lost the series. “We made some mental errors to lose the ames,” Johnson said, “but that’s going to appen early in the season. We knew it would be tough to play a team like LSU on the road in front of a big crowd. “But we can learn from this, and I think we’ll be a better team down the road be cause of it.” Junior Trey Witte, who was a second baseman last season for A&M, is expected to start on the mound today. He has been impressive in his two outings this year, going 1-0 with 11 strikeouts in six innings. Freshman Raymundo Garza, a right hander from Richmond Terry, is penciled in for the Bearkats. He has no decisions on the year and a 5.71 ERA. A&M took two of three games from SHSU last season. The Aggies won the first Huntsville meeting 4-2 on a three-run homer by Chad Broussard. The Bearkats won the second in Huntsville 5-2, while the Aggies took the only Olsen Field meeting 5-2. A&M is 7-1 at home this season and have an overall record of 361-97-1 (.788) since Olsen Field opened in 1978. Aggie third baseman Travis Williams, hitting .308 this year, was three-for-five in Saturday’s first game, including a double and a three-run homer. Mike Hickey, a sophomore outfielder, continues to lead A&M at the plate with a .422 average. The transfer from Oklahoma also leads the club with three homers and 15 RBI. ii Center to boost recruiting. * attendance JAY JANNER/The Battalion Texas A&M basketball coach Kermit Davis Jr. will soon have the help of the new special events center when it comes to recruiting. By Scott Wudel The Battalion EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series on A&M’s Special Events Center. Part two will run Wednesday. Last March Texas A&M University of ficially made a commitment to improve its basketball program. First, the A&M Board of Regents ap proved plans for a multi-million dollar special events center to replace G. Rollie White Coliseum as the basketball team’s new home. Later that month A&M Athletic Di rector John David Crow hired 30-year old coach Kermit Davis Jr. from Idaho to rebuild the program and become the Aggies’ coach of the future. Davis has arrived and begun his work. Next September work will begin on the 14,500-seat complex that will adorn the westside of the A&M campus. The special events center is targeted for completion in time for the 1993-94 basketball season. Davis said the facility will help the school and its athletic program. “I told people when 1 came here I would have loved the A&M job if there had never .been a plan for the special events center, and I meant that honest ly,” Davis said. “But I think what the spe cial events center can do for this school is make it a Top 25 program.” Davis said his staffs main recruiting tool is the academics and the life after basketball at A&M. But he admitted some of his early signees, who were also considering such schools as Colorado, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, and Stanford, compared the places they would be play ing in. “Say what you want to,” he said. “The academics are important, but young kids, 17 and 18 years old like we all were, look at material things.” Davis said the thought of playing in a brand new 14,500-seat arena really in terests recruits. “I think some of the kids we signed early are obviously impressed by the aca demic standards at Texas A&M and that’s probably the main reason they chose it,” Davis explained. “But in the back of their minds, they saw the plans and understood they would play in that arena and be the first class to do it. “I think it’s real critical for our pro gram.” Davis said the new arena will help his program draw some of the bigger names in college basketball. “We’ve really tried to upgrade our schedule and we’re going to get some better teams in here,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult, but that’s the way we want to sell it as far as getting people here to watch.” A&M Athletic Director John David Crow was not prepared to comment on the new arena. Getting people to attend A&M basket ball games has Wen a problem for years. G. Rollie White Coliseum, the home of Aggie basketball since 1954, ranks as one of the emptiest facilities in the con ference this year. A&M is averaging crowds of less than 2400 per SWC game this season, down from 2,514 last year. A&M’s attendance, compared to the rest of the conference, is similar to its place in the SWC standings. The University of Texas leads the pack by bringing in more than 13,000 fans per game to its homecourt of the Frank Erwin Center in Austin. The Arkansas Razorbacks, currently ranked third in the nation, are drawing more than 9,000 fans per game. The only SWC teams ranking below A&M in attendance this season are the University of Houston and Southern Methodist University, which attract just more than 2,100 basketball fans each. The new 14,500 special events center will be the second largest facility in the Southwest Conference, bowing only to Austin’s Erwin Center, which can hold 16,231 spectators. A&M’s Coliseum, once nicknamed “The Hollerhouse on the Brazos,” has a capacity of 7500. Only two facilities in the Southwest Conference hold less — TCU’s Daniel Meyer Coliseum (7,166), and Rice University’s Autry Court (5,400). G. Rollie White has grown old in its 37 years of service. As it grows older, so grow the costs of its upkeep. Associate Athletic Director Wally Groff said no exact records are kept on the costs of maintaining the facility, be cause both the Athletic and Physical Ed ucation Departments use the building and each take a hand in the maintenance of it. Groff said if a problem in the Col iseum exists with something pertaining to the Athletic Department, the Athletic Business Office handles the repairs. Groff added that the Coliseum is a state facility, therefore the state pays for its maintenance. The building will remain intact and be used after the new arena is built. EES All SHOWS IT.SUN t HOUDMS >n£(PB| 9:<0 ffoSvT(R) 390 Aggielsni icked it up, glish Annex n. - 4:30 p.m gh Friday, not be held no! be made picked up demic year e published, order an /ou may $25, plus lax, h Annex. Professional Computing HAS A CALCULATOR FOR YOU! CALCULATORS FOR BUSINESS 10B....$37.50 12C....$70.00 14B....$59.50 17BII...$80.30 19BII..$129.95 CALCULATORS FOR SCIENCE & ENGINEERING 20S....$37.50 215.. ..$37.50 225.. ..$44.50 275.. ..$59.50 Busiress hours M-F 8:00-5:30 SAT. 10:00-3:00 32S $50.95 42S .$88.95 28S $173.90 48SX..$259.95 HEWLETT PACKARD Authorized Dealer 505 CHURCH STREET COLLEGE STATION (409) 846-5332 *We believe that good tasting fast food doesn’t have to be poor quality fast food. FREEB/RD'S r freeTuI?'] w/order of Bumfo. Taco or Quesadiila. 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