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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 11, 1994)
y • July 11,1994 ntrols mts d method,” she of the clients we / sexually active tg for birth con- , director of the Crisis Pregnancy encourages peo- from sex until jtect themselves ransmitted dis- renthood offers birth control at isidized rates, that a complete packs of birth st between $20 es condoms and Options, Page 6 iced rt on les Dre than 7,600 tivated ;m and assaults in 1993. ises te 2,00 Destruction/ damage/ vandalism 2,007 Other* 238 Robbery 148 dudes murder, glary, larceny/thefl, rther miscellaneous or property. )ias 33: 8% Sexual orientation 'M2% i .jy Religion 18% ! more space, movide more ise the hall- t be huddled i classes, step in the believes the vas to carry 1 everything parent com- s effect Aug. tion policies iaytown and sing lockers backpacks; ion to plunk 1 tax money es at a time s short $100 ;ditor editor tor ggielife editor Jring the fall sions (except :lass postage d Building, VI University in Editorial 45-3313. Fax: sement by The >. For classified and office and $50 per Monday • July 11, 1994 Baseball not the grand old ‘game’ today BRIAN COATS Sportswriter W hat do baseball cards and loyalty have in common? A lot, when it comes to base ball. They both provide key proof that baseball is no longer a game. It is now a business. When I was 10 or 11, I collected baseball cards. Back then, there was only two or three baseball-card companies. There was not “super-ul tra-upper-deck, prime-sport, mag netic-photo” cards of Nolan Ryan wearing a tuxedo throwing a foot ball. I never thought about the fact that some of my cards could be valu able or that I could get rich off base ball cards. I collected them because I liked baseball and I looked up to many players. It was a hobby. Card collecting means money Now, it seems like there is only one reason kids collect baseball cards. To make money. Kids do not collect cards because they think players are great, they collect cards because Beckett magazine says the cards they have are worth lots of money. Millions of 8-year-olds are bud ding entrepreneurs because they know a Frank Thomas rookie card is worth more than a Barry Bonds rookie card. Nowadays, when kids sing “Take me out to the ballgame” they do so because they know they might get Ken Griffey Jr. to auto graph all 17 copies of their “Fleer Ul- tra-Modern-In-Your-Face” card, thereby increasing it’s value by four million percent. Baseball card col lecting is a business. Baseball is big business In the same way that card-collect ing is no longer a hobby for kids, baseball is no longer a hobby for the players. In that light one could say that kids are truly emulating their “heroes.” For proof that baseball is more of a business for the players than a game, look at Wade Boggs. One of the fiercest rivalries in sports is the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox. Boggs, after playing over a decade for Boston, became a Yankee. All because of money. Could you imagine Bucky Richardson playing for A&M for three years and then transferring to Texas? For Boston fans, Bogg’s move was along those same lines. Paul Moliter, Barry Bonds and Dave Winfield are three more on a huge list of players who have no loy alty because so many dollar signs are put in their face. Gone are the days when players like Carl Yas- trzemski and George Brett would rather take a pay-cut than go to an other team. Loyalty no longer ex ists. A strike is about to be called in Please see Business/Page 4 SPORTS Page 3 A&M leads way in gender equity Female athletes average more per scholarship than male athletes Constance Parten The Battalion Despite the tarnished image that the Texas A&M Athltetic Department has endured in recent years, a positive point can be made. A&M is a national leader in athletic scholarship funding for women, and has been since the mid 1980’s. Women received more funding per participant in the 1993-94 school year than did their male counterparts ac cording to an A&M Athletic Depart ment analysis. In the 1993-94 school year, women athletes received an average $4,193 scholarship per semester while men re ceived $4,069. A&M has not increased the level of female athletes participating in varsity sports, so they increased the scholar ship amounts in order to even out the distribution. This rise in funding is due to an ef fort by the university to institute the gender equity provisions outlined in Title IX of the Department of Educa tion’s nondiscrimination policy. Title IX was ammended in 1972, but has only recently become an issue on the collegiate level. Title IX requires all institutions re ceiving or benefitting from federal fi nancial assistance to maintain a bal ance in funding for men and women on all levels. The only problem for most universi ties under the ammendment has come from iniquities in athletic funding. Last July, the University of Texas faced a Title IX lawsuit. Seven female students filed suit to increase partici pation and scholarships in women’s varsity athletics. Lead plaintiff Rachel Sanders agreed to file suit because she really wanted to play varsity soccer. Sanders and the other plaintiffs were all involved in intramural sports at UT. “It’s hard to fight something your try ing to be a part of,” head basketball coach Jody Conradt was not upset by the suit. “We were already a leader in wom en’s athletics,” Conradt said. “This caused us to rethink, refocus and re evaluate our women’s program.” The lawsuit was the first attempt at an across-the-board expansion of women’s athletic opportunities at a NCAA Di vision 1 universi ty. Lynn Hickey, Senior As- s o c i a t e Athletic Lynn Hickey, A&M’s athletic fo^Texas director for womens sports ^ ai ^ A &]y| adminis- t r a t o r s "We've never had a problem with getting fair funding for the women's programs here." Sanders said. Title IX suggests the ratio of male to female athletes should roughly equal the ratio of enrolled students. UT’s student body is 47 percent female, but only 23 percent of athletic scholarships were given to women. The university agreed to three stip ulations in the settlement which will allow for a higher female participation ratio, more scholarship funding (up 23 to 44 percent), and earlier implementa tion of varsity soccer and softball teams. UT Women’s Athletic Director and have always, been very proactive con cerning the progress of women’s athlet ics. “We’ve never had a problem with getting fair funding for the women’s programs here,” Hickey said. Athletic funding for women was al ready fairly consistent with enrollment when Hickey arrived at A&M ten years ago. In 1983 A&M’s female student popu lation was 38.35 percent of enrollment. The scholarship funding for women that same year was 30.35 percent. In the 1993-94 school year 42.27 percent of the student population was female. Athletic scholarships made available for women totalled 39.8 per cent. “The administrators have not been concerned about meeting quotas, they just knew this was the right thing to do,” Hickey said. The major argument from opponents of funding so heavily for women’s ath letics has been revenue. Women’s athletics brought in $96,328 last year, less than 10 percent of total athletic revenues, Hickey said. She is hopeful these numbers will in crease though. “After a few more years of doing well we may be able to bring in more people to watch the games,” Hickey said. “But right now there is a general lack of support for all athletics. We’ve seen a drop in attendance over the last few years even for men’s sports.” But the athletics program at A&M is still very comfortable, including the women. They are well funded and have some of the nation’s top talents, playing and coaching. Assistant Athletic Director John Thornton said A&M is leading the soon to be Big 12 Conference in women’s athletics. “We are sponsoring more sports and have full funding for all the women’s varsity teams through the 12th Man Foundation,” Thornton said. “We are going to bring the conference wide fig ures [Big 12] for women’s athletics way up.” Part one of a three part series AN OVERVIEW OF SPORTS MEDICINE By Mark Smith The Battalion When one talks about sports medi cine many people imagine so-called “jock-docs” who charge exorbitant prices to heal the maledictions of injured ath letes. What people not familiar with this field do not understand is the entire scope that the term sports medicine cov ers. Sports medicine involves specialists at every stage of athletic endeavor, from nutritionists to orthopedic surgeons. Among the different occupations that could fall into the overall category of sports medicine are exercise physiolo gists, biomechanicists, nutritionists, trainers, physical therapists and ortho pedic surgeons. Each of these different occupations has a distinct niche to fill the world of sports medicine. The fol lowing is a brief description of the major occupations in the field. • Exercise Physiology - The Ameri can College of Sports Medicine defines exercise physiology as “the science which deals with the study of muscular activity and the associated functional re sponses and adaptations.” Exercise physiologists, therefore, perform re search to investigate muscle response to particular exercises and sporting sce narios. • Biomechanics - Dr. Stephen Gor don, the director of musculoskeletal re search for the National Institute of Health, described the job of a biome- chanicist. “Basically, biomechanics is the use of the principles of biomechanical engi neering applied to physiology,” Gordon said. Biomechanicists design and develop new training tools and better equipment to optomize athletic exertion. These in- clued new designs of- running shoes and the solid wheel for bicyclists. • Sports Psycholo gy - Dr. Nicholas W. Dobrovolsky in the Student Counseling Center at Texas A&M Universi ty works with some of the A&M ath letes. He said the area of sports psy chology has been developed because of the specialized needs of athletes. “We work with students and amateur and professional athletes,” Dobrovolsky said. “They have concerns that are un like those of other people. In their field, there is a constant demand for perfor mance. • Nutrition - Because the body is es sentially a machine, it is important to study the “fuel” that it uses. Nutrition ists study nutrient intake and how best to prescribe a diet that is most con ducive for sports activities. • Athletic Training - Trainers on athletic teams function as physical thera pists, rehabilita tion specialists and communicators from doctors to coaches. Karl Kapchins- ki, the head ath letic trainer for the A&M athletic department, de scribed his job for the Ag gies. “The offi cial job de scription is that I take care of the treatment, care and rehabilitation of all of A&M’s ath letes,” he said. “We also serve as a me- diary between the doctors and the play ers.” • Orthopedics - Whenever injuries occur to athletes an orthopedic surgeon is usually consulted to evaluate the seri ousness of the injury and recommend a course of action. Occasionally the injury can be healed without the need for surgery, but many times it can not. An orthopedic surgeon is then used to repair the damage done. • Physical Therapy - Physical thera pists are employed to monitor an ath lete’s recovery from surgery or to help an athlete to recover from an injury that does not require surgery. In order to do that they structure a regimen of exercises and activities to help strengthen the area that was in jured. Although not a complete list of the oc cupations involved with sports medicine, the above descriptions do reflect some of the main branches of the sports medi cine tree. Gordon said there is not one part of the sports medicine field that is more important than the others. “I don’t know that you can attribute the increase in athletic ability to one specific thing,” Gordon said. “It’s all of those things.” For further exploration and for easy analysis, the various types of profes sions involved in sports medicine will be divided into those people who help an athlete prepare for competition and those that help that athlete return to ac tion after an injury. Part Two of this series, which will ap pear tomorrow, will talk about “Building an Athlete” and Part Three, which will appear Wednesday, will talk about “Healing the wounds.” Sales for football tickets UP Bulgaria stuns Germany -T Sweden needs penalty kicks to finish Romania A&M's 100th year, no TV cause increase, officials say By Brian Coats The Battalion If preseason ticket sales are any in dication, the crowds are going to be big ger at Kyle Field this fall. Sales for the 1994 Texas A&M football season are up this year from the same time last year, said Jim Kotch, the athletic ticket man ager at A&M. “We are about 1,000 season tickets above last year, and 2,400 above two years ago when we had the same sched ule as we do this year,” he said. Kotch said the Athletic Department has been pushing ticket sales harder than past years because this is the 100th year of A&M football and be cause no games will be televised this year. He said the Athletic Department, which controls faculty/staff, general public and student tickets, has sent out approximately 180,000 ticket applica tions. “We sent out letters to priority ticket holders in April, we put applications in the Texas Aggie Magazine and we sent out 113,000 letters to former students who do not receive the Texas Aggie,” Kotch said. “We also sent out 46,000 letters to new and returning students.” In June, the Athletic Department teamed up with financial institutions and local radio stations for a promotion on ticket sales. Kotch said another pro motion is planned right before the sea son starts. The 12th Man Foundation, which controls about 85 percent of the second and third decks on the west side of Kyle Field, is also pushing ticket sales harder, James Peterson, the president elect of the foundation, said. Texas otbaU ‘9* Fo jSk 1N\ \\\! “We had a full-scale telemarketing campaign to prospective members pushing our hundred-dollar Reveille membership and our fifty-dollar Associ ate Membership,” he said. Peterson said 12th man member ships are up “quite a bit” from last year, although he is unsure on the ex act number. He said the foundation’s financial contributions to the Athletic Depart ment will also increase this year. “We are going to donate more be cause of a bigger year with member ships and donations,” he said. Kotch said the A&M’s goal is to sell out the Oklahoma, Baylor and Texas Tech games. The Athletic Department, in a press release, said the Aggies are looking to set a new season attendance record. Kotch added that averaging about 65,000 for A&M’s six home games will help offset the loss of revenue due to no television. “Wally Groff (Texas A&M’s athletic director) told me if we average 65, we will break even money-wise,” he said. Kotch said probation and no-televi- sion are not the only reason ticket sales are up. He has heard people say the reason they are buying tickets this year is because A&M is moving to the new ly-formed Big 12 conference. In two years, people from Dallas and Houston won’t be able to see us un less they come here,” he said. “They aren’t going to be able to get tickets in Nebraska, and we won’t be playing in Dallas or Houston anymore.” UNDATED <AP) - Suddenly, the World Cup has a baffling look. Bulgaria and Sweden are in the semifinals, and defending champion Germany is gone, banished by the : Bulgarians in a stunner Sunday that will rank as one of the great World Cup upsets. “I think the world will realize that we have some very classy soccer players in Bulgaria,” Bulgarian star Hristo Stoitchkov said. Very classy, indeed. Bulgaria, or dinarily noted more for its weightlifters than soccer players, beat Germany 2-1 in East Ruther ford, N.J., making every pretouma- ment prediction look like utter non sense. The day’s other quarterfinal ended with a pulsating finish, with Sweden beating Romania 5-4 in penalty kicks after regulation and overtime ended 2-2 in Stanford, Calif. Swedish goalkeeper Thomas Rav- elli made the final save, with the penalty kicks having gone to sudden- death. Ravelli did a triumphant cart wheel and the Swedes bowed to the crowd; the exhausted Romanian players lay flat on their backs, their hands covering their faces. “It speaks for itself/’ Sweden coach Tommy Svensson said. “He was excellent during the game and Thomas was the key to our success in the penalty kicks.” On Wednesday, Bulgaria will play Italy at Giants Stadium and Brazil will face Sweden at the Rose Bowl in World Cup USA94 Sunday's Games Bulgaria 2, Germany 1 Sweden 2, Romania 2 (Penalty Kicks: Sweden 5, Romania 4) Pasadena, Calif. That will be a re match for Sweden and Brazil follow ing a 1-1 draw in the first round. Italy and Brazil, both three-time champions, won their semifinal berths Saturday, although neither had an easy time of it. Italy downed Spain 2-1 and Brazil edged the Netherlands 3-2. The other three-time champion in the field was Germany, and now the tournament moves on without its most dependable power. 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