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Tuesday • July 12, 1994
Its not quite a
perfect world
for baseball
MARK
SMITH
Sports Editor
A bright September sun shines
down onto north Texas. The
still-new seats of The Ball
park in Arlington are filled with
thousands of fans cheering for
their first place team that will ven
ture into the playoffs in October.
Tom Henke is on the mound,
with the bases loaded and Chicago
White Sox first baseman Frank
Thomas is up to bat. The Rangers
lead 12-9.
Henke takes his hat off and
wipes the sweat from his forehead.
He winds up and pitches. Thomas
launches a deep shot into deep
right field. Rusty Greer goes back
to the warning track. He jumps,
but in keeping with the tradition
set by Jose Canseco, goes into a
Pele-style bicycle kick, sending the
ball into the bleachers for a home-
run. The crowd goes wild. The
Rangers lose. They’re 10 games
under .500 and they’re going to the
playoffs.
Meanwhile down in Houston
A few hundred miles south of
Arlington, another Texas baseball
team plays underneath artificial
lights inside the world’s first
domed stadium. John Hudek is on
the mound for the Astros, facing
Fred McGriff with David Justice
taking a comfortable lead off first.
The Astros lead 4-3.
Hudek pitches and McGriff hits
his rising fastball into left-center.
Center fielder Steve Finley dives
through the air to snag what sure
ly would have been extra-bases for
McGriff. The Astros win. But, so
do the division-leading Cincinnati
Reds who lead the Astros by 1/2
game. The Astros are 21 games
above .500, but will have to wait
another year to be the “boys of Oc-
t.nhe>r ”
Doesn’t seem fair does it?
Realignment goes astray
With the inception of the Major
League Baseball’s realignment, re
gional rivalries can develop and
the divisions make much more
sense. But it might let mediocre
teams into the playoffs and keep
other teams that deserve the post
season more out.
The Texas Rangers are, beyond
a shadow of a doubt , the worst
first place team in the majors.
They are three games ahead of the
second place Oakland A’s while be
ing three games under .500.
Their record is 42-45. They
have the worst fielding percentage
in the league.
The Astros are 11 games above
.500 and still trail the Reds by
three games. They sent five
Please see Baseball/Page 4
5 PORTS
By Mark Smith
The Battalion
To be a high quality athlete today re
quires two important qualifications.
One, the athlete must have natural
ability in the sport that he or she wants
to participate. This could include
speed, agility or strength.
Two, the athlete must train and
train and train.
Karl Kapchinski, head athletic
Part two of three
trainer for the Texas A&M Athletic
Department, said athletes today re
quire a great deal of training to meet
their potential.
“If a kid has God given talent, then
the coaches and trainers take that kid
and refine his talent,” Kapchinski
said. “We take that raw talent and
train it.”
But that training can take on many
forms and deals wdth many avenues of
science from psychology to engineering.
In order to obtain the best output for
an athlete, these disciplines must work
in conjunction to fully utilize the ath
letes capabilities.
Possibly the most obvious part of the
training process is the actual physical
exercise that athletes perform to
strengthen their bodies. However, even
these exercises have been tailored to
best suit particular athletic needs.
A long-distance runner does not
need the bulk obtained from power-lift
ing, where those types of exercises
would be ideally suited for lineman for
a football team.
The United States Olympic Com
mittee uses exercise physiologists to
monitor an athletes performance dur
ing exercise. In their physical condi
tioning lab they perform tests which
include maximum oxygen consumption
(V02), lactate, body composition and
heart rate.
From these tests the coaches and
athletes determine the athlete’s
strengths and weaknesses and indicate
strategies for future training programs.
In order to design the best possible
workout for an athlete, specialists called
biomechanicists are employed to monitor
an athletes technique and recommend
changes in form to maximize potential.
Dr. Stephen Gordon, the director of
musculoskeletal research for the Na
tional Institute for Health, said even a
slight change in an athlete’s form can
make a difference.
“By studying the way the body works
we can optimize the way the body
works,” Gordon said.
“Hypothetically, if by lifting a knee
15 degrees will give the athlete a better
angle then well tell them. It just puts
the athlete in a better mechanical posi
tion," he said.
To study an athlete’s technique, the
biomechanicists use computers and
high-speed video cameras to film the
athlete performing their sport. The
computer then places the activity onto
the screen, showing the athletes move
ments as a series of stick figures.
Coaches and trainers can then evalu
ate the motion and recommend changes
to help the athlete’s performance.
However, not all performance is
physical. The mind plays a large role in
athletic performance.
Because of this, the field of sports
psychology has been developed since
the 1920s to help athlete’s performance.
Dr. Arnold Luenes, a researcher and
professor in the psychology depart
ment at Texas A&M, said that, al
though the area of sports psychology is
rather old, its use has only been a re
cent development.
“It started in the 1920s in Illinois,”
Luenes said. “In the mid-60s there was
an organization created for sports psy
chologists, but it’s wide-spread use has
been fairly recent. It’s really only a 15-
year-old discipline.”
Sports psychologist use a number of
Stew Milne/THE Battalion
Kyle Thompson, a student trainer, does squats at Netum Steed Laboratory.
techniques to help athletes enhance
their performance and relieve the stress
that competition can sometimes create.
Dr. Nicholas W. Dobrovolsky, in the
A&M Student Counseling Center,
works with some of the A&M athletes
and described some of the ways psychol
ogists can help athletes stay relaxed.
“Athletes sometimes are apprehen
sive or have anxiety,” Dobrovolsky said.
“We use anti-anxiety techniques to help
them out.”
Those anti-anxiety techniques, Do
brovolsky said, include progressive
Please see Athletes, Page 4
A&M graduates try for U.S. bobsled team
Constance Parten
The Battalion
The bobsled competition at the 1998 Winter
Olympics in Japan will feature some new partici
pants.
They won’t be the Jamaicans or any other
Caribbean nation. They will be from none other than
the United States.
The first ever U.S. Women’s Bobsled team will be
chosen in September, and among those competing
may be two A&M graduates.
Sisters Michelle Powe and Alexandra “Alex” Powe-
Allred graduated from A&M in 1986 and 1991 respec
tively. Neither sister was involved in varsity sports
during their college careers, but both have been very
active in sports since childhood.
“I have always loved the Olympics,” Powe-Allred
said. “Michelle and I were always joking about how
we had to think of some way to get into the Olympics.
Now it could actually be a reality.”
Powe and Powe-Allred are among 32 semi-finalists
vying for eight positions on the new team.
“I’m very confident I’ll make the team,” Powe-
Allred said. “I’ve placed second all-around after the
initial testing, so I think my chances are really good.”
The semi-finalists will participate in the final com
petition in September to determine who will be on the
team. They are now going through some very rigorous
training.
The testing includes performances in 30-meter, 60-
meter and 100-meter dashes as well as shot put, verti
cal leap, long jump and weight and power tests. The
most grueling part of the testing is pushing a 375
pound training sled, Powe-Allred said.
“The two-person sled for competition weighs 625
pounds,” Powe-Allred said. “We push the 375 pound
training sled all alone, on what looks like a roller
coaster track.”
Michelle and Alex have to be inventive while train
ing on their own. Aside from running and weight lift
ing, they have come up with an interesting surrogate
sled. c .,,«
'Tm very confident I'll make the
team. I've placed second all-
around after the initial testing,
so I think my chances are really
good."
— Alex Powe-Allred, candidate for
1998 U.S. Womens Bobsled team
“I have a shopping cart the local Kroger gave me
that I weighted down. I put my daughter Kerri in and
push her around the neighborhood as part of my
training,” Powe-Allred said.
Michelle only recently joined Alex in training for
the tryouts.
“1 had a car accident a year ago last May,” Michelle
said. “I was laid up for a year and was in a lot of pain.
I finally just told myself, T can go on if I can see my
self past this pain.’”
“Everyone has to overcome something,” Michelle
said. “I finally realized I was going to have pain
whether I was laying there or up doing something,
and working with Alex has really motivated me.
“The training alone will have a positive affect on
my life regardless of whether I make the competition
or not,” she said.
Alex is certain Michelle will make the cut.
“We are very similar physically,” Powe-Allred said.
“I’ve done well so far, and even though Michelle hasn’t
tested yet, she will too. If I place second, she will be
third, or vice-versa.”
Michelle will not actually be getting into the bob
sled until next year sometime when she is fully recov
ered from her accident.
“The sled is moving at around 90 miles per hour,
and the possibility of my helmet slamming into the
other crew members helmet is really high,” Powe said.
“A minor accident like that now could ruin my
chances of competing at all.”
The sisters will spend the rest of the summer train
ing for the final cut at the Push Track Championship
in Lake Placid in September.
If they make the cut, the sisters will be on their
way to Calgary in October to begin training for their
first competition against the top two teams, the Cana
dians and the Swiss.
“Lake Placid is the only track in the U.S.,” Powe-
Allred said. “It’s also the toughest track in the world.
A lot of Europeans refuse to run it at all.”
Powe-Allred believes the coaches want the team to
run this course so everything else will seem easy.
“I’ve met some of the Canadians,” Powe-Allred said.
“They’re six feet tall and weigh 200 pounds. We have
a lot of work ahead of us.”
Come in For A FREE Workout!
NORTH GATE ATHLETIC CLUB
^■NGAC
SeroSMI
* FREE WEIGHTS
* STEPPERS
* BICYCLES
* MACHINES
* WEIGHT LOSS &
❖ WEIGHT GAIN
PROGRAMS
201 COLLEGE MAIN
(BEHIND LOUPOTS AT NORTHGATE) U f
I ii i: Battalion
MARK EVANS, Editor in chief
The Battalion (USPS 045-360) is published daily, Monday through Friday during the fall and
spring semesters and Monday through Thursday during the summer sessions (except University
holidays and exam periods), at Texas A&M University. Second class postage paid at College
Station, TX 77840.
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