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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1995)
The Battalion • Page 3 Wednesday • May 31, 1995 ^ PORTS Swimming team reaps rewards from Rec Center □ A&M will host both the '96 SWC and '97 Big 12 Conference Championships. Staff & Wire Reports The Texas A&M Swimming and Diving team was awarded the final Southwest Conference Championships Friday, to be held at the new Student Recreational Cen ter next February. This event will be the last of its kind in SWC history, as the conference will break up on July 1, 1996. A&M head swimming coach Mel Nash, in his 16th season at A&M, said he and the teams are extremely excited about hosting the final SWC meet. The SWC Championships have been held in Austin for the past 15 years, and A&M has not hosted the event since the 1950s. The Longhorns have won the conference champi onships for the last 15 years straight while possessing the home-pool advantage. The natatorium in the new Student Recreational Center will also be the host site of the first Big 12 Swimming and Diving Championship meet in 1997. The new complex will be the largest in the Big 12 with a seating capacity of 2,500, 500 more seats than the University of Texas’ Lee and Joe Jamail Swim Center in Austin. No other school in the Big 12 has a seating capacity of more than 800. Athletic Director Wally Groff said that the new diving facility is rated as one of the top three in the nation. Nash has been involved in the planning and design of the Student Recreational Center Natatorium since day one, but has not been able to coach a SWC meet in Col lege Station due to the size constraints of the P.L. Nata torium, A&M’s old facility. Nash and Groff said the new center should be open by mid-summer, and that the swimming and diving teams will be practicing there once the fall semester starts. History proves hoops reign in XJ.S. The Texas A&M Swimming and Diving team will host the final SWC Championships in February 1996 at the new Student Recreation Center on West Campus. The center is scheduled to open this summer and the teams will be gin to practice there in the fall. Collegiate Baseball Top 25 Poll Record Pts Pvs 1. Cal St Fullerton 53-8 495 1 2. USC 45-19 492 2 3. Florida State 52-14 489 3 4. Tennessee 52-14 487 4 5. Clemson 54-12 485 6 6. Oklahoma 42-14 484 10 7. Miami, Fla. 46-15 482 8 8. Stanford 39-23 478 16 9. Auburn 50-13 477 5 10. Texas Tech 51-14 476 9 11. Oklahoma State 46-19 470 11 12. Texas A&M 44-22-1 469 18 13. Wichita State 53-17 462 7 14. Alabama 42-23 460 17 15. Rice 43-19 458 19 16. Long Beach St. 39-25-1 455 22 17. Mississippi 40-22 450 24 18. Louisiana State 47-18 448 12 19. Pepperdine 36-19-1 440 23 20. Florida Inti. 50-11 438 14 21. Central Florida 49-13 437 13 22. Fresno St. 41-22 432 15 23. Texas 44-19 429 21 24. Winthrop 41-17-2 426 — 25. North Carolina 39-23 422 |— A&M professor to be ‘driving force’ behind Southwest Conference’s finale Kyle Littlefield □ Physics professor Dr. Thomas Adair will be come the league's president on July 1. By David Winder The Battalion Texas A&M physics professor Thomas Adair will spend the next year preserving the history of the Southwest Conference, be cause last Friday he became a part of it. July 1, Adair will become the final president of the SWC because of the disbanding of the conference after the 1995-96 sea son. Texas A&M, Baylor, Texas Tech and the University of Texas will join the Big 12 confer ence, while Texas Christian, Southern Methodist and Rice will enter the Western Athletic Conference. The University of Houston will join the newly- formed Conference USA. For the last two years Adair has served as the vice president for the SWC. He replaces Dr. Joseph Helmick of TCU. Adair will only get to serve one year of the usual two-year term. “We are going to make plans for the conference until it ceas es to exist," Adair said. “We’ll still be doing the usual work of planning championships and tournaments.” Adair will chair the governing body of the SWC which includes presidents, faculty representa tives and athletic directors of each school. “With this being the last year of the conference, weTl "We are going to make plans for the conference until it ceases to exist." athletic director Wally Groff will be the head of the SWC athletic directors. In addition to his position as SWC vice-president, Adair has served as Texas A&M’s faculty representative to the confer ence since 1982. He will become the fifth con ference president in the SWC’s 81-year history to come from Texas A&M, and the first in 14 years. In the early history of the con ference, the president controlled all deci- S.iQp-making process- — Dr. Thomas Adair 1995-96 SWC President have to do things a little differ ent,” Adair said. “We’ll have to decide what to do with the things that the Southwest Con ference owns.” Members of the Texas A&M administration will also chair the major committees in the SWC. For example, A&M e^.fpr; the league. As the conference continued to expand in the 1930s and 1940s, the need arose to have a full-time office, head ed by an Executive Secretary (later re-ti tled Commissioner). Since 1938, there have been only six SWC commissioners. The previous four A&M facul ty representatives who went on to become SWC presidents were: A.C. Love (1915-1916); D.W. Williams (1950-1951); Chris Groneman (1963-1965) and Charles Samson Jr. (1979-1981). Staff Writer H umans are enter tained by relatively simple concepts. A ball goes through a hoop, and people wet their pants. The visionary Dr. James A. Naismith recognized this fact, and the game of basket ball was born. One can only imagine what life was like before the game was invented. When Thomas Jefferson crumpled his rough drafts of the Dec laration of Independence and tossed them into the wastebasket, was he im pressed with his aim? Obvi ously, he didn’t yell, “Two!” or taunt, “That was in your eye, Franklin.” But he was probably en tertained with himself. Naismith probably didn’t expect basketball to grow into the spectacle that it is today. He probably never fathomed the dunk, the no look pass, Jordan or that “Rare Bird,” Dennis Rodman — all the things that make basketball the greatest sport. There are other reasons why we should set basketball apart from the other Ameri can pastimes, too. For starters, you have to be in shape to constantly run up and down the court. This is very different from base ball, where a beer belly looks great in a stretch-fabric uni form, and you only have to run when you either hit the ball ©r chase it. As a result, many baseball played 1 Stand sedentary for long periods of time, while trickles of tobacco juice run down their chins. This brings us to another difference between basket ball and baseball — no drugs allowed — well, at least on the court. Baseball players have an unhealthy fascination with chewing tobacco. With wads of it in their mouths, it’s a wonder that they can call each other off on fly balls. I See Littlefield, Page 4 The Best Pizza In Town, 9-Conest! Summer Time Special Mr. Gatti’s FastFeast Buffet Specially Priced Just For You! 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