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Sports
The Battalion
Page 5 • Thursday, July 11, 2002
D says Tech football budget to be balanced by September
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) —
Texas Tech’s overbudget foot
ball program, which couldn’t
afford to send its outgoing mail
this summer, will have a bal
anced budget before September,
[athletic director Gerald Myers
said Wednesday.
Fund-raising money and
some of a $1.62 million payout
from the Aug. 24 season open
er at Ohio State will shore up a
$400,000 overrun before the
fiscal year ends Aug. 3 1, Myers
[said.
In recent weeks, news of the
football program’s budget prob
lems created a rift between
coach Mike Leach and school
administrators. But Leach and
Myers said at a Wednesday news
conference that they worked
things out in a Tuesday meeting
with school administrators.
Leach said the situation was
made more difficult because he
was out of town in the days after
news broke that the program was
denied outgoing mail privileges
in May and June because it owed
$5,000 to Tech’s mail service.
“With people scattered
around the
county and
things of that
nature this
time of year,
yesterday was
a great chance
to get together,
and I think
every body’s
headed in the same direction,”
Leach said.
Leach said the move to stop
his mail was detrimental to
recruiting efforts in that it
occurred at a time when tele-
I.EACH
phone calls to recruits were
prohibited.
Leach’s job performance was
never part of discussions
Tuesday afternoon with Tech
President David Schmidly,
Myers and Leach, university
spokeswoman Cindy Rugeley
said.
Leach said he did not
believe the budget has affected
the players or their preparations
for the upcoming season and
that he is putting the controver
sy behind him.
Myers said Wednesday he
Spaniards capture stage 4
‘Good ride’ by USPS helps
Armstrong gain ground
C H AT EAU-THIERRY,
France (AP) — The Spaniards
sped to victory and a blown tire
stalled the rival Danes, ensuring
a “good ride” and a second-
place finish Wednesday for
Lance Armstrong’s squad in the
Tour de France team time-trial.
Team Once won the stage,
clocking 1 hour, 19 minutes,
49 seconds in the 41.85-mile
run from Epernay to Chateau-
Thierry, northeast of Paris.
Armstrong and his U.S. Postal
teammates were 16 seconds
behind.
“As close as it was, there’s a
little bit of regret,” said
Armstrong, bidding for a fourth
Tour championship. “We could
have been a little more aggres
sive in the first 20 kilometers
(12.4 miles).”
Still, he said, it was among
the best showings by USPS in
its current form.
“I’m happy with the team,”
he said. “We had a good ride.”
The strong performance by
U.S. Postal helped Armstrong
move into third place — seven
seconds behind — after starting
the day in fifth.
Igor Gonzalez Galdeano,
riding for Once, became the
first Spaniard in seven years to
don the yellow jersey of the
overall leader. Joseba Beloki
was in second, four seconds
behind his teammate.
Thousands of fans lined the
route for Wednesday’s fourth
stage, marked by cloudy skies
but only one brief dose of rain
near the finish. That was a con
trast to the downpour during the
time trial a year ago, when two
of Armstrong’s teammates fell
on the slick roadway.
“Compared to last year, it’s a
big relief — coming in second
without any problems,”
Armstrong said.
The Danish team CSC-
Tiscali finished third, but had a
rough ride.
CSC-Tiscali, whose racers
include France’s Laurent
Jalabert and American Tyler
Hamilton, clocked the fastest
time through the first two inter
mediate splits. Then Michael
Sandstod got a flat tire and had
to change his bike. His team-
mates slowed to wait for him
before speeding ahead. But the
damage was done -— the team
lost time.
“There was a misunder
standing,” Jalabert said. “We
had agreed on a strategy of not
waiting for anyone — and we
didn't keep to it.”
CSC-Tiscali finished 30 sec
onds behind USPS.
The overall standings under
scored the importance of faring
well in the team time trial.
After Wednesday’s stage, the
first 14 racers in the overall
standings were either from Once
or USPS. The Telekom team of
German sprinting specialist Erik
Zabel, who held the yellow jer
sey coming into the day’s
action, finished nearly three
2002 TOUR DE FRANCE
A win for Once; yellow for Igor
Spanish team Once won the fourth stage of the Tour de France on
Wednesday, a team time-trial through the heart of Champagne
country. Once’s Igor Gonzalez Galdeano of Spain took the overall
leader’s yellow jersey.
o too mi , LUXEMBOURG
0 100 km
Stage 5
Thursday, July 11
Soissons to Rouen
195 kilometers
(120.9 miles)
Soissons
145 feet
Clairoix
142 feet
Stage start a
Stage finish B
Stage ®
finish/start
Rest a
Berneuil-
sur-Aisne
175 feet
Br u n vl 11 er s-la-IVI otte
442 feet
Rouen
Formerle 231 feet
775 feet
Noyers-sur-Martln -
591 feet Grandvllliers
690 feet Forges-les-Eaux 120.9
561 feet miles
SOURCES: Associated Press: Societe du Tour de France; ESRI
AP
minutes behind Once. Zabel
sank to 39th place overall.
In addition, the team time
trial winner can reap an impor
tant psychological advantage
over other riders, said
Frenchman Bernard Hinault,
one of only four riders to win
the Tour de France five times.
“The time trial gives us an
idea of the strength of each
team,” he said. “It’s difficult to
make any predictions about
them before this test, because
the teams have changed so
much since last year.”
Last week, at a news confer
ence before the start of the Tour,
Armstrong said he believed this
year’s Postal Service team is the
best yet. The team gained two
new riders — American Floyd
Landis and Czech Pavel
Padrnos —^ and saw the return
of Benoit Joachim of
Luxembourg, whom team lead
ers selected for the 2000 Tour
but not last year’s.
didn’t blame coaches for the
shortfall.
“We knew at the beginning of
the year that our budgets would
be extremely tight,” Myers said.
“I don’t think our coaches have
been reckless with the budget.”
Less than two weeks ago,
Myers said he was tired of hear
ing comments from some Tech
coaches about how the football
program’s budget compared
with other Big 12 schools. The
program’s operating budget was
$1.2 million for fiscal year
2002, placing it in the bottom
three in the Big 12, excluding
salaries and scholarships.
“Well this is what we have at
Texas Tech. We’re going to do
the best we can with what we
have,” Myers said in the
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on
June 29. “I’m tired of hearing
about what they do there. Maybe
they should get a job there if
they think that’s so great.”
Myers apologized for his
comments Wednesday.
“In the heat of the moment,
public comments were made
that we all regret,” he said.
All-Star game has
worst TV rating ever
NEW YORK (AP) — There
was not a winner in the All-Star
game but there was a loser: the
sport’s television rating.
Tuesday night’s controver
sial 7-7, 11-inning tie in
Milwaukee set a record for
baseball’s lowest-rated All-Star
game, getting a 9.5 rating and
17 share, Nielsen Media
Research said Wednesday.
The rating was down 14 per
cent from the 1 1.0 for the
American League’s 4-1 victory
last year in Seattle. The previous
low was a 10.1 for the AL’s 6-3
win two years ago in Atlanta.
Like network ratings in gen
eral, the All-Star game rating has
steadily declined. From a peak of
28.5 in 1970, dropped below 20
for the first time in 1987. The
game drew a 15.7 rating in 1994,
then dropped to 13.9 the follow
ing year after a strike wiped out
the World Series for the first time
in 90 years.
Tuesday night’s game was
seen by an average of
10,023,000 households, less
than half the 20.38 million that
tuned in 20 years earlier.
The rating is the percentage
of television households in the
United States watching a
broadcast, and each point rep
resents 1,055,000 homes. The
share is the percentage watch
ing a program among those
households with televisions on
at the time.
Because of a lengthy pregame
show, the game started later than
in recent years, after 9 p.m. EDT.
Commissioner Bud Selig
stopped it at 12:35 a.m., when
the teams ran out of pitchers.
Some in the sellout crowd of
41,871 threw bottles on the field,
booed and chanted “Let them
play!” and “Bud must go!”
ESPN’s telecast of the Home
Run Derby on Monday night
drew a 6.1 1 rating — the sec
ond-highest rated show this year
on the network. The competi
tion, won by the New York
Yankees’ Jason Giambi, was up
18 percent from last year’s
event, which drew a 5.19.
SPORTS IN BRIEF
Stars to start away
from home in 2003
DALLAS (AP) — The new-look
Dallas Stars will open the
upcoming season on the road
against Colorado on Oct. 9,
then will make their home
debut two nights later against
Anaheim.
The Stars, entering their 10th
season in Dallas, are coming
off their first non-playoff
appearance since 1996. They
have a new coach, new goal-
tender and three new high-
priced free agents to try return
ing the team to among the
NHL's elite.
The season schedule released
Wednesday shows that the
Stars will play only four of their
first 13 games at American
Airlines Center. The flip side is
that from Nov. 6 to Dec. 13
they'll have 11 of 18 games at
home.
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