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BHHHHl ::i; The Battalion Page 9 • Tuesday, December 9, 20
Rangers want resolution to possible A-Rod trade
By Stephen Hawkins
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARLINGTON, Texas — The
Boston Red Sox have about a week to
close a trade for Alex Rodriguez.
Texas general manager John Hart
would like to know by the end of the
winter meetings on Dec. 16 whether the
American League MVP will remain
with the Rangers for next season. The
Rangers have been discussing a trade
that would send him to the Red Sox for
Manny Ramirez.
“As long as this potentially is alive,
it precludes us from having a road map
of what we can do with anybody else,”
Hart said Sunday. “The sooner we have
a resolvement, the better.”
The deal would be a swap of base
ball’s only $20 million-a-year players.
In a sign of how
extraordinary the sit
uation is, commis
sioner Bud Selig is
allowing the Red Sox
to speak directly with
Rodriguez. In most
situations, a tentative
trade must be in place
before baseball Rodriguez
grants a window for a
team to speak with a player under con
tract to another club. #
“To the extent that it happened, the
commissioner has approved it,” said
Sandy Alderson, executive vice presi
dent of baseball operations in the com
missioner’s office.
Asked whether he had granted per
mission, Selig declined comment.
The Boston Herald, citing unidenti
fied sources, first reported Saturday that
Red Sox owner John Henry had spoken
to Rodriguez. Rangers owner Tom
Hicks told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
that Rodriguez was allowed to meet
with Henry more than a week ago.
“It was more of a get-acquainted
meeting,” Hicks was quoted as saying.
Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, said
no meeting had been scheduled.
The Red Sox refused to confirm or
deny the possibility of a trade.
Rodriguez agreed in December
2000 to a record $252 million, 10-year
contract with Texas. Ramirez and the
Red Sox agreed the same day to a $ 160
million, eight-year deal.
Hart said Sunday, after the Rangers
refused salary arbitration for Rafael
Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez, that the
team was preparing to move forward
with A-Rod at shortstop and is “very
excited” about that.
“I recognize that a lot of things can
change, a lot of dynamics in the next
week that could take us through the
winter meetings,” Hart said. “But to
this point, there has been little or
no contact with any clubs regarding
Alex.”
Rodriguez led the majors in homers
his first two seasons with Texas, and hit
an AL-high 47 last season with 118
RBIs. Ramirez had at least 33 homers
and 104 RBIs in each of his three sea
sons in Boston.
Hart said he hadn’t spoken directly
to Rodriguez, but had several conversa
tions with Boras, about the shortstop
and other players.
He said there wasn’t much to dis
cuss about a possible trade at this point.
“This has been a lot built up over
very little,” he said.
If the trade happens, it would likely
leave Red Sox shortstop Nomar
Garciaparra on the outside looking in.
Garciaparra, who has one year and
$11.5 million remaining on his seven-
year contract, rejected a proposed con
tract extension last spring but says he
wants to stay in Boston.
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Not your average athlete
In addition to being a standout swimmer at Texas A&M, senior Chris Nelan was named the city of
Keller's Citizen of the Year in 1996 and plays an active role in the Student Athlete Advisory Committee.
Nelan turning
heads in pool,
as student leader
By Pete Burks
THE BATTALION
C hris Nelan has never known the
meaning of average. The Aggie sen
ior swimmer has always found a
way to exceed mediocrity.
The reason Nelan has gone the extra
mile in life is two-fold; First, he is hearing
impaired, and second, Nelan is determined
to exceed others’ expectations of him
despite his disability. Being deaf to high-
frequency noises, he may never get to
experience everyday sounds such as high-
pitched musical notes or sirens, but an
inability to hear certain noises has not
slowed down his thirst to experience life
to the fullest.
Spending his formative high school
years in Keller, Texas, Nelan was no
stranger to the arena of athletics. While
primarily competing in football, basketball
and soccer, swimming was a mere after
thought in high school. However, in his
junior year, that changed.
“I actually started swimming competi
tively at 17,” Nelan said. “At first, I only
swam to stay in shape for football, basket
ball and soccer, but... I had to choose one
sport to focus on. In the end, I was
between football and swimming, but after
talking to my parents and my uncles and
doing some praying about it, I felt that
swimming was it for me.”
Once he made his decision, Nelan
wasted no time accumulating honors and
medals. After being named the Texas
Amateur Athletic Federation Athlete of the
Year in 1996, he went on to be named
team MVP three times and earned three
All-American honors. Nelan’s accolades
did not stop at the pool. Along with being
named Athlete of the Year, the city of
Keller named him its Citizen of the Year
for 1996.
Keller received the city’s award that
year when a 4-year-old who had just got
ten a new bicycle for his birthday careened
off a road and fell into a creek bed.
Luckily for the youngster, Nelan’s
younger brother Caleb heard his cries of
distress and quickly alerted Nelan.
Without hesitation, Nelan headed for the
water and, using a lifeguard technique he
had learned through his years of swim
ming, was able to pull the screaming tod
dler to safety on the banks of the creek.
Nelan’s heroic deeds did not stop when
he went to college.
One day while driving from Keller to
College Station, he saw a truck pulling a
trailer that had flipped over on the shoul
der of the highway. He stopped his car and
went over to help. As he came upon the
truck, the engine was still running, and as
he poked his head inside to turn it off, he
saw that an older man was still inside.
After pulling the man out, Nelan
noticed there was a sizable hole in the pas
senger side of the windshield and realized
there had been someone else in the car. As
he walked a little further up the road, he
found the man’s wife, who had been
thrown through the windshield and was
bleeding profusely, with multiple lacera
tions from broken glass.
Using lifesaving techniques in life
guard training, Nelan was able to help stop
her bleeding until emergency vehicles
arrived.
“Everybody loves him in Keller,” said
Nelan’s mom, Debra. “In an emergency
situation, most people just tend to watch,
but a few tend to act. Chris is one of those
that tends to act. That’s just the type of
person he is.”
Nelan’s career as an Aggie has only
been a continuation of the success he
achieved in high school. In the 1999-2000
season, he finished first place in every
event he competed in during the U.S. Deaf
Games, setting a new international speed
record in the 200-meter freestyle, and a
new American.record in the 100-meter
freestyle.
At the Deaf World Games in Rome,
Italy, in 2001, Nelan earned three gold
medals, two silvers and a bronze, as well as
becoming the U.S. male high-point scorer.
See Nelan on page 11
BATTSPORTS HEISMAN FAVORITES
John C. Livas • THE BATTALION'
Pittsburgh wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is one of the favorites for this year's
Heisman Award, given every year to the best player in college football.
1. Larry Fitzgerald, WR,
University of Pittsburgh: With
the exception of the Pittsburgh-
Miami game, Fitzgerald domi
nated defenses all season long.
1. Larry Fitzgerald, WR,
University of Pittsburgh:
After hauling in a touchdown in
18 consecutive games, there is
no doubt he is the most domi
nant player in NCAA football.
2. Jason White, QB,
University of Oklahoma: I
can’t drop him down too much
for a subpar game in the Big 12
Championship.
2. Ben Roethlisberger, QB,
University of Miami (Ohio): If
he played for a major BCS con
ference team, he would be a
shoe-in for the Heisman.
3. Chris Perry, RB, University
of Michigan: He disappeared
in the middle of the season, but
his 5.0 yards per game keep
him high on the Heisman list.
3. Chris Perry, RB, University
of Michigan: His 154 rushing
yards against Ohio State was
one of the best performances
of the season.
4. Ben Roethlisberger, QB,
University of Miami (Ohio):
Racked up 4,110 yards and 33
touchdowns this year, and the
RedHawks’ offense demands
much more than the short
passing offense of Texas Tech.
4. Jason White, QB,
University of Oklahoma:
White scorched Big 12 defens
es throughout the season but
his horrendous performance in
the Big 12 title game will cost
him big this late in the season.
5. Matt Leinart, QB,
University of Southern
California: Quietly put
together a tremendous sea-’
son with 35 TDs and just nine
interceptions.
5. Eli Manning, QB, Ole Miss:
Manning led the Rebels to a
solid regular season and a
New Year’s Day bowl game, but
it wasn’t enough for the
Heisman.
Book details happier times for Aggie football players, fans
Remember Jarrin’ John Kimbrough and the
1939 season? It was the last time the Aggies won
the national championship, when The Associated
Press crowned the national title, long before com
puters decided the fate of the nation’s top team.
It’s doubtful that
many of today’s stu
dents have a clue what
happened in the 1940
Sugar Bowl, or how
Jack Pardee survived
the Bear Bryant training
camp in Junction,
Texas, and led the
Aggies over the
Longhorns in 1956.
After a long, less-
than-memorable 2003
campaign, “The Game of My Life, 25 Stories of
Aggies Football” gives Aggie fans the chance to
forget about the miserable season this year and
escape to the glory days of Twelfth Man kick-off
teams and Heisman trophy winners.
The collection of stories, compiled by San
Antonio Express-News sportswriter Brent
Zwerneman, gives readers their first chance to
experience the games of yesterday through the
eyes of the players.
game
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“There was a publishing company out of
Champagne, Ill., that sent a letter to my Valley
Ranch address in Dallas and asked if I had any
book ideas,” Zwerneman said. “They said, ‘how
about a biography of 25 players?’ At that point, my
job was to narrow down
the list. They wanted part
of each chapter to be a
first-person narration
from each player.”
Former All-American
punter Shane Lechler,
now a Pro-Bowl punter
for the Oakland Raiders,
tells the story of the 1999
matchup against the
Texas Longhorns, a
game filled with emotion
on both sides after the 1999 Aggie Bonfire collapse.
Lechler explains that when Bonfire fell, the
football team was having a party that was being
busted by police. All of a sudden the police offi
cers rushed out of the house and left in a blaze of
glory. The players and others in attendance had no
idea what was going on until they heard the news
the next day.
“Texas A&M football players are taken care of
pretty good,” Lechler said in the chapter devoted
to the game. “It’s not that we’re given everything.
But everything is made a little bit easier for us.
The student body on the other hand, those guys
fight for everything they get.”
“And they built that Bonfire every year as kind
of what amounts to a big pep rally for us. To have
people get killed doing something in support of us
... at that point we needed to do whatever we could
to help out.”
Lechler’s is just one of 25 stories that
Zwerneman captures.
Aggie fan favorite Dat Nguyen, who has little
to no facial hair, tells the story about one long hair
on his face that he named Oscar during the 1998
Big 12 Championship season.
“As it turns out it was a good luck charm dur
ing that 1998 season,” Zwerneman said. “It fell off
just before the Texas game, and you know how
that turned out.”
But the loss to Texas wasn’t the game of
Nguyen’s life. That came a week later when the
heavily-favored Kansas State Wildcats fell to the
Aggies in one of the most thrilling Big 12 games
of all time — and Oscar had started to grow back.
“Winning that game is the biggest thrill in my
athletics career,” Nguyen said. “Against the No. 1
team in the nation, down by double digits in the
fourth quarter, we push it into double overtime to
finally win. I’ll guarantee you that everybody on
that team will tell you the same thing: It’s their
favorite all-time game.”
While there weren’t many favorite games for
this year’s team, Aggie fans of every generation
will enjoy Zwerneman’s collections of 25 Aggie
legends’ games of their lives.
The book is the perfect Christmas gift for any
Aggie football fan to carry him through the long
offseason.
Dallas Shipp
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Use this as firestarter
Read only when insomnia hits
Buy it at a used bookstore
Buy it in hardback
Buy a copy for your coffee table,
nightstand, and bookshelf