PLATI-'TUDES
A notes column penned by David Plati, who is in his 20th year as Colorado’s Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations.
Welcome to Plati-?Tudes" winner of the Pasta Jay’s Award for Italian Column Writing (now that’s cheesy)" But how about that Pasta Jay? Opening on Thanksgiving to cook 10 pizzas for the ABC pregame meeting. Now that’s going above and beyond the call of loyalty to CU as it made us look real good! Next time you’re at Pasta Jay’s, ask for “The Cabral,” name after our linebacker coach Brian Cabral’s favorite pizza: an Alfredo sauce pie with Canadian bacon and pineapple.
TRIVIA QUESTIONS... CU--The CU volleyball recently accomplished something for the 15th time in 17 seasons. What was it? Seinfeld--I can’t remember who told me this, and I missed it, but: what is hanging in the back hallway of Jerry’s apartment, near the bathroom, the hanging bike and the bedroom?
PRETTY DARN GOOD FALL... Perhaps slipping under the radar with the football team finishing 5-7 and missing out on a bowl with the season-ending loss to Nebraska is the fact that CU enjoyed a pretty good fall season almost across the board. The other four sports with seasons starting and ending in the fall all qualified for their respective NCAA Championships: women’s cross country took fifth at nationals, with the men snaring sixth (and the individual champ in Dathan Ritzenhein); the men won their eighth straight Big 12 title, while the women won their seventh. The women’s soccer team won its first Big 12 championship and were invited for the first time to the NCAA tournament; and women’s volleyball finished up the regular season at 21-9, tying for third in the league with a 13-7 mark. They begin NCAA play Friday against Michigan in the first round. The men’s and women’s tennis teams had some nice individual accomplishments as well, and the men’s golf team had one of its best autumn seasons in several years and ended the fall as the nation’s No. 34 team.
HOOPS STARTS... Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are off and running, with the women at 5-1 and ranked No.17, with the men 3-1 and receiving votes. This is the 22nd time the Buffs have opened 3-1 or 4-0 with two of the wins coming on the road, but only the fifth time in the last 58 seasons it’s happened. The last time was in 1990-91, though in 1996-97, Ricardo Patton’s first full season as head coach, CU opened 3-1 with two of the wins away from home at a neutral site.
As for the women, Emily Waner's 17 points in the season opening win over Old Dominion tied for the third most points in a debut by a CU freshman; Lisa Van Goor had 25, Jamillah Lang 19 and Erin Scholz 17, putting Waner in some pretty good company. CU’s thrilling comeback win the next night over No. 15 Notre Dame marked the 14 straight season with a win over a ranked team.
JORGE THE NEW JOHN MADDEN?... Some of you may have seen the 2003 NCAA Cross Country replay on Fox Sports this past Wednesday (Dec. 3); former Buff and ’02 NCAA champion Jorge Torres handled the color commentary for the race. The folks at Fox were so pleased with his work that Jorge’s already been invited back for next year. CU’s Dathan Ritzenhein won this time around to give the Buffs a two-year champion streak. Congrats, Dathan, who missed the ’02 season due to femoral stress fractures.
QUOTE... We’re in the process of selecting our Best Interview Award winner and collecting some quotes of the year to wrap up football, and Neill Woelk of the Boulder Camera submitted this quote from Phil Jackson about his senior year:
“I had a lot of ups and downs ... but it's only made me a better husband, a better father. I can take that and run with it."
Woelk then added, “This is the epitome of what athletics CAN teach students, and a wonderful example of a young man whose priorities are in the right place. CU coaches and fans should be proud of him.” I think we all concur, Neill!
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P-TUDES SURVEY... Many of you are likely aware that Sports Illustrated, in honor of its 50th anniversary, is going from state-to-state doing polls, greatest moments, etc., of all 50 states. Colorado’s turn is coming quick, perhaps this week, or by the end of December.
I thought it would be fun to ask some of SI’s poll questions to those on some of my e-mail lists, most who have (or used to) lived in Colorado for a significant period of time. This was fun, as there were 149 respondents, a little over a third of what SI uses to form its answers. So let’s see how close mine will match theirs.
Favorite major league baseball team: Colorado Rockies 42.3% Chicago Cubs 10.7% St. Louis Cardinals 10.7% New York Yankees 10.1% No favorite/other 26.2% Favorite NFL team:
Green Bay Packers 8.1% Chicago Bears 4.7% Dallas Cowboys 4.0% No favorite/other 7.4% Favorite NBA team:
Los Angeles Lakers 16.8%
Minnesota Timberwolves 2.0%
No favorite/other 20.6%
Favorite NHL team:
Colorado Avalanche 77.2%
New York Rangers 8.7%
Detroit Red Wings 2.7%
No favorite/other 11.4%
Favorite professional team:
Colorado Avalanche 14.8%
Denver Nuggets 12.1%
Colorado Rockies 4.0%
No favorite/other 17.4%
Greatest athlete who ever lived or played in Colorado:
Byron White 16.1%
David Thompson 11.4%
Darian Hagan 9.4%
Other answers, in order, included: Patrick Roy, Dave Logan, Kordell Stewart, Peter Forsberg, Jack Christiansen, Cliff Branch, Bill Toomey, Dutch Clark, Rich Gossage and Tim Raines.
State's biggest rival:
California 21.5%
Utah 9.4%
Wyoming 8.7%
Texas 6.1%
No favorite/other 1.3%
State's biggest rivalry:
CU-Nebraska Football 26.2%
Avalanche-Red Wings 12.1%
CU-Colorado State 8.7%
DU-CC Hockey 4.1%
Broncos-Chiefs 3.4%
CSU-Wyoming 0.1%
Rockies-Diamondbacks 0.1%
More a fan of pro or college sports:
Pro 45.3%
(bonehead boy, me, forgot to ask “equal”... so this is probably flawed, since many of the people I poll are on my regular P-Tudes survey list, and they're likely skewed a bit to the college side).
Enemy of the State:
Tom Osborne 18.8%
Scott Bowman 12.8%
Rick Neuheisel 7.4%
Other answers included some far out ones (“Any Texan,” Howard Cosell); some opposing coaches (Bob Stoops, Bill Snyder, LaVell Edwards); some politicians (John McCain, Bill Owens, and for some reason, Hillary Clinton); a commissioner (Bud Selig); a former coach (Bernie Bickerstaff); current or former opposing players (Jack Tatum, Todd Christiansen, Darren McCarty, Bill Romanowski, Dominic Hasek); two media members (Mark Kiszla, Bernie Lincicome); and my pick, the lone vote for Peter Gilbert, the man who moved the old NHL Colorado Rockies to New Jersey in 1982.
Al Davis is probably a natural, since he is the main man at the Oakland Raiders, the state’s most hated rival; Tom Osborne was a popular pick because he is alleged to have voted CU anywhere from second to fourth in final UPI ballot for 1990, the one where Georgia Tech edged CU by a point (what always perturbed me was that NU’s AD, the late great Bob Devaney, had issued a plea earlier that season that all the Big Eight coaches rally together and vote NU No. 1 if the situation warranted; guess that only applied in one direction; face it, it’s not like UPI went to Osborne and said, ?Hey, Tom, you’re the last voter, and Colorado leads Tech by two points?how do you want to vote?’ I know for a fact he wasn’t the last voter; at the time, I had called UPI for an update from the airport before we left Miami and they were still looking for three coaches ballots; Osborne’s was already in).
P-Tudes reader Lyn Hanson’s pick of Cosell might be the most obtuse, but many will think great pick after reading what Lyn wrote: “Remember the Cosell bashing era in Denver back in the 70's because the Donkeys were never on Monday Night Football or on the halftime highlights? There were parties where people threw bricks through TVs when Cosell was talking.”
I didn’t ask these of those surveyed, but my answers to a couple of the other topics that SI queries:
As for the greatest moment in Colorado sports history, I thought the Broncos first Super Bowl win was at the top of the list; I’d put our national championship in 1990 second, and the Avs game seven win over the Devils for the 2001 Stanley Cup third. As for singular cool moments, Eric Young’s home run in the first home at bat for the Colorado Rockies franchise in 1993 is up there, as would be The Catch (see below), the Denver Bears comeback in the 1979 Fireworks game (again, see below), Jim Turner’s field goal at the gun to tie Oakland in Denver’s first Monday Night Football appearance in 1973; and an obscure one: the Denver Nuggets scored five points in the final two seconds to beat San Antonio, 130-128, in 1975, I believe. And that list can keep growing with things like Arnold Palmer driving the first hole at Cherry Hills in the 1960 U.S. Open, etc".
I submitted some numbers for the “Go Figure” column" let’s see how many of these were even used:
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4 The number of U.S. Open victories by Coloradoans (Hale Irwin 3, Steve Jones 1).
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9 The number of runs the old Denver Bears scored after two were out in the bottom of the ninth in a 16-14 win over the Omaha Royals on July 4, 1979.
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33 The number of skiing national championships won by the University of Denver (17) and the University of Colorado (16).
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64 The yardage covered from Kordell Stewart-to-Michael Westbrook (via Blake Anderson tip) after time expired that produced “The Catch” (or the “Miracle in Michigan”) when CU beat the Wolverines, 27-26, on Sept. 24, 1994).
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73 David Thompson’s point total against Detroit on the final day of the 1976-77 season to take over the NBA scoring lead, only to be overtaken hours later when San Antonio’s George Gervin scored 62.
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98 The length of “The Drive,” when John Elway marched the Broncos downfield for the tying score in the 1986 AFC Championship game at Cleveland;
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62-36 The final score of the 2001 Colorado-Nebraska game;
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45,011 The number of finishers in the 2003 Bolder Boulder, a race record and the fourth most annually in the U.S. for a 10K or longer competition.
And for the interesting quote from a Colorado athlete, I figured Patrick Roy’s “I can’t hear you" I’ve got two Stanley Cup rings stuck in my ears,” is going to win. I still submitted this classic from 1991, muttered by CU center Bryan Stoltenberg. CU was trailing 12-10 at Oklahoma State with 20 seconds left; the Buffs lined up for a short field goal in the stiff wind, but faked it and scored on a 20-yard TD pass to go up 16-12 (CU missed the PAT, so it was really the right call). Stoltenberg said afterwards, “We’re gonna need another bus for Coach Mac’s ______.” Hint: a sleeve of golf ____.)
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THE “OOPS” AWARD OF THE MONTH... This is just one of those crazy circumstances, as different people are assigned different things to do in preparing a newspaper layout, but did anyone else catch the November 30 Rocky Mountain News? On page 9A, there was a story, “Do fur sales hit below the pelt?” It was about Animal-rights groups and their feelings on the matter; but turn the page and staring you in the face on page 11A was a full-page ad for?and you’ve probably guessed it?the biggest pre-holiday sale ever by a Cherry Creek fur outlet.
COOL WEBSITE... Those of you who are 80s music fans will like this site: http://www.yetanotherdot.com/asp/80s.html. Very cool trivia test. I scored a 68.35, which I have no idea what that means. Think I answered around half"
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THE P-?TUDES MAILBAG... Some questions e-mailed in recently, the answers of which I felt were interesting or important enough to share.
Q: Why did CU close the Gold Lot (grass parking) for the Missouri game?
A: We had to close the Gold Lot because of the condition of the grass fields. We received a few complaints, because the surface dried a bit between when the call was made (8:30, or half an hour before they were set to open) and when some walked the field some two and three hours later. Here’s how the process works:
The decision to close grass fields for parking on football game days is a collaborative undertaking by representatives of the departments of Athletics, Facilities Management and Parking and Transportation Services. Facilities Management's grounds personnel have the strongest voice in the decision. It's their job to keep the fields usable for their primary purpose, which is to support student intramural athletic activities. In this particular instance, there was precipitation through the week leading up to the game. On Friday, preliminary advisories put Franklin Field as marginal in condition for parking due to moisture content of its soil.
On game day representatives from Athletics and Facilities Management met on the field to assess its condition. A field check prior to the Missouri game included a test drive on its surface by a Volkswagen. The vehicle rutted the ground, confirming concerns that the soil was too moist to allow parking on its surface that day.
A factor that plays into the frustration fans that park the field may experience because of its closure is based in the time difference between when the call to open/close the field has to be made, and their arrival time at the stadium. The decision regarding field use must be made very early during game day preparations, because the field is opened for parking several hours prior to kickoff. During the time between the closure decision and the arrival of game patrons, especially on a sunny and relatively warm day like November 8, the surface of the field may dry significantly, causing persons walking over it shortly before kickoff to believe that it's viable for parking. However, the surface condition is not necessarily representative of that of the underlying soil.
Past experience has taught us that opening the field with soil moisture content conditions, like those that day, is quite likely to lead to severe rutting of the soil by vehicles driven over it. The ruts make the field unsafe for the kinds of intramural sports activities that are scheduled there. Furthermore, compression of the moist soil by vehicles being driven over it may cause severe damage to its irrigation system. Those repairs of either condition cost several thousand dollars, and render the field unusable for significant periods of time.
Q: I saw a letter to the editor ragging on CU for having only two Academic All-Big 12 players while Nebraska had 26. What gives?
A: Well, this is delicate territory. I’ve been a proponent for years to select the team differently, not to use grade point average as a base. Face it, all of us in the league probably have pretty good academic support systems. In football, the same schools always get a high number, and the same schools always lower numbers. I don’t put a lot of stock into it, because when I worked the Hula Bowl, I met kids from all schools and the difference between most were negligible. So it must come down to curriculum, so all I’ll say is look where the University of Colorado is ranked and figure it out for yourself. I will say that other schools have some built in advantages to aid grade point average: at least one school gives grades for their sport participation, at least one gives pass-fail credit for their sport and weightlifting, and at least one allows a student to drop a class up until the day before the final exam (now that would tick me off as a professor, well adjunct; teach ?em for 15 weeks and have them bail on the final exam because they were failing?).
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THE SOAPBOX
BCS POLLS (AGAIN)
Ugh" can we get rid of these computer polls? It will hurt LSU to beat the same team twice, unless it’s a 1-point win? And why on earth do we allow the New York Times computer poll to be one of the seven? This is a newspaper with some kind of an agenda every time you turn around, one with a recent history of fraudulent reporting, and one that hasn’t exactly been a friend to college athletics. Why give it the publicity? Its poll has come into question all season, and it’s time for it to be tossed.
COLORADO COLLEGE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
The recent selection of a former Colorado high school athlete, who now attends college out of state, was deemed a slap in the face to those of us at CU, CSU, Air Force and Northern Colorado (I haven’t talked to the RMAC schools or CC yet). Now this is nothing against the women who won, but she attends college out of state; there were so many candidates in-state, it was very puzzling as to why the committee went with someone who left Colorado. CSU had Ashley Augspurger, its athlete of the year, UNC had a two-time All-American in volleyball, Air Force had an all-conference volleyball player who set numerous records and just won the Rhodes Scholarship, and CU had Tera Bjorklund, an all-Big 12 first-team member (with better stats than the winner), and Fran Munnelly, practically all-world in soccer in leading CU to its first title. And those are off the top of my head, with CSU’s volleyball win streak, accomplishments by runners at Adams State and no doubt a few other deserving athletes at some other RMAC schools, there were plenty of candidates to keep the honor in-state. The four of us will suggest to the committee that this winner really should come from a school in the state; after all, would they give the high school award to someone who performed well at an Illinois high school but attended middle school in Aurora? It’s really the same thing, “level-jumping,” to quote a Seinfeld quip. While not intentional, sometimes I think committees try to be overly original and in this instance, sent a bad message to the state schools. The pro PR guys also wonder why they often select someone from out of state as well for the professional honor. The SID's at the schools I talked to were all very disappointed and a bit angered by it, and this just shouldn’t happen again. Hopefully, our complaints won’t be easily dismissed.
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THIS WEEK’S NUMBER... 71.83. That was the fall stroke average for CU senior Kane Webber for 12 rounds, the second best in school history as Webber, the Colorado Golf Association’s player of the year, finished in the top 20 of all four fall tournaments.
TRIVIA ANSWERS: CU?With a 13-7 record in Big 12 play, it marked the 15th time in 17 seasons that the Buffaloes finished with an above .500 record in league action. Seinfeld?A picture of Yankee Stadium.
“Plati-?Tudes” features notes and stories that may not get much play from the mainstream media; offers CU’s take on issues raised by those who have an interest in the program; answers questions and concerns; and provides CU’s point of view if we should disagree with what may have been written or broadcast. Have a question or want to know CU’s take on something? E-mail Dave at david.plati@colorado.edu, and the subject may appear in the next Plati-?Tudes.