Plati-'tudes
May 9, 2001
A bi-weekly notes column penned by David Plati, who is in his 17th year as Colorado's Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations.
Greetings from Boulder, Colorado, USA, recently selected one of the nation's hot spots for traffic congestion. Hmmm, could it be because no one trusts anyone in this town to make a left turn without the aid of a green arrow? Nothing like sitting at an intersection at 2 a.m., wanting to make that left turn, but you're protected from two on-coming cars a mile away by that red "Don't you even think about it" arrow...
TRIVIA QUESTIONS... CU - There are but three sports still active in this 2000-01 year that is winding down. The womens's outdoor track team is ranked No. 8, with the men's squad flirting with the top 25, while the men's golf team is in at No. 41. Which one of these three squads owns the highest NCAA Championship finish? Godfather -Another straight from the Bravo Channel's Inside the Actors Studio series: How many lines did Robert DeNiro have in Godfather II were spoken in English?
PARTICIPANTS STILL WANTED... Those who still want to participate in an occasional Plati-'Tudes E-mail surveys can E-mail their interest in at anytime. The first one is running a bit behind because I've been swamped with some side stuff (CUSPYs, the class I teach and some football research), but I will get the first query out this week. Again, the thought is that a few times a year, I'll fire off a few questions and you can respond back to me about what we at CU do well and what you might want to see improved. So if you would like to be a regular participant in these random polls, please E-mail me at david.plati@colorado.edu.
61*... Don't know how many of you saw Billy Crystal's HBO flick "61*" last Saturday, but it was a very good watch, documenting the chase by Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in 1961 to hit 61 home runs to break Babe Ruth's record. Doubt it was 100 percent accurate, as Hollywood usually messes around with history, but knowing what I know from being a life-long Yankee fan, I'm betting it was at least 75 percent actuality (hard to imagine a Tiger fan actually threw a chair at Roger Maris in the outfield; aren't they usually screwed down? Maybe that fan brought a socket wrench). And perhaps the only people portrayed even more "geeky" than the PR man was the media, but these are two professions that usually take hits in the movies (and sometimes rightly so), so that was expected. But the scene where then baseball commissioner Ford Frick decided upon the asterisk for the record (later removed by Faye Vincent in 1991, but six years after Maris died) brought to mind how those of us who are charged with protecting the sanctity of records are faced with.
Most recently, Tiger Woods won a fourth straight major, prompting some to call it a grand slam. Well, it's not, plain and simple, if grand slam is described as winning all four majors in a calendar year (same with tennis). What record keepers can do to acknowledge such an accomplishment is to create a new category or a subheading. I thought the arguments made for good controversy, but what was wrong with calling it a "Slam," to be attributed when any four are won in succession. Leave the "grand" attachment for when it is done in a calendar year, since that what it has always meant, but honor the awesome accomplishment by figuring out a way to give it just due, because that's what it deserves.
Quite often, those of who are "guardians" of the record book-public relations people in the pros, sports information directors in college, are faced with declaring something a record or not. This has especially been the case with football defensive stats; seems like some coaches through history have handed out pass deflections with tweezers while others used a bulldozer. Tackles have always been inconsistent through the years, and even as I write this we are considering reviewing 1975-when six players had over 100 tackles and a seventh had 98. The numbers from the play-by-plays don't come close to what made the final stats, and the odds that seven players have between 98 and 198 tackles on a 9-2 team tell me that they were kept in a different manner that season. That's fine for whatever the coach told his players, but seeing how there were 1,544 tackles credited on a maximum of 620 plays that could have had tackles is a practical impossibility (especially when 736 of them were deemed unassisted tackles).
The records show Gary Campbell, for example, with 198 tackles (97 solo), but actual normal tackle counts had it a more realistic 114 (59 solo), and that's what has been in the record book all these years. Talking to a few of the actual players themselves, they were puzzled at the high counts; Mike McCoy, a Boulder campus employee and member of that team, said there was no way six guys had 100-plus tackles, and surmised maybe the game grades (on a scale of 1-10) somehow were added in.
Sure, records are made to be broken, but they have to be counted the same way. Now with the 61 home runs, sure Maris had eight more games, but who had more at bats? Who had more plate appearances? Who had more night games? Who batted behind or ahead of whom? There are a heckuva lot of factors that go into a baseball season, but notice football has never differentiated between 14- and 16-game seasons in the NFL and college records don't reflect 10, 11 or 12 game seasons. Records create benchmarks; it's very possible Rashaan Salaam is the only 2,000-yard rusher in NCAA history to have NOT played in 11 quarters, and I think Barry Sanders sat out something like six or seven when he topped 2,600; you don't see asterisks for things like that. It's one season.
And even more intriguing is that somewhere it was decided that bowl statistics do not count towards a team's final stats (though some Big 10 and Pac 10 schools add them in), but postseason statistics in every other NCAA sport count. What else to say but, "Go figure."
WAY OF THE FUTURE?... Media covering the CU-CSU game at the new Invesco Field at Mile High will have a surprise: the press box starts at the 14-yard line and curves around through the end zone. That's obviously a change from the traditional 25-to-25 (yardline) that are standard at most stadiums in the country. The Broncos have informed their beat people of the impending change; television, radio and the stat crews will still be seated at or near the 50 in separate boxes, however.
JONES IN A WAITING GAME... One of CU's seniors who figured to sign a free agent contract is now in a waiting game until after mini-camps later this month. DE/OLB Anwawn Jones was weighing several offers, most notably with Chicago, New England and the New York Giants, but has decided to hold off until after the camps in mid-May to make a decision. He basically cited that the teams he wants to consider the most are fully stocked right now, so he plans on waiting unless something should open up in the next couple of weeks. Despite the Buffs being shutout in the NFL Draft (the first time since 1989, only the second time in the last 35 drafts and just the eighth time since 1938), four of its six seniors pursuing the pro ranks signed as free agents, with the fifth being Jones and the sixth, Sean Jarne, delayed for a year due to injuries he sustained in an automobile accident.
RANKINGS UPDATE... collegefootballnews.com recently updated its preseason top 25 list (actually, it ranked all 117 teams), and Colorado came in No. 13. It had Texas first, followed by Florida, Miami, Tennessee, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma to round out its top six; now, back in January, the same service's top six were Miami, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee and Oregon. I guess one can conclude that Texas had a heckuva spring practice to jump four spots, while Miami dropped two slots. As for the Buffs, CU was No. 11 in the initial ranking three months ago, but has been passed by Va. Tech (previously No. 13) and LSU (No. 19). Whatever the reason for the juggling, it's a conversation piece...
A GOOD ONE STEPS DOWN... College golf is a fraternity, and one of the legends announced his retirement effective at the end of the year, as Nebraska's Larry Romjue will step down after 31 years this spring. I got to know him a little bit at the CU-Stevinson Ranch Invitational, and he was always pleasant to deal with, the kind of coach you root for good things to happen to (not unlike our own Mark Simpson, who I believe now inherits the dean of golf coaches title in the Big 12). The Lincoln Journal-Star's John Mabry summed up Larry the best when he said, "He is just a good guy, conservative with his criticism, generous with his praise."
WILKE LANDS AT NIWOT... Former CU hoopster Scott Wilke will return to the Boulder area this summer, as has accepted the boys head basketball coach at Niwot High School, located halfway between Boulder and Longmont. Scott came through the other day and at the time had his choices down to three or four options, including one in Breckenridge. But his desire was always to return to the Boulder area once he was finished playing and coaching in Europe, so we welcome Scott home!
INTERESTING NOTE... The following was written by Chuck Woodling, the long-time sports editor of the Lawrence Journal-World (and one of the all-time greats); if true, it's quite funny!
"One-upmanship is, not surprisingly, alive and well in the Big 12 Conference. Defending national champion Oklahoma, for example, played the trump card in spring football attendance. Nebraska staged its spring game early and announced a crowd of 30,414. Texas was next, and the Longhorns estimated their spring game attendance at a "record 31,000," or about 600 more than Nebraska. Then it was Oklahoma's turn. After its spring game concluded a few days after the Texas shindig, OU officials estimated their attendance at 32,000, or a thousand more than Texas. Spring games are, of course, a big deal at some places. Kansas State, for example, lured 18,241 to its spring game a couple of weeks. Perhaps the most surprising crowd count was the 11,582 who showed up at Missouri. The Tigers went kerplunk last season, but interest has obviously been rekindled with the firing of Larry Smith and the hiring of Gary Pinkel out of Toledo. Missouri even surpassed Texas A&M, which pegged its spring game crowd at 6,009. Colorado came in at 4,400. The other four Big 12 schools - Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Baylor - did not list spring game attendance."
I can tell you that no one actually counts bodies-there are no turnstiles at most large stadiums, and they use a formula for no-shows in the NFL (something like the average number of empty seats in X number of sections three times over the course of the game, etc.). We estimated our crowd at 4,400 from the press box; it could have fluctuated 200-400 in either direction. One thing is for sure--no other Big 12 team was up against a major league baseball game at the same time, a home hockey playoff game later that night and one of the last ski weekends of the year, along with the fact that ours was a spring scrimmage instead of a game due to all the injuries. While we would have loved to have 30,000, considering all the circumstances, we were pleased with the turnout. We've only had six 10,000+ crowds in our spring game history, with the record being 13,642 for the 1989 game, when people came out to support the late Sal Aunese, who was a month into his public fight against stomach cancer at the time.
NSSA HONORS ZIMMER, OSU'S TEEGINS... Last weekend at the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association convention in Salisbury, N.C., voice of the Buffs, Larry Zimmer, won the Powerade National Sports Story of the Year Award for his 21-part series looking back at the history of Mile High Stadium (Mile High Memories). Zimmer, along with Nebraska's Warren Swain, also accepted the award for the Oklahoma Broadcaster of the Year on behalf of the late Bill Teegins, who perished in the Oklahoma State plane crash on Jan. 27.
KUDOS TO OUR OWN LINDSAY ANHOLD... For doing a fine job with women's basketball this past year to the point where CU was selected as one of 23 schools to earn "Cream of the Crop" honors from www.womenscollegehoops.com. Sure' if you look at the site, it's kinda kooky, with criteria all over the place, but better to be mentioned then not at all (after all, we plugged it when ABC called our office the best in the nation, and it was mainly to a fine night out with the crew at Juanita's). It was the inaugural ranking by the site.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?... Former CU golfer Bob Tays is living proof that you can make a living in the sport without striking it big on the PGA Tour. A teaching professional, he is currently ranked in the top 400 in the world by Golf Magazine and has been nominated for the top 50 for the soon-to-be released Golf Digest list. He came to CU from Boone, Iowa, and lettered twice for coach Mark Simpson in 1978 and 1979 and professionally went on to win three different state opens. Tays, now 43, lives in the St. Louis area with his wife and two children.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW II... P-Toods fan Mark Lewis, a big supporter of CU basketball, wrote in telling of the whereabouts of former men's head coach Tom Miller. He is a broker with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in Boston, and he has many college coaches as clients. And speaking of former coaches, Joe Harrington, last seen scouting and coaching with the Toronto Raptors, was married a few years back and recently became a father for the first time.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW III... Good ol' Charlie Brown-ing, a former assistant athletic director for student services at CU between 1983-86, made a pit stop in Colorado over the weekend. He has been a lawyer in the San Francisco area for the past 12 years, after graduating from law school at the University of Michigan in 1989. Browning stepped right into the fire when he got here in the summer of '83, as 28 Buff football players needed to pass summer school to remain eligible; he batted 1.000 and got them all on the right track. Anyone wanting to contact Charlie can do so at cabbush@aol.com. His office phone is 415-956-6500 for those who would like to call.
AND WHERE THEY'RE GONNA BE... One of CU's most famous "alphabet kids" will be relocating back to Denver in the coming months. Former footballer J.J. Flannigan plans on calling Colorado home again after living in the Phoenix area for the past few years. He is now the admissions and aftercare coordinator for Rite of Passage (R.O.P), but will live in the Denver metro area though will be working out of Colorado Springs for a bit before settling in around Boulder-Longmont-Greeley. He interviews and brings in kids from jail to give them a second chance. He handles once-a-month meetings with parents to inform them on their kid's progress and show them ways to deal with their sons once they get home. He says, "It's a challenge, but a great job! I can't wait to be a season ticket holder for the Buffs. Boy, I feel old saying that!!!!" Son Jay (now 15!), fianc? Leatrice and her 8-year old daughter Bria will join him in mid-summer. Welcome home, J.J.!
THIS WEEK'S NUMBER... One. As in one more career reception for none other than Dave Logan, as research has turned up a wrong stat sheet from the 1975 season. Listed for years with 23 receptions for 392 yards, he actually had 24 for the same yardage; Don Hasselbeck had 23 for 235, but his official number is 22 for 235. Logan thus had 68 career receptions. We are in the midst of some very cool, but tedious, research, but when completed, it's a virtual guarantee that no other media guide in the country will be including this information (college; the pros added this about two years ago). What is it? Well, I can't ruin the surprise so those who annually receive one will have to wait until August. By the way, with all the price increases in life, we've decided to freeze most of our media guide prices for next year, including football. Wa-hoo! The official (and only accepted) order form will be up in a few weeks.
TRIVIA ANSWERS... CU -- Both the men's golf team and women's outdoor track team own eighth place finishes in the NCAA Championship history-the men doing so in 1968 (remarkably one year after Hale Irwin graduated), and the women's tricksters tying for eighth just last year. The men own two ninth place ties in their history, in 1938 and 1948. Godfather -- Believe it or not, he had only three; the rest were in Italian (according to the series). But think about it? I can remember one (Michael, say, or wave, goodbye) and a word here or there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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.