Plati-'tudes
April 18, 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.
Spring football is over and the athletic year is winding down... but Big 12 Conference championships loom ahead for six CU programs, starting with men's and women's golf early next week... This is my last Plati-'Tudes as a 40-year old; I click into the 41-50 demographic group tomorrow; to think, I was 18 when I first walked through the door of the Fieldhouse Annex, and I've done it about 8,000 days since.
Yowzer!
TRIVIA QUESTIONS... CU-Colorado is one of only four Big 12 schools and 21 nationally that has accomplished membership in the 20-20-10 club. What is it? Godfather-Dominic Chianese currently stars on the Soprano's as Corrado "Junior" Soprano. What part did he play in The Godfather, Part II?
PARTICIPANTS WANTED... Do you want to participate in an occasional Plati-'Tudes E-mail survey? 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. Things like, "Is there a concession item you would like to see added?" or "Who would you like to see us schedule in what sport?" And even questions you might want me to pose to the group or topics you'd like me to cover in the column. This will provide a chance for some feedback from our most loyal of fans, those who come to our website. If you would like to be a regular participant in these random polls, please E-mail me at david.plati@colorado.edu and I'll get the first few questions out by the end of the month.
THE CUSPY's... On Thursday, May 3, we are inaugurating the "CUSPYs," or CU Sports Performers of the Year Awards. Billed as "for the student-athletes, by the student-athletes," awards for the athletes-of-the-year, career athletic achievement, staff member of the year, strength and conditioning awards and the "Athletes Choice" award will all be presented. Local restaurateurs will have stations around the banquet room, a la the "Taste of the NFL" at the Super Bowl, and there will be live music. We were hoping to secure CU alum Chris Fowler as one of the celebrity presenters, but he's got (Kentucky) Derby duty and can't attend; otherwise, what a connection to the original ESPY's on ESPN. This event's not open to the public because the student-athletes wanted to get together amongst just themselves and the coaches and staff at the end of the year, as it could be the last time that many of them will see each other for a long time. However, anyone interested in donating to help offset expenses can contact either Brian Winkelbauer (Asst. AD, Student Services, brian.winkelbauer@colorado.edu) or myself.
JIM GRAY TO RETURN... CU alum Jim Gray is returning to Boulder on May 10 as the featured speaker at this year's School of Journalism and Mass Communication graduation. The commencement will take place at Macky Auditorium at 3:00 p.m., and the public is invited. Jim is an '81 graduate of the school, and is also an alum of the sports information office, as he worked under Tim Simmons between 1979 and 1981 (we were student assistants together-I was the stat geek and he was the hotline nerd).
IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED... The University of Colorado learned last week that Enlighten Sports, the company the athletic department was using to host and help design www.cubuffs.com, has gone out of business. Curtis Snyder, CU's Internet Managing Editor, has been busy transferring the 6,000-plus page website to one of the athletic department's servers while a permanent solution is worked out. The complete site has been transferred and with the exception of a few small quirks here and there, it was done painlessly. Enlighten Sports wasn't alone, as Quokka Sports, who had recently acquired the Total Sports Network, laid off its collegiate development department. Enlighten Sports held contracts with CU, Georgia, Michigan and the Continental Basketball Association. Quokka Sports had approximately 60 schools using its services, including Texas from the Big 12 and Denver and Air Force from within the state, and a few conference offices, including the Big 12. In short, a lot of us were scrambling last week, but Curtis was well ahead of the game and had the transition set in place to our server and no one really should have noticed much. FANSOnly is surviving for the time being, and we met with officials last week and are considering working with the Atlanta-based company. When we do settle on a new firm, unless we keep the whole thing in-house, we'll redesign the front page to make it a little less busy, rework our Ralphie's Poll a bit, likely do away with that headlines box that was hard to keep updated (technical thing), and make some other changes. Unique features like Game Day Live, Classic CU and this column will remain in a similar format, and we will keep adding features, including the possibility of registered and "real-name" message boards where fans can come in with their questions and concerns and have those answered by athletic department staff members. One thing is that we will not become a "cookie-cutter" site, where half the news is ours and the other half is anything else from the sports world; it will remain all CU!
JARNE ON THE MEND... CU senior Sean Jarne is on the mend after he suffered a shattered right arm, dislocated elbow and several lacerations in a one-car accident in late February. He and two friends were returning from Denver on Feb. 26, and the jeep they were driving in hit some black ice on U.S. 36. The jeep rolled three times, pinning Jarne underneath, where he lied for an hour while a crane was brought in to lift the vehicle off him. He was at Boulder Memorial Hospital for 11 days and just returned from California where his father helped him with his recovery. He will probably have to undergo additional surgeries on his arms, which were each broken in about eight places, so his attempt for an NFL career is on hold for at least a year. But he is thankful to be alive, as when he was put into the ambulance after the crash he heard one of the paramedics say, 'He's still alive?"
ANOTHER TSN POLL... The Sporting News ranked college football's top stadiums, both an overall top 10 and by conference. I knew we'd be close to the top 10 because we were asked for pictures awhile back; CU didn't quite make the top 10, but judging from our fourth place ranking among Big 12 Conference schools, had TSN ranked a few more nationally, Folsom Field probably would have fallen between No. 15 and No. 20.
Folsom was fourth in the Big 12 behind Kyle Field (Texas A&M), Memorial Stadium (Nebraska) and Memorial Stadium (Texas). Owen Field (Oklahoma) was fifth, followed by Faurot Field (Missouri), Memorial Stadium (Kansas), KSU Stadium (Kansas State), Jones Stadium (Texas Tech), Lewis Field (Oklahoma State), Jack Trice Stadium (Iowa State) and Floyd Casey Stadium (Baylor). TSN ranked CU first in the Big 12 in setting, fourth in structure, fifth in history and sixth in fans; it didn't really explain how these rankings were arrived at, but only Kansas State (fifth) was ranked ahead of CU in a stadium with a smaller capacity than Folsom (about 2,000).
The survey also asked 10 national head coaches to list their top 10 favorite stadiums, and Colorado made one of those lists-coming in at No. 3 under current Washington (and former CU) head coach Rick Neuheisel. But of the other nine head coaches surveyed, only one to my knowledge (Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez) has ever been involved in a game at Folsom. You can check out the survey yourself at: http://www.tsn.com/cfootball/stadiums/.
ABSURD QUOTE OF THE WEEK... "Some might consider that 'morally correct,' but it makes for absurd mathematics," Jeff Sagarin was recently quoted as saying regarding the BCS (and most coaches) desire to remove and/or limit the effect margin of victory has in the computer rankings. Makes for absurd mathematics? I'm sorry, but it sounds like someone is out to protect 76-0 wins over Ball State and make a 27-24 win over a No. 2 team more or less ho-hum. I'm as big a stat geek as they come, and I've never understood how these are really formulated. But credit for margin of victory in my mind should be sealed off at either 21 or 28 points, and there has never been any kind of equation to allow for weather or injuries in any of the computer rankings that I know of. And as I pointed out in a Plati-'Tudes last fall, points should be built into the BCS Standings for beating one of the top 15 in the standings you're grouped into. Do that, and watch as the days of scheduling dessert cart food might just go by the wayside.
SIBLING TEAMMATES... Last Wednesday, David Harrison, a McDonald's High School All-American, signed the national letter-of-intent to attend CU and play basketball, reuniting him with his older brother, D.J. Thus, they will become the first brother tandem to play at CU since the 1964-65 season, when Mike Frink, a senior, played on the same team with younger brother Pat, a sophomore. Siblings on the same team have been fairly common in CU athletics the past few years; a quick check of rosters this year will find siblings Kara and Kendall Grgas-Wheeler (women's cross country/track), Anne and Catherine Wright (women's cross country/track), Jorge and Ed Torres (men's cross country/track), Josee and Sylvie Roberge (volleyball), Jeff and Matt Brunson (football), Kyley and Rachel Ellenberger (soccer), Marwan and Rudy Hage (football), Marcus and Lovell Houston (football), and the only brother-sister combo on the same team, Chad and Jenni Wolk (skiing).
GROSHONG PASSES AWAY... Former CU radio personality Kent Groshong passed away last Thursday night (April 12), succumbing to cancer at the age 52. Groshong worked several years on CU's football and basketball broadcasts on KBOL-Radio in Boulder, joined KOA in 1983 and teamed with Larry Zimmer on both broadcasts for 10 seasons (1985-1995). He bounced around a couple of stations in the Denver area the past few years, after upper management at KOA decided to go a different direction with its morning show and cut Kent loose. He had retired from KNUS as its news director last month.
Kent was a consummate professional with a lighter side to him. He used to do a pregame show once a year that featured funny answering machine recordings of the coaches, players and staff. One particular funny story about Kent that comes to mind involved our All-America punter, Barry Helton, and the 1985 Freedom Bowl. The two hit it off and started a practical joke competition on our road trips. It started out small during the year, a light bulb missing here, a phony room service order there. When the Buffs went 7-4 and completely turned things around from a 1-10 season the year before, CU earned an invitation to the Freedom Bowl against Washington, and Kent and Barry took things to another level. One day, all the light bulbs were missing from Kent's room; the next, Kent snuck in and disconnected the phone, cable TV, etc. Then one night, Barry and his buddies took most of the furniture from Kent's room and put it on the balcony, and then Kent, with the help of yours truly, crammed all of Barry's furniture into the bathroom (ever try to get a mattress to stand on its own in a bathtub? - It ain't easy!). Barry got the last word-he took an ice sculpture from the lobby and placed in Kent's bed the night before the game.
Funeral services are set for 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 19, at the Faith Community Lutheran Church in Longmont (9775 Ute Highway, or Colo. Hwy 66, just east of Hover Road; phone 303/776-8771). He is survived by his ex-wife, Susie, and two daughters, Katie and Jenna.
POSTSPRING FOOTBALL THOUGHT... Probably the hardest thing to gauge in spring football is team chemistry. But you know what? It looked like it was there most of the spring, that along with solid senior leadership. Gary Barnett had that awkward "transitional year" in a football program likely a year early due to such a small senior class. It's basically when a team is about half of the previous coach's recruits and about half of the new one's (this year, 54 of the 94 on the spring roster were brought in by Barnett's staff, with 16 more players due in August to raise it to 70 of 110). Chemistry suffered a bit last year with so few seniors and a freshmen class that saw 10 of 19 players see action. But that wasn't the case this year, and that thought is exactly what the coaching staff believes.
THIS WEEK'S NUMBER... 44.95. The new school record at Colorado in the women's 4x100-meter relay set last Saturday at the "Cowtown Classic" at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. "Out of the hole" as those associated with track call it was Hannah Cooper, followed by Amaris Buchanan, then Keena Schuler, with Rachel Joy as the anchor. The previous CU best was set in 1996 at the NCAA Championships (45.76) and is a NCAA provisional qualifying mark. This year's NCAA Championships are in Eugene at the end of May. The CU women's outdoor track team is currently ranked No. 10 in the nation.
TRIVIA ANSWERS... CU-The 20-20-10 club consists of NCAA Division I schools that have won at least 20 games in men's basketball, 20 games in women's basketball and 10 games in football in a single athletic year. CU did so in the 1996-97 athletic year (going 22-9 in men's BB, 23-8 in women's BB and 10-2 in football). Oklahoma, twice, Kansas and Nebraska are the only other Big 12 schools to accomplished the feat. Six schools have done it twice; no schools have ever done it three times. Godfather-He played, as Frankie Pentangeli so eloquently stated, Hyman Roth's "Sicilian messenger boy, Johnny Ola."
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"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.