First, 83,687 Texas fans witness history Nov. 27, as Ricky Williams breaks the Division I-A career records for rushing yards and all-purpose yards in a nailbiter of a game against villianized Texas A&M. UT goes on to beat the Aggies, and a few weeks later Williams goes on to win the Heisman Trophy. Ah, what more can we say about Ricky Williams, the superstar running back that wants to be an elementary school teacher, donated $10,000 to the law school, and used his baseball bonus money to help support his mom and pay for his sisters’ tuition? Beyond all the records and awards and the inevitable millions he will make in the NFL, the best thing about Williams is that he is the kind of guy that keeps sports fans believing in heroes.
As if watching the best college football player in the country wasn’t enough, the very next night, lucky Texas fans were treated to the best player in women’s hoops — and arguably in all of college basketball — when No. 2 Tennesse’s Chamique Holdsclaw took the floor at Frank Erwin Center. Even Williams was there. Oh sure, Holdsclaw plays for the wrong UT and it was more than a little uncomfortable for the 9,000 or so Lady Longhorn fans who squirmed in their seats as their team ended the first half down by 24 points. But the thrill of watching Holdsclaw, who is so versatile a player — the Tennessee media guide lists her as a guard/forward/center, was a pleasure — albeit enjoyed as guiltily as Erwin Center nachos. —Lisa Tozzi
The Penders Mess
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Former UT basketball caoch Tom Penders |
Perhaps They Should’ve Handed Out Free Clarissa Davis Beanie Babies?
So the NBA is locked out, and it’s prime basketball spectator season … What more perfect a time to fold a league? The American Basketball League (ABL) — women’s basketball’s other white meat to the NBA’s porkier WNBA — announced on December 22 that it had suspended operations and would file for Chapter 11. Chapter one for the engine of the nascent li’l-upstart-league-that-couldn’t began back in 1995. The league grew to nine teams by 1998, in this, its third season, aborted not even halfway through. The ABL’s noble efforts to mine the best talent in the world of women’s basketball by luring Olympians, Final Four MVPs, All-Americans, and College Players of the Year (among which, many a Texas-Ex and Lady Longhorn) with six-figure salaries, stock options, health benefits, and retirement plans, proved that they were digging deep in linty pockets. In many a year-end press statement, league CEO and co-founder Gary Cavelli stated that the ABL was out of money and blamed the league’s failure on its inability “to obtain the television exposure and sponsorship support needed to make the league viable long-term” … or in other words, compete with the raging pectoral muscle of the well-financed and media-saturated WNBA. Although the leagues vied for the public’s attention at two totally different times of the year, the ABL’s winter television contracts with SportsChannel regional networks and BET were hardly a match for the WNBA’s primetime summer slots on Lifetime, ESPN, and Saturday games of the week on NBC. While all of these sound like reasonable arguments for the ABL’s demise (can you say, “World Football League?”), and justifiably guilty pleasures for WNBA fans, who with open hearts and arms welcome the flock of immigrants to gird the flanks of their favorite league (can you say, “Free Agent?”), Cavelli makes no mention of what we believe to be the real reason for the failure: The ABL never bothered to put a team in Texas. —Kate X Messer
Spending Sprees
In November, Round Rock voters agreed to spending $9 million from hotel-motel taxes toward a baseball stadium to house the minor league Round Rock Express (n�e Jackson Generals) owned by Nolan Ryan, his son Reid,and their business partner Don Sanders of Houston. The news that the Ryans were bringing baseball to Round Rock was greeted giddily by local officials and the media, but some Round Rock residents’ concern over the stadium financing prompted the referendum seeking voter approval before allowing the city to use the hotel-motel tax to pay for the ballpark. Some Round Rockers say they still fear the hotel-motel tax, earmarked to cover the city’s share of the stadium tab, will come up short, sticking taxpayers with the bill. Right now, Round Rock has just five hotels with 402 rooms. Four more hotels are under construction and three others are in the planning stages, city officials say, and Mayor Charlie Culpepper points to an independent report from the Economic Research Associates of San Francisco that optimistically predicts the hotel-motel tax revenue should increase from $425,000 this year to nearly $1.3 million in 2005 — more than enough to cover the bond payments. But while doubts linger about the Round Rock deal, it’s small stuff compared to the wheeling and dealing of other pro franchises in 1998. In San Antonio, for example, Spurs owners free of the distraction of pesky things like actual basketball games have hatched a plan that smacks of literally stealing candy from a baby: The San Antonio Spurs want to leave the antiquated five-year-old Alamodome and want taxpayers to buy them yet another arena. The plan would dedicate all property taxes generated by new development in part of the district — tax money that goes to the schools — to pay for the $157 million arena. But in an all-too-rare show of bravery in the face of sports owners’ demands, the North East School District refused to sign off on the plan. Since approval was needed from the school district to move forward, it looks like this one is shelved — for now. While 1998 seemed to bring a bit more skepticism from voters over these sports spending deals, at the polls, it was the owners who won big this year. The same day the Round Rock deal passed, voters in Cincinnati and the Denver area approved stadiums financed through sales taxes for their baseball and football teams and San Diego voters approved a baseball stadium that will be financed through a hotel tax. And lest you think 1999 will stop the bleeding, in Connecticut, state officials have already pledged $375 million for a stadium to lure the New England Patriots to Hartford, Conn. While stadium proponents say the facility will pay for itself over 30 years, according to the state legislature’s Office of Fiscal Analysis the new home for the Patsies would in fact likely cost the state $257 million. —Lisa Tozzi
Tracksters Take Two
In 1997, Lady Longhorn Track Coach Beverly Kearney’s runners, jumpers, and throwers came one agonizing point short of the national outdoor title. This year, both indoors and out, the Lady Longhorns ended the long winning streaks of Louisiana State. The outdoor win in June was the most dramatic, with clutch individual wins by hurdler Angie Vaughn, quartermiler Suziann Reid, and high jumper Erin Aldrich positioning the Horns for victory in the final event. Trailing UCLA by five points, Texas’ 4×400 meter relay team needed at least third place for the title. They did better than that — despite having an inexperienced freshman on the leadoff leg, a furious stretch run won both the race and the meet. A few months earlier, the Horns crushed LSU by a record 30-point margin for the indoor crown. —Lee Nichols
Sance Kills
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Demetria Sance (left) |
Buzzer Beaters
When the Ice Bats introduced new Coach Al Tuer at the start of the season, he promised to crack down on team discipline, hoping stricter off-the-ice rules would end the Ice Bats’ two-year tradition of bowing out in the first round of the playoffs. Maybe the coach should let the boys back on Sixth Street. With a record of 14-18-5, Austin’s struggling team is at the bottom of the WPHL’s Central division, but the scrappy Bats are leading the league in one stat: penalties. Last season the Bats averaged 26.15 penalty minutes per game. But so far, Austin’s team leads the Western Professional Hockey League this season with an average of 39.9 penalty minutes per game. You know what they say in hockey, if you can’t beat them, beat ’em. Some pre-season Bats activity was the real headline grabber in ’98, when Mayor Kirk Watson tried to lure the hockey team to the City Coliseum site in the hopes that the team would foot the bill for an arena-civic center. But when the team became a lightning rod in the controversy over the future of the Palmer-Coliseum area, the Bats backed out. Watson says he is still committed to bringing the Ice Bats to a more central city locale when the team’s lease with the Travis County Expo Center expires. But hey, the Bats are still the most profitable team in the WHPL, and the second most profitable in all of minor-league hockey. Attendance is still good, the team is hosting the league’s All-Star Game this week, and they have played pretty well in their last few outings. So just imagine how successful they’ll be if they really start winning games.
Maybe the Bats just need a woman’s touch. After all, some of the most exciting hockey moments of the year were during the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan (ah yes, the Olympics were in 1998) when the United States defeated Canada 3-1 to take the gold in the first ever Olympic women’s hockey tourney. Maybe hockey will take a cue from basketball and soccer and start promoting the women’s game. —Lisa Tozzi
Nine Good Reasons
Sports Illustrated recently proclaimed college basketball better than the pros, mockingly asking “Who Needs the NBA?” But despite the so-called experts crowing about how no one cares whether the season is canceled, there are some things we missed in 1998. Here’s a few:
1. The Jordan Question: A curiosity for Bulls fans (yawn) and proud Bulls-haters alike. Will he come back? How will the team fare without him?
2. Latrell Sprewell: Finding out where Latrell Sprewell ends up and how he behaves. Not to mention seeing him play again. Personality defects aside, the guy’s got mad game.
3. Exciting backcourt duos: Dallas Mavericks Steve Nash and Michael Finley and the Washington Wizards’ Rod Strikland and Mitch Richmond, to name a few.
4. A Grizzlies Year: What will Mike Bibby and Felipe Lopez do for hapless Vancouver?
5. Coaching Mysteries: Can George Karl work his magic and push the Milwaukee Bucks into the postseason? How will his former team, the Seattle Supersonics, play under Paul Westphal? Will the Mav’s Don Nelson stop falling in love with no-talent 7-footers?
6. Allen Iverson: You can always count on the Philadelphia 76er for great hairdos and highlights.
7. The Broadcasters: Turner Broadcasting’s well-coiffed tandem of Dick Stockton and Hubie Brown, ESPN2’s Fred “Mad Dog” Carter’s visits to the players’ hometown barber shops to talk hoops with the locals, and the fascinating gossip of NBC’s slimy Peter Vecsey.
8. The Playoffs: Exciting moments like Pacer Reggie Miller’s hobbled heroics, and buzzer-beaters from scrappy minimum wagers like Phoenix Sun’s Rex Chapman and Houston’s Eddie Johnson.
9. The Best Basketball Players: Oh sure, the purists will carp about the college game — the teamwork! the back-door cuts! playing for the love of the game! But the truth is this: NBA players are stronger, faster, more talented, and more exciting. They’re just plain better. —Teresa Rendon
Maybe It’s the Astroturf?
Every once in a while there is a kind of communion that takes place between a sports team and its loyal followers; in 1998 Red & Charline McCombs Field played host to such a communion. Led by its Olympic gold medal-owning pitcher Christa Williams, the University of Texas Softball team made it all the way to the College World Series in its second year of Division I play. More than the state-of-the-art new facility or even the winning record, fans who discovered the religion of UT softball talked about the fun. This was a team with a kind of recreation-league love for the game, an appreciation for their fans, and an enthusiasm for one another evident in almost every play. But steps away, the softball team’s party stood a stark contrast to the morgue-like atmosphere at legendary Disch-Falk field. The Disch is the home of four NCAA champion teams, though you wouldn’t have known it this past season when Coach Augie Garrido’s young team racked up Longhorn baseball’s first losing season in more than 40 years. Perhaps some of the Longhorn Softball’s magic will find its way across the street in 1999. —Lisa Tozzi
This article appears in 1998.