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(04/27/07 4:00am)
According to the National Student-Athlete Day’s Web site, National Student-Athlete Day has been celebrated annually on April 6 since 1987. \nThe day is meant to celebrate the commitment to athletics put forth by student athletes while in college, according to information from the Web site. Making significant contributions to world record books, national teams and businesses worldwide, IU athletes have put in numerous hours towards their respective sports and in the classroom to excel and compete for the Cream and Crimson.\nTaking a day to recognize what our Hoosier student athletes accomplish each day is a fitting trade for the substantial number of volunteer hours, community outreach programs and tutoring those student athletes give back. \nThe sporting events themselves thrive on this beautiful Bloomington campus. \nSaturdays in the fall are dedicated to tailgating for the football game, while the winter cold is offset by the March Madness heat.\nSpring is blossoming with outdoor sports like rowing, baseball, tennis and golf, and while students are often seen jogging around campus at this time of year, the weight rooms in Assembly Hall and the football stadium house the same student athletes who train year round to improve themselves and their teams.\nApril 6 is a great way to note the balance between athletics and academics. Mattie White, the CHAMPS/Life Skills Coordinator, who organized the events surrounding the day, recognizes the frenetic nature of college students and offers the unabashed guidance that is taken to heart. \nMeeting with athletic team representatives, Mattie and Korinth Patterson lead the Student Athlete Academic Counsel to discuss policy issues, outreach programs and sports event marketing in a sector where IU teams are heard and plans are implemented.\nNow that April 6 has passed and student athletes have been recognized for their time management and commitment, it’s back to sports as usual and the fight for IU to stay on top.
(04/27/07 4:00am)
Casual fans didn’t discover JaMarcus Russell until the Sugar Bowl last January. Neither, apparently, did some NFL scouts – not to the extent that they’re on to him now as the likely No. 1 pick in Saturday’s draft.\nIn those three-plus hours, Russell’s 332 yards and two touchdown passes carried LSU to a 41-14 win over Notre Dame. That performance helped propel him to the top of the 2007 NFL draft class over the presumptive heir to that spot, Notre Dame’s Brady Quinn. Never mind that LSU was simply the better team, Quinn’s 15-of-35 for 148 yards with two interceptions put a huge question mark after his name.\nSo the top of the NFL draft is about the two quarterbacks, notwithstanding the fact that Georgia Tech’s Calvin Johnson is conceded to be the one “can’t miss” player – perhaps the best at any position in the last five years or so.\nBut in the endless analysis that starts in early January and carries on for four months, Quinn’s “can he or can’t he” status has been the focus, despite the fact he had a far more consistent college career than Russell. Suddenly, he became a “can’t win the big one” QB, a label that also was applied in college (and for a while in the NFL) to Peyton Manning.\nQuinn might go second, third ... or 10th, as Matt Leinart, who spent almost two years at Southern California fighting the burden of being a potential No. 1, did a year ago. Such a drop could cost Quinn a lot of money.\n“I don’t care about money; I care about football,” Quinn said Thursday at a media session in New York for potential top picks. “Look at it this way: the lower I go, the better chance I have a chance of playing for a winning team.”\nThe other subplot to this draft is behavior.\nThere is supposed to be increased scrutiny on players who misbehaved in college – whether on the field or off – following a season in which nine Cincinnati Bengals were arrested, and a number of other players were in trouble for a variety of other reasons. Earlier this month, commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Adam “Pacman” Jones of Tennessee for a year and Cincinnati’s Chris Henry for eight games for their misbehavior. More suspensions could be upcoming.\nIn an odd twist, after a report leaked that three of the top players – Johnson, Louisville defensive tackle Amobi Okoye, and Clemson defensive end Gaines Adams – acknowledged at the scouting combine that they had used marijuana, the reaction to those revelations seemed to be positive. What college kid, many NFL types asked, didn’t try the drug at some point? And weren’t these three more honest than others who didn’t acknowledge they used it?\nAssuming the Raiders take Russell, Johnson presents an interesting dilemma to Detroit, which picks second, putting considerable pressure on team president Matt Millen, under whom the Lions are 24-72.\nFrom 2003-2005, Millen chose wide receivers with high first-round picks. Only one of them, Roy Williams, has worked out, and taking another, even one seemingly as sure a thing as Johnson, would be acknowledging how badly he has drafted.\nBut Millen has said the NFL now is “a throwing, wide-open game.”\n“That all points to catching the football,” he added in defense of those three picks.\nSo does he take Johnson? Or Quinn for the throwing part; the Lions’ incumbent QB \nis veteran journeyman Jon Kitna? Or Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas to block? Or trade down and take Adams, the pass-rusher he needs?\nThat makes this an unusual draft, especially in the top five, which normally is pretty well set this late.
(04/27/07 4:00am)
BOSTON – No paint, no ink, no ketchup.\nNothing but Curt Schilling’s blood was seeping through his socks in the 2004 postseason, current and former Red Sox said Thursday after a rumor resurfaced that the pitcher milked his injury for drama while helping Boston end its 86-year title drought.\nOn Wednesday, Baltimore announcer Gary Thorne said during his broadcast of the Red Sox-Orioles game that Boston backup catcher Doug Mirabelli admitted it was a hoax.\n“It was painted,” Thorne said. “Doug Mirabelli confessed up to it after. It was all for PR.”\nBut Mirabelli denied ever talking to Thorne, telling The Boston Globe that Thorne’s comment was “a straight lie.”\n“I never said that,” Mirabelli told the paper. “I know it was blood. Everybody knows it was blood.”\nRed Sox president Larry Lucchino said the team “would not dignify these insinuations with extensive comment ... other than to remind everyone that we remain steadfastly proud of the courageous efforts by a seriously injured Curt Schilling – efforts that helped lead the Red Sox to the 2004 World Series championship.”\nAfter an ankle injury hampered Schilling in Game 1 of the ‘04 AL championship series against New York, team doctors jury-rigged a tendon in his right ankle to keep it from flopping around. With blood seeping through his sock, the pitcher came back in Game 6 to beat the Yankees.\nThe Red Sox completed an unprecedented comeback from an 0-3 deficit to reach the World Series, and team doctor Bill Morgan repeated the procedure before Schilling’s Game 2 start against St. Louis. Boston beat the Cardinals en route to a four-game sweep and its first world championship since 1918.\nNo stranger to the spotlight, Schilling is not afraid to say or do things that court controversy. The suggestion that he faked the injury to get attention has cropped up before, including a GQ magazine article that cited an anonymous Red Sox player as its source.\nSchilling tried to settle things in his own blog this spring when a reader asked him to respond to claims by Yankee fans that the red stains were ketchup.\n“Needless to say it was blood, my blood, and it was coming from the sutures in my ankle,” Schilling wrote in a March 17 Q&A. “You’re either stupid or bitter if you think otherwise.”\nMorgan, the doctor who performed the experimental procedure, said the accusation was “hard to fathom.”\n“Obviously, we put sutures in Curt Schilling’s ankle right before he went out to pitch in a professional-level baseball game,” Morgan said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. “Sutures will pull with movement, and we completely expected a certain amount of blood to ooze from the wound. Socks are like sponges, and even a small amount of blood can soak a sock.”\nLos Angeles Angels shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who played on Boston’s World Series team, also came to his ex-teammate’s defense.\n“I was actually in the training room when he was getting the sutures, so I don’t see no reason why he would have to paint blood on his sock,” Cabrera said before Thursday’s game against Tampa Bay. “I don’t know why people want to believe that it wasn’t blood.\n“He was really injured, and you could see when he was throwing.”\nSchilling has said the sock from the Yankees game got tossed in the laundry. The one from the World Series is at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.\n“We have no reason to doubt Curt, who has a profound respect for the history of the game and is cognizant of his role as a history maker,” said Hall spokesman Jeff Idelson. “The stain on the sock is now brown, which is what happens to blood over time.”
(04/27/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – College coaches will have to recruit the old-fashioned way next year.\nThe NCAA’s board of directors approved a ban Thursday to eliminate all text messages from coaches to recruits beginning in August, then left open the possibility of revisiting that legislation as early as 2008.\n“One of the abuses that was described to us were text messages from a coach to a player saying ‘Call me,’” Division I vice president David Berst said on a conference call.\nAs a result, coaches will no longer be allowed to send text messages to recruits.\nHigh school athletes face far fewer restrictions. A recruit, for instance, could still message a college coach, but the coach could not respond under the new rule.\nThe move comes a week after the NCAA’s management council recommended passage of the ban, which also eliminates communications through other electronic means such as video phones, video conferencing and message boards on social networking Web sites.\nE-mails and faxes would still be permissible and subject to current NCAA guidelines, which include some time periods that prohibit coaches from contacting recruits in any form.\nWhat it means to coaches is fewer opportunities to attract players through today’s high-tech tools, and rely more on the post office, e-mails and phone calls.\nThe proposal was creating concern among today’s tech-savvy coaches even before Thursday’s 13-3 vote.\nOn Monday, Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, responded to the management council’s decision by sending a letter to the board asking it to delay a vote until compromise legislation could be worked out.\nThe Student-Athlete Advisory Council had complained that text messaging was too costly and so intrusive that it sometimes bordered on harassment. Some of those stories prompted the board to ignore the coaches’ plea and vote anyway.\n“The board was swayed very much by what the student athletes had to say,” Berst said. “We heard anecdotal stories of someone waking up and having 52 text messages.”\nIn an unusual move, however, the board also indicated it would listen to new proposals. Typically, rules are approved or rejected without comment.\n“I think it recognized there may be other ways of monitoring communications in the future, so it’s open to proposals,” Berst said. “But, for now, text messages have been eliminated.”\nThe board had given groups such as the coaches associations and conference officials an opportunity to make formal proposals prior to Thursday.\nNone, Berst said, were received by the board before Thursday’s meeting. A less restrictive measure on text messages was defeated by the management council in January, leaving the board with a decision on the all-or-nothing approach.\nPreviously, there were no limitations on how many text messages coaches could send.\n“They would certainly be willing to listen to something that’s viable to a complete ban,” Berst said. “I think they recognized we had a dilemma where student athletes suggested there were some problems with text messages whereas coaches and assistant coaches wanted it to continue.”\nTeaff acknowledged last week that some restrictions were needed and suggested placing limits on the months text messages would be permissible.\nJim Haney, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, offered to support a measure reducing the hours text messages could be sent – such as not during school hours or late at night.\nEnforcing the new measure also could prove difficult.\n“It’s just like enforcing any other rule,” Berst said. “You’re not allowed to buy a kid a hamburger when he goes on the road, but that’s tough to enforce, too. There are many rules that, on the face of them, are unenforceable.”
(04/27/07 4:00am)
CHICAGO – Bidding is certain to be fiercely competitive when the Chicago Cubs go up for sale at the end of the season, but baseball’s commissioner stressed Thursday that all offers will have to go through Major League Baseball first.\n“We have very stringent rules,” commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors. “I’ve had meetings with the Cubs and we will set the rules up, and everybody has to come through Major League Baseball before they do anything with them.”\nThe team is a “month or two away” from getting any prospective buyers, Selig said.\n“They’re in the process of setting up a procedure.... There will be a significant number of prospective buyers,” Selig said.\nCubs parent company Tribune Co. earlier this month accepted an $8.2 billion buyout offer from billionaire investor Sam Zell, who said he will sell the team and storied Wrigley Field at the end of the season and use the proceeds to pay down debt.\nThe announcement puts one of sports’ most storied and star-crossed franchises on the block, a year shy of the 100th anniversary of its last World Series title. Analysts have estimated the Cubs could fetch $600 million or more.\nBillionaire entrepreneur and IU alumni Mark Cuban, Phoenix sports executive Jerry Colangelo and actor Bill Murray are among those reported or rumored to have interest, along with numerous Chicago business figures.\nSelig touted local ownership Thursday.\n“I believe in local ownership wherever possible,” Selig said. “There will be Chicago groups, there’s no question in my mind about that. Will they be the only groups? No. But there will be some very good Chicago groups.”
(04/26/07 4:00am)
NEW YORK – Lance Armstrong applauds Tour de France champion Floyd Landis’ decision to publicly share his mistrust of the French lab involved in his doping investigation.\n“I think it’s a good tactic to share that with the public,” the seven-time Tour de France winner said Wednesday. “I believe in Floyd, I believe he hasn’t had a fair shake. I don’t trust the lab.”\nDuring the 2006 Tour, Landis tested positive for elevated testosterone to epitestosterone levels after he won the 17th stage. Landis, who has repeatedly denied doping, faces the loss of his title and a two-year ban if an arbitration panel upholds the positive test.\nOn Monday, the French newspaper L’Equipe reported the follow-up tests on Landis’ samples found traces of synthetic testosterone.\nLandis has accused the Chatenay-Malabry lab outside Paris, which conducted the follow-up tests and did the tests for the Tour, of testing irregularities.\nThe lab is accredited by the International Olympic Committee and World Anti-Doping Agency.\nArmstrong, who has withstood doping allegations throughout his career, was in New York City on Wednesday to announce his partnership with the Athletes for Hope charity and to receive the Spirit of Jimmy V award. The honor is named for the late Jim Valvano, the former North Carolina State basketball coach and commentator who died of cancer.\nThough retired, Armstrong’s still involved with the Discovery Channel cycling team, for which he rode for his final Tour victory in 2005.\nHe said American Levi Leipheimer might move into Ivan Basso’s spot on the team now that the Italian Olympic Committee has reopened its doping investigation against him.\n“We said that all along, if there was another issue, then we would do that,” Armstrong said of the team’s decision to sideline Basso during the investigation. “So we’re living up to our end of the deal and our word.”
(04/26/07 4:00am)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Two-time champion Tony Stewart likened NASCAR to professional wrestling and accused it of using bogus caution flags to shape races in biting comments made on his weekly radio show.\nStewart’s appearance on his Tuesday night show was his first since skipping a post-race press conference in Phoenix. He dominated Saturday night’s race but lost after a late exchange of leads with winner Jeff Gordon. Stewart said he refused interviews to avoid bashing NASCAR after officials threw four cautions for debris on the track.\n“It’s like playing God,” he said on his Sirius Satellite Radio program. “They can almost dictate the race instead of the drivers doing it. It’s happened too many times this year.”\nStewart, who said he was fighting a fever and left the two-hour show early, went on to say fans are complaining about debris cautions and NASCAR isn’t listening.\n“I guess NASCAR thinks ‘Hey, wrestling worked, and it was for the most part staged, so I guess it’s going to work in racing, too,’” he said. “I can’t understand how long the fans are going to let NASCAR treat them like they’re stupid before the fans finally turn on NASCAR.\n“I don’t know that they’ve run a fair race all year.”\nNASCAR called Stewart’s comments “very, very disappointing.”\n“NASCAR has been running races since 1948, and we place the safety of the drivers at the top of the list,” said spokesman Jim Hunter. “We have more people and more resources than ever officiating our races. The safety of the drivers is our first priority. It has always been that way and will continue to be that way.\n“There are thousands of talented race drivers out there who would consider it an honor to compete in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.”\nAlthough NASCAR has a policy that prohibits obscene language and gestures on television, the sanctioning body has no rule against criticizing its officiating. The NBA and NFL both fine its participants for criticizing the referees.\nHunter said NASCAR had no plans to punish Stewart for his remarks about officiating, which is done from a tower above the race track by a team of eight that includes NASCAR president Mike Helton and competition director Robin Pemberton.\nNASCAR also does not force its drivers to meet with the media but has post-race procedures in place for the top three finishers and highest finishing rookie. The official entry blank each week lists the policy, but Stewart was adamant on his radio show that he is not required to abide by it.\n“There’s nothing, zero, in my contract that says I have to do that,” he said. “We do that as a courtesy to NASCAR and the media. The thing with the media is they think it’s our obligation to do those things. It’s not our obligation. It’s a privilege that they get to do that.”\nHe said skipping the press conference was his way of getting even with NASCAR over what he considered unfair officiating.\n“NASCAR is the ones that always ask us to go to the media center, so instead of doing what they wanted, they don’t do what we want to do and run the race fair,” he said. “So why would I go to the media center and make them happy?”
(04/26/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Rick Carlisle was fired Wednesday after four tumultuous years as Indiana Pacers coach, following a season in which the team did not make the playoffs for the first time in a decade.\nThe Pacers finished the season 35-47, their worst since 1988-89. Indiana was 29-24 shortly after the All-Star break, but lost its next 11 games to fall out of the top eight in the Eastern Conference. A loss to Detroit on April 3 clinched the Pacers’ first
(04/26/07 4:00am)
CHICAGO – Oft-injured Cubs pitcher Mark Prior will miss the entire 2007 season after surgery on his right shoulder, a setback that isn’t expected to finish his once-promising career.\nThe 26-year-old Prior had surgery Tuesday by noted orthopedist Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala. Andrews also worked on Prior’s rotator cuff.\n“Obviously, Mark is done for the year,” Chicago general manager Jim Hendry said. “From my conversations with (trainer) Mark O’Neal and John Boggs, Mark’s agent who talked to Dr. Andrews last night, Dr. Andrews feels comfortable that he will still have a career. This is certainly not career-ending.”\n“He felt optimistic that he would be able to pitch next year. ... At his age, he should not have a problem responding and coming back after a strenuous rehab.”\nHendry said it was way too early to set a timetable for Prior’s return or discuss what it means for Prior’s future with the Cubs. Prior started his rehabilitation program Wednesday, and it will continue into the offseason.\nPrior has been beset by injuries since his first full season in the majors in 2003. He made just nine starts last year for the Cubs after three trips to the disabled list.\nPrior was not on the Cubs’ active roster to start this year and was optioned to Triple-A Iowa after a poor spring training. He instead went to extended spring training in Arizona, but pitched only two innings there April 12 before reporting discomfort in his shoulder.\n“Obviously he had some things wrong physically and he’s getting them corrected,” Cubs manager Lou Piniella said before Wednesday’s game against Milwaukee. “So, this is a step in the right direction.”\nThe injury was the latest problem for the struggling team. The Cubs, who have not reached the World Series since 1945, made many major changes in the offseason yet began the day in last place in the NL Central with a 7-13 record.\nKerry Wood, who teamed with Prior to nearly pitch the Cubs to the NL pennant in 2003, is back on the disabled list with tendinitis in his shoulder. Like Prior, Wood has been sidetracked by injuries.\nHendry said Wood might resume throwing this week. Wood has not pitched since a spring training appearance on March 25 when his arm felt weak and then stiffened up the next day.\nHendry said he was encouraged by the type of surgery performed on Prior.\n“It stayed in the arthroscopic stage. But I think he had some touch up work in a lot of places,” Hendry said.\n“But at the same time there didn’t seem to be anything so significant that it would require more than the scope. It didn’t have to be opened up and have extensive surgery.”\nPrior went to Dr. Lewis Yocum in California before going to see Andrews, who told the right-hander last October he had genetic looseness in his shoulder joints.
(04/26/07 4:00am)
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Thomas Vanek and the Buffalo Sabres sure looked like the cream of the crop Wednesday night.\nVanek scored twice, sparking a three-goal second period, and Ryan Miller stopped 32 shots in a 5-2 win over the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference semifinal playoff series opener. Jason Pominville and Ales Kotalik also scored for a Buffalo team that played much better after struggling to eliminate the New York Islanders in five games in the first round.\nThe Sabres were particularly motivated after Rangers coach Tom Renney said this week that top-seeded Buffalo wasn’t the NHL’s “cream of the crop” team.\nMarcel Hossa and Brendan Shanahan scored third-period goals for the Rangers, who lost their first game this postseason after sweeping Southeast Division champion Atlanta. The Rangers went 1-for-5 in power-play chances, but failed to score during a 2-minute, two-man advantage early in the third period.\nThe Sabres never allowed the Rangers to within a goal in the third, and Drew Stafford sealed the win with an empty-netter.\nNew York didn’t look rusty in its first game in a week, but the Rangers struggled to keep up with the Sabres’ depth and speed. That was apparent when the Sabres went up 3-0, scoring three times on four shots during a 4:05 span late in the second period.\nThe Rangers allowed a total of six goals in the first round against the Thrashers.\nVanek opened the scoring 14 minutes into the frame with a power-play goal. Parked in front and a step ahead of defender Daniel Girardi, Vanek was in perfect position to deflect in Dmitri Kalinin’s shot from inside the blue line.\nBuffalo’s fourth line struck for the next goal when Kotalik, set up by Adam Mair’s pass, split two defenders and snapped a shot from the right circle that beat Henrik Lundqvist high on the far side.\nVanek capped the surge when he beat Karel Rachunek at the Rangers’ blue line then drove in and around Paul Mara, and scored on a defenseless Lundqvist.\nLundqvist kept the Rangers in the game by stopping the first 23 shots he faced, including 15 in the opening period.
(04/25/07 4:00am)
TORONTO – Former Indiana Pacers player Sam Mitchell was honored as the NBA coach of the year Tuesday after leading the Toronto Raptors to a franchise-record-tying 47 victories and their first Atlantic Division title.\n“It’s a great honor,” Mitchell said. “It floors you. You’re thankful. Words just can’t express it.”\nMitchell won the Red Auerbach Trophy in a decisive vote over Utah’s Jerry Sloan. He picked up 49 first-place votes for a total of 394 points in balloting by 128 basketball writers and broadcasters. Sloan had 301 points followed by Dallas’ Avery Johnson with 268.\n“We recognized him for it this morning, “ forward Chris Bosh said. “But the thing I love about him is he said it was a team effort.”\nMitchell, the sixth coach in Toronto’s team’s history, guided the Raptors to an NBA-best 20-game improvement (27-55) over the 2005-06 season. \nMitchell played for the Pacers from 1992-95. The 6-foot-7 forward averaged 6.2 points and 2.9 rebounds for Indiana in three seasons.\nGuard Anthony Parker praised Mitchell for building unity on a team that added nine new faces before the season.\n“From the summer, after I signed, his focus was trying to get us all in and get the chemistry going early,” Parker said. “Throughout the course of the season we seemed to come together pretty nicely. Sam obviously was a huge part of that.”\nDuring a 13-year playing career that ended in 2002, Mitchell was held in high regard around the league as a student of the game. Following two seasons as an assistant, he was hired as the Raptors’ coach on June 29, 2004.\n“He’s done a great job with the ball club,” forward Morris Peterson said Monday. “He’s really grown a lot over his first couple of years coaching. If anybody in the NBA deserves it, it’s him. He’s proved a lot of people wrong.”\nGuard T.J. Ford said Mitchell puts his faith in the players.\n“He’s going to give us the structure offensively and defensively, but it’s up to us to go out there execute,” he said. “He puts it in our hands and lets us control it. He’s been great in that aspect.”
(04/25/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana’s newest college football program doesn’t even have a locker room yet.\nThe 42 players who completed three weeks of spring drills at Marian College had to dress in their dorm rooms and walk or drive a half-mile to practice. The equipment had to be loaded onto and off of pickup trucks each way.\nDespite the logistical problems, coach Ted Karras Jr. said Tuesday, the first spring practice went well for Marian, a private NAIA-affiliated school of about 1,800 students on the west side of Indianapolis.\n“I thought it was a successful spring. I’ll give it a B-minus,” said Karras, who coached at Rose-Hulman for three years before coming to Marian last year to begin preparing for football’s debut at the school. “We got 12 good practices in. Guys learned our base offensive and defensive systems. Now we have a whole group of 50-plus joining us in August.”\nMarian, which will join the Mid-States Football Association’s Mideast League, will be the 21st football-playing college in Indiana and the first new football school in the state since St. Francis in 1998. The St. Francis Cougars, also in the Mid-States’ Mideast League, became an NAIA power within their first few years and have a current regular-season winning streak of 51 straight regular season games and three straight NAIA playoff runner-up finishes.\nAll but six of the 42 players who participated in Marian’s spring practice were freshmen, most of them recruited from the Indianapolis and central Indiana areas, Karras said.\n“I don’t know if the word is difficult. Yeah, it’s challenging,” he said of starting a football program from scratch. “It can be difficult at times. The logistic issues we overcame. But overall it’s been a success story so far.”\nMarian’s new locker facilities will be in place by July, so that problem will be solved in time for the start of practice in August, when another 50-plus players will join the team, Karras said.\nKarras, the son of former NFL player Ted Karras Sr. and nephew of actor and former NFL star Alex Karras, compiled a 14-16 record in his three years at Rose-Hulman. Before that, he was offensive coordinator at St. Xavier University in Chicago and an assistant at St. Francis, Ill., and Lake Forest College. He also was an All-State player at Hobart High School in 1982 and the head coach at Andrean from 1996-98.\nHis own NFL career included one game with the Washington Redskins in 1987.\n“It’s pretty much different,” he said of moving from high school to college coaching. “You don’t have to teach classes during the day. Our biggest time has been spent recruiting.\n“But football’s football, and systems are systems. You have more mature kids and you’re in a college setting. I like the college setting much better,” he said.\nThe Knights open their inaugural season on Sept. 1 at William Penn in Oskaloosa, Iowa.\nMarian’s inaugural class of recruits includes safety Richard El, a two-time All-State player at Indianapolis Ben Davis and transfer from Harper, a junior college in Palatine, Ill., and receiver Jake Scott, a two-time All-Stater at Indian Creek in Morgantown, Ind. and a transfer from Anderson University. The signees also included five players from Warren Central, the four-time defending Class 5A champion in Indiana.
(04/25/07 4:00am)
The IU football team will get two prime time games in 2007, the Big Ten Network announced Tuesday. The network, which will launch in August, released its five-game prime time football schedule, featuring the Hoosiers’ season opener against Indiana State Sep. 1 and the Oct. 13 game at Michigan State.\nThe Hoosiers’ game against the Sycamores will be the second match between the two schools and will take place at 8 p.m. at Memorial Stadium. IU’s second prime time appearance will take place at the Spartan’s homecoming at 7 p.m. in the Battle for the Old Brass Spittoon. IU recaptured the Spittoon last season with a 46-21 victory in Memorial Stadium, beating Michigan State for the first time since 2001.
(04/24/07 4:00am)
Tour de France champion Floyd Landis got more bad news Monday – a report that follow-up tests on his backup urine samples found traces of synthetic testosterone.\nBut he refused to confirm the results and said the report on the Web site of French newspaper L’Equipe was yet another result of unethical maneuvers engineered by those who want him stripped of the Tour title.\n“In any other industry or field, their failures would be construed as criminal negligence,” Landis said during a teleconference Monday.\nLandis’ attorney, Maurice Suh, said he has received some documentation from the tests done on the “B” samples at a lab outside of Paris, but it was not complete.\n“We need to understand fully from the lab what they did before we’re comfortable about saying what they declared to be ‘adverse,’” Suh said.\nDuring the 2006 Tour, Landis tested positive for elevated testosterone to epitestosterone levels after he won the 17th stage. The 31-year-old cyclist, who repeatedly has denied doping, faces the loss of his title and a two-year ban if an arbitration panel upholds the positive test.\nTravis Tygart, general counsel of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that is prosecuting the case against Landis, said agency rules prevented him from discussing active cases.\nThe “B” samples were tested at the behest of USADA, which is trying to bolster evidence for Landis’ May 14 arbitration hearing. The most recent tests used a technique that can distinguish synthetic from natural forms of testosterone, a male sex hormone.\nPierre Bordry, president of the French anti-doping agency, told The Associated Press the tests were concluded this weekend but he didn’t know the result because they were sent directly to the USADA.
(04/20/07 4:00am)
Tournament time is almost here, but first comes a pit stop. \nThe IU women’s golf team will start postseason play soon, but first the Hoosiers have one more regular season task. On Saturday, they will compete in the Lady Buckeye Spring Invitational at the newly renovated Scarlet Golf Course in Columbus, Ohio.\nThe Hoosiers are coming off a disappointing finish in the Indiana Invitational at Crooked Stick Golf Course in Carmel, Ind. The Hoosiers finished ninth out of 17 teams in the tournament. It marked the first time since the Lady Puerto Rico Classic in February that the Hoosiers finished outside the top five and just the second time this year the Hoosiers did not have a player place in the top 15. Freshman Kellye Belcher led the way with a 22nd-place finish. \nLooking ahead to this weekend, the Hoosiers will look to bolster their play against a 14-team field. The tournament will have a familiar flavor, however, as nine of the teams competing will be from the Big Ten.\nFor those wishing to follow the tournament, live stats will be available all weekend on golfstat.com. \nFollowing this weekend the Hoosiers will compete in the Big Ten tournament in East Lansing, Mich., on April 27. If they do well enough there, they will qualify for NCAA Central Regional Championships in May in Ann Arbor, Mich.
(04/20/07 4:00am)
SAN FRANCISCO – Rich Aurilia spent his first nine big league seasons as a fan favorite in San Francisco. Now, in his second stint with the Giants after three years away, he is as beloved as ever.\nAurilia provided the key hit for the second time in 15 1/2 hours. His two-run, sixth-inning double broke a tie and helped Noah Lowry to his first win of the season, a 6-2 victory over the struggling St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday.\n“It makes me feel good in the sense that I had success here in the past,” said Aurilia, who was thrilled it worked out for him to return this season. “I’m not getting any younger, but I feel I can still play and contribute to a winning team.”\nAurilia singled in the winning run in the bottom of the 12th in a 6-5 win Wednesday night, then doubled to right to spoil what had been a good effort by St. Louis starter Kip Wells.\nRandy Winn drove in two runs, including a sacrifice fly in San Francisco’s three-run sixth, which also featured Dave Roberts’ one-out infield single followed by a stolen base.
(04/20/07 4:00am)
In a sprint to the finish, the Cutters earned their eighth all-time championship. Cutters junior Alex Bishop beat out riders from Phi Kappa Psi, Dodds House, Black Key Bulls and Team Major Taylor to take the checkered flag. \nThose five teams stayed in a pack for the majority of the second half of the race, setting up the final sprint. Cutters' eighth title ties them with Delta Chi for the all-time record. \nCheck back to idsnews.com for more updates this evening.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
CHICAGO – Mark Buehrle pitched the first no-hitter of the season Wednesday night – and he was nearly perfect, too.\nThe Chicago White Sox left-hander faced the minimum 27 batters in a 6-0 victory over the Texas Rangers, picking off the only hitter he walked and throwing his team’s first no-hitter since 1991.\nWorking quickly and efficiently in a dominant performance, Buehrle allowed only one baserunner. He walked Sammy Sosa with one out in the fifth inning, then promptly picked him off first base.\n“I can’t believe I did it,” Buehrle said. “Perfect game would have been nice, too.”\nWith the crowd on its feet in the ninth, Buehrle struck out Matt Kata and Nelson Cruz, then got Gerald Laird to hit a slow grounder to third base that Joe Crede picked up and threw to first. As Paul Konerko caught the ball, he pumped his fist, setting off a wild celebration.\nBuehrle was mobbed by teammates at the side of the mound, including catcher A.J. Pierzynski, and then got a big hug from manager Ozzie Guillen as he came off the field.\nOn a chilly 40-degree night, Buehrle threw 105 pitches. His previous low-hit game was a one-hitter against Tampa Bay on Aug. 3, 2001. It was the 16th no-hitter in White Sox history and first since Wilson Alvarez threw one at Baltimore on Aug. 11, 1991.\n“I was part of one in high school,” Buehrle said. “To get through a big league lineup three times, I never thought it would happen.”\nIt was the first no-hitter pitched against the Rangers since June 17, 1995, when Toronto’s David Cone threw one in a 4-0 win.\nMore than two years passed without a no-hitter in major league baseball before rookie Anibal Sanchez threw one for Florida on Sept. 6, ending the longest stretch without a no-no in big league history. His gem against the Arizona Diamondbacks was the first in the majors since Arizona’s Randy Johnson threw a perfect game to beat Atlanta 2-0 on May 18, 2004.\nBuehrle, who retired 20 of the final 22 batters he faced in his previous start against Oakland, had some stellar defensive plays behind him before a crowd of 25,390 at U.S. Cellular Field.\nThree of the closest plays came on grounders. Jerry Hairston hit one to Crede at third in the third inning and was called out at first after a headlong slide. Replays showed Hairston was out, but he was ejected by first base umpire James Hoye for arguing and had to be restrained by first base coach Gary Pettis when he returned to the field.\nTadahito Iguchi made a diving stop of Hank Blalock’s grounder in the hole, got up and threw him out to end the fifth. That came one batter after Sosa spoiled the perfect game bid by drawing the walk.\nAnd in the seventh, Chicago shortstop Juan Uribe went into the hole to get Ian Kinsler’s grounder and got him at first, thanks to a nice scoop by Konerko.\nChicago right fielder Jermaine Dye also made a nice play in the second on Blalock, going back to the fence to catch his long drive.\n“Obviously, for a guy like me, I need my defense behind me,” Buehrle said.\nOnce the ace of the White Sox staff, Buehrle went 12-13 last season – his first losing record in six full major league seasons. After making the All-Star team, he struggled mightily after the break, going just 3-7.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Coaches have spent the last several years upgrading their gadgets and learning the new tricks of recruiting. Now it may be time to turn back the clock.\nThe NCAA Division I management council has recommended a ban on all electronically transmitted correspondence – including text messages – between coaches and recruits. E-mails and faxes would be exempt from the new rule but would be limited by current NCAA guidelines.\nUnlike restrictions on phone calls and in-person visits, there are no coach limits on text messaging.\nThe Board of Directors must still pass the legislation. If approved at its April 26 meeting, the ban would take effect in August. Typically, the board passes such recommendations, but if it’s delayed or rejected, coaches would revert to their previous policy of no limits.\n“I think student-athletes wanted to see this eliminated for their own sanity,” said Kate Hickey, the management council’s chairwoman whose term is about to expire. “And to get rid of some of these bills.”\nThe Student-Athlete Advisory Council, which represents college athletes, complained during this week’s meetings that the number of text messages had become intrusive and costly.\nHickey, an associate athletic director at Rutgers, expects the proposal to pass next week.\n“I think it all depends on whether there’s communication between coaches and athletic directors and then, ultimately, the board members over the next week,” she said. “I think some of the coaches on our staff are going to say ‘Great, we can continue to recruit the way we always have.’ Others, I think, will say ‘I can’t believe this.’”\nFor some coaches, the changes could become problematic.\nBefore this week’s vote, Santa Clara coach Kerry Keating, a former UCLA assistant, said coaches need to contact recruits through modern means – the same way teenagers often chat with friends and family – to build relationships.\nThe NCAA was concerned that unlimited text messages created a loophole that permitted coaches to send a message asking recruits to call them – calls that would violate NCAA rules if the coach made the call.\nDealing with the rapid technological advances has become tricky for the NCAA.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
MONTE CARLO, Monaco – \nRafael Nadal extended his winning streak on clay to 63 matches Wednesday after beating Juan Ignacio Chela 6-3, 6-1 in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters.\nNadal, the two-time defending French Open champion, is seeking his third straight Monte Carlo title. He has not lost on clay since Igor Andreev of Russia beat him in the quarterfinals of the Valencia Open in April 2005.\n“It was very nice to come back here and play the first match like this,” Nadal said. “I felt very well, very comfortable on court. I could have served a little bit better, but for the rest I’m very happy.”\nThe second-seeded Spaniard next plays Kristof Vliegen of Belgium – a repeat of last year’s third round match, which Nadal won in straight sets.\nAndreev beat fourth-seeded Fernando Gonzalez of Chile 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. Nadal and Andreev could meet again in Sunday’s final.\nRobin Soderling needed five match points before upsetting third-seeded Nikolay Davydenko 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-3. The Swede failed to convert his first match point when leading 5-4 in the second set, and then had another in the tiebreaker.\nIn the third set, Davydenko saved two more match points. But Soderling won on his fifth chance when Davydenko’s backhand was long.\nSoderling will next play Max Mirnyi, who beat Sergio Roitman of Argentina 7-5, 6-4.
