Plati-'tudes
March 22, 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 break hits Boulder, which can only mean one thing: the third annual CU-Stevinson Ranch Invitational near Turlock, Calif., is upon us! Mark Simpson has a pretty good team and they're gunning to win their own meet for the first time as Kansas has walked away with the trophy after each of the first two. That said, here's a shorter, but hopefully as entertaining or informative, P-Toods for ya, and I'll be back to you the second week in April!
TRIVIA QUESTIONS... CU -- Who was the first Buffalo to win a major collegiate tournament, and what was special about it? Godfather -- Representatives from UT&T, South American Sugar and the General Fruit Company, basically some fictitious cornball corporations met with whom and where?
ALL-AROUND... The Buffs have received criticism because CU was the only school in the Big 12 not to play in a bowl game or qualify for a men's postseason tournament in basketball (though did in women's hoops). That's always a convenient argument of timing; the last time it happened before 2000-01 was the 1986-87 athletic season, so 13 consecutive seasons of one or both occurring isn't a bad run (and only Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma had longer streaks going in the Big 12). But looking across the board, the other Big 12 schools might be envying Colorado on an overall level. Through March 22, the NCAA had conducted 13 of its 34 national championships, so including football, 40 percent of the 2000-01 titles have been awarded. No school has yet to win national championships in two sports, and only two schools have three top three finishes to date: Colorado (No. 1 in women's cross country, No. 2 in men's cross country and No. 3 in skiing) and UCLA (No. 1 in women's indoor track and No. 2 in both women's soccer and men's water polo). CU and Stanford are the only two schools with four top six efforts (CU also finished sixth in women's indoor track; Stanford has posted a 2-3-4-5 finish in women's swimming, women's X-C, men's X-C and men's indoor track). In the Big 12, Colorado's closest competition are Oklahoma and Nebraska: the Sooners won the national title in football and finished fourth in wrestling, with the Huskers winning the women's volleyball crown and finishing sixth in rifle. Otherwise, only Texas (third in women's swimming) and Iowa State (sixth in wrestling) have top six national finishes to date. Things can change quickly, but with the Buffs picking up points for Sears Cup winter sports such as skiing, women's indoor track and women's basketball (not yet added in), the Buffs have 378 points and are holding on to their sixth place standing following fall competition.
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM... Once again, teams in the NCAA women's tournament were shipped off to campus sites for first and second rounds, presumably because home sites draw better in the first round. Well, unless I'm mistaken, only Connecticut sold out though Iowa State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma all came close for both games. In the second round, when home teams needed wins to advance to the Sweet 16, crowds ranged from a dismal 1,765 at North Carolina State (versus Villanova) and 1,847 at Florida (against Washington) to several in the 4,000 to 5,000 range, including CU's game at Vanderbilt. There were several crowds under 5,000 in the first round as well, including just 3,119 at Utah. My radical solution? Seed only the top 16 teams, four per region, those who will host. Then do what the NCAA used to do with the men's tournament before it expanded, and that was to place teams in their region according to geographical location. Did anyone else wonder why the committee, which always has to ship eastern teams out west because they say there are never enough teams, shipped Colorado State east? While I won't pretend to understand what goes on behind closed doors in those rooms, and knowing the task isn't an easy one, it seems to me that home sites aren't a guaranteed draw. Odds are always going to be that the majority of the top four seeds will advance out of any region to the regionals, so why not generate interest locally. Do you think a CU-CSU-Denver-Utah regional would have been packed at the Coors Events Center? Surely; and if even if Utah still was the host, I would think that the Colorado trio would have sent upwards of 5,000 fans out to Salt Lake. And if avoiding conference rematches is that important early on, CU could have been the host and Arkansas or TCU could have replaced the Utes to prevent a CSU-Utah rematch in the early rounds. There's probably a few things wrong with my thinking, but if the regionals are getting to the point where they're starting to stand on their own, let's make the opening rounds that much more exciting by actually having fans in the stands.
WHY CU DOESN'T HAVE BASEBALL, WRESTLING... We've received a lot of questions in the last couple of weeks regarding why CU doesn't have baseball and wrestling. Those sports, along with men's and women's gymnastics, men's and women's swimming and women's diving comprised seven sports that were discontinued on June 11, 1980; the 1979-80 season was the last year of competition for each. At the time, schools needed 14 sports (any mix, men or women) to qualify for Division I status, and the cuts reduced our count to that minimum number (eight men's, six women's). It was purely based on dollars, as which non-revenue sports would be able to survive on shoestring budgets while we recovered from over a $1 million debt; sports like wrestling (No. 8) and the two gymnastics teams were nationally ranked when they were disbanded. The implications of Title IX and the growth of women's athletics has since led us to add three women's sports: volleyball (1986), golf (1994) and soccer (1996), bringing our count to 17 (skiing went co-ed in 1983, but still counts as one men's and one women's). As to adding any of these sports back, or adding new ones such as hockey, lacrosse, men's soccer or men's volleyball (the sports we get the most E-mails about), it still basically all comes down to budget. Once we're in a financial position where the sports we currently have are fully funded, Athletics 2010, athletic director Dick Tharp's aggressive plan for the next decade, addresses bringing back and/or adding new sports. If we attain such a financial position, we will consider expanding, but remember with Title IX, we would have to add sports in twos, one men's and one women's.
IT'S BA-AACK... Long time CU followers are no doubt familiar with the Trivia Bowl, which returns this spring after something like a seven-year hiatus. It will take place from April 2-6 at the University Memorial Center, and as always, will feature some celebrity matches. Tentatively scheduled for Thursday, April 5 at 5 p.m. will be a football challenge between a few of the coaches (Steve Marshall and Jon Embree have signed on) and some of their players (yet to be decided, but quite a few are pretty adept when it comes to watching ESPN's "2-Minute Drill," a trivia game show. Stay tuned for details; if you haven't checked out the trivia bowl, it's a blast (though my teams never advanced beyond the second round). We had some great names, like "Fifth & Goal From The One" and "Zamfir Master of the Panflutes Universe."
THIS WEEK'S NUMBER... 13. With the addition of men's tennis and men's and women's outdoor track joining the national rankings this past week, that brings the number of CU teams to have been ranked at one time or another this year to 13 (out of 16 programs; skiing counts for both men and women but the rankings are coed). Ten programs were ranked in the top 25 at one point (the school record is 11, set on numerous occasions). The only ones not to be ranked (so far) in 2000-01 are men's basketball, women's soccer and women's tennis (which is still playing).
TRIVIA ANSWERS... CU -- The late Merle Backlund won the NCAA Championship stroke play in 1953; however, the NCAA champion was determined through match play that followed. Godfather -- Reps from those companies along with a few others, like Pan American Mining, attended the Havana meeting when Michael traveled to Cuba to meet with Hyman Roth in trying to establish some casino and tourism interests there.
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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.