“Time to celebrate Clark County gymnastics” plus 1 more

Time to celebrate Clark County gymnastics

Posted: 16 Feb 2011 06:01 AM PST

By Columbian Staff

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Just a few days away from the annual Clark County Gymnastics Festival in Pierce County.

OK, technically, it is the state meet. However, with Clark County having such a great time there of late, might as well have a little fun with the name.

For the past two years, the Class 3A state all-around champion has come from Clark County. In 2009, Columbia River won the 3A team title. In fact, that year all six state titles in the 3A competition — four individual events, the all-around, and the team title — went to Clark County. Last year, a 4A athlete won two individual event titles, and Columbia River finished second in the 3A team race.

Don't look now, but the Chieftains are one of the favorites to go for another team title this Friday night at the Tacoma Dome's Exhibition Hall.

We'll be there. Because we have a deep respect for the sport and its athletes, and because Clark County has done so well in the past.

Still, there are some who wish we loved gymnastics even more. We received a passionate, eloquent letter from a reader this past week wondering why we did not send a photographer to the recent 3A district meet. The reader remembered that we used to, and the reader was worried that we were no longer going to cover gymnastics.

Things have changed, but that does not mean we think any less of gymnastics.

The new state basketball format resulted in the league schedules ending one week sooner than in recent seasons. Through no fault of their own, when athletic directors scheduled the 3A gymnastics district meet this year, it conflicted with a basketball game for a league championship. Approximately 1,500 fans were at Camas High School for that basketball game, and we sent a photographer and a reporter — me — to that event.

Paul Danzer did go to the gymnastics meet for a report. Of course, gymnastics meets can last anywhere from roughly two to 13 hours. (Gymnastics parents appreciate that humor.) And by the time the meet ended, Danzer had to rush back to the office to write up the story, which ran in the next day's paper.

In years past, that district meet was held with still another week to go in the basketball regular season. So we did send a photographer to district gymnastics. This year, we had to make a call. Unfortunately for the high school gymnastics community, readership interest in basketball dwarfs all other winter sports.

But I am proud to say The Columbian is committed to writing at least one feature on every WIAA-sanctioned sport per season, even the so-called smaller sports. Gymnastics had two features this winter. Plus, we published all results from any meet that was reported to us by the coaches.

Of course, I will be in Tacoma for state gymnastics Friday and Saturday — just like I have for most of the past decade.

There are lower-profile sports, in terms of readership interest, but there are no small efforts for the athletes who make it to state. Clark County's gymnasts work as hard as any athlete in any sport. And, based on the results the past couple of years, one could argue they are the most successful group of athletes from our region.

Sister Act, Part I

The Prairie girls basketball team has been wearing warm-up T-shirts all season with a special message. Something about how finishing second is worse than having to kiss your sister. It's a takeoff of the old sports cliché that a tie is like having to kiss your sister. For the Falcons, it also is a reminder that they did not like finishing second last year in the district tournament.

No second this year. Prairie improved to 21-0 after topping Camas in the district title game, avenging last year's loss to the Papermakers.

But I also have to give little shout out to one member of the Papermakers, who had a little fun regarding those T-shirts. After the game, Tatum Schroeder went up into the stands, was reminded that her team finished second, and, yep, you guessed it, she gave kisses to her two younger sisters.

By the way, for Camas to finish second was a pretty big deal. The Papermakers lost two college-bound players to injuries this season, finished in a tie for third place in the league, then had to win three games last week to advance to the district finals.

Sister Act, Part II

Cool moment during that girls final. Ashley Corral got to the gym midway through the first quarter, in time to watch most of her younger sister's game. Heather Corral ended up with 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting, plus had four steals and two blocked shots. After the game, Heather rushed over to give Ashley a hug.

It was the first time Ashley has seen Heather play in a high school game. Tough to commute from Los Angeles, after all. Ashley Corral is a junior point guard for USC.

On Saturday, though, Ashley was in Eugene. She had 16 points, eight rebounds, and five assists in USC's victory over the Ducks, then got permission to travel to Vancouver to watch her former high school team excel.

Paul Valencia covers high school sports for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4557 or e-mail at paul.valencia@columbian.com.

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Cal to cut men's baseball, gymnastics

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 09:04 PM PST

UC Berkeley announced Friday that its men's baseball and gymnastics programs will be eliminated at the end of 2010-11 school year but that men's rugby and women's gymnastics and lacrosse have been spared.

Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary said baseball did not come close to generating enough private funding to save the 119-year-old program.

"The challenge for baseball was bigger," he said. "They needed four to five to six times as much as they raised to have been in a position to be maintained."

However, Cal baseball coach David Esquer said he doesn't think the battle is over.

"I don't think you're going to be writing the obituary of Cal baseball at this point in time," he said. "This is obviously a huge setback. I believe at some point in time, maybe not in my time here at Cal, that there will be Cal baseball again. I believe that. I really do."

Bob Milano, who coached Cal baseball for 22 seasons before retiring in 1999, was highly critical of the university.

"I'm very sad that the University of California did not hold true to what they stated, that it was all or none," he said. "I believe they don't know what they're doing."

Yeary said of the $25 million targeted by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to save the five sports for a period of seven to 10 years, baseball's costs required supporters to raise $10 million. He said their figure was in the range of $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

Yeary explained that supporters of

the five sports raised $12 million to $13 million, of which at least $8 million was without strings attached. The remaining amount came from donors whose money may have been earmarked for baseball or men's gymnastics.

The $8 million is sufficient to operate the three sports that were saved while they develop a plan for permanent self-sufficient status. The amount that baseball generated would have kept the program afloat for only two years, according to Cal officials.

"From the very beginning, we said we could not afford stopgap measures; we needed to move on to permanent solutions," Yeary said.

Doug Nickel, a former Cal baseball player who helped organize the Save Cal Sports group, argued that the amount of money raised in four months should have persuaded the university to show more patience.

"Is it not easily conceivable that with two years we could do what it takes to endow these two programs for life?" he said. "I don't think that's a stretch."

A's pitcher Tyson Ross, a Cal alum, said: "It's definitely disappointing to know the school decided to cut baseball and men's gymnastics. I do know Title IX played a part, and budget cuts were an issue. It's just too bad they couldn't work harder to find a solution, because in the end, I think they could have found a way to keep them. But I think they took the easy way out.

"It's a devastating day today."

The university had announced in September that all five sports would be eliminated after this school year to save the athletic department $4 million annually.

But a news release issued by the university Friday said the decision to drop baseball and men's gymnastics, and keeping the other three sports in question, has Cal athletics on track to operate under a cap of no more than $5 million annually from the general campus fund by 2014.

The two women's programs may have survived because Cal would have been in violation of federal Title IX gender-equity laws had they been cut. Doing so would have required the university to slice as many as 80 athletes from its men's teams while adding 50 women to its rosters to meet Title IX requirements for proportionality.

"When we originally decided to cut them, we knew there would be some Title IX roster management that would be required," Yeary said.

Those plans already were in the works. Travis Bickham, a member of the men's water polo team, told the New York Times that his team was told it would have lost 13 players next fall, going from 41 to 28.

Yeary said that neither baseball nor men's gymnastics will be on the 2011-12 athletic calendar. But athletic director Sandy Barbour said there may be an opportunity in the future to bring back baseball if it becomes privately endowed.

Of the 24 NCAA Division I level athletic programs in the state, Cal will be the only one without a baseball team.

"All of our programs at Cal have a rich history and tradition and meaningful opportunities for student-athletes," Barbour said. "To lose any of them is certainly a sad day for us."

Cal has fielded a baseball team since 1892, and it won national championships in 1947 and 1957. Ten former Cal baseball players will be on the rosters of major league teams when spring training begins next week, including the A's Ross.

The Bears open their 2011 season Feb. 18 at home against Utah.

"We're all mad," said second baseman Tony Renda, a graduate of Serra High in San Mateo and a freshman All-American last season. "Thirty-six of us stuck around, and we're going to give this thing a go. We're a dangerous team. We're really good. And we're playing for ourselves."

One source told the Bay Area News Group that the property where Evans Diamond sits is coveted by the university for nonathletic purposes, but Birgeneau said Friday that the school has no current plans for such use.

Men's gymnastics, which began competition at Cal in 1922, won four NCAA team titles from 1968 to 1998 and has had top-10 finishes in 13 of the past 14 seasons. However, the sport slowly has been squeezed from athletic agendas on the West Coast, with Stanford the only other Pac-10 school to field a team.

Friday's survivors didn't feel much like celebrating.

"I am thrilled for my ladies and future young gymnasts," Cal women's gymnastics coach Cari DuBois said from Tempe, Ariz., where the Bears were competing Friday night against Arizona State. "But I definitely have mixed emotions because I'm saddened for the men's teams that weren't reinstated. We train with the men every day."

Cal rugby coach Jack Clark, whose team was playing Friday at an event in Las Vegas, said he was grateful that his program was reinstated to varsity status, rather than demoted to a club sport.

"We always believed our place was in intercollegiate athletics, and I'm glad we were given an opportunity by the university to make our case," he said. "We're really humbled to be a part of intercollegiate athletics next season and beyond."

Rugby is UC Berkeley's most successful sports program, having won 25 national championships since 1980, including the 2010 title.

A nonscholarship varsity sport at Berkeley, rugby largely has been supported through private funding. Rugby will retain its varsity status but now must shoulder all direct and indirect costs, including coaches' salaries and use of Cal's training and sports medicine facilities.

The university said rugby contributions were sufficient to help support women's gymnastics and lacrosse.

Gymnastics Sports

Thursday, February 17, 2011