Tucson Citizen Morgue, Part 1 (2006-2009) » Sports-Softball-Columnist

Gimino: Softball Cats, fans deserving of homestand, but ignored

Anthony Gimino — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:01:23 +0000

Softball is 1st-class sport, but NCAA treatment is not

UA senior first baseman Sam Banister practices at Hillenbrand Stadium. She was named to the All-Pac-10 second team on Wednesday. Stacie Chambers, Brittany Lastrapes and Jenae Leles received first-team honors. Story, 1C

When coach Mike Candrea began taking Arizona to the Women’s College World Series 21 years ago, the event was held in an out-of-the-way place in northern California.

Not San Francisco. Not even San Jose. Nearby Sunnyvale.

The venue for the event? If you’ve ever been to the Sports Park on the Northwest Side, you have the right image in your head.

“A four-field setup. Very basic,” Candrea remembered.

The infields in Sunnyvale had such a crown – designed to promote rain runoff into foul territory – that Candrea, standing in the third-base coaching box, had a hard time seeing plays at first base over the rise of the field.

“You couldn’t see the feet of the first baseman,” he said.

Let’s just say that two decades ago, college softball was just a half step up from the summer youth leagues.

Not exactly first class.

Since then – and Tucson can certainly attest to this – college softball has become one of the most visible women’s sports in the NCAA.

If the Wildcats navigate through the 2009 postseason – which begins at 1 p.m. Tucson time Friday in Louisville – they will end up in a world-class facility in Oklahoma City, in a game on ESPN, probably playing a team from the SEC.

That right there – the venue, the blanket coverage from the worldwide leader in sports and the rise of a powerful conference – are three reasons why softball has gone relatively mainstream in recent years.

Which makes it so frustrating when the NCAA continues to nickel and dime the sport.

“That will always be the case for this sport, no matter what,” Candrea said.

The local sports outrage of the moment is Arizona being sent to Louisville for a four-team regional. Nobody would appreciate having postseason home games more than Arizona fans.

The Wildcats have led the nation in attendance nine of the past 16 seasons. The school averaged a school-record average of 2,458 fans this year.

But the NCAA has 64 spots to fill in the softball postseason, including automatic qualifying spots to smaller Eastern conferences, whose teams have as much shot of winning the World Series as Harvard does the BCS football championship.

The NCAA is a slave to geography in arranging the regional sites, preferring to send one Western team east, rather than send three Eastern teams west. Save a few bucks on air fare.

Softball deserves better.

“From a coaching standpoint . . . I don’t worry about it,” Candrea said. “I just worry about getting the team prepared and going wherever you’re going. Like I tell the kids, at least you’re playing.”

Football and basketball have to pay the freight for everything else, but you would think there would be some loose change in the NCAA’s couch cushions from its TV megadeals.

The NCAA is in the midst of an 11-year, $6 billion deal with CBS to televise the men’s basketball tournament. The NCAA and ESPN reached an agreement in the fall on a four-year, $500 million deal for the rights to televise four of the five BCS bowl games, including the title game.

But, apparently, it is too much to ask for the NCAA to send Cal State Fullerton and San Diego State a little farther to Tucson rather than have them play in a regional at Arizona State.

The Sun Devils are seeded one spot below ninth-seeded Arizona and finished 3 1/2 games behind the Wildcats in the Pac-10 standings.

But ASU, not Arizona, gets the home regional because of geography.

Nickels and dimes.

Candrea shrugs.

“I’m too old to fight the battle anyway,” he said.

Someone asked me the other day about my favorite memories across two decades or so of being a sports reporter/columnist in Tucson. My answer was that there were too many to mention, but that, without question, I would rather cover softball than anything else.

Part of that is because the sport is charmingly small. You rarely find oversize egos. You find athletes appreciative of their opportunities.

There are chances to tell untold stories. But the sport isn’t as small as the NCAA makes it out to be this time of year.

It’s a shame there is no college softball at Hillenbrand Stadium this weekend.

Anthony Gimino’s e-mail: agimino@tucsoncitizen.com

Candrea

———

RADIO, ONLINE COVERAGE

UA’s games in the Louisville Regional won’t be on TV, but will be on 1290 AM. Go to www.tucsoncitizen.com/ua_softball for updates.

Friday – Game 1: ARIZONA (41-14) vs. Tennessee-Martin (38-22), 1 p.m. Game 2: Louisville (47-9) vs. Purdue (29-18), 3 p.m.

Saturday – Game 3: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 7 a.m. Game 4: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 9 a.m. Game 5: Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 winner, noon

Sunday – Game 6: Game 3 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 11 a.m. Game 7: Repeat, if needed, 1 p.m.

Gimino: Ronstadt tunes part of softball team tradition

Anthony Gimino — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:01:26 +0000

This year’s team came in with low expectations but is drawing record crowds

Arizona pitcher Sarah Akamine in action during the game against Stanford.

The only thing missing from Arizona home softball games has been Linda Ronstadt herself.

Does she even know? Quick. Someone call her agent since she’s in town for the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.

From the very first game at the on-campus Hillenbrand Stadium, dating to Feb. 13, 1993, the same Ronstadt song has blared over the loudspeakers every time the Wildcats take the field for the first inning.

“I love it,” said senior Sam Banister. “You feel home. That’s how you feel. It’s like, ‘Here I am, I’m home.’ ”

Home. There has been no place like it for Arizona, which has led the nation in attendance in eight of the past 15 years and is on pace to shatter its season record as it heads into this weekend’s final regular-season homestand.

Winning is Arizona’s biggest tradition – we’ll get into all the numbers in a bit – but another tradition is that catchy Ronstadt song.

It’s not your typical ballpark fare, for sure, but her “Palomita de Ojos Negros” from her 1990 release “Mas Canciones” has become as much Arizona softball as the colors cardinal and navy. Shoot, I’m whistling the darn tune as I write this, and I can’t possibly be alone among the Hillenbrand regulars who will, apropos of nothing, start humming the song six months after the season ends.

“I would feel a little nervous if I didn’t hear it,” said Arizona’s notoriously superstitious coach Mike Candrea. “It has become an element of our tradition.”

Totally by accident, of course.

UA sports information director Tom Duddleston is of a certain age to have heard Ronstadt sing with the Stone Poneys on Tucson’s Sixth Street in the late 1960s. He was a fan. He had a copy of “Mas Canciones.” On cassette. For whatever reason, he played it as Hillenbrand Stadium opened.

“We said, ‘That sounded pretty good. Let’s play it again,’ ” Duddleston said.

And so they did.

Another track from the same album, “La Mariquita,” plays during the middle of the first inning. “You hear the other team saying, ‘Oh, what is this music?’ ” Banister said. “And, we’re like, ‘You know what, you have no idea we’re about to come over here and beat you guys up.’ ”

There has been a lot of that over the past 16 seasons.

Arizona is 491-40 at Hillenbrand, including an NCAA-record 70-game winning streak early this decade.

Arizona is 181-25 in Pac-10 games at Hillenbrand.

Arizona is 51-5 in NCAA tournament games at Hillenbrand.

This season has been more of the same, with a 22-1 record at home.

The strange thing is, this season began with the lowest UA expectations of any season since Hillenbrand opened. Arizona doesn’t have its usual ace pitcher but is countering with the best offense in the country.

The Wildcats have slugged 105 home runs, 21 shy of the NCAA record set by UA’s 2001 team.

Seventh-ranked Arizona is 36-9 overall and leads the Pac-10 with an 8-2 mark.

“I think people just didn’t expect us to be good, and they’re kind of coming out here to watch a miracle, almost,” Banister said. “Not in our eyes, but in their eyes. We expected this.”

Arizona is averaging 2,426 fans per game, significantly better than the school record of 1,877, set last season when the team had popular pitcher Taryne Mowatt.

Capacity is 2,956, and there are no immediate plans for expansion – although Candrea, only half-jokingly, said if he had to do build it all over again, he would have put a bathroom in the dugout.

“I think we have developed a good fan base, and they like the game, they like the kids. And they like winning,” Candrea said, trying to explain the spike in attendance this season.

“I think a lot of it, too, is the growth of softball. We see more and more kids here than we used to. I think the growth of softball in the city of Tucson and all over has definitely helped create more fan base.”

Sunday will bring one more tradition to Hillenbrand. Senior Day festivities will be held after the game, and UA officials tend to make it an emotional, downright sappy, tear-inducing affair. Banister, an infielder/outfielder, is one of six seniors, including third baseman Jenae Leles and first baseman Laine Roth. Walk-ons Jill Malina, Jen Martinez and Mandy Monge also will be honored.

“OK, this is the thing,” said Banister, preparing herself for some Sunday waterworks.

“Normally, I wear, you know, a good amount of makeup because I try to protect my face and I want to look pretty for the games. But I don’t think I will be able to wear that much makeup because if I was a mess the last three years, I don’t even want to know what I’m going to be like that day.”

Banister adds that she doesn’t really expect it to be Arizona’s final home game of the season. A Pac-10 title would nearly assure postseason home games at Hillenbrand.

Which, of course, is another fine tradition.

Can Linda make those?

Anthony Gimino’s e-mail: agimino@tucsoncitizen.com

———

SENIOR WEEKEND

The UA softball team holds its final regular-season homestand this weekend at Hillenbrand Stadium, where the Wildcats are averaging a school record 2,426 fans this year:

Friday: UCLA at UA, 7 p.m.

Saturday: Washington at UA, 7 p.m.

Sunday: Washington at UA, noon

———

PAC-10 STANDINGS

Pac-10 Overall

ARIZONA 8-2 36-9

Washington 7-4 34-7

UCLA 7-4 32-8

Arizona State 6-4 36-9

Stanford 7-5 37-6

California 5-7 29-15

Oregon State 3-9 22-22

Oregon 2-10 13-26

Gimino: UA’s Candrea back, eager and in charge

Anthony Gimino — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:01:35 +0000

Wildcats softball coach hasn’t changed goals

Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea (seated) conducts infield drills during the team's first practice of the year on Monday at Hillenbrand Stadium.

First season, first practice, 23 years ago. Mike Candrea, the rookie coach at a so-so Arizona softball program, had a succinct message to his team.

“I want to win a national championship,” he told his players, “and we’re going to do it with or without you.”

For those unwilling to put in the work to try to make that happen, Candrea had another message.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” he said.

Assistant coach Larry Ray was there.

“I kind of looked at him and thought, ‘Are you for real?’ ” Ray said. “But then it was, ‘All right, let’s do it.’ ”

Eight national championships and all these years later, Candrea, having risen to the world’s foremost softball coach, hasn’t much changed the message on the first day of practice, although his methods have become a bit more sophisticated.

“He told us that he wants us to be in the last game of the college season,” sophomore outfielder Brittany Lastrapes said Monday before the team’s first practice.

With Candrea in charge, that’s often the case. Twelve of Candrea’s past 16 teams have played in the season’s final game.

So, yeah, welcome back, Mike.

Candrea missed last season, as he did in 2004, while coaching the U.S. Olympic team. The Wildcats, led by Ray as the interim head coach, advanced to the World Series. They were ousted in two games, unable to recapture the magic that led to national titles in 2006 and 2007.

Candrea returns to a team that lacks experienced pitching, but has a dangerous and powerful lineup.

“Amazing,” senior first baseman Laine Roth said of having Candrea back.

“He will just talk to you, and you feel pumped up to do amazing at everything.”

Candrea can talk. And talk. One player estimated Candrea’s speech at the first team meeting of the spring Monday morning went on for 45 minutes.

It was then when he introduced a technique he last tried with the 2004 Olympic team.

This hard-hitting Arizona lineup might end up being Sultanas of swat, but the team first will be Sultanas of SWOT.

Candrea put his team through a session of SWOT analysis, a tool often used in business, to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

SWOT.

He separated the players into four groups, and the staff into another, to gather diverse opinions of where the team thought it was at.

“This is kind of the beginning of me trying to get them to start understanding all the little things that it takes for this team to be successful,” Candrea said.

“The next step is we will get together and I will put on the board everything we listed. We will go through it and prioritize it and really give them a snapshot of where they’re at right now, and what can get in our way.

“I think that’s the big thing for me – them understanding the little things that can get in your way of having a great season. . . . This is a an exercise that gets people to talk.”

If Candrea, 53, has said it once, he has said it a million times. It’s all about the process. Nobody is better at relentlessly working the process than Candrea.

He delivered a PowerPoint presentation this weekend at a clinic in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on practice preparation. He lives for that. He has the Wildcats’ next six weeks meticulously planned.

He expects tough times after the season starts at the Kajikawa Classic in Tempe on Feb. 6. In fact, he welcomes them. They, too, are part of the process.

“Conflict is good. Conflict is healthy,” Candrea said. “But you have to understand how to handle the conflict. That is what you have to teach these kids.”

Candrea went on to say he feels rested and eager to begin his 22nd season.

In other words, he wants to win another national championship – the same as it ever was.

The process began Monday.

Arizona coach Mike Candrea talks to the media before the softball team's first practice on Monday at Hillenbrand Stadium.

Arizona softball practice

Arizona Softball practice

Arizona Softball gears up for the 2009 season with its first official practice, Monday, Jan. 12, 2009, at Hillenbrand Stadium.

With Mike Candrea back as head coach, the team’s hopes are high for a winning season.

Producer: Renee Bracamonte

Slide 1 of 22.
Arizona head coach Mike Candrea (right) takes a seat in the dugout before his softball team's first practice Jan. 12.
Source: Renee Bracamonte/Tucson Citizen

———

UA’S PROJECTED STARTERS

C – Stacie Chambers, Jr./Lini Koria, Fr.

1B – Laine Roth, Sr./Sam Banister, Sr.

2B – Victoria Kemp, So./Kristen Arriola, Fr.

3B – Janae Leles, Sr.

SS – K’Lee Arredondo, Jr.

LF – Brittany Lastrapes, So.

CF – Lindsey Schutzler, So.

RF – Karissa Buchanan, Fr.

DP – Chambers/Koria/Roth/Banister

P – Lindsey Sisk, So./Sarah Akamine, Jr.

SEASON OPENER

Arizona vs. Kansas, 4:30 p.m. Feb. 6 at Kajikawa Classic in Tempe

Gimino: Candrea drops USA job, focuses on UA

Anthony Gimino — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:01:12 +0000

President Bush talks with Andrea Duran and head coach Mike Candrea as he visited the practice of the U.S. women's softball team in Beijing.

Mike Candrea considered leaving his cleats in the third-base coaching box.

Five of his Team USA softball players had done something similar, placing their game shoes at home plate, signifying retirement.

Candrea had been thinking about it for a long time. He didn’t make the symbolic gesture, but he decided: He has coached his last game for USA Softball.

“I think it’s time for someone else to have an opportunity,” Candrea said Monday morning from his office in McKale Center, back on the job as the University of Arizona’s softball coach.

“It’s time to settle down a little bit and have a life, but it’s been great. It’s been a true honor and a blessing, and I enjoyed every moment of it. I don’t regret any of it.”

Speaking of regrets, if that last game – a 3-1 loss to Japan last week in the gold medal game – is going to haunt him, he isn’t showing it.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed, but not disappointed in the preparation or the approach that we took,” Candrea said.

“If you sit around wondering, ‘What if, what if, what if,’ then it kind of hurts you. But I haven’t really got to that point. I felt we did everything we could. We just got beat on the wrong day.”

And that’s that.

Time to take a deep breath and move on.

The past eight years have been a blur for Candrea, who has captained two red-white-and-blue ships, each with championship-or-bust expectations.

Through all that pressure, it would be hard to find someone who has done better on the field.

In the past eight years:

Candrea won three NCAA titles at UA (2001, 2006, 2007), and he guided the United States to an Olympic gold medal in 2004 and the silver this summer. He also won two world championships.

The once-in-a-lifetime experiences have been off the charts.

The international travel. Chatting with the president of the United States at practice. Getting a chance to take a Blackhawk helicopter tour of Mount Rushmore.

The U.S. team visited 40 states during this summer’s pre-Olympic tour.

“You miss being in one place for an extended time, being home just three days a month. That’s a tough life,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to being in Tucson and being home, and slowing down some stuff. Life is so damn short. I sit back and wonder, ‘Where did the last eight years go?’ ”

What’s next? His affiliation with USA Softball isn’t ending completely.

He has a 10-day trip next month to do clinics in London and in Pisa, Italy – European areas where the sport needs to grow to regain favor with the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC will vote next year on whether or not to put softball back on the program for the 2016 Summer Games. Softball is out for 2012.

“I will still be working with USA in some capacity,” Candrea said. “I just don’t know what that will be.”

He can focus almost all his attention on Arizona, although he doesn’t put a timetable on how much longer he wants to coach.

Candrea, who turns 53 on Friday, once said he couldn’t envision coaching past 50.

“I don’t have anything where I say, ‘I need to do this,’ ” Candrea said. “I love my life. And I enjoy what I’m doing right now.

“The good part is that you get to a point in your career when you don’t have to do it. I mean, that’s kind of a nice feeling. On the other hand, there’s still a passion to help young kids, and as long as I can continue to enjoy that, I will keep doing it.”

Candrea says if he stays a long time in college athletics, he would be interested in administration.

Athletic director Mike Candrea? Hmmm . . . other coaches have made that jump.

“I like managing people,” Candrea said.

“I think some new opportunities will arrive, and I will take them as they come,” he added. “Right now, I’m just happy to be in the United States.”

The rest of us are happy he still has his UA cleats.

For more on the interview with Mike Candrea, go to www.tucsoncitizen.com/blog

Gimino: Silver may help U.S. in long run

Anthony Gimino — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:00:12 +0000

UA-linked softball team loses 3-1 in final to Japan

Dejected members of the U.S. softball team wait to congratulate the gold-medal-winning team from Japan.

The perception is that the United States’ Olympic softball team had to lose to win.

Small consolation right now.

Japan pulled off one of the stunners of the Beijing Olympics, beating Team USA 3-1 in the gold medal game early Thursday morning Tucson time while many here were still sleeping.

There will be no gold medals for former Arizona Wildcats Jennie Finch, Lovieanne Jung and Caitlin Lowe.

There will be no gold medal for Salpointe Catholic High School graduate Tairia Flowers.

There won’t be a second Olympic championship for Arizona coach Mike Candrea.

There will just be silver and lots of U.S. tears in the sport’s final appearance in the games for at least eight years. Partly because the Americans had been so dominant – winning all three previous Olympic gold medals – officials voted to drop the sport in 2005.

The Americans outscored opponents 51-1 while winning it all in 2004 in Candrea’s first go-round as Olympics coach. They had outscored opponents 57-2 in this Olympics before running into Japan in the final.

It happens. That’s softball. The margin of error when the best plays the best – and that is clearly what Thursday morning’s game was – is the width of a blade of grass.

The U.S. team had defeated Japan twice before in these Olympics, but needed extra innings to pull out a 4-1 victory a day earlier to start the medal round. Here’s the deal: When Japan’s Yukiko Ueno pitches against the United States, all those U.S. advantages fly away. There is no dominance. It becomes a 50-50 game.

One game. Seven innings. A coin flip.

Ueno has four victories against Team USA in major international events in the past three years. Make that five victories.

She’s such a thorn that after she pitched Japan over the U.S. to win the 2005 World Cup in Oklahoma City, Candrea carried around video of her in his workbag. He would load up his laptop and scout her when he had free time from his UA duties.

She is Team USA’s cooler. The Equalizer.

And on Thursday, she was more than equal.

Japan scored twice off U.S. starting pitcher Cat Osterman, and then Ueno made it hold up. Crystl Bustos – the Albert Pujols of women’s softball – hit a home run in the bottom of the fifth to cut Japan’s lead to 2-1.

But Ueno, who had left the bases loaded in the first inning, did it again the sixth. Japan, with the help of two U.S. errors, pushed the lead to 3-1 in the top of the seventh.

Vicky Galindo led off the bottom of the seventh with a single, but Ueno needed only three pitches to get the next three outs, including a groundout by Lowe to end it all.

Teammates lifted Ueno on their shoulders . . . and that might be the last image we have of softball in the Olympics.

The sport was ousted from the 2012 Games in London, and one of the reasons usually given is that the vote was a backlash from the European-dominated International Olympic Committee against all the success of Team USA.

A ridiculous argument, but if it’s true, then a United States’ loss, sadly, is the best thing that could happen to the sport.

It’s a spot-on fact that some countries, especially those in Europe who don’t have deep roots in the game, can’t compete with the United States or Japan.

Yet.

Those countries just haven’t found their Ueno.

Softball isn’t the most democratic of sports, because one star pitcher can make all the difference.

Since the sport was voted out in 2005, the International Softball Federation has worked diligently to grow the sport, especially in Europe.

Candrea will do his part by giving coaching clinics in Italy and Great Britain next month.

You just hope that the members of the IOC were watching in the past couple of days. The medal round was full of thrilling games, including Japan’s 12-inning win over Australia to get to the gold medal game.

The IOC will vote next October to add two sports for the 2016 Games, which will be held at one of four locations – Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro or Madrid.

Softball is competing with baseball, karate, squash, roller derby, rugby and golf for inclusion in 2016.

Given Thursday’s result, the IOC has one less reason to keep softball off the program.

A U.S. loss just might have been the best way to get a rematch in eight years.

China's Megu Hirose slides safely into home after U.S. catcher Stacey Nuveman can't hold onto ball in the sixth inning of the gold medal softball game.

Japan pitcher Yukiko Ueno reacts after getting out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning against the U.S.

Gimino: Softball omission by IOC dumb

Anthony Gimino — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 07:01:12 +0000

Ignorance led to its ouster from Games

ABOVE: President Bush poses with the USA softball team, including ex-Arizona Wildcats Lovieanne Jung (left), Jennie Finch (top right) and Caitlin Lowe (right). BELOW: USA's Sada Jacobson, after defeating Ukraine's Olga Kharlan during her fencing match Saturday.

It’s enough to make you crazy. It could drive you as batty as a badminton shuttlecock.

Ah, badminton. Now, there’s an Olympic sport.

But not softball.

As we all know by now, softball was voted out of the 2012 Olympic Games, but what’s infuriating is how it happened.

Because it’s one thing to chalk it up to a stupid decision by the International Olympic Committee.

It’s another thing to realize it wasn’t just stupid. It was ignorant.

As a few IOC members described last month on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” they weren’t even sure what softball was when they voted by secret ballot in 2005 to oust softball and baseball from the Olympic program.

“It’s pretty unfortunate that people didn’t do their homework,” said University of Arizona and Team USA softball coach Mike Candrea.

“It’s kind of sad. It’s scary we are in that type of hands.”

The final vote was 52-52 with one abstention. Softball needed a majority to be kept in the Olympics. One vote away.

The problem is Europe. Europe doesn’t get softball. Doesn’t play it much.

The IOC didn’t take the time to know the difference between baseball (which it doesn’t like in the Olympics because of doping scandals and the lack of top players) and softball (which is free of drug scandals and does feature the top players).

Europe dominates membership in the IOC. There are currently 110 members. Three are from the United States but nearly half from Europe.

“It’s an anti-American thing in my eyes,” Candrea said. “Anytime you get on the international level, you’re going to feel some of that.”

It’s perceived as anti-American because the United States won the first three Olympic gold medals in softball, starting in 1996. Candrea’s 2004 team – later dubbed “The Real Dream Team” on a Sports Illustrated cover – outscored opponents 51-1.

That kind of superiority is rare at the top level of international softball. Didn’t matter. The IOC used that as a partial excuse, thumping back at softball by pointing to a supposed lack of competition worldwide.

Here’s an idea: Europe gets to keep team handball – described right there on the official Olympics Web site as a “European-based sport” – and we’ll keep softball. The Asian countries will be happy. Canada and Australia, too.

In the meantime, Europe can learn something about that game.

Candrea will do his part. He has been asked to do coaching clinics next month in London and Italy. He’ll do whatever he has to do to get IOC votes.

“If I’m called upon to fight the battle, I will do that,” he said.

He doesn’t have to worry about that right now. Softball competition starts Monday night Tucson time. Candrea is just focused on winning. Win big or win little. Just win.

And put on a good show.

Baseball and softball are each reapplying for entry into the 2016 Games, when two sports can be added. Five other sports also want in – karate, squash, roller derby, rugby and golf.

Good grief. Golf.

It’s bad enough that tennis is already eating up space on the Olympic program. The Olympics does nothing for tennis, and tennis does nothing for the Olympics.

Same thing would be true with golf. The sport already has four tradition-drenched major events, plus competitions like the Ryder Cup for team play. Olympic golf, like Olympic tennis, would never rise to the top of its sport.

Don’t bother. Please.

Remember, though, that big block of European voters.

“If you’re looking at Europe, they would love to see it,” Candrea said.

The IOC vote comes in October of next year, when the group also will decide the 2016 venue – Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or Madrid, Spain.

At least the IOC hasn’t completely lost its collective mind. It already rejected golf for inclusion for the 2012 Games.

As for softball, the International Softball Federation already has been making global inroads, spreading the word, holding camps and clinics and games in parts of world where softball has yet to put down strong roots.

These Olympics should be a good showcase. The softball venue is sold out. China always has been in medal contention. The eight teams are expected to have more competitive games.

It would be nice if IOC members can catch a game or two.

Do their homework this time.

Gimino: Award is ‘just a dream’ for future Cat

Anthony Gimino — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:02:01 +0000

CDO High School softball pitcher nearly died last summer

Kenzie Fowler with her Gatorade trophy

Kenzie Fowler, sounding like the teenager she is, gushed over having her name on the same trophy as some of sport’s one-name wonders. Kobe. Lebron. Peyton.

“Seeing my name next to them, I just kind of freak out,” she said. “Oh, my gosh.”

If something was worth freaking out over, it was this: Fowler, who recently completed her junior year at Canyon del Oro High School, was presented Wednesday with a trophy as the Gatorade National Softball Player of the Year.

“This is just a dream,” she said after a morning ceremony at the school.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be the national player of the year.”

The trophy, engraved with the winners from 11 other sports – Alex Rodriguez, Emmitt Smith, Lisa Leslie – was not only a recognition of her skill and stats, but her story.

Just think. A year ago this week, her family had only one thought.

“Stay alive. Stay alive,” said her mother, Kelly Fowler.

Starting in February of last year, Kenzie began having difficulty breathing at times. Asthma, perhaps. Nobody could come up with a good cause. Fowler kept pitching, including a nine-inning shutout of Scottsdale Chaparral in the state title game.

What the family found out a day or two later when Kenzie went to the doctor was that she pitched that game with an oxygen level in her blood of only 19 percent.

“They were testing her with a spirometer where you blow into a machine and she couldn’t get above 19,” Kelly said. “They were like, ‘You’re not breathing hard enough.’ She said, ‘That’s all I got.’ ”

It reached life-threatening status when her arm swelled and turned purple during a workout. Three surgeries to remove blood clots followed.

As it turned out, Kenzie’s oxygen level had been declining for months because of thoracic outlet syndrome. The blood in her right arm had become restricted because of the overdevelopment of muscles in her shoulder, and a cervical rib near her collarbone.

Once she was out of danger, doctors told her parents, but not her, there was a chance she might never pitch again. Near the end of a 12-day stay in the hospital, Kelly had a softball talk with Kenzie.

You don’t have to do this, Kelly told her. You don’t have to come back. Kelly warned: If you do this, it’s going be a long road. It’s going to hurt.

Kenzie cried.

Then she said, “I want to. It’s all I have.”

“It’s truly not all she had,” Kelly said Wednesday, her voice catching with emotion. “But at that moment, she wanted it. And it wasn’t just her motivation to come back as a player, but her motivation to come back to live.

“I needed motivation, too, because I didn’t need to sit and be depressed and feel sorry for what could have been.”

What could have been still is.

Fowler tackled her therapy with gusto.

“I’m used to working hard,” said Kenzie, 17. “Once I started physical therapy, I knew I could do this. I was full speed ahead.”

There were setbacks, of course. She would have pain after throwing a little bit. Was it serious? Was that normal? Are you OK?

She threw overhand for the first time on Oct. 9, Kelly remembering the date as she would an anniversary. Kenzie pitched in a game again for the first time in December during a tournament in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The crowd, part of a close-knit softball community, knew the story and gave her a standing ovation.

Her father, Lance, was in attendance. He called home, telling Kelly it “was the most awesome thing.”

Kenzie was back.

Not 100 percent. Not even during CDO’s season. But she was back.

She had a 24-1 record this season, posted a 0.28 ERA and struck out 309 in 148 2/3 innings. She also hit .448 with five home runs. She led CDO to another state 4A-I title.

She expects she might be full strength by this fall.

“I’m not satisfied with myself,” said Fowler, who is committed to play for the University of Arizona. “I’m definitely not 100 percent. I’m just looking forward to working as hard as I can this summer.”

Yeah, but there will also be a lot of fun this summer. She might get to meet some of those one-name wonders next month – or at least rub shoulders with them – at the ESPY awards in Los Angeles.

She and five other winners from their sports are up for top high school female athlete.

A year after nearly dying, her biggest worry this summer might be what to wear on the red carpet and how to get as many friends as possible to L.A. to share in the ESPY experience.

“Yeah,” Kelly said, “the fun problems.”

Gatorade National Player of the Year Award

> Kenzie Fowler was selected from 50 state winners, plus the District of Columbia

> Gatorade has been honoring high school softball players since 1997-98 (some sport awards date to 1985-86). Previous softball winners include Amanda Freed, Cat Osterman and ex-UA pitcher Alicia Hollowell.

> RISE Magazine administers the awards, working with coaches and media to select the state winners.

> Fowler is the only nonsenior among the previous softball winners.

Anthony Gimino’s e-mail: agimino@tucsoncitizen.com

Kenzie Fowler (center, in black shirt) celebrates her award with supporters at Canyon del Oro High School.

———

DID YOU KNOW?

Two Arizona athletes are among Gatorade’s 196 previous national player of the year winners in all sports since 1985. Both are from Canyon del Oro High: Kenzie Fowler (softball) and Bre Ladd (girls volleyball).

Gimino: Luck wasn’t on Wildcats’ side this time

Anthony Gimino — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:01:36 +0000

Sisk

OKLAHOMA CITY – Taryne Mowatt cried at the interview podium, unable to answer a question. The emotion decked Callista Balko as she left the field, misty eyed, as a Wildcat for the final time.

The tears of joy from the past two championship seasons turned into tears of sadness Saturday. The Wildcats didn’t get it done this time at the Women’s College World Series, bowing out meekly in two games.

They entered the Series playing their best ball of the season, but seemed to spend most of both games standing around waiting for a fuel-injecting big break that never came.

Coaches and the team’s seniors had been talking about this team not having the same resolve as last year’s Cats, who captured Tucson’s hearts with thrilling comebacks and their never-give-an-inch toughness.

It was the kind of special UA performance not seen on a field or court or pool or course or track since Lute Olson’s basketball team won it all in 1997.

It just doesn’t happen every year.

“I don’t see any other team doing what we did last year – maybe in 10 years, 15 years from now,” Mowatt, a senior pitcher, said after Alabama eliminated the Wildcats 5-1 on Saturday.

“You have to have some luck in this game. It’s talent, skill and luck. Luck was not on our side this week.”

In 2007, second baseman Chelsie Mesa made an over-the-shoulder catch with the bases loaded in Game 2 of the championship series against Tennessee.

If the ball is hit a foot farther, the Vols almost certainly go on to win, sweeping the Wildcats. There would have been no national title, no Mowatt Miracle, no ESPYs.

In 2008, Alabama’s Brittany Rogers bloops a double just over the flailing, desperate, outstretched arms of shortstop K’Lee Arredondo for the go-ahead hit in the sixth inning.

Not much difference in the plays. Big difference in the results.

In 2006, in a Series game against Texas, pinch-runner Kelly Nelson made a mistake on a double steal, breaking from third on pitcher Cat Osterman’s release.

Nelson, who was supposed to run on the catcher’s throw to second, would have been out easily if the catcher had noticed her barreling down the line. It all worked out when Megan Willis threw to second and Nelson beat the throw back home.

In 2008, Jill Malina makes a mistake on a double steal, hesitating on her break from third base and getting caught too far off the bag. She was an easy out.

Same strategy. Two mistakes. Different results.

Stuff happens.

For a couple of years, every coin-flip play came up in UA’s favor. Not so this season.

“Part of this is luck, and part of it is being in the right position at the right time,” said Balko, a senior catcher.

“At this level, at this tournament, mistakes win games. Half the games are won on errors or a blooper. It’s just freak things that happen. And that’s how you win.”

Funny game, this softball. The thinnest of margins and huge dollops of random chance.

Makes you appreciate the winning – the high level of excellence that Arizona softball has achieved for about two decades – all the more.

UA, over the years, did manage to take some chance out of the equation simply by being significantly better than most of the field. That was the case through most of the middle 1990s.

It’s not that way anymore. With more parity, the more those random factors come into play. Arizona can’t be expected to simply show up, throw a few shutouts, steal a few bases, hit some home runs and reach the final.

It has to have a little luck. It has to show a lot of heart.

Interim coach Larry Ray, at one low point of the regular season, used a Rocky analogy to motivate the team. He recalled how the movie boxer, after he had won the title, stopped working, stopped preparing as hard.

It was unrealistic to expect the back-to-back champion Cats to do what they had done in 2007. Turns out, it was hard for them to recapture the fighting spirit, too.

“Sometimes, that’s a product of winning all the time,” Ray said. “Sometimes, maybe, you take it for granted.”

Next year’s team, stung by the Series’ setback, shouldn’t have that problem. Balko, before she left ASA Hall of Fame Stadium, talked to the team about the importance of leaving a legacy. Like the 2007 team did.

“This feeling will make them appreciate it that much more when they do win it,” Balko said.

“In order to appreciate it, you kind of do have to lose. It might be a good thing for next year. Make them fight a little harder about it.”

Akamine

———

WCWS Championship Series
Game 1: Arizona State vs. Texas A&M, 5 p.m. Monday. TV: ESPN2

———

BY THE NUMBERS

1: Victory, in 11 attempts, by Alabama over Arizona. The Crimson Tide won 5-1 Saturday to eliminate the Wildcats from the Women’s College World Series.

15: Number of times UA third baseman Jenae Leles was hit by a pitch this season.

19: Losses for Arizona, the most since the 1989 team went 48-19.

21: Consecutive years in which either Arizona or UCLA had been in the final of the College World Series.

Gimino: Gritty Cat draws from quadriplegic dad

Anthony Gimino — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:00:48 +0000

Callista Balko

UA catcher, about her father, Scott, who is quadriplegic" width="432" height="640" />

'He motivates me in a way that no one else can.'

Callista Balko

UA catcher, about her father, Scott, who is quadriplegic

OKLAHOMA CITY – He hasn’t played catch with her, showed her how to swing a bat, trained with her in the early morning.

Scott Balko couldn’t do those things.

He did what he could with Callista, the youngest of his five children.

Spent time with her. Supported her. Inspired her with famous quotations. She always seemed to like that.

“He’s actually the reason I’ve gotten this far,” said Callista Balko, a senior catcher for the Arizona softball team.

Scott has gone far this season, too, traveling to his first Women’s College World Series, not a routine trip for a quadriplegic.

“I begged that he could come,” said Callista, a Canyon del Oro High graduate. “He motivates me in a way that no one else can. I’m really completely relieved he was able to come in my senior year.”

Callista has been an indomitable force as a four-year starting catcher for the Wildcats. She caught every pitch in the 2006 and 2007 seasons. She nearly did the same this season.

She chuckles, knowing it sounds a bit ridiculous to complain about feeling “old” when she’s 22.

But anybody who has put on a catcher’s so-called tools of ignorance that many times does begin to feel the cumulative aches and pains while gaining a working knowledge of anti-inflammatory medication and growing prideful of bruises and dislocated fingers.

“I’m a bit slower,” she said, “but I’ve still got it in me.”

And when she begins to feel that she doesn’t have anything left, she thinks of dad.

“He’s not able to physically help me, but mentally he has been there for me better than any other father could,” Callista said.

“His inability to help me physically has pushed me further. Every time I’m running or I start complaining about my body, I just start thinking about my dad and how he would give anything to be in the situation that I’m in.”

Scott, 51, was in the Navy more than 30 years ago, returning from sea for five days off. He and some buddies went camping in Sequoia National Park in California.

“I was just shy of 21. We were young and dumb, and we were hiking and I got too close to some wet rocks on a waterfall and went off the edge,” he said.

“About halfway down, I was thinking I was going to mess my legs up. When I woke up, I found out that I had flipped and hit my neck and had a spinal cord injury. That was Oct. 17, 1976. Sunday. At 3:30 p.m.”

The things he said he is most proud of about Callista – “her tenacity, her doggedness, how she fights and battles no matter what” – are the things she admires about her father. Funny how that works out.

“A father and daughter, at least in good relationships, is a special bond,” Scott said.

“We related well. We grew very close. I wasn’t able to work outside the house, so we got to spend more time at home. In spite of my disability, I wouldn’t trade that time for anything.

“It’s a blessing. Something positive can come from anything.”

Callista has always been a thinker – another trait picked up from dad? – which has been her blessing and her curse as a softball player. It’s a great trait for a catcher who has to analyze the permutations and possibilities of every play, not so great as a hitter who needs to have a clear mind.

“I’m just so hard on myself,” said Balko, who is hitting .261 with 15 home runs, tied for second on the team. “I put a lot of pressure on myself and expect a lot out of myself, and that just makes it that much worse.”

Which is a good time to talk to dad.

“He’s kind of a quiet man, and he’s not someone who has pushed me,” Callista said. “But he knows I am my own worst enemy and he knows exactly how to be there for me.”

Now, he’s here at the World Series. He called getting in and out of an airplane seat a “royal hassle,” but otherwise said he has no complaints.

“This is a blast,” Scott said.

For Callista, too. For the first time at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium, she can look into the stands and see her father there in his wheelchair.

“It’s a real good feeling,” she said. “It’s a big deal that he’s out here.”

———

SERIES
Saturday’s games
Game 7: Florida (67-4) vs. Virginia Tech (49-18), 9 a.m.

Game 8: Alabama (56-7) vs. Arizona (41-18), 11 a.m.

Game 9: UCLA (51-8) vs. Game 7 winner, 4 p.m.

Game 10: Louisiana-Lafayette (52-14) vs. Game 8 winner, 6 p.m.

> Complete schedule, 9C

> Ex-MLB player John Kruk happy to be calling series, 2C

> UA needs four wins over two days to get back to the championship series, 4C

Gimino: Cats, Bruins tangle again

Anthony Gimino — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:01:22 +0000

Powerhouses meet yet again on big stage

University of Arizona softball players celebrate after beating UCLA in 2001 to capture the Women's College World Series title.

The Women’s College World Series used to be called the UCLA Invitational.

Then Arizona arrived.

Since 1991, when an overachieving Arizona squad beat the big, bad Bruins in the championship game, it’s been the softball equivalent of Red Sox vs. Yankees, Lakers vs. Celtics, Duke vs. North Carolina. . . . Fans on both sides might even say good vs. evil.

There was a moment during the 1997 Series when UA coach Mike Candrea, after his team survived for an exhausting 14-inning, 2-0 victory over UCLA, sat down for the postgame interview and said:

“Best heavyweight fight I’ve seen since Ali and Frazier.”

That will work, too.

You will hear this week – as you have for several years – about the new parity in college softball, the rise of the SEC and the greater depth of quality teams in the postseason. We don’t come to dispute any of that.

It just makes the knockout job done by UCLA and Arizona, these college softball heavyweights, all the more impressive.

You have to go back, back, back to the 1986 Series – that’s before Arizona ace Taryne Mowatt was born – to find a final that didn’t feature at least one of these teams.

They have met for the championship six times.

“It’s been a joke among the Pac-10 teams when others complained that we didn’t have a (postseason conference) tournament,” said UA interim coach Larry Ray. “We said, ‘Yes, we do. We just host it in Oklahoma City.’ ”

Amid increased competition this decade, UCLA won national titles in 2003 and 2004. Arizona earned rings in 2001, 2006 and 2007.

Strange thing, though. UCLA and Arizona have not met since the 2001 title game – when Lindsey Collins hit a home run and Jennie Finch pitched a four-hitter for a 1-0 victory.

The teams renew postseason acquaintances Thursday in an epic first-round game in Oklahoma City.

“It used to be just these two teams had a legitimate shot at winning,” Ray said. “But all eight teams for the past several years have had a real good opportunity.”

There’s that parity talk again. It definitely wasn’t like that back in 1991.

UCLA had won three consecutive national titles, routinely made mincemeat out of Candrea’s young program and featured Lisa Fernandez, well on her way to becoming the best player in fastpitch history.

Arizona had a speedy team and a transfer pitcher from the University of Texas-Arlington who Candrea has referred to as “recruit zero” – Debby Day.

All good things flowed after her arrival, as she allowed the Wildcats, really for the first time, to battle UCLA straight-up on the field and then for southern California recruits.

“I suppose deep down we had respect for UCLA and an appreciation of their talent,” said Day, who just finished her sixth season as the head coach at Cal-Lutheran.

“But on the surface we had an absolute distaste for them – as they had for us. There was no mistake.”

Arizona and UCLA met in the second round of the 1991 Series. UA freshman Susie Parra and then Day – who had pitched 13 innings in a Series-opening win against Fresno State – shut out the Bruins over nine innings as the Cats won 1-0.

The Bruins battled back to reach the one-game final, but Arizona pounced for a 5-1 victory and its first national title. Day threw a four-hitter, allowing a Fernandez home run in the fourth inning.

“I remember after it happened, (catcher) Jodi (Miller) came out and I said, ‘It’s OK, she can’t come up four more times,’ ” Day said. “It was the absolute game you dream of when you’re a little kid.”

The rivalry was never the same.

The Bruins came back in 1992 to beat Arizona in the final, but Candrea now had his hooks into the nation’s best recruits and was building a dynasty that surpassed UCLA in the 1990s – especially when a scholarship scandal wiped out the Bruins’ 1995 national championship, won over the Wildcats.

“We overachieved and snuck in and won that national championship,” Candrea once told me about that 1991 title. “That kind of woke up the rest of the country because up until then, they didn’t take Arizona real seriously.

“And then pretty soon we started beating up on some people and, next thing you know, we had some real good recruiting classes. UCLA, back then, just kind of sat there, and everyone came to them.

“All of sudden, kids had some different options.”

Those kids, given the new parity and rapid growth of the sport, have maybe four or five times the number of options now.

And yet it almost always comes back to UCLA and Arizona.

Thursday will be just like old times.

Anthony Gimino’s e-mail:

agimino@tucsoncitizen.com

> UA (38-17) vs. UCLA (47-7), 6 p.m.

> Arizona State (58-5) vs. Alabama (53-6), 4 p.m.

> Texas A&M (51-7) vs. Va. Tech (46-16), noon

> Florida (64-2) vs. La.-Lafayette (48-13), 10 a.m.

———

HEAD-TO-HEAD HISTORY

———

Arizona and UCLA have played at the Women’s College World 12 times, including six meetings in the final. The Bruins won the first two games (both when the Series was held in Sunnyvale, Calif.), but the Wildcats have dominated since then.

Not counting the 1995 game, which was wiped off the books because of NCAA violations, the Wildcats have won the past six postseason meetings and eight of the past nine. The teams, which are near regulars at the Series, oddly have played only once since 1997:

2001: Arizona 1, UCLA 0 (title game)

1997: Arizona 2, UCLA 0 (14 innings); Arizona 10, UCLA 2 (title game, five innings)

1996: Arizona 4, UCLA 0

1995: UCLA 4, Arizona 2 (title game)*

1994: Arizona 5, UCLA 2

1993: Arizona 1, UCLA 0 (title game)

1992: UCLA 1, Arizona 0 (title game)

1991: Arizona 1, UCLA 0; Arizona 5, UCLA 1 (title game)

1989: UCLA 3, Arizona 0

1988: UCLA 5, Arizona 0

*Title vacated because of NCAA violations