Mothers, Daughters & Basketball

There is something special about the bond between and mother and daughter. For the third consecutive year, the Pacific women's basketball program has taken it to a new level: bonding through basketball.

The Boxers hosted nearly 50 mothers and daughters at the Pacific Athletic Center on Dec. 6 for their annual Mother-Daughter Basketball Clinic. The clinic was offered free to girls in first through sixth grades and their mothers.

The clinic allowed mothers and their daughters to spend time together practicing basketball skills, while giving the moms helpful tips on how to help their girls the basics of the game. While focused on hoops, Head Coach Sharon Rissmiller said that she hopes the clinic also promotes and encourages the participants to continue to lead healthy, active lives.

“My hope is that all who attended had fun together, that some new things were learned and that our Pacific women’s basketball team represented the university as positive role models to the younger girls,” Rissmiller said.

Rissmiller and members of the team led daughters and mothers alike through a series of dribbling and shooting drills and other activities designed to teach the basics of the game. The clinic also included a little fun, including competitions where the younger girls raced to put on full-sized Pacific uniforms.

Pacific Athletics In The News

Here is the latest edition of our media links highlighting the world of Pacific Athletics...
FROM MOLOKAI TO FOREST GROVE: The Sept. 11 issue of the Molokai (Hawaii) Disaptch did a feature on homegrown product Kelsy Takashima. The sophomore is having another great year in her second season on the Pacific volleyball team.

PACIFIC INDEX: The Pacific student newspaper covered a number of topics in their Sept. 17 issue. Stories included the quest to find a home field for Pacific football, including negotiations for use of Lincoln Park, a brief fall sports preview and an interview with men's basketball with Ross Bartlett on his decision to return for one more hoops season while starting grad school in Pacific's School of Graduate Psychology.

HISTORIC: The "Water Under The Bridge" column of the Daily Astorian (a this day in history piece) makes reference to a football game between the then Badgers and Oregon Normal School (now Western Oregon) to be played in Astoria in 1934. The two teams played after a high school game between Astoria and Ilwaco (Wash.). "Very few colleges play more spectacular football than Larry Wolfe's Oregon Normal team or Anse Cornell's Pacific University eleven," the article said. The game proved to be a defensive struggle with the Badgers and Wolves playing to a 0-0 tie.

FOOTBALL RAMPS UP: Friday's (Sept. 25) Honolulu Advertiser highlights a trip by Head Football Keith Buckley and Director of Athletics Ken Schumann to Hawaii in efforts to recruit and fundraise for Pacific's new football program. The two have spent the week in the Islands looking to spread the word about the team and attract players for the Fall 2010 start. It's a natural recruiting ground as roughly 25 percent of Pacific's undergraduate student body is from Hawaii. Also note the video clip with Buckley on the right side of the page.

TAKING THE "B.S." OUT OF BCS: Not directly related to Pacific athletics, but a cool story about a Pacific University student who has developed a computer program that, she says, better predicts a Division I-BCS champion than the current Bowl Championship Series computer indices. Maggie Wigness has created a computer algorithm that she says is more accurate at predicting winning football teams than the BCS. Wigness will present her program at this weekend's New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports at Harvard University.

FOND FAREWELLS: As the late Paul Harvey used to say, "This is partly personal." Two close colleagues of mine, Barb Richey and Billy Merck, are leaving Pacific University for the next chapters in their live. Richey, Pacific's associate vice president for marketing & communications, leaves after two years on the job. She spearheaded the process of Pacific's recent branding initative, including the development of the University's new logo. Barb leaves to return to the Spokane, Wash., area, where she lived before coming to Pacific.

Merck departs after a a little over a year as the University's director of media relations. Billy built the foundation for Pacific's media efforts as the first full-time PR person the school has had in almost 10 years. He leaves to teach classes at both Portland Community College and Clark College (Billy holds a Ph.D. in literature). Both have been tremendous supports to me in our mission to further the word about Pacific athletics. I will miss them both dearly. Read more about their departures in this Pacific Index article.

Volleyball Stats: An Early Apology

For those who are following Pacific volleyball as they make their trip to Southern California, I offer a apology in advance. The stats from the four matches will be slow in coming.

This is a part of the the collegiate volleyball world that I do not understand, nor do I neccesarily agree with. At the small college levels (Division II, Division III and NAIA), teams are often left keep their own stats at tournaments. This means two or three reserve players, armed with clipboards, are tracking those all important kills, blocks, sets and errors.

Such will be the case for Pacific as they compete at the Cal-Lu-Fornia Invitational this weekend. With the exception of their match against tournament host Cal Lutheran, team members will have to track their teammate's stats. After each day of action, Head Coach Lena Chan will fax Pacific's stats to me back to the Pacific Sports Information Office in Forest Grove, where I will input those stats into our statistical software.

As far as the other team goes, I will have to wait for our opponents to send their stats to me or to post them to their respective school's site. And I could be waiting a long time. Two of those other three schools that Pacific plays have yet to post any of their stats to their school's web site. One of schools even hosted their own tournament over Labor Day weekend. As another Northwest Conference SID told me, I shouldn't hold my breath when I ask for them either.

Over the past few years, I have taken the opportunity to travel with the volleyball team to their off-site tournaments in order to ensure that complete stats are kept. They have been fun trips that allowed me to get the know the team better and experience other parts of the country, such as Colorado Springs and St. Louis.

This year, however, I couldn't make the trip. There is much going on for me back at home, including a pair of Portland Timbers matches (I am the team's official scorer), a home women's soccer match on Saturday night and the start of rebuilding a fence at home. It's a bummer. I enjoy the chance to get to know the teams and my in-laws live two hours away from the tournament site in Thousand Oaks, Calif. And I am missing out of being able to cheer against the Dodgers with the SID from George Fox, Blair Cash.

So, as I said, accept my early apologies. Know its not my fault. I will be working hard to get them up as soon as I can.

With that said, why hold a tournament and not keep any stats? There are a couple of reasons why this is the status quo.

• The Cal-Lu-Fornia Invitational is a 14-team tournament, with four matches going on during each session. There are not enough sports information directors around that their SID, Scott Chisholm, could draw on to help (and likely without the expectation of payment).

• Not keeping stats is the norm in Division III, not only for tournaments but for regular matches. Except for the Northwest Conference and the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, teams keep their own stats for all regular season matches. The team's SIDs then compile stats after the fact and post to the Web and report to the NCAA.

• I have heard some SIDs from other parts of the country say that keeping in-game stats for volleyball is too hard because you are recording something into the computer for nearly every touch. I don't agree. Yes, it can be hard to grasp at first. But I have managed to train student Work Study employees nearly every year to do it. It can be done.

Stats is one of the selling points that Pacific uses to bring teams out to our annual Boxer Kickoff Volleyball Invitational. We do in-game stats for every match of the tournament, which means that teams can participate purely in playing the game on the court. For the teams that come from east of the Rockies, it is likely the only time this season where they can do that. The Boxer Kickoff is one of the few tournaments in the nation outside of the Division I level to provide stats for all teams.

It's a little thing in the grand scheme of things, but the little things are often the biggest selling points. And as parents and fans of Pacific volleyball, seeing those stats aren't a small thing, are they?

Pacific In The Media: Week 2

Here is this week's list of media mentions for Pacific Athletics...
• The Forest Grove News-Times ran previews for the Pacific men's soccer, women's soccer and volleyball teams in its Sept. 9 issue, which feature previews for all of the area's high schools and, of course, the hometown Boxers.

• In Pacific's second mention in two week in The Oregonian's recently revived Small College Notebook, writer Norm Maves, Jr., makes note of the Pacific volleyball team's quick 4-0 start. The print piece appeared in the Sept. 8 print edition. Editor's Note: Norm, a retired writer who worked for The O for many years, pushed to bring the regular notebook back after a couple years of hibernation. All of us in the small colleges owe Norm a debt of gratitude for his persistence and dedication to the DII, DIII and NAIA schools.

Week 1 News & Notes: SoCal Fires & Media Links

Good evening from the press box high atop PGE Park in Portland. In between home events for the Boxers, I am working at my side job as the official statistician for the Portland Timbers soccer club. The team is having a fabulous season: first place in the USL First Division and hasn't lost a match in league play since their season opener in April.

I am not the only Boxer connection to the team. The Pacific men's soccer coaching staff, Head Coach Jim Brazeau and assistant Jim Rilatt, are both assistant coaches for the Timbers under Gavin Wilkinson. They are both in attendance tonight ahead of the Boxers' trip to Southern California. The team flies out Friday morning.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRES: The men's soccer squad is literally traveling into a firestorm as wildfires continue to devastate lands in northern Los Angeles Basin. According to KNX 1070 Newsradio, the fire complex was at 35 percent containment as of Thursday night. The city of Redlands and the University of Redlands, where the Boxers will play on Saturday, is 10 miles west of the basin's easternmost blaze, the Yuciapa Fire. Smoke and heat index caused the school to cancel a scheduled women's soccer scrimmage, but their weekend athletics events are expected to take place this weekend as scheduled. Click Here For Interactive Google Map Of The Fire Area.

MEDIA LINKS: Some items of interest on Pacific athletics from the press wires this week...
TENNIS COURTS OPEN: The Wednesday edition of the Forest Grove News-Times featured the new Holce Tennis Courts, located on the northeast corner of campus. The facility has been a long time in coming, as head men's tennis coach Brian Jackson describes.

GHOSTS OF FOOTBALL PAST: The Sunday Oregonian ran a feature of prep football coaches who have chosen to stay at the high school ranks rather than make the jump to (or in some cases the jump back) to the college ranks. Among those profiled is Bill Singler, who was Pacific's last football coach in the 1990 and 1991 seasons. After the program was cut at Pacific, Singler went to Rutgers and Stanford, where he coached under the legendary Bill Walsh, before returning to his alma mater, South Medford High School, to build a state power. The page also features a prep preview with another Pacific gridiron product: Marist Head Coach Frank Geske.

FAREWELL RUSS BLUNCK: Tuesday's Oregonian Small College Notebook makes mention of Russ Blunck, former Western Oregon sports information director and football broadcaster, who was recently named associate athletic director at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. Blunck has been at Western Oregon doing double duty as SID and football radio broadcaster since 1997. Russ played football for Pacific in the late 1970s and 1980s and for a time served as a student SID. Best of luck, Russ on your return to San Diego.

BOXER KICKOFF THIS WEEKEND: The only home event for Pacific this weekend is the fifth annual Boxer Kickoff Volleyball Invitational. Action kicks off Friday at 7 p.m., as the host Boxers take on Schreiner University of Texas. Matches take place all day Saturday, culminating with the Boxers facing Central (Iowa), a perennial NCAA playoff contender, at 8:15 p.m. Four matches on Sunday wrap the tourney, highlighted the Boxers against Wartburg at 1:30 p.m. All Pacific matches can be followed online via our Live Stats service. For more information of the tournament and the participating teams, read this week's volleyball notebook.

FOLLOW YOU, FOLLOW ME: Take your chance now to join the legions that are now following Pacific Athletics on Facebook and Twitter. To become a fan of Pacific University Boxers on Facebook, Follow This Link. To follow us on Twitter, Click Here or find us on Twitter at @goboxers.

And So It Begins...

It's not the most exciting way to herald the start of the season, but the 2009 Pacific fall sports seasons have officially commenced with a sit-down meeting.

Trialists for the Boxers' men's soccer, women's soccer and volleyball squads met in the University Center on Thursday afternoon for their official welcome to campus. Players received their Student-Athlete Handbooks, filled out required NCAA eligibility paperwork and filled out biographical forms for the sports information office.

The on-the-field and on-the-court action begins on Friday. Women's soccer players rise early for 8 a.m. practice at Lincoln Park Stadium. Volleyball gets underway at 9 a.m. and men's soccer follows at 10 a.m. All three teams will also participate in a second session in the afternoon, with two-a-day practices running well into next week. The teams will have their first day off a week from day, Aug. 27, when New Student Orientation gets underway.

Cross country does not begin their practices until Aug. 31, the first day of classes for the fall. By then Head Coach Tim Boyce will be back and recovered from his trip to the IAAF Track & Field World Championships (yes, he saw Usain Bolt run both of his astounding world records).

It's hard to believe that the game schedule begins in just 12 days. Join us for the trifecta on Sept. 1 as the women's soccer, men's soccer and volleyball squads all play at home.

Ross Bartlett Returns For One More Year

At the end of the 2008-09 season, Ross Bartlett was unsure whether or not he would return for his final season of eligibility. On track to graduate in May, the psychology grad was unsure of what his future held for him.

The future, it seems, is at Pacific and that is good news for head men's basketball coach Jason Lowery. Bartlett has enrolled in a full load of classes in the University's School of Professional Psychology and will play for the 2009-10 season.

The re-addition of Bartlett, a three-year starter for the Boxers' program, is a great bonus to Lowery and will complement what he feels could be a dynamic lineup. "With four starters back from last year's team, which started off so well before the injuries, and maybe our best recruiting class yet, this could be a fun year."

Bartlett came back last season after missing the 2007-08 season with an ACL tear and provided the Boxers a potent one-two punch with Garold Howe. Bartlett averaged 13.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game in 18 games. He ranked among the Boxers' top shooters, averaging 49.7 percent from the field and 72.5 percent from the free throw line. He sat out seven games in the middle of the year after meniscus surgery.

"Ross played in a lot of pain after he came back after the meniscus surgery," Lowery said. "With a summer and fall of rest and rehab, both knees should be stronger and he should be very effective."

Ross will also get one more chance to play college along side his younger brother, Carson. The two played six games together to begin the 2008-09 season before Carson suffered his own season-ending ACL injury. The two brothers have stayed in Forest Grove over the summer, working together as part of the University's conferences and events student staff.

The 2009-10 season kicks off on Tues., Nov. 17, with a matchup against Portland Bible. The complete schedule will be posted soon on goboxers.com. Lowery has indicated that there will not be any Division I preseason exhibition games this season.