Let's Hear It For Work Study!

Have you ever seen the cartoon where Bugs Bunny ran around and played every position on the baseball field by himself? That's what I felt like during tonight's women's basketball game against Corban.

In addition to performing my usual in-game duties as public address announcer, I also did the official scorebook and some spotting for Cody Harrod, sports information director at Cascade College, who inputed our computer stats this evening.

Hosting games during Christmas Break and Spring Break are a special challenge for us. Unlike a lot of schools, my entire game day crew consists of Work Study students. That includes everybody from our computer stats people to the scorebook to the scoreboard and clocks. When we have an extended school break, they all go home. Which leaves me scrambling for other sports information directors and others on campus who can help out.

When they are here, though, I don't have a worry in the world about the job getting done. Each one of my workers are first class people and do a very professional job with their duties. They give up the chance to cheer at games to be part of it...and a very important part of it.

Case in point. Of my 12 workers this year, only two worked for me last year, which meant a lot of training in the four days between when school started and our Boxer Kickoff Volleyball Tournament. After the first two matches, I knew that my team would have no problem handling things. They do the job and do it well.

I am thankful to those who have taken time and volunteered their services for the two women's basketball games over the Christmas Break. This includes Bob Larkins & Bobby Larkins (a former work study student of mine), Concordia SID Jason Dormeyer, Cascade SID Cody Harrod, Willamette SID Robert McKinney, Colin Stapp (Pacific director of multimedia & photography) and Lance Kissler (Pacific director of marketing).

But I am even more thankful for my team members who perform a great job day and in and day out. Thank you guys and gals. You make my life easier.

Boxers In California: Part 2

This is the second post from Mallory Goldammer on the Pacific women's basketball trip to Los Angeles, written after their game against Occidental.

We are all excited for our “play day” tomorrow. The plan was to head to Great America Amusement Park, but because of the rain and weather we have decided to head to UCLA and the town around there to hang out. It should be a fun day, hanging out with the team, more bonding time together. Hopefully with all the snow and ice getting home won’t be too much of a problem!

We are ready for the upcoming break, getting time to rest and relax before the plunge into league. Although we are excited for league to get under way we cannot over look our last non-conference game against Corban College. We learned a lot from this trip to LA and will only build as a team from here. We showed both a lot of strengths and weaknesses between the two games played down here but look forward to the strides we are making in becoming a team.

Like said before, we are continually learning about each other on the court and still working towards playing together as a team. We look forward to the strides we are continuing to make and will look forward to the season and finishing up with non-conference season.

Boxers In California

During their trip to Southern California, Pacific women's basketball player Mallory Goldammer will be sending in periodic blog entries. Here is her first entry following Monday's loss to Whittier.

After a long day, the team was disappointed with the turnout of the game versus Whittier but is excited to play again tomorrow. We are always hopeful because we know that each game will only bring us closer to putting the pieces together as a team.

Each day of practice and each game we are growing as a team, continually learning, and getting to know each other more and more. Team trips like this one to L.A will really bring our team closer than we already are. We love hanging out in the hotel rooms, just goofing around and bonding. Most of the time 1 or 2 of the rooms is filled with the entire team laughing and playing games, our favorite being Catchphrase.

We are very excited for the direction in which the team is going and are looking forward to the up and coming season.

Bulking Up The Weight Room

When students return to Pacific in January, they will be able to make use of some terrific new weight equipment in the PAC's weight & fitness center.

A crew from Exercise Equipment Northwest spent the day Friday (Dec. 12) unloading and setting up the first of three shipments of new equipment. Included in the first shipment are two new sets of dumbells, two power racks for power lifting with wood platforms (adorned with the new Pacific Boxer logo), two wood lift platforms for free weight and two multi-function racks, geared for incline and military press exercises.

The new weight equipment will be the most visible benefit from the proceeds of the 2008 Pacific Legends Golf Classic, Hosted by Tommy Thayer. The event raised over $125,000 for the Pacific athletics program, which included a "special appeal" for the weight room that netted over $50,000. In this way, the tournament not only benefits Pacific's over 300 student-athletes, but nearly 4,000 students, faculty and staff.

Future shipments will include additional free weight equipment and weight machines as well as new cardio fitness equipment, replacing the well used equipment currently inhabiting the weight room.

The third Pacific Legends Golf Classic will take place Aug. 2 & 3 at The Reserve Vineyards & Golf Club. Visit pacificlegendsgolf.com for information on last year's tournament and keep watching the site to see how you can become involved in the 2009 event.

More photos of the new weight equipment...

New & Improved Web Site Goodies

If you are reading the Boxer Blog, you may have noticed some subtle changes and new offerings on GoBoxers.com. As part of our mission to bolster our Web presence, we keep adding new ways to keep you better connected to all of the Pacific Athletics action.

Here's snapshot of the new items you see and are coming soon...
BOXER SCOREBOARD: Scores of the most recent game for our in-season teams can now been seen on our new Boxer Scoreboard. Located at the top of each page, you can simply click on the scoreboard to read the game story for that particular event. The Boxer Scoreboard makes it easier to find those most recent scores.

RSS FEED: You can now add the most recent Boxers' headlines to your home page through the use of our Real Simple Subscription (RSS) feed. Click on the link at the bottom of the home page, then copy and paste the code into the code of your Web page or blog. The RSS feed is currently only available for general athletics. In the future, we will add RSS feeds for specific Pacific sports.

BOXER BEAT: The Boxer Beat e-newsletter will bring the latest Pacific athletics headlines to your e-mail in-box once a week! The e-newsletter will be available beginning in January.

A Quiet Weekend In The PAC

This is a weekend I have been looking forward to for a while. For the first time since Labor Day weekend, no Pacific teams will be in competition over the weekend. After the men's wrestling team duels Clackamas CC and Highline CC on Friday, Pacific teams will be completely out of action until Sat., Dec. 13, when the men's wrestling, women's wrestling, men's basketball and women's basketball teams will be back in action.

Don't get me wrong. I love working our home Pacific athletics events and making sure you all have the most current information when they are away, but even the most dedicated employees need a break every once and a while.

Pacific's athletes, however, will not be taking a break. This is finals week, so all of our athletes are studying hard as they finish up their fall semester classes. There are finals on Saturday and continue on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Once finals are over, the teams will be back at it at a feverish rate. The women's basketball team will have the most action with four games over the Christmas Break, including home games against Concordia (Ore.) on Sat., Dec. 13 and Corban on Tue., Dec. 30.

The men's basketball team will play two more non-conference tilts before beginning Northwest Conference play on Jan. 2. They won't be easy as the 4-2 Boxers face a pair of tough Cascade Conference foes in Northwest Christian in Eugene on Dec. 13 and Concordia in Portland on Dec. 16.

The wrestling teams will also be loaded with dual meet competition. Both the men and women will compete next weekend in Canada, engaging Simon Fraser and Douglas in a pair of duals. The men will also take a trip to Las Vegas for the Wartburg Desert Duals on Mon, Dec. 21. The competition will give the Boxers their first taste of NCAA Division III competition this season (tough to come by as the only NCAA III program west of Iowa).

But...until then...I am going to enjoy some well deserved time with my two young daughters, who have been more than understanding about the amount of time daddy spends covering his teams.