Six Degrees Of Separation

The Spring 2009 edition of NCAA Champion magazine takes an in-depth look into trips of the NCAA Division I basketball championships committee to potential sites for upcoming men's and women's Final Fours.

While the women's committee was making their bid trip to Nashville last October, the group was entertained by up-and-coming country star Crystal Shawanda. Boxer fans might recognize that name. Shawanda was the headlining musical artist at the second annual Pacific Legends Golf Classic, Hosted By Tommy Thayer. Shawanda was one of three country entertainers that helped to woo the committee. The others: Vince Gill & Amy Grant.

It is cool to know that Shawanda, who helped last year to raise over $150,000 for the Pacific athletics program, is considered high profile enough to help attract a major athletic event to Nashville, Incidentally, Nashville was awarded the 2014 Women's Final Four.

The third edition of the Pacific Legends Golf Classic is scheduled for Sun., Aug. 2 and Mon., Aug. 3, at The Reserve Vineyards & Golf Club in Aloha. Entry and celebrity information will be upcoming later this spring. For more details, please visit pacificlegendsgolf.com.

Oregonian Ponders Future Of Pacific Football, Wrestling

These days you have to have a one-legged softball player or a headless basketball player for your small college to be covered in The Oregonian, Portland’s daily newspaper. But over the last week, The O has featured Pacific on its page twice to address a potential future sport and the health of another.

Monday’s issue (Jan. 26) addressed Pacific’s plans to bring back football after a 17-year absence. Pacific’s plans have picked up considerable more press after Division II Western Washington announced plans to eliminate their football 98 years. WWU officials cited budgetary concerns in the program’s demise.

Pacific Director of Athletics Ken Schumann, however, told The O’s Ken Goe that returning football to Forest Grove would help the University’s bottom line, noting the value of bringing 60-80 new student-athletes into a tuition-driven institution. He also cited the fact that since 2000, 47 non-Division I schools have reinstated or started new football programs.
“(Other programs) are using football to grow their enrollment,” Schumann said. “Division II is different than Division I, because we’re non-scholarship, and the athletes tend to be real student-athletes, fully integrated into the fabric on institution.”

Pacific is in the process of raising $1.5 million to find the start-up costs of the program. Schumann said that a decision on the program will be made “in the next several months to a year.”

Meanwhile, The O’s Jeff Smith took up the issue of dwindling collegiate opportunities for wrestlers in Oregon who wish to continue to the collegiate level. In their Jan. 22 Prep Thursday feature, Smith talked with high school coaches and athletes who are frustrated with the continual number of schools dropping wrestling programs in the state.

With the elimination of the Division I program at Oregon last spring, only six colleges in Oregon, offer wrestling. Pacific is one of four four-years in the whole Northwest to offer it, joining Oregon State, Portland State and Southern Oregon.

The article quoted a couple of former Pacific wrestlers who are among a vast network of Boxer alums coaching high school programs across Oregon. Trent Kroll wrestled for Pacific from 1988 to 1992 and coaches the team at Hood River Valley High School. He sees the demise of the sport collegiately as a warning for the health of the sport at the high school level.

”I think that if we don’t have college wrestling, we are going to see a decline in the next 20 years in the high school level because we won’t have enough qualified educators. It’s kind of scary right now.”

Former Pacific All-American Rick Herrin (1981-83), who coaches the program at Salem’s McKay High School, believes it is important for supporters of the sport to continue grassroots efforts into keeping kids involved in wrestling.

I think that the people that are in wrestling now are going to be seen as pioneers that are taking it to a better place. We’re going to win out in the end. It’s like being behind in a match and coming back and winning.”

One can hope that Kroll, Herrin and other Pacific alums will do their part to try and help keep Pacific’s program vibrant, sending their best and brightest to continue a tradition of excellence that they have helped build over the last 55 years.

Five Games In Nine Days...And Some Tired Legs

The Northwest Conference basketball is indeed a marathon. Teams play 16 games over a span of seven weeks, two games per week, with trips that send teams to three different regions of two states.

The season is a rigorous test. Now, thanks to the flooding in the Northwest earlier this month, Pacific will play over a quarter of their conference schedule in a span of nine days.

The Boxers played in Tacoma, Wash., on Friday, and then bussed home to take on Linfield on Saturday. The flooding forced the postponement of games against Pacific Lutheran, originally scheduled on Jan. 9, to Tuesday night. That’s wedged right between last week’s action and this weekend’s tough home series against Whitman and Whitworth.

Five games in nine days. Combine that with practices and you have to think that the Boxers may not be able to climb out of bed on Sunday.

Pacific’s head hoops coaches are taking everything in stride. Men’s coach Jason Lowery sees it as a challenge that he expects the Boxers to rise to. "If this was November I'd be concerned,” Lowery said, “but it's the end of January and we've been going at it for over three months. We're in shape and prepared. If we're not ready to go now then it's not going to happen. It's time for us to go out and perform."

Sharon Rissmiller, head women’s coach, expressed some concern when the Jan. 9 games were cancelled, but is looking at the positives of the situation. "I knew when we had to reschedule the PLU game that this was going to be a tough stretch,” she said. “On the positive side to having five games in nine games is that besides our five-hour bus ride to Tacoma last Friday, the rest of the games are at home. We are taking it one game at a time."

Another positive is where the string of games fall in terms of the academic calendar. Pacific’s Winter III term, a three-week cram term where students take one three-credit class over the course of 23 days, ended on Monday. There will be plenty of time for the Boxers to rest up. It could very well be a week where Lowery’s and Rissmiller’s charges do nothing but eat, sleep and breathe basketball.