• Baseball
• Preview
• Sports Notebook
• Athletics

BASEBALL

For the Seniors, Four Straight Trips to the Series

STANFORD'S SIX SENIORS wanted one more trip to Omaha. Three years in a row, they’d made the end-of-season trek to Rosenblatt Stadium, where billboards assure fans and players alike that the College World Series is “Where Dreams Come True.”

They got what they wanted. Although the team lost in the College World Series semifinals, 6-5, to eventual champion Texas, Scott Dragicevich, Chris O’Riordan, Dan Rich, Andy Topham, Arik VanZandt and J.D. Willcox became the first group of Stanford players to make it to the series four times in a row. “They were instrumental in us getting to Omaha,” coach Mark Marquess said after the game. “Going to the College World Series for four straight years is quite an accomplishment.”

In the 1999 CWS semifinals, the then-freshmen lost to Florida State in 13 nail-biting innings. They reached the finals the next two years, losing by one ninth-inning run to Louisiana State in 2000 and crumbling against an experienced squad from Miami last year. This year, Stanford fielded a formidable defense, posting a 3.21 team postseason ERA and a .973 fielding percentage. In its first game in Omaha on June 15, the Cardinal beat Notre Dame, 4-3, with Jeremy Guthrie pitching a complete game and his teammates playing error-free behind him. But two days later, Texas held off a late Stanford rally to win, 8-7. The rematch results were much the same: in the elimination round on June 18, Rich pitched three scoreless innings to pick up his fourth postseason save and defeat Notre Dame, 5-3; two days later, Guthrie, ’04, suffered only his second loss of the season when Texas’s Dustin Majewski hit one over the wall in the seventh to break a 5-5 tie.

Throughout the final game, individual players were still setting records for the Cardinal (47-18, 16-8 Pac-10). Slammin’ Sammy Fuld set a new school single-season hit record when he tripled against the Longhorns for his 109th hit of the year, earning a .375 season batting average and a lifetime mark of .367. Carlos Quentin tied a school record in the seventh inning when he was hit by a pitch for the 19th time this season. In late June, Fuld and Quentin, both ’04, were named to the USA National Team for the second consecutive summer. A month later, catcher Ryan Garko, ’03, joined them as they traveled to the Netherlands and Italy. And Guthrie, the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year, was a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, given to the nation’s best amateur player.

Over the summer, six players signed professional baseball contracts: O’Riordan (Texas Rangers), Topham (Houston Astros), Dragicevich (Toronto Blue Jays), Rich (Cleveland Indians), Jason Cooper, ’03 (Indians), and Darin Naatjes, ’03 (Philadelphia Phillies). Two others, Guthrie (Indians) and Tim Cunningham, ’03 (Atlanta Braves), were drafted but remained unsigned at press time, leaving open the possibility that they will return to Stanford.

The 5-foot-9, 180-pound O’Riordan, a walk-on who played in only two games as a freshman, finished his collegiate career as one of the top hitters in school history. He ranks seventh in batting average (.352), ninth in doubles (49) and 10th in hits (262). “For a guy my size, they are going to look twice at you, but what’s really going to help me is that I’ve blossomed as a hitter at Stanford,” O’Riordan told an online audience in the spring. “I’m going to have to hit to play professional baseball, and that’s what I like doing the most, so I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Marquess, ’69, who played four seasons of minor-league ball with the Chicago White Sox organization and who coached his 1,600th game at Stanford this season, described the six graduating seniors as “a special group” at a press conference in Omaha. “The thing that can identify this year’s team is consistency,” he added. “We never got off on a big run, we never got to a point where we got really hot or cold, we were just consistent week-in and week-out.”

And year-in and year-out.

PREVIEW

The Playmakers

WHAT'S COMING UP for Stanford’s seven fall sports:

Cross Country: Coach Vin Lananna’s squads made strong runs for national titles last season; the men finished second at the NCAAs and the women fifth. A quartet of junior All-Americans—Donald Sage, Grant Robison, Louis Luchini and Ian Dobson—should help the men’s team challenge for the national title. Lauren Fleshman, ’03, third in the country last year, anchors the women’s team.

Field Hockey: Head coach Sheryl Johnson, MA ’81, says “the time has come” for the Cardinal to win its first NCAA championship in field hockey. After finishing 11-8 and second in the NorPac last season, Stanford will rely on three senior co-captains—Amanda Billmyer, Tysie Sawyer and Christina Williams—to make the major plays.

Football: The first really big game of the season is October 5, when Notre Dame—led by former Cardinal head coach Tyrone Willingham—faces Stanford and head coach Buddy Teevens. Teevens may be new to the team, but he’ll have some veteran help. Returning standouts include junior quarterback Chris Lewis, senior running back Kerry Carter and junior wide receiver Luke Powell.

Then there’s that other Big Game. Stanford plays Cal at Berkeley on November 23. The Cardinal will try to extend its streak of consecutive wins against the Bears to nine.

Men’s Soccer: Last season, the third-ranked Cardinal lost to North Carolina in the NCAA semi-finals. This year, says head coach Bret Simon, “our goal is the same as it has always been, and that is to come as close as possible to reaching our full potential as athletes.” A national championship wouldn’t hurt, either. Forward Roger Levesque, a senior who was named last season’s Pac-10 Player of the Year, will help lead the team in that direction.

Women’s Soccer: Senior forward Marcia Wallis, fresh off a key role in the U.S. 21-and-under squad’s Nordic Cup victory in Europe, will lead a Cardinal squad that placed ninth nationally last year. Seven freshmen join the team, among them Jennifer Farenbaugh, a top player out of Southern California who can kick around multiple positions.

Women’s Volleyball: Coming off a national championship, second-year head coach John Dunning will look to two outside hitters to help the team repeat: senior Logan Tom, an All-American who competed in the Sydney Olympics, and sophomore Ogonna Nnamani, who can touch 10 feet, 7 inches in drills.

Men’s Water Polo: Last year, the team took home the NCAA championship, and the Cardinal will aim just as high under new coach John Vargas. Standout seniors include Nick Ellis, Jeff Nesmith and Peter Hudnut. Also back in the pool: sophomore phenom Tony Azevedo.

Make That Eight Sears Cups
Athletics director Ted Leland had better reserve his seat at Gaieties now. After all, he brought home the Division I Waterford Crystal Sears Directors’ Cup this past June for the eighth year in a row, making him an all-but-certain target at this year’s Big Game revue. Stanford captured the Sears Cup, awarded to the nation’s best overall collegiate athletics program, on the strength of four national championships (women’s volleyball, women’s tennis, and men’s and women’s water polo) and 22 top-10 finishes. The Cardinal ended the 2001-02 season with 1,499 points to runner-up Texas’s 1,110.5. Way to play.

Leveling the Field
Speaking of Leland, PhD ’83, the athletics director also has been named co-chair of the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission on Opportunity in Athletics. The 15-member panel, which includes soccer star and Women’s Sports Foundation president Julie Foudy, ’93, will look at ways to strengthen enforcement of Title IX, the 1972 federal antidiscrimination law that seeks to level playing fields for women. The commission also will consider ways to expand opportunities to ensure fairness for all college athletes. Since Leland arrived in 1991, Stanford has won 42 national team championships, including 20 women’s titles, and Sports Illustrated Women has twice named it the top college for women athletes.

Men’s Water Polo Gets Some Exposure
And speaking of Sports Illustrated Women, that magazine had no difficulty picking a men’s team to put at the front of its annual Sexiest Men in Sports swimsuit issue in July/August. Yes, that would be the briefly clad NCAA-championship men’s water polo team, sporting University-issue Speedos. Coach John Vargas told the San Francisco Chronicle that he and other officials on the Farm discussed whether the magazine spotlight would be “tasteful” and concluded it would “bring some exposure” to the team. Indeed.

Unprecedented: Juniors Turn Pro
Would they or wouldn’t they? Questions flew during spring quarter; and in June, junior center Curtis Borchardt and junior swingman Casey Jacobsen told men’s basketball coach Mike Montgomery they would not be returning for their senior seasons. This is the first time Cardinal basketball players who were not academic seniors have entered the NBA draft with collegiate athletic eligibility remaining. Both were selected in the first round: the Orlando Magic took Borchardt with the 18th pick and traded him to the Utah Jazz; the Phoenix Suns chose Jacobsen with the 22nd selection. Jacobsen ended his Stanford career as the school’s third all-time leading scorer; Borchardt averaged 16.9 points per game his junior season.

ATHLETICS

What Do Faculty Have to Do with the NCAA?

THE STORIES ARE familiar by now. High-school jocks driving shiny new SUVs, courtesy of college athletic boosters. Or, as the New York Times recently reported about football players at the University of Tennessee, allegations of “plagiarized term papers and altered grades among athletes.”

“But we’ve never had those issues,” says Jerry Porras, professor emeritus at the Graduate School of Business. “I really buy into the notion Stanford is trying to promote—that we have true student-athletes. We’re sort of arrogant enough to say that’s what we’re shooting for.”

For 13 years it was Porras’s responsibility, as the University’s faculty athletic representative to the NCAA and the Pac-10 conference, to ensure that Stanford followed the spirit as well as the letter of regulations regarding student-athletes. He apparently went about his work so efficiently that when his successor was named at a recent Faculty Senate meeting, several members were surprised to hear that such a job existed.

Ramón Saldívar, the English and comparative literature professor who will succeed Porras, had at least heard about the position before he was asked to take it on. As a former member of the faculty compliance committee that advises athletics director Ted Leland, Saldívar says he knew that the job’s primary responsibilities are verifying that all student-athletes are meeting the requirements of their degree programs, and ensuring that “everyone is playing on a level playing field.”

Saldívar, who begins his three-year term in September, has had rosters of student-athletes in his courses. He recently directed the honors thesis of a student on the cross country team and last year served as a reader on a varsity wrestler’s dissertation committee. Then there were all the athletes he got to know during his two years as a resident fellow in Roble.

“I went to the [athletics department] awards banquet last spring and was just amazed at what students there had accomplished,” Saldívar says. “They’re world-class athletes and world-class intellectuals at the same time.” Political science professor Lucius Barker, who served in the position on an interim basis last year, echoes that sentiment: “One of the most enjoyable parts of the position was interviewing and recommending student-athletes for postgraduate NCAA scholarships.”

In essence, the faculty representative fulfills an oversight role, certifying the athletic eligibility of some 800 Stanford players on 34 different varsity teams and poring over incoming reams of petitions, waivers and violations from other Pac-10 schools. He talks with new coaches each fall, makes sure they take the required NCAA examination and actually reads the 2-inch-thick book of NCAA rules. And he is designated by the University president to deliberate on Pac-10 conference issues—recently, voting against extending the basketball season with a tournament (a view that did not prevail) and arguing against adding a 12th, nonconference football game (which the Cardinal elects not to play).

Some seasons are busier than others. During the year Barker served as interim rep, for example, former head football coach Tyrone Willingham resigned, and Barker joined the hastily formed committee to recruit a new coach. Porras, a specialist in organizational behavior, put a lot of time into helping Leland, PhD ’83, promote a culture among coaches of “doing things the right way.”

Because there are so many NCAA and Pac-10 regulations, Porras adds, no one person can be expected to be aware of them all—not the athletics director, and not the faculty athletic representative. “So we tried to develop a strong culture in which the staff, the coaches and everyone felt responsible for compliance, a culture that said, ‘We follow the spirit as well as the letter of the law.’”

Saldívar says he’s not aware of any particularly troublesome issues on the horizon, but he knows that many faculty members are concerned about “the cost, in terms of student time,” of a successful athletic program. Then there’s the Cardinal’s top-dog, winner-of-eight-consecutive-Sears-Cups image, just asking to be taken down.

“We stand out,” Barker says. “It’s a good feeling, but there’s also the feeling that people are watching you. You’re on top, but it’s easy to come down. So basically it’s a hell of a responsibility.”