Thursday, December 07, 2006

Maybe you've been paying attention, maybe you haven't, but last week I alerted my loyal reader() to an developing situation with the SJSU women's basketball team. Apparently, it's pretty much blowing up. The women's coach was already on leave; the men's coach has taken over control of the program; a men's assistant is running the team; and now there are rape allegations, two lost scholarships, a coach who while recovering from cancer was told to stay away from the team, and an 0-9 record. Very bad times. It's a compelling read, although it's still very unclear what malice actually happened. From the sound of it, a women's player THINKS she was raped by a men's player and some of the women's players THINK their old coach, Janice Richard, has been treated unfairly. Of course, there are multiple sides to both stories.


Almost lost in this mess is that the women's team is losing two scholarships for failing to meet academic requirements. Uh, that's bad. Janice Richard is probably, almost without doubt actually, the greatest coach in the not-so-illustrious history of SJSU women's basketball. On the court, she has been a beacon of light where before there was only a deep, cavernous tomb where coaches took their dying breaths. She has made SJSU a contender and brought us to the brink of the NCAA Tournament. But, if she can't graduate players, maybe SJSU should go in another direction. Hope she gets well, soon, though.


On the football front, one would imagine Stanford won't try to hire Dick Tomey away, ala Terry Shea or Jack Elway. He's got a few things going against him, mainly age. But one could hardly blame him if he accepted the job. I'd question Stanford's intentions, considering the best-case scenario would probably be getting him for four years. But hiring younger coaches hasn't exactly worked out for them recently.


A little more realistic possibility, would be Stanford hiring one of SJSU's stellar assistants. Ken Margerum and Tom Williams are Stanford alums and probably interested, but they're also relatively unproven. Stanford has got to do more than hire some largely unknown assistant from of their lesser rivals.


On a lighter note, the New Mexico Tourism Board recently promoted Sports Illustrated's naming of the New Mexico Bowl as the "32nd most intriguing bowl matchup" ... out of 32 bowls. For the record, I taken upbridge with that. I just looked at the other 31 bowl games and there are at least one or two less interesting than ours.

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