At this point, there is nothing else Alando Tucker can do.
The former University of Wisconsin star has spent June traveling around the country, working out for or interviewing with at least 10 National Basketball Association teams, some of them twice. During one four-day stretch, he went from Philadelphia to Phoenix to New Jersey. This week he was in Charlotte on Monday and in Phoenix on Tuesday.
The next time Tucker visits an NBA city, he will have officially arrived.
THERE WAS a spirited reaction to my column last week on the prospect of bringing varsity men’s baseball back to the University of Wisconsin.
There were notes from former players and fans, with most of them talking about the pain that accompanied the decision to drop the program in 1991 and how great it would be if it was resurrected.
My favorite response, however, was from Wisconsin Public Radio host Larry Meiller, and it had to do with the fact my column was prompted by the recent appearance in the College World Series of the University of Califorina-Irvine Anteaters.
College football coaches like to trumpet the value of their summer camps because it gives them an on-campus forum to evaluate prospects. And frequently these contacts lead to scholarship offers.
That has been the case this week with the University of Wisconsin football program.
At the core of the public spat between the Big Ten Network and the Comcast behemoth was a seemingly innocuous comment — “Indiana basketball fans don’t want to watch Iowa volleyball” — that prompted Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany to get defensive.
In picking a fight with Comcast, the largest cable provider in the country (24 milllion-plus subscribers as of December 2006), Delany may have violated the No. 1 Rule of Confrontation: Don’t pick a fight you can’t win.
The college football season is only two months away, but no deal is in place between Charter Communications and the new Big Ten Network to air some Badger games, and the two sides have begun to dig in their heels over access and cost.
The Big Ten Network, which will launch in August, will air the University of Wisconsin’s non-conference game against The Citadel on Sept. 15 and could carry one or more Wisconsin conference games later in the season.
Two months before the Big Ten Conference is set to launch its 24-hour sports channel, league officials are taking heat over their negotiating tactics.
Last week James E. Delany, the conference’s commissioner, got into a spat with Comcast, the country’s largest cable-television provider, over the fees the Big Ten wants to charge companies to carry the network.
Then on Monday, Rep. John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, which regulates the telecommunications industry, sent a sharply worded letter to Mr. Delany expressing concerns about the public’s access to the channel.
Before leaving town, former University of Wisconsin wide receivers Chris Chambers and Lee Evans were hoping to get an opportunity to visit today with their UW position coach, Henry Mason, who recruited them out of Bedford, Ohio.
Jim Sorgi was lining up a putt on the practice green at University Ridge golf course and the temptation was to shout over his shoulder, “Watch that break, watch that break” in honor of the Peyton Manning television commercial during which his “Cut that meat, cut that meat” tagline for MasterCard has been one of Manning’s most endearing sales pitches in a lengthy string of endorsements and successful marketing ventures.
We live in an age when almost nothing goes unnoticed in the world of sports, the irrelevant as much as the relevant.
If you want to see an unfiltered video of Lakers guard Kobe Bryant ripping his employers, unflattering footage of former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn at his sister’s wedding or highlights of an autistic high school basketball player wowing the world, you can find them with relative ease.
MADISON, Wis. – Services have been scheduled Wednesday for Douglas Beard, a native New Englander who became one of the senior administrators of the University of Wisconsin-Madison athletic department.
Beard, 46, died at his Stoughton home Friday night, according to the death notice from Olson-Holzhuter-Cress Funeral and Cremation Service. No cause was given.
Beard served as senior associate athletic director at UW-Madison, overseeing operations of the university’s 23 sports programs, and had been on the staff since 2001. Before that, he was with the UW-Stout from 1987-89 and UW-Milwaukee from 1989-2001.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin wide receivers coach Henry Mason, 1 of the longest serving assistants on the Badgers staff, is being treated at a Madison hospital.
A release by the University of Wisconsin-Madison athletic communications office says the 50-year-old Mason was hospitalized yesterday and has a history of health issues regarding his back.
Doug Beard, a transplanted New Englander whose career in athletic administration spanned UW-Stout, UW-Milwaukee and most recently the University of Wisconsin, died unexpectedly at his home in the Madison area Friday night.
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Beard, 46, was a senior associate athletic director at Wisconsin, where he had been on staff since 2001. Before going to Madison, Beard was at UWM from 1989-2001 and at UW-Stout from 1987-’89.
They stepped to the stage Friday night in the span of less than three hours and each accepted handshakes from National Hockey League legends.
Who knows if it’ll be what incoming University of Wisconsin freshmen Kyle Turris, Ryan McDonagh and Brendan Smith remember about their experience of being first-round picks in the 2007 NHL entry draft in Columbus, Ohio.
Either way, the parade to the Nationwide Arena stage allowed the trio to form a unique legacy in Badgers lore, before they have even played a game for the team.
Jim Delany is a smart guy. He’s got a law degree and has spent nearly 30 years as a collegiate conference commissioner, the last 18 as the Big Ten’s head honcho. He has presided over a number of advancements in collegiate athletics over that time, from the addition of Penn State to the league in 1991, to the establishment of a conference hoops tournament and the advent of instant replay in football.
But even smart guys can lose their wits from time to time, especially when they get their dander up. Such was the case with Delany on Thursday, when he used a conference call with reporters regarding the fledgling Big Ten Network to take a giant cable outfit to task for perceived slights against the Big Ten.
A meeting this past Friday to look over plans for a proposed on-campus arena for the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team gave Mark Johnson a picture of Doug Beard’s enthusiasm.
“He was in great spirits and excited and really fired up with what was happening with the hockey programs right now,” said Johnson, the Badgers coach.
A week of such positives for the hockey programs ended on a somber note with news of Beard’s death Friday night at age 46.
Former University of Wisconsin athletic director Pat Richter recalled some of the golf conversations that he used to have with Doug Beard and how they often revolved around Beard working as a caddie during his youth in Kennebunkport, Maine. There was even a reference to Beard caddying for former U.S. president George Herbert Walker Bush, whose summer home was in Kennebunkport. In retrospect, Richter agreed, there was no better way to describe Beard’s work ethic and willingness to do the heavy lifting for someone else without expecting credit in return. “He was just the type of guy who would carry a (golf) bag,” Richter said. “He had that kind of mentality — blue collar and very solid and dependable.”
Like so many fellow workers, past or present, within the UW athletic department, Richter was shocked and saddened to learn of Beard’s death Friday. The 46-year-old Beard has been an integral component of the administrative team, dating to 2001 when Richter recruited and hired Beard from UW-Milwaukee.
When Tam Flarup becomes a hall of famer next month, she will do so with a sense of worthiness shared by her one-time roommate.
There was a time in the late 1970s when Flarup was the lone woman in the University of Wisconsin sports information office and Jan Helwig was only female on its athletic training staff. As such, they bunked together in hotels when traveling with the UW women’s basketball team.
MADISON, Wis. — Doug Beard, senior associate athletic director at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the UW athletics administration since 2001, passed away unexpectedly at his home Friday night. He was 46.
“Everyone in our department is shocked and greatly saddened at the news of Doug’s passing,” UW Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez said. “Doug was a quality person and someone we all leaned on. He was dedicated and loyal and a valued member of our staff. We will miss him a great deal. On behalf of our entire department, I want to express our sincere condolences to all of Doug’s family and friends, especially his wife, Pat, and his daughter, Lindsay.”
Mike Wilkinson, the former Badger basketball star now playing professionally in Greece, was back in Madison this week and did something he did all the while he was in school.
Wilkinson got a haircut from Don Fine at the College Barber Shop at the campus end of State Street.
Fine, 77, has been cutting hair in the shop since 1953, and he isn’t stopping anytime soon, but come next month, there will be a difference.
Kyle Turris and Ryan McDonagh will be in the spotlight tonight, and they’ll bring the University of Wisconsin along with them.
In the last few seasons, Minnesota and North Dakota have been the most well-represented college teams in the first round of the NHL entry draft. With UW recruits Turris and McDonagh expected to be first-round selections and Brendan Smith a possibility, the Badgers could be the stars in the background in Columbus, Ohio.
UW coach Mike Eaves knows there’s more than acclaim that comes along with that, however.
University of Wisconsin hockey player Kyle Klubertanz and former hockey player Jeffrey Slinde were each assessed $200 fines (yesterday) for tipping over a cow last August in front of the Kohl Center, home of Badger hockey.
In a little more than two months, the Big Ten Network, a channel devoted to Big Ten sports, will go on the air from a Chicago studio.
How much extra would you be willing to pay each month for the Big Ten Network: $0; $1; $2; $3; or, more?
September Saturdays without Badger football are like the Fourth of July without fireworks.
But just as the NFL Network left many sports fans unsure whether their cable operator carried the network’s slate of games last season, the Big Ten Network is in position to bring about a similar situation for its fans.
Heidi Hinners fired a 3-over par 77 at Maple Bluff Country Club Wednesday to capture her first Madison Women’s Golf Tournament title.
Hinners, a University of Wisconsin golfer and former Middleton athlete, finished with a two-day total of 149 at the 50th annual event, five shots better than runner-up Vickie VandenBrook.
The University of Wisconsin football team will play its first game on the Big Ten Network on Sept. 15 when the Badgers host The Citadel at Camp Randall Stadium at 11 a.m.
The Big Ten Network, which will debut in August, is currently available only in Madison only on some satellite services. Negotiations with Charter Communications, the primary cable provider in the Madison market, are ongoing.
….In 1992, facing budget deficits and gender equity issues, the University of California-Irvine eliminated its baseball program. This was just one year after the University of Wisconsin-Madison, facing budget deficits and gender equity issues, eliminated its baseball program.
Now, Cal-Irvine has not only resurrected its baseball team, but the Anteaters have moved up from Division II to Division I and this year have reached the semifinals of the College World Series.
Question: If Cal-Irvine can do it, why can’t UW-Madison?
When the Most Powerful Man in the World tells you he might stop by for a visit, do you start clearing your calendar or do you write it off as some harmless political flirting?
Members of the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team will likely vote for the latter, but that’s not to say they didn’t appreciate a little sweet talk from President Bush.
The University of Wisconsin’s national championship women’s hockey and men’s indoor track teams will travel to Washington, D.C., and be honored at the White House during a championship reception with President Bush on Monday (6/18).
The two UW squads will be honored in a ceremony with more than 20 national championship teams at the White House NCAA Champions Day.
When Jolene Anderson stepped foot on the University of Wisconsin campus in the fall of 2004, she brought with her a rather impressive high school resume.
….On Friday, Anderson joined an elite contingent of the nation’s best collegiate players when she was named to USA Basketball’s Under-21 World Championship roster.
If you’ve followed University of Wisconsin sports long enough to remember when Camp Randall Stadium had walk-up ticket booths, when Bucky Badger was the center court logo of choice and when six-figure coaching salaries were rare, then you have endured a lot of changes.
Change is inevitable, or so we’re told. Today’s habits, fashions and traditions are next month’s vices, regrets and memories. Most of us are able to keep change in perspective because we don’t think of it in terms of sheer volume.That is, until some jerk like me comes along and hands out a long list of transitions we’ve had to make over the years.
If you’ve followed University of Wisconsin sports long enough to remember when Camp Randall Stadium had walk-up ticket booths, when Bucky Badger was the center court logo of choice and when six-figure coaching salaries were rare, then you have endured a lot of changes.
One barometer for classic sports conflict in the Big Ten is Ohio State and Michigan at the Big House in Ann Arbor. But a percolating fight between the conference and Comcast is evolving into a battle that Keith Jackson, in his rumbling baritone, might call one between two â??big uglies.â?
The two powerhouses are headed for a clash over the newly created Big Ten Network, which the conference vows will satiate its universitiesâ?? fans and alumni as the YES Network has become a TV clubhouse for Yankee fans.
It is, in essence, the Wolverines, the Badgers, the Nittany Lions, the Buckeyes, the Spartans, et al., versus Comcast, which recently won an early court fight against the NFL Network and settled a battle with the MLB Channel, receiving a minority stake in the network partly in exchange for giving millions of its subscribers access to the channel when it starts in 2009.
Nearly $480,000 in bonuses will be paid to University of Wisconsin coaches for achievements in 2006-07.
Defensive end Jamal Cooper and wide receiver Xavier Harris, whose roles on the University of Wisconsin football program were uncertain when spring practice closed April 21, are expected to be with the team in 2007.
Coach Bret Bielema confirmed their status Saturday but said that reserve wide receiver Jarvis Minton would not return for his senior season.
Brian Fleishman, the former women’s tennis head coach at Wake Forest, has been named head women’s tennis coach at the University of Wisconsin.
The enterprising Big Ten Network signals a beginning, and an ending. The network, scheduled to launch this fall, is offering a comprehensive package of televised events and a new funding source for financially strapped athletic departments.
But, locally, it will come at the expense of WHA-TV, which no longer will be allowed to carry tape-delay broadcasts of University of Wisconsin football and men’s basketball games, thereby ending a long sports relationship between public television and Badger fans throughout the state.
When Jerry Kelly isn’t busy trying to win tournaments on the PGA Tour, he may be busy over the next several months raising money for a Nationwide Tour event being touted for Madison.
….It is expected that the new American Family Children’s Hospital at the UW Hospital and Clinics will be the major benefactor of the tournament’s charities.
The University of Wisconsin football team will kick off its Sept. 1 season opener against Washington State at 2:30 p.m. at Camp Randall Stadium, a game that will be televised regionally on ABC.
Marquette University’s Mike Van Sickle and the University of Wisconsin’s Dan Woltman were recently named honorable mention Ping Division I All-Americans by the Golf Coaches Association of America, an extremely rare feat for either cold-weather program.
If University of Wisconsin fullback Chris Pressley thought Michigan had an impenetrable defensive line, maybe akin to the Wall of China, he has since learned that nothing compares to the real thing. And if he thought winning a Big Ten championship was an uphill climb; maybe akin to scaling the Himalayas, he also since learned that nothing compares to the real thing. But if he thought Pasadena was paradise, maybe akin to Shangri-La, he knew all along that nothing compares to real thing — the Rose Bowl — even after seeing Shangri-La in northwest Yunnan province.
To this end, the 20-year-old Pressley has shared his awakening with fellow classmates during an ongoing three-week field trip to China arranged by the UW Business School.
The University of Wisconsin football team is slotted at No. 4 in the Athlon Sports preseason college football rankings, and draws top-10 merit from two other major publications.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The University of Wisconsin men put the wraps on another outstanding track and field season Saturday, but coach Ed Nuttycombe says he’s still waiting at the finish line for sprinter Demi Omole.
Nuttycombe said he plans to meet this week with Omole to discuss a Trackshark.com blog item, credited to Omole, which indicated the standout senior was held out of the NCAA meet due to an unspecified “incident at home.”
A UW news release said Omole was academically ineligible. Nuttycombe declined to go into details about Omole’s academic standing, citing privacy laws.
By PATTY LOEW: Last month when Jay Wilson left WKOW TV Channel 27 after 27 years (how appropriate), Wisconsin sports lost, not only one of its finest sportscasters, but also one of the nicest guys in the business.
In an industry that attracts big egos, I’ll remember Wilson as one of the most genuine and humblest TV personalities I’ve encountered. And witty? I always enjoyed his self-effacing banter and admired his ability to keep sports in perspective. But that’s not the only reason I’ll miss him.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — University of Wisconsin seniors Chris Solinsky and Joe Detmer are talented, personable, charming young men. But don’t let that stop you from hating ’em.
Track and field rivals hate Solinsky and Detmer for beating their brains out.
….Solinsky (5,000 meters) and Detmer (decathlon) made it look ever-so easy with impressive first-day performances that eased the sting of senior sprinter Demi Omole’s stunning absence Wednesday at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Badgers coach Ed Nuttycombe said he was shocked to learn Monday that Omole was academically ineligible for the meet. Omole, the Big Ten Conference Athlete of the Year, was unbeaten in the 100 meters this year.
Demi Omole’s run never got out of the blocks.
The University of Wisconsin senior sprinter was ruled academically ineligible to compete in the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, which began Wednesday at Sacramento State University, putting an unceremonious end to the college career of one of the most successful Badgers track athletes of all-time.
She shootsâ??and scores: Janese Banks.
In recognizing the University of Wisconsin football program’s renewed interest in the Fox Valley, stemming from the verbal commitments of Menasha’s Tyler Westphal and Neenah’s Peter Konz, it was noted that the Badgers have had limited success recruiting this area of the state.
Thirty meters.
That’s how far Demi Omole had to go to maintain his lead and win the 100-meter dash title at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships a year ago. The University of Wisconsin sprinter got out of the blocks fast and accelerated to the head of the pack, but he couldn’t reach that next gear that would have made him a national champion.
Women’s collegiate athletics opportunities grew by almost 26,000 and men’s by about 7,000 at 738 NCAA schools between 1995-96 and 2004-05, according to a report released Tuesday by the Women’s Sports Foundation. The College Sports Council, an advocacy group for men’s sports that released a report in March showing men’s opportunities are declining, alleged the new report artificially inflates men’s numbers.
In an effort to curb drunken fan behavior, the owners of Jordan’s Big Ten Pub must keep 10 off-duty Dane County Sheriff deputies on the premises to monitor its beer garden on UW home football game days this season.
Under a deal approved by the Plan Commission Monday night, the Big Ten Pub agreed to update its conditional use permit for serving alcohol outdoors on football Saturdays. Rules include hiring three more deputies in addition to the current seven, keeping food available in the beer garden and meeting annually with staff to go over safety concerns.
Officials from the PGA Tour will be in Madison next week to look at University Ridge and other area golf courses that potentially could host a Nationwide Tour event here starting in 2008.
“They definitely want to bring the event to Madison,” University Ridge director of golf Mike Urben said.
Urben said the Tour officials plan to visit the Ridge with University of Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez and associate athletic director John Chadima on June 12.
Marquette University’s Wesley Matthews and Jerel McNeal and the University of Wisconsin’s Brian Butch have been selected to compete for roster spots on USA Basketball’s Pan Am Games team next month.
The University of Wisconsin men’s rowing team had a successful day at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships in Pardeeville.
Barry Davis, a U.S. Olympic silver medalist who’s now the head wrestling coach at Wisconsin, was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla., on Saturday.
Pat Richter, who served as President Donna Shalala’s athletic director at the University of Wisconsin where she was chancellor, will lead the search for a new Hurricanes AD.
Richter and Glenn Sugiyama, who work in the sports practice of search firm DHR International, were hired to oversee the search to replace Paul Dee, who plans to retire in June 2008. UM hopes to be presented candidates by next spring.
Peter Konz gave Bret Bielema some news Wednesday morning that caught the University of Wisconsin football coach by surprise.
Konz, a prospect from Neenah who was in town visiting the campus, verbally committed to the Badgers in Bielema’s office, an announcement that even those closest to Konz didn’t know was coming.
Shortly after John Byce, 39, learned that he was being inducted into the Madison Sports Hall of Fame — the 2007 class will be recognized during a June 5 banquet — the former Memorial High School and University of Wisconsin hockey forward got on the phone and shared the good news with his old friend and teammate Rob Andringa, 38. “When he called and told me, I literally had goose bumps,” Andringa related, “because he’s so deserving.”
There’s was something else about the Hall of Fame committee recognizing Byce’s accomplishments as a local high school and college athlete that stood out for Andringa. “He’s truly homegrown,” he said.
One of the names you won’t find on the National Basketball Association’s pre-draft camp lists is University of Wisconsin forward Alando Tucker.
According to his agent, Tucker was invited to the camp but declined to participate. Tucker plans to work out for individual teams in the time set aside for such tryouts before the June 28 draft.
Bo Ryan, men’s basketball coach at the University of Wisconsin, has been named a member of a new NCAA study panel that will develop ways to enhance academic performance and graduation rates in Division I men’s basketball.
The move to 12-game schedules in college football has revived a proposal that would extend player eligibility to five years.
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Badger fans have celebrated success in several campus sports — men’s and women’s hockey championships; men’s basketball in the NCAA tournament; and back-to-back Capital One Bowl wins — but athletes of a more unique sport are taking the national stage this weekend in hopes of bringing another championship back to Madison.
