Tennis slips by Tar Heels
(04/13/00 4:00am)
Porter Jones had been there before.
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Porter Jones had been there before.
For one reason or another, the two sports once considered the most exclusive in the United States have recently blossomed into an international array of personalities.
Down a set and knotted at 3-3 in the second yesterday against South Carolina's Juan Gamboa, Marko Cerenko rolled his head back and stared up at the cloudless, bright blue sky, and then he laughed.
We're never going to live this one down. Those eight words seemed to summarize the thoughts of nearly every basketball fan on campus Sunday when Joseph Forte's continued stellar play in the NCAA tournament propelled eighth-seeded North Carolina into its second Final Four in three years. It's an easy position to take. Last year, Ed Cota's prediction that UNC would follow its mediocre season with a Final Four run while No. 1 Duke would find a way to lose in the East Region practically forced everyone in Durham to celebrate Weber State's first round upset of the Tar Heels. Cota's bold statement-which looked ridiculous a year ago-has now, under very similar circumstances, come to reality this year. So what's different? Why not jump on the growing bandwagon of Duke fans committed to seeing anyone but the Tar Heels win this year's national championship? For starters, there's something more important than Duke vs. UNC right now, and it's the fact that the ACC is finally getting some deserved recognition for the first time all year. When UCLA trounced Maryland in the most lopsided post-first round game of the tournament, the conference looked like the league every basketball analyst has said it has become the last two years. Two straight seasons, this sort of thinking among the NCAA selection committee has landed the ACC only three teams in the Big Dance, leaving out at least one qualified squad to ponder why it was left out. Even Duke's run of consecutive years at No. 1 in the final polls hasn't been able to change this perception. When the Blue Devils matched up out of conference with ranked teams this season, the result was the same nearly every time: losses (early in the season to Stanford and Connecticut, and late in the season to St. John's and Florida). By ousting top seed Stanford, the Tar Heels showed that the ACC still can battle with the best of conferences like the Pac 10, which placed four teams into the field of 64 that were all ousted by the Elite Eight. Sure, it's difficult to imagine how a team that was considered on the bubble three weeks ago following its loss to Wake can now be contending for a title. And it will be even tougher to see residents and students of Chapel Hill walking around with new Final Four t-shirts on that have UNC's logo and not Duke's. Just maybe, however, a few people who put together the brackets will remember those shirts next year when they decide whether the ACC deserves more than three teams.
Not too long before ESPN's Gary Miller was chasing down Tommy Amaker to see if he could fit a 15-minute one-on-one for Up Close into his busy schedule, Seton Hall's third-year coach was learning the art of patience.
For the past year, North Carolina has found a way to land 180 degrees away from every expectation anyone has dared to put on air or in print.
WESTWOOD, Calif. - Not even warm California sunshine could change the outcome everyone has grown to expect in men's tennis' cross-coast rivalry.
For the second time in three years, the ACC must say goodbye to a coaching legend.
In tennis, it's the least-gratifying way to win a game or even a set, much less an entire match.
At some point during the last year, Chris Carrawell realized how his career had to end.
With empty seats in the student section for several consecutive home games and Mike Dunleavy either at his home in Portland, Ore., or on the sidelines in a suit, the presence of a sixth man for Duke has been non-existent lately.
For the men's lacrosse team, the season is finally here.
At this weekend's ACC Championships, seven of the teams were jockeying for conference supremacy. The Blue Devils, on the other hand, were just trying to show that they belonged in the same pool as the other seven ACC foes assembled in Chapel Hill.
The moment was almost too perfect.
Three days of success were quickly forgotten in one humiliating hour yesterday.
Chris Carrawell finally has a chance to put his name alongside the likes of Phille Allen, Jack Marin, Steve Vacendak and Brad Daugherty.
It's their house again.
When James Griffin managed to elude Matt Hoover's grasp, Duke's chances at its second victory of the season escaped with him.
This wasn't how it was supposed to end-not in Cameron Indoor Stadium, and certainly not against Maryland.
There's a two-word phrase that every athlete likes to use when things go wrong: double standard. You've heard the sob story before. Athletes claim there's a double standard that holds them more accountable than it does you or me. John Rocker thinks his recent suspension by Major League Baseball is just another example in a long laundry list of victimized athletes. He's wrong. Rocker's punishment was not only deserved, it was a long time coming. Professional sports leagues have allowed athletes to get away with way too much for way too long. The phrase, "I'm not a role model, I just play the game" is both tired and overdone. Someone had to stand up to athletes who think they can say and do whatever they want. Commissioner Bud Selig did it, and his decision was absolutely right. Rocker has since frustrated MLB, the Atlanta Braves organization, his teammates and the fans by appealing the ruling through the players' union. We've all heard why Rocker thinks it's unfair-he says it was all "locker room humor" and he isn't racist; he has hidden behind the First Amendment and he says there is no precedent for the length of his suspension. If you're looking for precedent, there's the story of Al Campanis. In 1987, the Los Angeles Dodgers general manager was fired-not suspended, not fined, but terminated-only days after he told Nightline anchor Ted Koppel that African Americans lacked the intelligence to be coaches or general managers. While Campanis was caught off guard by a surprise question during an interview, Rocker's comments weren't made in passing or by chance. They were part of a premeditated attack on the city of New York that he voiced during a seven-hour session with a reporter. If you believe Rocker isn't racist, go back and read the December issue of Sports Illustrated. It took the Braves reliever one afternoon to insult single mothers, gays, Vietnamese, Koreans and every other minority you can think of. So that was all aimed back at New York Mets fans, right? I guess that's who he was attacking when he said Asians can't drive, or when he hurled a derogatory racial slur at one of his teammates. The fact is athletes aren't like you or me. If we say things like that we only embarrasses ourselves, but when SportsCenter anchors read Rocker's statements while the screen shows the lefty hurling fastballs in a Braves uniform, he humiliates many more than himself. He hurts his team, he hurts everyone associated with the game of baseball, he hurts the city he plays for-and he has to be punished.