Prior to the MSU volleyball team’s Green & White game Saturday, head coach Chuck Erbe called the inter-squad scrimmage a “coming out party.”Anyone who listened to the radio or was in attendance at Jenison Field House didn’t have much of an argument.
Detroit - Mark Mulder knows strikes. From the mound, the lanky former Spartan and flame-throwing lefty has seen 352 batters return to the pine during his three-year career with Oakland - he also mulled over a school-record 113 in his final season at MSU in 1998. Baseball fans know strikes, too. They’ve seen eight work stoppages since 1972. And as negotiators go into the ninth inning of bargaining before Friday’s deadline, we can all wonder who will strike next? Mulder or the players? “None of us want a strike,” Mulder says with his casual, cool tone as he stretches on the Oakland Athletics’ green-padded bench with his legs up inside the visitor’s dugout before Sunday’s opening pitch at Comerica Park, where the A’s swept the series against the Detroit Tigers under a deep-blue sky with temperatures in the low 80s. The 25-year-old pitching stud feels little heat, though, even as the sun breaks from behind clouds one day after talks between baseball management and players soured. “This is about keeping the game going,” he says.
With two-a-day workouts behind them and the season opener less than a week away, the MSU football team is ready to get on the field against another team. “I’m really excited,” junior wide receiver Ziehl Kavanaght said after a Wednesday scrimmage.
Lansing - The wait is over. With their 11-6 win over Kane County Friday, the Lugnuts (34-30 second half, 71-62 overall) snapped a seven-game slide and officially clinched a berth in the 2002 playoffs.
Now that hockey head coach Rick Comley has moved from Marquette to East Lansing, he’s looking at ways to loosen up the rickety offense that plagued the Spartans’ 2-0 loss to Colorado College in the first round of last year’s NCAA Tournament.
In 2001, the men’s soccer team earned its first NCAA Tournament berth since 1969, and this year’s team looks just as promising. With the addition of four new recruits and return of its top four scorers, the Spartan kickers look to improve last season’s 13-6-1 record, the best numbers the men have collected since the 1986 season when the squad went 13-7-1. Greg and Steve Doster of New Lenox, Ill., are members of the Chicago Magic Soccer Club and head coach Joe Baum says both are able to play multiple positions - Greg Doster plays in the backfield and his brother Steve plays in the midfield and on defense. “Greg is a very athletic, hard-nosed defender,” Baum said in a statement.
Another season is upon us, and that means it’s time for another season of pigskin prognosticators.
As another baseball season winds down, the Lansing Lugnuts find themselves toward the top of their division, hoping to snag one of two coveted second-half playoff spots. Lansing has qualified for the playoffs in four of the past six seasons, including 1996 - the Lugnuts’ inaugural season - and 1997, the year Lansing claimed its first league championship. The 1998 ’Nuts squad missed the playoffs by half a game, but rebounded in 1999, capturing the division title in what has been the most-successful season yet, where Lansing advanced to the league semifinals before getting eliminated by the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.
The MSU fight song will undoubtedly be heard a few thousand times this fall when Spartan sports teams start their seasons. But the fight song could be in even greater use by November. The football, field hockey, volleyball and men’s soccer teams are looking to improve on strong finishes last year and live up to lofty expectations this year. If those teams live up to the hype, it could create a buzz similar to March Madness, just four months earlier. The postseasons for field hockey, volleyball and men’s soccer begin in November and Spartan fanatics could be going wild.
If you’re one of the google of students who plan to be in a confined space with many sweaty, loud students - pay attention.
Aaron Scheidies has a severe vision-impairment, but he can do a lot of things that people with perfect eyesight can do - and maybe a little more.
Sean McCarvel watched curiously as a tractor pulling two trailers loaded with grass modules growled by in early June.Onlookers had to gaze through the dark, long and narrow tunnel at the field entrance of Spartan Stadium in hope of catching a small glimpse of the new grass installation, which created MSU’s first grass football field since 1968.Tractors dropped off their loads every 10 minutes and got back on the road just as another rig pulled in.“I think it’s great - great for the players and great for the university,” 1993 graduate McCarvel said.
Every gameday for the last several years, MSU field hockey head coach Michele Madison feared for her athletes becoming victims of the cold, friction-filled ground of Spartan Stadium.But because of the installation of a new irrigated field that the team will play on this upcoming season, that fear is slowly running by Madison and her team.
Afraid the athletic skills you used to dominate the court in high school aren’t enough to take you to the next level?
The 23-year professional relationship between former athletics director Clarence Underwood and MSU officially ended June 30 as his contract expired.Unlike his predecessors, Underwood, 68, left the department quietly - the same manner in which he achieved success.
You’re far away from home, you know no one and you have to walk everywhere. You’ve traded in the convenience of your car for your two feet - ah yes, it’s here, your first week of college. Instead of sitting in the dorm room and playing video games, you could get out and meet some people and get some exercise at the same time. Eighty-six percent of students and faculty have used IM services at one time or another during the year, and with its wide-range of activities from swimming classes to wallyball, it’s not hard to see why these buildings are such a popular hang out. “I usually went to (IM-Sports) West to play basketball and work out in the weight room,” said Al Harris, a former MSU student and current hospitality management junior at Morgan State University in Maryland.
Elsie - Doris Hyland only gave birth to two children, but 28 call her mom.Doris, her husband, Jim Hyland, and their dog, Huey, are as much a part of the Lansing Lugnuts as the 26 athletes on the team’s roster.The six-year season-ticket-holders make a 40-mile trip from their home in Elsie each game to provide the Lansing squad with a source of positive influence and an ever-optimistic fan base.The Hylands have assumed the role of surrogate parents to a group of men that are sometimes farther away from home than they’ve ever been.
With the college football season upon us, one thing is certain - it’s never too early to start the Heisman Trophy watch.That simple law of gridiron madness is especially pertinent when your campus has one of the lucky few candidates roaming around.
One of our university’s lesser-known sports teams has become one of its most successful, as MSU won the 2001 Big Ten Championship in field hockey. “It was huge winning the Big Ten,” head coach Michele Madison said.
The waters have calmed, the ship has been righted and now there’s a new captain. MSU athletics director Ron Mason has taken the controls of MSU sports, and said he doesn’t expect a lot of change. Mason officially took over duties of the department July 1, after former athletics director Clarence Underwood ended his 23 years of work with MSU, with more than three years spent at the helm of MSU sports. Despite some tumultuous times, Mason and others credit Underwood with bringing unity and direction to the athletics department. “I’m not coming in here with any grand plan,” Mason said.