BCS formula upset on final weekend
Football is
bowled over
The college football Bowl Championship Series (BCS) could have been neatly packaged if either Kansas State or UCLA — but not both — had won last Saturday. That winner would play unbeaten and No. 1 Tennessee for a unanimously acclaimed NCAA championship in the Fiesta Bowl.
Instead, No. 2 Kansas State lost a 36-33 thriller in two overtimes to Texas A & M, and No. 3 UCLA lost an equally phenomenal game, 49-45 to Miami, throwing the bowl games into chaos, and exposing the BCS for having a needless middle initial.
Voters should treat the full season increasingly in perspective as the season progresses, when calculating recent results, but recent results always take precedent. Florida State and Ohio State, both idle, vaulted past both Kansas State and UCLA to No. 2 and No. 3 behind unbeaten Tennessee, bumping Kansas State to No. 4 and UCLA to No 6. Why? Because voters demoted K-State and UCLA for the immediacy of their losses. Tennessee was lucky, staying unbeaten at No. 1 only by scoring the last two touchdowns Saturday to beat No. 25 Mississippi State 24-14.
Florida State, Ohio State, Kansas State and UCLA all have lost just once. Kansas State lost to No. 8 and very potent Texas A & M. UCLA lost another thriller, 49-45 to steadily improving No. 24 Miami. Florida State was idle, and its loss was long enough ago that voters may have forgotten that it came at the hands of unranked North Carolina State. Ohio State, also idle, lost previously to unranked Michigan State.
If we wait a few weeks — until around the first of the year — and reviewed the season, we might say that the best of all those once-beaten teams is Kansas State, simply because its loss was to the highest-ranked opponent. UCLA might rank next, followed by Florida State or Ohio State, about dead-even.
The actual bowl scene shows Tennessee-Florida State in the Fiesta, UCLA-Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, Ohio State-Texas A & M in the Sugar Bowl; and twice-beaten Florida vs. thrice-beaten Syracuse in the Orange Bowl. And Kansas State? K-State gets relegated to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio against Purdue. Purdue!
Wouldn’t it be great to see Tennessee-Kansas State in the Fiesta for the title? How about Florida State-Texas A & M in a killer Orange Bowl? A UCLA-Ohio State shootout would make a great Sugar Bowl, while Arizona could play Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.
Denfeld rises as surprise challenger
Erik Modeen and the Denfeld hockey team are a perfect match.
Modeen is not Denfeld’s top player, in fact he was a part-time hoping hoping to get more ice time going into the week. And Denfeld is not the best hockey team in the Up North region, in fact, if the Hunters believed in themselves at the start of the season, they were the only believers.
Last Tuesday, Modeen scored two goals and assisted on another as the Hunters thrashed International Falls 5-1 at the DECC. That left the Hunters 3-1-1 as the surprise team in the Up North region, going into Thursday’s game against Superior, and what has surprisingly turned into a major showdown Monday night against Greenway of Coleraine at the DECC.
As for surprises, even the Hunters were surprised when a reporter asked to talk to Erik Modeen after the game.
Modeen, a lanky forward, is only a sophomore, and he has been back and forth between the varsity and junior varsity. In high school, a player can play four periods, maximum, in a day, so he would play three periods on JV and one on varsity, or maybe two periods each.
But last Tuesday, senior first-line defenseman John Rodberg had a conflict for a Solid Gold singing group engagement, and when coach Dean Herold excused him from the game, he had to do some juggling.
“I moved Jayme Utt back from center to defense, and moved Erik up to varsity for the full game, and he got two big goals,” said Herold, who was an assistant last year and took over when Dan Stauber moved from Denfeld’s head coaching job to become an assistant at Wisconsin-Superior.
International Falls, hurting with some key players injured, had battled the surprising Hunters 0-0 through the first period. At 1:31 of the second period, Rashaad Allison shot from the point and Modeen deflected the shot up and in to break the scoreless tie. Thirty-one seconds later, Jayme Utt, normally a center who had been shifted to defense for the game, fired another point shot, and again Modeen tipped it in for a 2-0 lead.
“On the first one, I saw the puck go out to the ‘D’ so I went in front and tipped it up off the blade on my backhand,” said Modeen. “The second one, it went out to the ‘D’ and I went in front and got it with my forehand.”
If it sounds as though they were just another couple of routine goals for Modeen, they were the first and second of his high school career. “But I scored 40-some goals last year for the Denfeld Bantams,” he said.
Those goals ignited the Denfeld offense. Jim Durfee, a junior who played on Modeen’s line, scored before the period ended for a 3-0 lead, and Derric Berger played Modeen’s rebound into a wraparound goal when it was 3-1 in the third period.
Adjacent to their dressing room at the DECC, the Hunters coaches have a Budgeteer News clipping, with a familiar by-line, prominently displayed on the middle of the bulletin board. It was the preseason story, ticking off how many area teams were looking ahead to strong seasons. There is no mention of Denfeld in the story, and, frankly, an assortment of other coaches and observers had specifically said Denfeld wouldn’t be among the better teams.
“I admit, I’ve used that as incentive,” said coach Herold, smiling.
Anything to help, coach.
“There’s no question, nobody gave us much respect at the start,” Herold added. “Our success is because of the kids. They were determined to show what they could do. We’re playing with a lot of confidence right now, so my job has gone from convincing them that they could be better than people expected, to making sure they realize that we can’t be cocky.”
Part of the coaching staff’s effort has been to balance their lines and stick with stressing that balance.
“I don’t know who are top scorer is,” said Herold. “We’ve played our top nine forwards regularly, and we use a lot of JV players to make up a fourth line. Jayme Utt (2 goals-8 assists–10 points) is probably our top scorer overall, and I moved him back to defense for the Falls game.”
Aaron Haupert and Jeremy Carter both have 3-4–7, and Scott Spehar 4-2–6 as the top goal-scorer. But spreading out the offense has made the three top lines all capable of challenging foes.
It didn’t help when Jim Rodberg, a sophomore defenseman who has a promising amount of potential and the younger brother of the musical senior John Rodberg, suffered a broken wrist in the season-opening 6-1 loss to Cloquet. Even then, it was only 1-0 after one period, and a still-competitive 3-0 after two periods.
The Hunters had a wild, 6-6 tie against Marshall, another Up North team looking up after a few bleak years. Otherwise, victories over Duluth Central, Virginia and International Falls have given the Hunters their confidence, particularly the Central game, when Denfeld bounced back from the Cloquet loss for a stunning 9-2 victory.
Modeen, whose personal success has paralleled the team’s surge to Up North prominence, observed the team’s determination before he had a chance to lend a hand — or at least a stick blade — to the cause.
“Our captain kept telling us in practice that nobody thought we’d be any good,” said Modeen. “Everybody else thought we wouldn’t do anything; everybody else but us.”
Herold, meanwhile, knows there is a long season to go and there might be some rocky times. One of them could be Monday, when Greenway brings in a team that currently ranks No. 2 in the Up North region and No. 5 statewide in combined ratings.
“We’ve shown what we can do already,” Herold said. “But if we don’t all work hard, we won’t win. On the other hand, if we work, we can run with anyone.”
Grand Prix road-race set at Indy in 2000
[Gilbert Up North Viewpoint…12-18-98.]
Indy Grand Prix
brings excitement,
thrills, hypocrisy
There is no bigger news in motorsports than the announcement that the Formula 1 Grand Prix will be coming back to the United States in the year 2000, which will make it the first time since 1991 that there has been a United States Grand Prix. It has been incomprehensible that right during the era when auto racing skyrocketed to major league status on all different fronts, there was no U.S. Grand Prix.
There is no questions that Formula 1 racing is the absolute elite level of motorsports. Incredibly expensive cars, with incredibly well-paid drivers, competing for incredibly large crowds, who pay incredibly high ticket prices. They race all over the world, and don’t have the provincial nature of sports we in the U.S. think are so worldly. Baseball, football and basketball are positively local to the U.S., by comparison.
The most remarkable thing about the return of the U.S. Grand Prix is that it will run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The 2.5-mile oval will be revised, with an infield road course cutting to the inside off the north end of the main straightaway, where it will zig and zag until it rejoins the oval on the back straightaway, which will allow the cars to then run clockwise — backwards — through Turn 2, the south chute, Turn 1, and back up the main straightaway, before veering off onto the infield portion. The full distance will, reportedly, be 2.3 miles.
Motorsports fans, and even casual sports fans, should be impressed with Tony George and the Indy folks for putting this all together for the summer after next. The Formula 1 circus will come to the States and bring all the exotic cars with their mre-exotic engines to Indy, along with all the top drivers, such as Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Jacques Villeneuve, Alex Zanardi…Wait a minute! Alex Zanardi? Yes, that’s right. Our man Zanardi, who dominated CART Champ Car racing for three years, is going to Formula 1 next season, where he’ll get a full season under his belt before getting his first opportunity to race at Indy.
Zanardi didn’t get to race at Indy yet, because of the war between CART and the Indy Racing League. The IRL, you’ll recall, was a rebellious splinter operation formed by Tony George, three full seasons ago.
Tony George has often said and reiterated that the reason for the IRL is because of middle-America values that want the Indianapolis 500 to be given back to American race drivers, in less-expensive American cars, with less-expensive American engines, who like to race on simple American-based oval tracks, instead of road-racing. Those snooty foreign drivers with their foreign names and foreign cars can take their money and go elsewhere to road-race.
The suspicion, of course, was that Tony George thought that CART’s powerful influence in all its venues was somehow cutting into the Indy 500’s supreme command of U.S. racing, and he wanted to regain control.
For three years, the IRL has languished as clearly a minor-league version of CART’s highly sophisticated racing. The IRL cars, it turned out, were built by foreign companies who do it better, but that was overlooked. The IRL has the Indy 500, however, which, while elevating the IRL to some degree of credibility, has served more to diminish the Indy 500 to a point where it is now secondary to the NASCAR Brickyard 400.
Cynics, as well as those among us who are somewhat impartial and extremely dismayed about the CART-IRL hassle, had to chuckle at the irony when Kenny Brack won the IRL series championship this past season. Kenny Brack, who drives for A.J. Foyt — good-ol’ Super Tex – is from Sweden! One of them ‘durn furriners,’ and a road-racer to boot!
Meanwhile, while the IRL struggles to find some name drivers, the hottest new star of the IRL, Tony Stewart, is leaving the IRL to go stock car racing. And the best-known veteran IRL name, Arie Luyendyk, recently announced he is retiring from the IRL except to race at the Indy 500 next season.
So now that he has banished CART for having too many foreign road-racers, and cars that are too costly, he is bringing in a Formula 1 race, which has all foreign drivers, all of them road-racers, all driving foreign-built racers, all powered by exotic, foreign-built engines, and all at a degree of costliness far beyond CART. And he’s even building a road-course, just for them.
So celebrate the fact that there will be a U.S. Grand Prix again, and that it will be on an intriguing new road-course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But excuse us if we pause in our celebration of Tony George’s wonderfulness to also point out his blatant hypocrisy.
Still, maybe there’s hope. As soon as Tony George also invites CART to show up and run a race on that road course, all will be forgiven.
Hawks fly high in ratings
Just as the season’s first cold snap envelopes the Up North region, four of the state’s hottest high school hockey teams are sailing into their Christmas break. One of them, Hermantown, might feel as though its wish-list was answered early.
The Hawks, who suffered their only setback of the season against Eveleth-Gilbert two weeks ago, seem to have discovered that the loss was just what they needed to raise their game to a higher level.
Playing without star J.R. Bradley, who is out with mono, the Hawks played well enough in sweeping past Chisago Lakes, Two Harbors, Mesabi East and Chisholm-Cook. Then came the jolt of the 4-2 loss to Eveleth-Gilbert, the region’s No. 1 ranked team.
“Since then, we’ve played our best of the season,” said coach Bruce Plante. “We beat Virginia 6-1, then beat Cloquet 6-2. Against Cloquet, we were ahead 3-0, then it was 3-2, but nobody panicked.
“We needed to get more scoring than just our first line, and we got three goals each from our first and second lines against Cloquet. I’m really happy with the way we’re playing. We lost 13 guys from last year, and I didn’t really know what we’d be like this season. As it turns out, I think our better players are better than our best players were last year.”
The Hawks sail into a Wednesday date against International Falls with a 6-1 record, jumping into the Up North Network’s state top 10 at No. 8, and rising to No. 4 in the regional top 10.
The three teams ahead of Hermantown are the other three red-hot clubs, although they couldn’t all stay that way until Christmas.
Eveleth-Gilbert and Hibbing open the week ranked 1-2 in the region, and 3-4 statewide. All Eveleth-Gilbert wanted for Christmas might have been to stay undefeated until Christmas; all Hibbing could hope for was to ride the momentum of a solid victory over archrival Greenway of Coleraine last Saturday into the unofficial season midpoint of Christmas.
Problem was, Eveleth-Gilbert had to play at Hibbing, which had lost only to Roseau, on Tuesday night.
Duluth East, which started slowly but has been mobilizing for a second-half rise to prominence, brought a 5-game winning streak into the week, good for a No. 3 regional and No. 6 state rating. But the Greyhounds also had a severe Tuesday test at powerful Edina before they could enjoy Christmas.
The ‘Hounds last week burst Silver Bay’s unbeaten bubble, and were showing their class after a rugged 2-2 start that included losses to Elk River and Hill-Murray — still the state’s No. 1 and 2 teams.
Other semi-hot area teams include Greenway of Coleraine, which was stung 5-2 by Hibbing in Saturday’s IRC showdown, but bounced back Monday night against Denfeld. The Hunters had jumped to an early lead at the DECC, and had a 3-2 edge until the Raiders found the range and piled up the game’s last four goals for a 6-3 victory.
The last four teams in the regional ratings are all at a crossroads. Cloquet, Superior, Denfeld and Marshall all had even-.500 records, but with strong second half potential. Superior’s Spartans suffered from the Wisconsin rules which don’t allow the early-practice time scrimmages Minnesota teams can indulge in, but the Spartans showed their ability by playing East tough and last week whipping Denfeld.
At the top of the state boys ratings, Elk River stayed unbeaten by beating Coon Rapids 5-2, while Hill-Murray emerged from a 2-2 tie to thump White Bear Lake 6-2. Unbeaten Eagan and once-beaten Hastings are other worthy top 10 teams. Roseau and Warroad, leading up to their traditional pair of January meetings, both are once-beaten and deserve their tie for No. 10, which leaves traditional powers Bloomington Jefferson, Edina and once-beaten Anoka are ready to jump in for anyone who slips.
The Duluth Dynamite held its ground in the girls statewide top 10 with an impressive 4-0 victory against Bemidji, which beat Hibbing 3-2 on Friday. One of the highlights of Hibbing’s season was Saturday’s rematch of last spring’s state final against Apple Valley. Both are rebuilding this season, and fittingly they played to a 4-4 tie.
At the top of the girls rating, Roseville’s Curtin sisters continued to score plentifully to keep the Raiders undefeated. Eagan and Park Center foes missed their chance to knock off those two powers when the U.S. National team took Eagan’s Natalie Darwitz and Park Center’s Krissy Wendell for two weeks. Their teams survived without them, and they celebrated their return Saturday, Darwitz with two goals to lead Eagan to a 4-2 victory in a battle of unbeatens with Bloomington Jefferson; Wendell with five goals in a 7-0 Park Center romp over White Bear Lake.
[week 5…]
Up North Hockey Ratings
BOYS/STATE
1. Elk River, 7-0
2. Hill-Murray, 6-0
3. Eveleth-Gilbert, 6-0
4. Hibbing, 6-1
5. Eagan, 7-0
6. Duluth East, 7-2
7. Hastings, 6-1
8. Hermantown, 6-1
9. Greenway of Coleraine, 4-2
10. (tie) Roseau, 5-1
and Warroad, 6-1
BOYS/REGIONAL
1. Eveleth-Gilbert, 6-0
2. Hibbing, 6-1
3. Duluth East, 7-2
4. Hermantown, 6-1
5. Greenway of Coleraine, 4-2
6. Silver Bay, 6-1
7. Cloquet, 3-3
8. Superior, 3-3
9. Duluth Denfeld, 3-3-1
10. Duluth Marshall, 4-4-2
GIRLS/STATE
1. Roseville, 9-0
2. Eagan, 10-1
3. Park Center, 11-0
4. South St. Paul, 10-0
5. Bloomington Jefferson, 9-1
6. Rosemount, 8-2
7. Duluth Dynamite, 7-3
8. Edina, 7-3
9. Burnsville, 7-1-1
10. Anoka, 7-4
BIR future in turmoil
The entire operational staff of Brainerd International Raceway has either been terminated or resigned after an internal explosion with chairman and major shareholder Donald J. Williamson. The effect, coming on Christmas week, throws the future of the Brainerd-area motorsports facility into uncertainty, if not chaos.
The situation arose when Williamson declared void all contracts orchestrated by Dick Roe, whom he disputes was ever the track’s manager. That includes long-standing and extended contracts with the National Hot Rod Association, R.J. Reynolds (Winston) that sponsors the major NHRA event at BIR every August, Coca-Cola, Tires Plus, in a sweeping notification that ranges from major sponsors to the local Brainerd Lion’s Club, which handled on-track camping. Williamson said all such entities can resubmit offers for new contracts to the board of directors.
When Roe questioned the move of terminating those contracts to the board of directors, he said that Dick Schoenfeld, operating as Williamson’s agent, contacted the track and offered Roe the option of resigning or being terminated. Roe said he discussed it with an attorney and chose termination.
“He gave me two options, to resign or be terminated,” said Roe.
Williamson claims he simply suspended Roe until Jan. 18. Roe said that after he had decided on the termination option, Williamson’s order was changed, saying Roe would go 90 days without pay, and a third call notified him that he would be suspended until January.
“Dick Roe was supposed to follow company policy,” said Williamson. “He was never the manager. To my knowledge, Dick Roe was the maintenance manager in charge of keeping the track up and cutting the grass. Dick Roe committed one-million-fifty-thousand in signed contracts he had no authority to sign. So every contract he signed — we don’t care what they were — must submit new contracts if they want to continue working with us.”
The track started as Donnybrooke Speedway in the late 1960s, but it closed for financial reasons in the 1970s. Roe started at BIR as an associate with Jerry Hansen, who took over and reorganized the combined road-course and dragstrip, and turned it into a public entity in 1986. A later group of investors led by drag-racer Gene Snow took command and held it until 1994, when Williamson bought majority interest from Snow for a figure some estimate at about $1 million.
For most of his 25 years at BIR, Roe has negotiated contracts with racing organizations such as the NHRA, always with approval of a board of directors official, most recently BIR president Ron Brown, who no longer operates in that capacity. Under Roe’s operation, the track was used for races or rented to private organizations nearly every weekend from May through September.
The crown jewel has been the annual August NHRA National event, which has grown in stature by the year. This past August the event drew a record 110,000 fans for its four-day run at the track, which is located six miles north of Brainerd. That ranks it fifth among all NHRA National sites.
Williamson, who said he runs 29 companies from his base in Milan, Mich., became chairman and major shareholder of BIR in a 1995 takeover that allowed him to make public some of his other private holdings, insists there is no problem and that the track will be open year-round, “bigger and better than ever.”
If so, it will apparently be with an entirely new staff. Along with Roe, the remainder of the staff — including 10-year business manager Bev Heilicher, 20-year drag racing coordinator Bob Van Houten, Danny Roe, Roe’s son who coordinated events and hospitality functions, Danny Roe, and Heather Johnson, Dick Roe’s daughter, who worked in the office, all were either terminated or resigned in the aftermath. Several other regular part-time employees also have resigned, leaving the track without any functioning people.
Dave Ferroni, who has been track public relations director for 17 years, resigned in October, but he completed one last function by releasing a statement on behalf of the staff upheaval. It says: “Due to operational disagreements with the executive management of BIR, the employees (salaried and contracted) of BIR announced that they have been terminated or resigned.”
The release specifies that personnel no longer associated with BIR includes the track’s concession and events coordinator, security director, and ticketing staff.
“Dave Ferroni never worked for the track,” said Williamson. “I personally told him in August we’d never use him again. He wouldn’t follow instructions, and he wouldn’t follow company policy. To my knowledge, he never worked for the race track, he worked for an ad agency. I never heard of the guy; he was not an employee. I fired him. We got another ad company.”
Asked what ad company the track would now work with, Williamson snapped: “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
Williamson said he foresees no problems, even if the entire staff quit. He said the track will reopen, year-round, on Jan. 18, and phones will be answered six days a week. He said he would have a new manager in place by then. If Roe was suspended until Jan. 18, and returned, Williamson said that wouldn’t be a problem, because Roe wasn’t the manager. He became increasingly hostile as the telephone interview continued, until he hung up on his inquisitor.
“Dick Roe was not a star employee,” Williamson said. “If he wants to follow company policy, he’s got a job; if he don’t, his ass is gone. A lot of people don’t understand English. We don’t fire nobody, but we do try to make bad employees into good ones. What do you think we’re running here, a ma and pop shoe shine operation?”
Williamson was hesitant to concede that he first ordered Roe to choose between being terminated or resigning. “I’m not aware he accepted a termination. Why would I suspend him if I was aware he’d done something else? That’d be a little foolish, wouldn’t it? I don’t know if you’re a goddam moron or not, follow me?”
When asked again, specifically, if there was a point at which he offered Roe the choice of being terminated or resigning, Williamson said: “Probably was. What’s the difference?
“If the whole staff left, it’s not a problem to me. I don’t have no major disagreements with nobody. If they all resign, who cares?
“Whatever Dick Roe does will not affect Brainerd one way or the other. What makes you think the track was run pretty well? When we bought the track, it was in a shambles. I mean, deplorable. We’ll have a new manager in place Jan. 18, and we’ll be open bigger and better than ever.”