I 0taff Picks - all picks made against the spread. SHARAT RAJU 4 JIM ROSE Game (HOME TEAM IN CAPS) ichigan (-15) vs. NORTHWESTERN COLORADO (-5) vs. Texas Tech :LORIDA (-20) vs. Auburn 'TLORIDA STATE (-28) vs. Clemson INDIANA vs. Iowa, no line KANSAS STATE (-21) vs. Oklahoma State LOUISIANA STATE (-10) vs. Kentucky NEBRASKA (-34.5) vs. Kansas OHIO STATE (--37.5) vs. Minnesota PENN STATE (-8.5) vs. Purdue CLA (-10.5) vs. Oregon Wisconsin (-20) vs. ILLINOIS Best Bet Last Week (best bet) Overall (best bet) Northwestern Colorado Auburn Florida State Indiana Kansas State Kentucky Kansas Minnesota Penn State UCLA Wisconsin Wisconsin 8-4 (1-0) 39-33-1 (4-2) Michigan Colorado Florida Clemson Indiana Kansas State Louisiana State Nebraska Minnesota Purdue Oregon Wisconsin Wisconsin 7-5 (1-0) 33-41-1 (1-5) MARK SNYDER Michigan Colorado Florida Florida State Indiana Oklahoma State Louisiana State Kansas Minnesota Penn State UCLA Illinois UCLA 5-7 (0-1) 30-42-1 (3-3) Guest Selector ESPN's RICH EISEN Northwestern Colorado Florida Florida State Iowa Oklahoma State Kentucky Nebraska Minnesota Penn State UCLA Wisconsin Colorado 8-4 (4-1)* 38-34-1 (2-4)* We will have a guest selector each week for the staff picks. Most times it will be someone famous, but if you think you deserve to pick, e-mail us at dailyfootbalf~umich.edu and tell us why. Friends and family of Daily staffers are not only not excluded, but are welcome to apply. Good luck. The bag comes off! With his first correct 'Best Bet' of the season, Jim Rose threw off the paper bag that hid his face last week, announcing his comeback as "offi- ially underway."*Previous guest selectors have been: Profs. Ralph Williams and Sidney Fine, Former Michigan kicker Remy Hamilton, Radio broadcaster Jim Brandstatter and Michigan Daily columnist James Miller. M G-M&Aeeli Two former Wolverines, Tony McGee and Rod Payne, have teamed up with Michigan alumnus Glen Steele on the Cincinnati Bengals. McGee, who is the Bengals 'start- ing tight end, was coached in Cincinnati by Gary Moeller when Moeller was the team's tight ends coach. Moeller also was the Michigan coach when McGee led the Michigan team, along with Elvis Grbac and Tyrone Wheatle, to a 38-31 Rose Bowl victory in 1993. Payne, the captain in 1996 and a backup center, is enjoying not being the youngest -Miehigan grad on the team, now with rookie Steele on the roster The Daily's Jordan Field recently sat down with McGee and Payne at the Silverdome after Cincinnati's victory over the Detroit Lions to talk about the current Michigan *ason, college memories and favorite campus hangouts. THE MCGEE INTERVIEW DAILY: You guys have got quite a Michigan connec- tion on this team. As a veteran on the Bengals and a foxnjer Wolverine, do you often give advice to rookie Glen Steele or second year man Rod Payne? MCGEE: Oh yeah, I talk to Glen all the time. He's young and real gung-ho. He's going to be a good play- er. I know the coaches really like him a lot and expect things from him to come. Same goes with Rod, we Tak a lot last year and gave him advice. We all play different positions, so a lot of the advice has to do with .,f the-field things, but it's nice to have three guys rooting for the same team each Saturday. D: What are your best memories from your college .experience aside from playing football? M: Everything. I really do miss the whole college environment. You know I felt like I rushed through college to get to the NFL, but once I got here I real- Azed there was no better time in my life than in college. Michigan is a great university that really prepared me h on the football field and off. And most impor- tantly, I had a lot of fun doing it. D: You said the Rose Bowl was your best memory. -How- important is reaching the Rose Bowl each year for the Wolverines? M- Well, you know what, the team is starting down 0=2-right now, but that doesn't really matter. If they -win through the Big Ten then they can still go to the Rose Bowl, and that's the goal each year. I can still see this team coming back and surprising everybody. Lloyd Carr is a great coach, and I think if they can make some adjustments, they can get to the Rose Bowl. I don't know about a national championship, but that's OK, we were all spoiled last year. But either way, the bottom line each year for Michigan teams is to go to Pasadena. THE PAYNE INTERVIEW DAILY: Finding your place on this team, is it easier having two other guys on the team who also played at Michigan? PAYNE: Oh yeah, it's nice. It's good to play with guys like Glen and Tony, because sometimes in the pro business there is a lot of animosity, and to be with guys with the same college background, you know you can trust them. D: Did you have a chance to speak to coach Moeller before the game? P: Yes I did, and it was nice to see him. I talked to him a little bit when I was getting drafted and going through workouts with teams. So I've stayed in con- tact with him between school and playing here. He looks good. He looks trim and real happy to be with the Lions. We talked about my job here with the Bengals and what's been going on in my life since we last spoke. D: Within the Big Ten there are some major rival- ries. From a players perspective, how is the Michigan vs. Michigan State game viewed? P: Well, you know it's big. As a player, I always saw that game as a civil war. It's big time and about as tough as it gets - other than the Ohio State game. D: Do you think you'll have a chance to come up to Ann Arbor sometime this season and catch a game? P: Yeah, I'm going to check to see if my bye week matches up with a home game, and I'll probably come up if it does. Or if I'm inactive one week, maybe I'll jet up for the weekend to see a game. D: What have you found to be the biggest differ- ences on and off the field between college ball and playing in the pros? P: On the field, its so much faster in the pros. Everybody is good and everybody is the man. Off the field, socially, it's just like college. You've got your friends and you hang out, but you've got to be careful because here, if you give a guy a million bucks, there is a lot more trouble and a lot bigger problems that. come up. Plus, here you're playing with guys who are five or 10 years older than you, who you watched play in the NFL when you were in high school. D: If you do make it make to Ann Arbor this fall, besides the game, are there some favorite hangout places that you'll be sure to hit? P: I'll go straight to Pizza Bob's and Mr. Spots. D: For wings and a milkshake? P: You're damn right. - For questions or suggestions about Q&A 's, Jordan Field can be reached via e-mail atjnmfield@umich.edu. October 19, 1998 - SportsMonday - The Michigan Daily - 3B SportsMonday Ctum JIM ROS E Mi rhiknmens soccer will do great thinigs - but when?' is whole Michigan men's soccer deal still bothers me. It always has. It - came to mind again this weekend. I was in Chicago on Friday night, and the traffic was backed up for miles. Lakeshore Drive was swamped. All the expressways were the same way. Bumper to bumper. It seemed a little strange, because it was Friday night, after all, and more than a couple hours had passed since rush hour. Turns out, everyone was going to a soccer game. It was an MLS (the U.S. pro- fessional league) playoff game, semifinals, the whole deal. I have to admit, I was amazed by the interest. Fans were streaming in from all over. Bars had the game on TV And it got me thinking: How in the world can the Michigan men's soccer team not be a varsity team? Believe it or not, there are reasons. Not all of them are good reasons, but there are reasons. The status of men's soccer has been a topic of much discussion and debate in recent years. Last year, in one of his earliest initiatives as Michigan's athletic direc- tor, Tom Goss outlined a plan that purported to raise the men's soccer program to varsity status, and though a definite date was never really specified, many people assumed the change would be in the very near future. The reasons for the team's club status can be traced, in large part, to the now- infamous Title IX, which has shaped the scope of collegiate athletics since it was implemented in 1972. Title IX regulates varsity athletics in many ways, most visi- bly by gender. Reduced to an overly simple equation, the logic went like this: Men's soccer couldn't be elevated to varsity status until a women's club sport was also bumped up to the varsity level. This summer, the rule was modified a bit, making it more difficult for schools in violation of Title IX to add men's programs without also adding women's pro- grams. And in a speech two weeks ago, Goss seemed to suggest that two new women's sports, and not just one, would have to be upped to varsity status before men's soccer could make the jump. With that in consideration, it's anyone's guess as to when all of this will actually happen. But in the meantime, Michigan's men's soccer team has been fantastic. It won a national championship last year. This past weekend, the Wolverines swept games against Indiana State, Purdue and Illinois. The combined score was 12-2. Make no mistake: Michigan soccer would be great. If Debbie Belkin needed just three years to turn the women's program at Michigan into a national competitor, there's no reason to think that someone couldn't eventually do the same with the men. Vhe school sells itself. The sport doesn't need to. It's already hugely popular, and getting more so every day. Southeast Michigan is a hotbed for young soccer talent. This week, 378 teams will compete in the Michigan High School Athletic Association's district tournament. But the University of Michigan doesn't have a varsity team. To go varsity "is the ultimate goal," says junior Will Purdy, one of Michigan's captans. "But we're all just kind of used to (club status). "I'm not shocked. I'm not angry. I'm not surprised." Eventually, it will happen. The popularity of soccer makes the situation more and more absurd every year, and eventually, the breaking point will come. But when? Purdy says he's been expecting it since he enrolled. But the Title IX-induced trend' suggests that the jump might not come as soon as some people would like. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy solution to this one. It isn't really anybody's fault. Title IX, while problematic for some teams, has done wonders for women's sports at the collegiate level. I do think, however, that it's a shame that women's water polo and women's lacrosse will have to reach varsity status in order for men's soccer to do the same. I have nothing against those sports, nor the women who put in countless hours prac- ticing and playing them. But if nothing else, the worldwide popularity of soccer should place it on different plane. Does it seem silly to anyone else that women's crew is a varsity sport - while men's soccer is not? Crew tends to get picked on, which is unfair, but unfortunate- ly, that's what this issue boils down to. Fairness. The point is not that men's soccer players work harder than anyone else; it's not even that the current men's soccer players deserve it any more than any other club athletes at this school. I just think it's an embarrassment that the University of Michigan - the leaders? the best? - as a determined frontrunner in the arena of intercollegiate athletics doesn't field a men's varsity team in the most popular sport in the world. - Jim Rose can be reached via e-mail atjwmse@umich.edu til ,atc real music. scheduled for £ *Oct. 0zo (tuesday) 2"olr4 Cs S I1W' LWA M10 release dates ubject to change without notice, sorry. RS Lmsame pa.agda caulddrangerriestiat - {?.Z? * All uH.t filEVM R.E.aM. "Ta b --L. " 2.. Crew beats expectations at Head of Charles Brf1ed Link Special to the Daily CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Michigan women's crew team placed fifth in the championship eight race and 10th in the championship four race at the pestigious Head of the Charles regatta nday. early half a million people crowded th banks of the Charles River to watch the 32nd annual competition which fea- tured crews from around the world, including the U.S. national teams. As its name would suggest, the Head of the Charles is a head race, in which the start is staggered so that each boat is racing against the clock rather than rac- ingITead to head against other boats. The which finishes the course in the sirtest time wins the title of "Head of theCharles." -I the most prestigious championship eight race, the Wolverines finished the three-mile course in a time of 16:27.87, four seconds behind rival Virginia. The Danish, Canadian and U.S. national teams finished in first, second and third places, respectively, well ahead of their collegiate competition. "Our goal was to finish top 10 coming in," Michigan coach Mark Rothstein said. "Virginia is a big rival of ours and they looked fast today and they beat us two weeks ago at the Head of the Ohio, so we want to go after them." Michigan started quickly, passing Dartmouth immediately at the start. Despite the length of the race, almost twice as long as spring races, the Wolverines were able to maintain their pace throughout the race, passing two more crews. "We caught up to Dartmouth right at the start,' Michigan coxswain Belinda Koo said. "The power stayed on for the whole time, and we even sprinted a little bit at the end." Overall, the rowers were pleased with the race. "This was the best race we've raced in the fall," Michigan rower Kate Johnson said. "It was a big improvement over last year's race. It was very strong, long and consistent." Although the Head of the Charles is the largest rowing event in the world, the Wolverines main focus is the spring sea- son, when Michigan will be competing for a birth in the national championships in May. "I would describe it as the biggest event, and not the most important race," Rothstein said. "We focus on the spring races. Everything is geared toward qual- ifying for and doing well at the national championships." Even if this race wasn't a high priority for the Wolverines, they were pleased to be a part of the event. "We took part in all of the festivities Friday and Saturday, Michigan rower Michelle Wolbert said. "We had a great time." NEW BLADES: The Wolverines have changed the design that appears on their blades. The new blades are blue with a maize pattern that is reminiscent of the Michigan football team's helmets. Are you feeling sad or blue?. I An inclusive Mayor who is always willing to reach out to improve relationships (even in the most challenging situations). Medication free women suffering from depression between the nnia gof I A- are neerIddfor - ~rn J ~