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Thursday, September 7, 2000 - The Michigan Daily - 27A
Stickers clean house,
prep for home slate
With lowly Kent up next,
Heisman hopeful smiles
Early games provide Brees opportunity for easy stats
By David Roth
Daily Sports Writer
Neatness counts.
Many professors, agitated room-
mates and countless mothers feel that
cleanliness is next to godliness.
The Michigan field hockey team,
after being NCAA runner-up last
year, has divine expectations for
2000. After two-a-day practices since
Aug. 12, few doubt that the
Wolverines are physically geared up
to start their home season. But the
#diness of the area around Ocker
Field, Michigan's home turf, is a
whole different story.
"The overpass by the train tracks is
filled with graffiti and looks awful,"
coach Marcia Pankratz said.
The Michigan field hockey team
doesn't expect wins to come easy this
season, and their take-charge game atti-
tude has transcended into the Dutch
:y world.
rying to keep their quarters tidy, the
Wolverines obtained a permit from the
local railroad commission to paint over
the wall scrawl.
Team captain Regan Wulfsburg and
junior Ali Balmer led the makeover
with blue paint and rollers in hand, try-
ing to make Ocker a more spirited, less
thuggish environment.
Autumn cleanings by the field hock-
ey team have been a tradition since
Ocker Field was constructed in 1995.
Pankratz and her players feel that the
intangible payoffs of cleaning up are
what matter most.
"We take it upon ourselves as a com-
munity service," Pankratz said, "and it's
a great team-building exercise. It's a
bonding thing."
Balmer, Pankratz, and the rest of the
team are trying to win over the respect
of the Ann Arbor community. Players
and coaches emphasize how much fan
support helps out the team when game
time rolls around.
The team clean-up also insinuates
the importance of the many upcoming
events this weekend.
"This weekend is huge for us,"
Balmer said. "We have recruits coming
in, it's our team's home opener, and it's
the only weekend that we'll be able to
see the football team play."
The Wolverines hope to improve
their 3-1 record as they knock sticks
Saturday with American University at
10 a.m. before the Michigan football
game, and Sunday at noon against
Ohio.
And the team has made sure that nei-
ther its play nor its field will be messy.
WEST LAFAYETTE (AP) --
After a dominating opening perfor-
mance, Purdue quarterback Drew
Brees looks to continue what he
hopes will be an award-winning sea-
son when he leads the 14th-ranked
Boilermakers in a matchup against
Kent on Saturday.
Brees, who threw for 318 yards
and three touchdowns in a 48-0 rout
of Central Michigan last week, is
considered one of the favorites for
this year's Heisman Trophy.
The senior, who finished fourth in
the voting for the award last season,
is the centerpiece of a Purdue
offense that accumulated 481 yards
of total offense in last week's romp.
Despite that strong performance,
Brees believes that the
Boilermakers' offense has a chance
to get better.
"I need to improve on my accura-
cy. I know what I'm doing," he said.
"There were times I got a little excit-
ed because I would see something
and wanted to check off."
In an offense that features some
unproven names in its wide receiver
corps, Brees spread the ball around
last week, completing passes to 10
different players.
"We're trying to get in a rhythm
with the young guys," Brees said. "In
three games they'll be playing like
seasoned veterans."
The Boilermakers' offense also
lacks experience in the backfield,
where sophomore tailback Steve
Ennis started his first career game
last week, replacing Montrell Lowe.
Ennis managed only 46 yards on
the ground, though he did score three
touchdowns
Purdue has a good chance for
another big game against Kent (0-1),
which lost to Pittsburgh last week,
30-7.
The Golden Flashes sat through
two weather delays in the game,
which lasted over four hours. And
they still lost to the Panthers in bru-
tal fashion.
Despite its poor overall perfor-
mance, Kent did have some bright
spots on offense.
First-year quarterback Zach
Williams rewarded coach Dan Pees'
faith in him when he hooked up with
Joel Reikowski on an I1-yard scor-
ing pass early in the game.
The biggest problem the Golden
Flashes face is on defense, where
they continue to have problems in
the secondary.
Kent yielded an 80-yard touch-
down pass Saturday and showed that
it still is vulnerable to big passing
plays, a problem that plagued the
team throughout last season.
That means the Golden Flashes
could be in for a long day against
Brees at Ross-Ade Stadium, who has
passed for 8,441 yards and 67 touch-
downs in his career.
An easy opponent is just what
Brees needs to get his leisman cam-
paign kick-started.
Five quarterbacks have emerged as
early front-runners for the leisman
Trophy, so Brees will need to distit-
guish himself in the stat book - and
also lead Purdue to a high-calibgr
bowl.
Sticki n'it to 'em
11.that cleaning up is for a reason. There are home games to play, as Michigan
begins its campaign to return to the national title game.
The Michigan field hockey team will attempt to improve its national prospects
when they play the first of a five-game homestand against American University
on Saturday at Ocker Field.
FILE PHOTO
The Michigan field hockey team will face American this Saturday before the foot-
ball game, at 10 a.m. on Ocker field
Date
Sat. Sept. 9
Sun. Sept.,10
*i. Sept. 15
Sat. Sept. 16
Tue. Sept. 19
Opponent
American
Ohio Univrsity
Ball State
Rutgers
Miami (Ohio)
Time
10 a.m.
Noon
4 p.m.
1 p.m.
3 p.m.
IOC officials seize drugs
.Irom team Uzbekistan
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Airport
customs agents seized banned perfor-
mance-enhancing drugs from an
Uzbekistan Olympic team official
Thursday morning, Olympic official
Jacques Rogge said.
"There was a member of the
Uzbekistan delegation who was caught
the airport with illegal drugs," said
Rogge, vice
chairman of the
International f1 'f
Olymp rn tic 0Q9 l
O l y m p i c)
Co no n i t t ec's
medical commis-
sion. "All the publicity of drug controls
did not seep into Uzbekistan" .
The Australian Customs Service said
it "has detained a small quantity of
what appears to be human growth hor-
.@one after it was found in the baggage
of an Olympic team official at Sydney
International Airport."
Leon Bedington, the Olympics
spokesman for the customs service,
said the substance was being analyzed
at a government laboratory in Sydney
but he could not predict when the tests
would be completed.
"The label is clearly marked as
man growth hormone," he said. "But
has not been chemically analyzed."
Bedington refused to identify the
gender, age or nationality of the sus-
pected official, but said at a news con-
ference that the person caught with the
substance was not an athlete.
Bedington said the person was nei-
ther detained nor arrested, and that the
official was cooperating with authori-
ties.
Under an Australian law passed in
arch, a person caught illegally
sporting a performance-enhancing
drug into the country could face a max-
imum penalty of five years in prison
and a $57,000 fine.
Bedington said the illegal importa-
tion of HGH is covered by that law.
HGH can be legally imported only if
special permission is sought from the
health ministry.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp.
radio reported the official was carrying
two vials of HGH. Bedington refused to
disclose the exact amount, saying only
it was "a small quantity" but more than
the ABC had reported.
The person carrying the substance
was stopped based on customs service
assessments that identify people to
search.
"We do not do random or routine
searches," Bedington said. "The person
was selected for further investigation
based on that risk assessment.
The seizure was the first since teams
began arriving for the Sydney
Olympics, which start Sept. 15.
The IOC has approved a test to detect
the use of the banned synthetic hor-
mone erythropoietin, or EPO, consid-
ered the drug of choice for endurance
athletes, but there is still no test to
detect HGH.
IOC officials said they would launch
an investigation into the incident as
soon as they got more details and said
any athlete or coach found carrying
drugs could be stripped of Olympic
accreditation.
IOC vice president and head of the
World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick
Pound, said the seizure highlighted the
success of heightened cooperation
between the IOC and national govern-
ments in efforts to crack down on drug
use in sport.
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