I - - - - " I- - I - - w -W 'W - w 'NF W- -W -W - 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. T EENERGY AL-NIGHT RAVE ITHUHE LTIMI _I. etI. 40 20I I25 reT!a !Jc i-sac 200moeI regular price in-otock 2000 models I Withs valid UM studenf or staff ID. In stock only Discounts are off regularprices C/cBiyn &irtes adventure W e 4al e t D . 6 Main at Madison 668-6484 greatlakescycling.com Gonna be a late one? 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