2B - October 22, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Philly fans are in it together
after 25 disappointing years
Michigan runners
post peak times at
Pre-Nationals
0
T he World Series starts
tonight in St. Petersburg,
Fla., and most of this cam-
pus doesn't care.
But there are a few hundred die-
hard Philly fans hanging around
Ann Arbor,
and each of us
has died a little
biteverysports
season of our
entire lives.
It's been 25
years, exactly
100 combined
seasons, since NATE
one of the SANDALS
four major
Philadelphia
professional sports teams won a
championship.
None of us have been to a parade
down Broad Street, but we're
pretty sure it would be awesome,
because they show footage of old
ones on the local sports channel
all the time.
None of us have a world cham-
pionship hat or T-shirt lying in the
bottom of a closet back home.
None of us have had our fanati-
cism rewarded with a title and
falling short each season makes it
a little harder to believe the dream
could ever come true.
Before you Cubs fans start light-
ing stuff on fire, screaming about
billy goats, black cats and Bart-
man, consider this: Chicago has
had seven championship teams in
my lifetime. So have New York and
Detroit. Boston has had six. Don't
tell me Philly fans are whiners.
So the World Series starts
tonight and most of you don't care.
But this column is for that small
group of Philly sports fans on this
campus. Some of you I know,,most
of you I don't, but we're all in it
together this week.
The truth is, we've all been con-
nected our whole lives, because
the experience of being a Philly
sports fan binds us in a way other
common interests can't.
We remember that October
night, 15 years ago tomorrow,
Mitch Williams hurled a fastball
and Joe Carter smashed it over the
leftfield fence to win the World
Series. -
It was the first time we had our
dreams crushed, but it wouldn'tbe
the last. I was six years old then,
and cried that Saturday night and
most of the next day. I eve' tried
to get out ,of going to school on
Monday. Despite my protests, my
mom packed my lunch and dent me
anyway.
Then came/the Red Wings four-
game sweep of the Flyers in 1997.
The Sixers then offered a glim-
mer of hope, winning game one of
the NBA Finals in 2001 before the
Lakers snatched it away with four
straight victories - the last three
on our home court. The Eagles
were within a single win of the
title in 2004 before running in to
Superman himself, Tom Brady, in
the Super Bowl.
In many ways, those losses,
that heartbreak, have hardened
us. I don't get upset about sports
as much as I used to. Maybe it's
because I'm 21 and I know better,
but I don't think so.
It's probably because, after 100
professional seasons without a
championship in Philadelphia, I'm
actually starting to believe that
if you flip a coin 100 times, it will
land tails every time. Of course
it could happen, but should it? I
tell myself that one of these days
Philly's card has to come up. But
does the law of averages apply to
sports?
So tonight, a few hundred Philly
sports fans and I will sit down in
front of a TV somewhere on this
campus and try to believe one
more time. We won't all be in the
same place physically, but we'll all
be fighting the same internal bat-
tle. Our minds will tell us this is a
futile exercise, but our hearts will
say this is the year.
May our hearts be right just this
once.
-Sandals is looking for four Philly
fans to split driving and gas for the
road trip home for the parade. He can
be reached at nsandals@umich.edu.
Wolverines bounce
back after weak
showing at Notre
Dame Invitational
By JACK FERNBACHER
Daily Sports Writer
Heading into last weekend's
NCAA Pre-Nationals, the goal of
the No. 9 Michigan men's cross
country team was to start running
peak times as the postseason got
underway.
With a third-place finish in
Terre Haute, Ind., the Wolverines
did just that.
Michigan will compete in the
Big Ten Championships in Ann
Arbor in less than two weeks, and
after the team's solid performance
last Saturday, the Wolverines are
positioning themselves to come
away with a conference title.
"It was the best performance of
the season," Michigan coach Ron
Warhurst said.
Six of the top 10 teams in the
country competed in the race,
including Michigan. But even
though the Wolverines beat every
Big Ten team in the competition,
No. 5 Wisconsin, the conference-
favorite, didn't race.
The race was held at the same
course as the season-ending
NCAAChampionships, scheduled
for Nov. 24. Michigan redshirt
junior Ciaran O'Lionaird seemed
to like the trail, finishing 10th in
the 41-teamblue divisiontorecord
his personal-best 8,000-meter
time (23:50.6). Sophomore Craig
Forys also posted a personal-best
time and finished 14th (23:55.2). 0
The blue division set a blistering
fast pace, with the leader finishing
the first mile in an astonishing
4:28. Forys and O'Lionaird were
ableto staywiththe packthrough-
out, leading the Wolverines to a
third-place finish in the division.
Michigan fifth-year senior Jus-
tin Switzer, a surprise entry who
finished in 42nd place, caught
Warhurst's attention.
"I thought (Switzer) performed
really well, and he ended up being
our fourth guy today," Warhurst
said. "He is an added incentive for
us now."
Switzer, a distance track run-
ner, is working with the cross
country team to train for the track
season. The Pre-Nationals were
Switzer's first race of the season.
Seven Wolverines competed
this past weekend, and each
placed in the top 75 of the 276-
person race.
"It was a great team effort from
top to bottom," Warhurt said.
"We are goingto get rested up and
sharpen up for the Big Ten Cham-
pionship."
1
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Michigan with
second-place finish
Blue moves up three Susan Kuijken of Florida State
finished first, 32 seconds ahead of
spots in polls after Edwards. Edwards' performance
helped lead the 11th-ranked Wol-
strong weekend verines to a third-place finish
behind Florida State and Princ-
By ROGER SAURHAFT eton.
Daily Sports Writer Edwards beat hustled a close
pack to the finish line as four
Nicole Edwards needed a other runners finished within
boost. four seconds of her.
With more than two-thirds . "I heard their coaches and
of the 6,000-meter race at Terre teammates cheering for them
Haute, Ind., completed, the fifth- and I heard people cheering for
year senior didn't want history to me," Edwards said. "The ques-
repeat itself. tion was, -who was going to come
Last year, Edwards fell behind out on top? I was going as fast as
after 4,000 meters on the same I could, because if I hadn't, there
course during the NCAA Cross were a lot of people on my heels."
Country Championships and Michigan coach Mike McGuire
finished in a disappointing 59th saidhewaspleasedwithEdwards'
place. race and is confident heading into
On Saturday, Edwards was the final stages of the season.
fighting for second place just "We're continuing to show
steps behind Western Kentucky's some improvement," McGuire
Janet Jesang with 1,500 meters said. "But at the same time, the
remaining. Big Ten is going to be very com-
"I just told myself, 'don't drop petitive. We beat some teams that
off her,"'Edwards said. "Iwanted were nationally ranked ahead of
to stay with her through 5k. It's a us, and we'll definitely improve
mental trick. When there's only our national ranking."
1k left, I'm probably not going to Despite Michigan's solid per-
drop off. There were times when formance, McGuire said the Wol-
I wanted to ease up, but I just verines need to improve even
kept telling myself to wait." more before the Big Ten Champi- 0
Edwards picked up her pace onships, which take place in less
down the homestretch and fin- than two weeks. McGuire thinks
ished second overall (20:20) - the team's top five runners need
two seconds ahead of Jesang. to finish within a minute of each
other for Michigan to have a shot
at winning the conference title
- something that didn't happen
C3 ! N A L Saturday.
The Wolverines' fourth and
fifth-place finishers, redshirt
e l n juniors Geena Gall and Kelly
Sampson, finished outside the
one-minute pace.
(734) 663-3379 "We didn't get our gap under
one minute for this race," Samp-
son said. "I do think that we're
VE OFFER setting ourselves up though,
because we're running together
ds at The U as a pack. By the Big Ten Cham-
pionships, hopefully we'll be able
to get this closer. Whoever is
the best team that day and who-
PRECIATION ever works together the best will
Iii
II
BREWSTER KAHLE
J Digital archivist Brewster Kahle will frame the debate
between "privately held" and "open access" library
Dohn resources at the fourth John Seely Brown Symposium
Seely 0n Technology and Society sponsored by the University
BPOWII
B oswn ter of Michigan School of Information.
an Kahle is founder and digital librarian of the nonprofit
Tecnolo Internet Archive - one of the most allencompassing
digital libraries of our time.
This free After this provocative talk, Paul Courant, university
program is librarian, dean of the U-M Libraries, and professor of
open to all economics, public policy, and information; Jessica Litman,
For details, see professor of law and information; and John Seely Brown,
hi~eiljsh
si.mich.edu/i s visiting scholar at the University of Southern California,
17341 547-3576. independent co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for Edge
Innovation, and former vice-president and chief scientist
of Xerox Corp., will discuss approaches to building
library services in the Internet era.
3 p.m.
Wednesday, October 22
Biomedical Science
Research Building
Auditorium
109 Zina Pitcher Place
U-M Central Campus
T 3- E C FC I
512 E. Wiliam
LIMITED TIT
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