2B - January 12, 2009
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Why FOX's coverage of
the BCS was atrocious
4
Calls to change the Bowl
Championship Series are now
louder than ever.
In Utah, the state's attorney
general is investigating the BCS
as a possible
violation of
federal anti-
trust law.
In an inter-
view with
The New York1
Times, Pres-
ident-elect
Barack Obama NATE
reiterated his SANDALS
desire to see a
playoff system
at college football's highest level.
But fortunately, he said bringing
change to the college gridiron
wouldn't be the top priority of
his administration.
A day before the "national
championship game," Texas Con-
gressman Joe Barton introduced
legislation that would eliminate
the BCS system, accordingto The
Associated Press.
Barton's legislation didn't even
suggest what type of system he'd
like to see in place of the BCS.
But his message was clear: the
current system is more represen-
tative of "B" and "S" than a fair
way to determine college foot-
ball's National Champion.
Even with all the talk about
changing the system, if recent
history teaches us anything, it's
that it will have little impact upon
university presidents, the people
who actually call 'the shots. So
next year, we're all likely to be in
the same place - having to swal-
low the inconsistency of a game
between two very good teams
who have been separated from
three or four other very good
teams by a few computers.
But there is one necessary
change the BCS needs to make
before the charade begins again
on Jan. 7, 2010 at the Rose Bowl:
Find a network other than FOX
to broadcast the game.
The display put on by play-by-
play man Thom Brennaman was
beyond disgusting.
Don't just take my word for
it. Here's Spencer Hall of the
Sporting News: "FOX puts on
an incompetent broadcast. No.
Incompetent doesn't cover how
inept their clodfooted work on
the BCS has been."
Anyone who had the displea-
sure of watching last week's
game with the sound on got to
hear Brennaman and company
pontificate on the greatness
that is Florida quarterback Tim
Tebow.
Did you know that Tebow
is the greatest football player,
teammate and person of all time?
If not, just call Brennaman. He'll
be happy to enlighten you.
Tebow could be a nice guy, and
he's certainly a good college foot-
ball player, but to have the play-
by-play announcer fawn over him
as some sort of messiah took it
way too far. It was a disservice to
millions of fans that just wanted
to watch a good football game.
Letting FOX broadcast the
BCS Championship game just
doesn't make sense. FOX doesn't
have a national contract to broad-
cast college football during the
season, and none of their broad-
cast crews are particularly adept
at calling the college game. Most
important, all of the research in
the world can't make up for a lack
of experience
Thankfully, ESPN put out the
big bucks to lock up TV rights for
the BCS starting in 2011. But col-
lege football fans deserve better
than the half-wits at FOX, even if
it's just for one more year.
The BCS and its supporters
will continue to cling to this
broken system instead of giving
the fans what they want, but the
least the BCS could do is make
sure that someone competent is
given the duty of broadcasting
the game to the entire world.
Obama has promised that
change will come to America as
soon as he is inaugurated in eight
days. Change must come to the
BCS, too, and it should start in
the broadcast booth.
- Sandals can be reached
at nsandalsJoumich.edu.
4
4
SAIDALSALAH/Daily
Redshirt junior Phil Goldberg and the Wolverines want to prove themselves nationally during the upcoming season.
'M' shoots for NCAAs
Blue's first test a shaky
one as team drops game
against Georgia Tech
Players and coaches
remain optimistic
even after
disappointing finish
By ANDREW CLAUW
Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan men's tenniss
team performance in the three-
day Key Biscayne Invitational in
Florida can be summed up by one
word: mediocre.
The 16th-ranked Wolver-t
ines came out strong yesterday
against Alabama but faltered "
against Texas and Georgia Tech.
The latter caught Michigan by
surprise, No. 58 Georgia Tech
ranking didn't seem imposing,
but its play certainly was.
Thought Michigan fell short Senior Andrew Mazlin topped players from Alabama and Georgia Tech in the meet.
of expectations, coach Bruce
Berque and his players were cau- individual tournament. the conditioning looked really
tiously optimistic following the "The skills looked good and good," Berque said. "The goal
was to get ack into the
nmode of competition and to
see where we are and what
tan: helpwe have to work on."
V . .The team didn't play
inCirCle well, but Berque added that
there were some stand-
Like Facebook for out performances, naming
senior Andrew Mazlin the
WoLverines. best Michigan player.
"(Andrew) did a really
-=ALUMNIASSOCIATION good job," Berque said. "He
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN competed the most over
break and it showed. Every-
one respects him as a com-
petitor."
Playing No. 2 singles,
Mazlin posted wins against
wo SAlabama's Billy Mertz and
Georgia Tech's Kevin King,
winning the latter in three
sets.
Wolverines fared well
8 1 3 6 5 9 at the start of the invita-
tional. The singles players,
which went 6-3 with all of
6 its victories coming over
- - - - - - -Alabama, were led by soph-
3 4 8 1 6 omore Jason Jung.
But Berque was disap-
9pointed with Michigan's
doubles teams, which
8 3posted four losses against
opponents from Texas on
Friday.
7 9 6 The second day ended
poorly.
1 7 8 DePietro contributed to
the Wolverines' lone win
8 11417 3 at No. S singles while the
rest of the lineup suffered
against Texas.
8 4 "The level of competition
was very strong," Berque
I'11 I said. "(Texas) was pretty
dominant. If we play a team
as good as Texas, we need
to play our absolute best."
Gymnasts want
nothing short of
national prominence
By COLT ROSENSWEIG
Daily Sports Writer
The Wolverines aren't going to
accept disappointment anymore.
Every year, the Michigan men's
gymnastics team begins with high
hopes, only to watch its goals slip
away in the postseason.
Only in the outstanding 2007
season did the team defy the low
expectations of the gymnastics
world by holding a No. 1 rank-
ing most of the year and finishing
fourth at the NCAA Champion-
ships.
This season, it's all about the Big
Ten and NCAA Championships.
The many intrasquad competitions
in the fall, the seemingly endless
workouts and conditioning and the
extra pressure each Wolverine has
heaped on himself at every oppor-
tunity are all designed to make the
team confident in clutch situations.
"Every single year, it gets more
intense in this gym," said assistant
coach Derek Croad, who has been
involved with the team since the
2002-03 season.
Each gymnast has added at least
one new, high-quality skill to his
repertoire and the entire team has
been staying at the gym longer and
working out harder since the sum-
mer.
"Since I've been at this school,
we have not collectively as a team
been staying this late, working this
hard," senior Ryan McCarthy said.
"Everyone's got a really focused,
positive attitude in the gym."
Unlike the vast majority of its
opponents, Michigan lost just two
seniors to graduation. Michigan
coach Kurt Golder said he believes
his team's experience and depth
are big parts of the overall improve-
ment he's seen since last April.
The Wolverines also have an eas-
ier schedule than in recent years.
Michigan won't face No. 2 Oklaho-
ma until NCAAs and only sees No.
1 Stanford once before then. Michi-
gan lost to both teams in 2008.
The squad also has one more bye
weekend than last year. The extra
break could be a mixed blessing,
because it could help Michigan add
difficulty and recuperate from nag-
ging injuries but could also inter-
rupt the gymnasts' competition
rhythm.
Matching up against weaker
teams like Iowa and Illinois-Chica-
go will also give Golder the oppor-
tunity to rest his top performers
and give some of his backups a
chance to compete.
The sixth-ranked Wolverines
have a little added motivation - at
the start of April, Michigan will
host the Big Ten Championships.
"It means a (championship) ring,
that's what it means!" said junior
co-captain David Chan of having
the meet in Ann Arbor. "No ques-
tion about it. No excuses, no noth-
ing. It means a ring."
Big Tens have been a major
stumbling block for the Wolverines
recently, with Michigan finishing
fourth each of the last three years.
Each season, the team was still try-
ing to recover its confidence after
an unsuccessful Pacific Coast Class
meet.
And except for 2007, when the
Wolverines were fourth, the NCAA
Championships haven't been much
better.
In 2006, the team failed to make
the Super Six and Michigan came
in sixth in 2008.
Those lapses are part of the rea-
son the gymnasts, captained by
Chan and redshirt junior Phil Gold-
berg, have been pushing themselves
to the brink. Intrasquads at prac-
tice were more frequent than ever..
In the fall, seniors Kent Caldwell
and Ryan McCarthy devised a sys-
tem where each gymnast declared
a goal for the week, then had just
one chance to accomplish it with
the entire team watching.
"You want to do something that's
a struggle for you," sophomore Ben
Baldus-Strauss said. "It pushes you
every week to find something-that
pushes you beyond the usual. Then,
when you have the extra support
from the whole team, with every-
one watching you, a lot of times you
can do things you didn't think you
could do."
Michigan will still face an uphill
battle when it comes to filling out
lineups for the rings and high bar,
two events that nearly every gym-
nast said may be a weakness. Nei-
ther lineup has much depth. On
rings, all connection bonuses have
been eliminated, forcing ring men 4
to increase their difficulty just to
maintain their start values.
Despite the physical and mental
difficulties ahead, the Wolverines
are working to maintain an upbeat,
positive attitude in the gym.
"I think we're going to be in the
best shape that we've ever been in,
and I think we're going to be in bet-
ter shape than any other team out
there," Goldberg said.
"We're working really hard and
we're going to be in the best shape
ever. Period."
After teaching himself the
sport Caesar thrives in A2
Freshman is finally
benefiting from solid
coaching support
By COLT ROSENSWEIG
Daily Sports Writer
Let's get this out of the way:
Yes, freshman Syque Caesar (pro-
nounced psych) is in a Psych class.
The interesting part of the story
is how he came to be taking psy-
chology classes at Michigan instead
of Florida International - and how
he put himself on the verge of break-
ing into the men's gymnastics team's
starting lineup.
At the start of September, few
would have tabbed Caesar as a force
to be reckoned with this year.
His arrival in Ann Arbor was
unlikely. For six months, his gym in
Florida didn't even have a high bar.
A set of rings was also slow in com-
ing, and the ancient pommel horse
belonged out to pasture.
For years, he switched gyms
annually, at one point making an
80-mile commute three days a week
to practice.
He applied to Michigan and was
admitted but planned to go to Flori-
dainternational,which doesn'thave
a varsity men's gymnastics team.
Fortuitously, a Florida coach at the
junior nationals tipped Michigan
coach Kurt Golder off about Caesar.
"We had to shake the bushes to
- get in contact with him," Golder
said. "One thing led to another, and
in the middle of the summer, he
jumped ship from Florida and came
here. ... It's all because one coach
just mentioned it."
With help from his father, a for-
mer professional soccer player in
Bangladesh, Caesar had coached
himself for the previous two years.
Caesar's talent was evident;
sophomore Chris Cameron, a fel-
low Floridian, used to see Caesar at
meets and wonder how far he could
go with good coaching. But teaching
yourself techniques and skills from
YouTube videos could only take him
so far.
With the Wolverines, Caesar
now has all the coaching he could
want. Not only are Michigan coach
Kurt Golder and three assistants all
available to him, but his 23 team-
mates are just as eager to share their
knowledge.
Caesar's transformation has
impressed every Wolverine.
"He came in here and had a little
gut on him, and a month later, it's
gone," fifth-year senior Paul Wood-
ward said. "He's just ripped. There's
somebody who's picked up more
skills than I can probably count
right now."
Even Caesar finds his progression
little hard to believe.
"I think I've improved on a scale,
like an unbelievable rate," Cae-
sar said. "I'm learning such high-
level skills that I never would have
dreamed of doing if I hadn't been
here."
But the first few weeks were
tough. He'd never had such intense 4
or lengthy workouts - or had so far
to walk just for classes.
"If I even looked at the high bar,
I'd rip," said Caesar, referring to
when the skin on a gymnast's hand
tears during high bar workouts.
But after about a month and a
half, he had settled into his new rou-
tine and everyone took notice.
Nearly all his teammates com-
mented on Caesar's exceptional
lines and beautiful style on floor,
vault and parallel bars, his three
main events. After supplying most
of his own advice for two years, the
Port Saint Lucie, Fla., native applies
constructive criticism with light-
ning speed.
The one lingering question about
Caesar was whether he could show
the same promise in competition.
In the Maize and Blue Intrasquad,
he was in the top three for the Blue
team on all three of his events. If the
meet had been scored like a regular-
season competition, with the top
four overall scores counting, all of 4
Caesar's marks would have contrib-
uted to the team total.
Caesar's - performance only
strengthened his quiet confidence.
"I feel the way I've been training
in the gym and the way (assistant
coach) Scott (Vetere's been pushing
me, I can be reliable," Caesar said
after the meet.
"I want to be the person that
everyone can count on to hit that set
and not mess up when it counts."