Blogging with the Devils

Karl Benson

I have great respect for Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson. During the last decade, amid a flurry of school defections that would cripple most leagues, his dogged determination has not only helped the WAC survive, but thrive.

And I understand Benson’s frustration at the difficulties such WAC schools as Hawaii, Boise State and Fresno State have in scheduling elite non-conference opposition. However, the commissioner on Monday was less than circumspect with his comments at the league’s media day regarding Hawaii’s inability to find an opponent for a 13th regular-season game.

Benson said that three Pac-10 schools — Arizona State, Oregon State and Washington State — turned down a $1-million guarantee and an ESPN appearance to play the Warriors in Honolulu on Oct. 20.

On Tuesday, ASU officials emphatically denied that the school was contacted by Hawaii, reiterating what appeared on this blog three weeks ago.

But whether or not a school turned down Hawaii’s offer to play is irrelevant. No program has victimized the Warriors by refusing their invitation; UH’s missing 13th game is not the fault of ASU, Oregon State or Washington State. If Benson is going to mention any school by name, it should be Michigan State, which created the vacancy for Hawaii by pulling out of a scheduled 2007 visit.

ASU — which does not want to tinker with a favorable schedule featuring eight home games — played the Warriors in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve, and Oregon State went to Honolulu during the ‘06 regular season. A Washington State visit on Oct. 20 would be sandwiched between a game at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium and a home date against top-tier conference foe UCLA.

A number of Bowl Championship Series conference schools simply do not want to visit Honolulu, Boise or Fresno, which hurts the visibility and schedule strength of the WAC’s power trio. That is unfortunate.

I don’t know what the solution is for the WAC, but its commissioner unjustly calling out schools — which certainly does the conference no favors in future non-conference scheduling — is not it.

Arizona State University’s athletic director understands that most of her decisions will be watched closely. She knows that her moves will be analyzed and scrutinized. And she is aware that, in just two years, she has compiled a sizeable record to be judged by.

But know this about Lisa Love: She thrives on making the tough calls and being under a microscope. Those who work under her describe Love as someone who looks at a situation from every angle, considers all of the possibilities, and makes a decision without a hint of waver.

The Tribune spoke to many people associated with the ASU athletic department — including some that sign checks big enough to get their names on things around campus — and the consensus is that Love is deserving of high marks.

Lisa Love

“Going through as many athletic directors as I have, I can tell you that we are really lucky to have Lisa Love,” said women’s gymnastics coach John Spini, a veteran of 27 seasons. “She has a unique way of taking her time, not letting someone back her into a corner, and making a good decision.”

Said a prominent booster: “She’s the best athletic director we’ve had since Fred Miller.”

And when she talks about her time on the job — which she has enjoyed more than she ever imagined — the passion and excitement oozes out. You want a spirited seminar on the state of Sun Devil athletics? Just wind its leader up and let her talk.

“I believe in a grandness here, and the potential for that grandness,” Love said. “I believe that I’m working with a president that believes in that same potential magnitude of a university in one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. It’s a matter of the right personalities that create a tipping point that puts it over the top.

“The people here believe they can get it done. I come into this environment and think that if we get a few things going, nothing is more powerful than inertia.”

When he hired Love two years ago, ASU president Michael Crow made the athletic director’s post a university-level vice president position.

“I felt that there had been a creeping distance building between athletics the rest of the university over the years, based on what people were telling me and how I could see things working,” Crow said. “I wanted to cinch them a little closer together.

“Secondly, athletics is a very important part of a university’s identity. So, I thought the position merited the vice president’s title, so Lisa could draw on other assets of the university to help athletics to be successful. I wanted her to have the benefits of that.”

That arrangement resulted in Love sharing time at Crow’s advisors table with Craig Weatherup, then the CEO of the ASU Foundation. The two developed a dialogue about the athletics program, particularly men’s and women’s basketball.

And when Weatherup, a 1967 ASU graduate and former CEO of Pepsi Bottling Group, and his wife, Connie, wanted to make a large donation to the school, it went toward construction of an indoor basketball practice facility. The $5-million gift is the largest single donation in the history of ASU athletics.

“In Dr. Crow’s staff meetings, Lisa and I talked about the needs of the athletic program had, and how that fit into the general direction of ASU,” Craig Weatherup said. “Dr. Crow believes, and I do too, that athletics can be a megaphone, a big part of the branding of a university.

“We gave the gift for two reasons: to address the need that existed, and create an awareness that broadens the spectrum of those who contribute to athletics. Since (the donation), I’ve had a lot of people ask me why, and that’s what you want.”

While Love, a former volleyball coach, admits that she sometimes “pushes a little too hard,” she does not consider herself a micro-manager.

“I would hope that people sense that I am an empowering athletics director, one who gives lots of leeway or reign for people to do what they do well,” Love said. “I want people to feel ownership and a big part of this enterprise. I hope it’s said that I’m very collaborative, that the mission is clearly stated, and that I communicate effectively.

“I’m not an autocrat, and I would have trouble working for one. When you get to hire and work with talented people, let them soar. That sounds like coach speak, but that’s what I know after 20 years in it, what you do as a team. That’s more powerful than standing alone.”

When the NCAA released its latest Academic Progress Report (APR) numbers earlier this year, Arizona State University was thrilled that its multi-year scores were high enough that the school did not lose scholarships. But what has ASU officials most excited is the Sun Devils’ projected APR performance in the future.

In two years, all of ASU’s 22 varsity sports are expected to be above the minimum mandated score of 925 in the APR, which measures athletes’ eligibility and retention. In 2006, a low APR score cost men’s basketball two scholarships (one retroactive).

“The numbers are going in a great trajectory,” athletic director Lisa Love said. “It’s something we take a great deal of pride in. Our goal is to keep it going. The (NCAA’s graduation success rate) has us at 70 percent of our athletes, and that’s well ahead of the general university rate. Our goals in this area are as aggressive as our on-field competitive goals.”

Jean Boyd, associate athletics director for student-athlete development, wants to be an AD someday. The former ASU safety, who played from 1991-93, is considered a rising star in the athletic department, and he and his staff of 10 full-time and 40 part-time academic advisors compiled this resume in 2006-07:

Sixty-three percent of ASU athletes earned a grade-point average of at least 3.0 during the fall and/or spring semester, and 48 percent have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 or better.

Seventeen of 22 sports (including every women’s team) have a cumulative team GPA of more than 3.0. Baseball, men’s basketball and wrestling were above 2.8, those sports’ highest squad GPA in five years.

ASU had 138 athletes named to a Pac-10 all-academic squad this season.

In the last six years, ASU is second in the Pac-10 (behind only Stanford) in number of academic All-Americans.

In 2006-07, the football team had the second-highest graduation rate in the Pac-10, behind Stanford.

Transcribing the myriad interviews I did for this project resulted in a Microsoft Word document of 19 pages, single-spaced. Not every good quote could make it into the newspaper, and here’s a few that were left over:

John Bebbling, Arizona State University athletic booster, on Sun Devil Stadium: “It needs some help, especially with the women’s bathrooms. You want to bring a woman to a football game, you should take care of her toilet for her. They’re waiting in line for a long time.”

Michael Crow, ASU president: “One of the key elements of American success is competition in contests. Our culture has evolved with that, and it’s been a part of our tradition for a long time. American colleges are the place where that character is expressed. It’s the highest level of amateur sports, other than the Olympics. It’s a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate American competitiveness and build that spirit, and athletics is absolutely a central part of that for a university.”

Lisa Love, athletic director, on the role athletics should play on campus, particularly financially: “We are an entertainment entity that has a good ability to make some money. We ought to be able to, down the line, call a librarian or professor and ask how we can help and write a check. The direction for our biggest revenue producers is real. The opportunity with football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball is big. We’re getting good play on television, and it’s a very positive vibe. Now, we have to make the dollars and cents work.”

Sheila McInerney, women’s tennis coach, on what keeps her going after 23 seasons at ASU: “In college coaching, you get older, but the kids stay the same age. That invigorates you. When the kids move in the dorm as freshmen, that gives you a shot of energy. You get as excited about it as they do and want them to make the most of it.”

John Spini, women’s gymnastics coach, on ASU’s reputation as a party school: “What I always tell (parents) — and I would say this to your daughter if I were recruiting her for gymnastics — is that if they wanted to find a party on any campus, they would find one. If they wanted to find the library, they would find it. A lot of times, the kids they are hanging out with, you need to be aware of them more than anything else.”

Athletic director Lisa Love arrived at Arizona State University as it began an experience that the Sun Devils are hardly foreign to — probation. The two-year NCAA penalty for improper benefits and lack of institutional control expires in November.

“We didn’t get anything punitive, just watch out, you’re on probation, and you’d better institutionally figure it out,” Love said. “In October, we’ll file our final report, and soon after, we’ll be off probation and clean.”

ASU’s eight major-infractions cases tie it with Southern Methodist for the most since 1953, when the NCAA’s enforcement system was instituted.

(SMU gets the tiebreaker by virtue of it receiving perhaps the most infamous punishment in college sports history, the 1987 football death penalty for violations that included boosters paying players thousands of dollars.)

Next on the list of shame are Auburn, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Wisconsin and Wichita State, with seven major cases each.

The 2005 probation was ASU’s first major case since the men’s and women’s track programs were penalized in 1997. The other cases were in 1954 (football), 1959 (football), 1980 (football and men’s track), 1985 (baseball, men’s gymnastics and wrestling), 1986 (men’s basketball) and 1988 (men’s and women’s track).

**** **** ****

While Mark Dunkerley, director of annual giving for the Sun Devil Club — one of the athletic department’s two fund-raising arms — acknowledged that ASU must do a better job of tapping donors, contributions to the annual fund are up $1.085 million from last year.

That includes a increase of $322,460 in football scholarship premiums, $322,862 in basketball scholarship premiums and $171,836 to the general scholarship fund.

“It’s not where we need to be,” Dunkerley said, “but we’re moving in the right direction.”

**** **** ****

Women’s gymnastics coach John Spini said that the growth of ASU’s satellite campuses will play a bigger recruiting role in coming years, as athletes get increasingly faced with the possibility that they will have to commute to take major-core classes.

The university has three satellites: a Polytechnic campus at the former Williams Air Force Base in Gilbert; ASU West, located on Thunderbird Road between 43rd and 51st avenues in Phoenix; and a downtown Phoenix campus, at the Mercado at Seventh and Van Buren streets.

“With the majors changing, it could be tough to tell a kid that, for you major, you have to go 20 minutes that way or 40 minutes this way to go to class, then come back here and train,” Spini said. “But that’s the direction President Crow wants to take us, and we’ll have to find a way to deal with that.”

**** **** ****

ASU is putting an even bigger emphasis than normal on its two biggest revenue producers, football and men’s basketball. In that endeavor, there is no better school to emulate than the University of Florida, which has back-to-back NCAA titles in men’s hoops and won the Bowl Championship Series title game in January.

Asked if she would trade all of ASU’s athletic achievements this year — the school placed 10th in the Directors’ Cup standings, a measure of overall success — for what Florida did in just two sports, Love said no.

“I’m committed to a broad-based, successful program,” Love said. “Our pole vaulter cares as much about how good she is as our middle linebacker cares about his play. Because (football and basketball) are so high-profile, people are really crazy, and it would be super-positive with big parties, but I’m not inclined to do something that would be at the expense of a broad-based program.

“That’s deeply meaningful to a lot of people’s lives in this building and on campus. You meet Amy Hastings, one of the best distance runners in the world, and you’d want to do all you can to fund successful cross-country and track programs for her. That’s what we stand for here.”

**** **** ****

Love plans to, starting next year, call an annual summer press conference to report on the state of ASU’s athletic department.

I’m going on vacation for two weeks to rest and recharge the batteries before football practice kicks off, so activity here will be very light — except on Sunday, when this blog will be a big part of a comprehensive project on Arizona State athletics in The Tribune. Be sure to log in then.

I spoke with football coach Dennis Erickson on Friday, and among the items discussed:

He reiterated his confidence that cornerback Omar Bolden and defensive end James Brooks would be green-lighted by the NCAA’s freshmen-eligibility clearinghouse. In fact, Brooks, Erickson said, is in Tempe to participate in unsupervised (by coaches) workouts.

Linebacker Robert James, who missed some of the 2006 season and spring practice with headaches, is feeling better, and Erickson is hopeful that the senior can take part in preseason drills.

No position changes have been made since the end of the spring.

Shameless plug department: I will be on Fox Sports Net Arizona’s “Sound Off Live” at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday. The panel is slated to discuss such local sports issues as the Diamondbacks’ second half, the Suns’ summer league doings and the viability of Major League Soccer in the Valley.

Thanks to all that check out this blog. I hope the rapidly-escalating page-hits counter is a sign that you like what you are reading.

And don’t forget to stop by on Sunday.

Baseball has been a club sport at Oregon.

The Pac-10 will soon have a full contingent of varsity baseball teams, as Oregon announced on Friday that it will reinstate its program in time for the 2009 season. UO was the only conference school without the sport after dropping it in 1981 due to financial constraints.

The return will come at the expense of Oregon’s wrestling program, which will be discontinued after the 2007-08 season.

Here is Oregon’s press release regarding baseball’s reinstatement.Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard writer Ron Bellamy has compiled a list of coaching candidates for the Ducks.

Oregon has a successful club baseball team. The squad has made four consecutive appearances in the National Club Baseball Association World Series, finishing as runner-up this season.

There will be no Hawaii Bowl rematch. (Associated Press photo)

In what has become a futile quest to fill out its 2007 schedule, the University of Hawaii hoped to find at least one more opponent from the Pac-10. However, Arizona State was not asked to make a second trip to Honolulu in 12 months, associate athletic director Mark Brand said.

The Sun Devils — who lost to the Warriors, 41-24, in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve — would be a natural choice for UH in an hour of need. Hawaii athletic director Herman Frazier is a former track star and administrator at ASU. The schools have a common idle date on Oct. 20.

But ASU was never contacted by Hawaii, and the Sun Devils would not have accepted a lucrative invitation to add a 13th regular-season game.

ASU is not about to mess with a dream schedule that features eight home contests. Since their home date against Southern California is on a Thursday (Nov. 22, Thanksgiving night), the Sun Devils have extra days to prepare for their two biggest games — against USC and the Territorial Cup tilt with Arizona on Dec. 1.

“Our schedule is about as perfect as you can have it,” said Brand, who coordinates the Sun Devils’ non-conference scheduling.

The NCAA permits Hawaii and mainland schools that play in Honolulu an extra regular-season game to help defray travel expenses.

Desperately needing a replacement for Michigan State, which pulled out of an ‘07 visit, UH was reportedly offering Division I-A schools a guaranteed $750,000 payment — enough for a hefty profit, even after the travel costs — to make the trip to Aloha Stadium. But there were no takers, and the Warriors have given up the chase.

As a result, Hawaii’s 12-game schedule includes just one Bowl Championship Series conference team, Washington, and two Division I-AA schools. That figures to put the Warriors’ BCS aspirations and the Heisman Trophy candidacy of quarterback Colt Brennan in serious peril.

Frazier told The Honolulu Advertiser in June that Washington State and Oregon State were the most logical choices for an opponent from the Pac-10. Oregon State defeated Hawaii, 35-32, in Honolulu in December.

Matt Spencer

I have not been able to find a story or notebook that details it, but anyone who scanned the sports transactions from Tuesday saw the line:

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES: Signed OF-LHP Matthew Spencer.

So, for now, it can be cautiously assumed to be true, ending what must have been an interesting negotiation process between the Phillies and Spencer, an Arizona State product. A team official told a Pennsylvania newspaper two weeks ago that Spencer had signed, then backtracked a few days later, saying only, “They were close.”

Spencer, a third-round pick of Philadelphia in the June draft, is expected to report to Class-A short-season Williamsport (Pa.).

Outfielder Tim Smith has agreed to terms with the Texas Rangers, who drafted him in the seventh round. Though I could not find an account of pitcher Scott Mueller signing with the Baltimore Orioles, the 21st-round choice has been playing for the team’s Class-A short-season affiliate in Aberdeen, Md. (a franchise owned by new Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken Jr. and his brother, Bill).

And that likely wraps up the Sun Devil signings, as the team’s other two drafted players — pitcher Josh Satow (28th round, Seattle) and outfielder Mike Jones (42nd round, Chicago White Sox) — are expected to return to school. Jones, also a wide receiver, figures to be on campus next week for unsupervised (by coaches) football workouts.

Chad Green

Arizona State cornerback Chad Green was not legally drunk when he sustained multiple head injuries in an auto accident in Tempe during the early-morning hours of April 15.

Green’s blood alcohol level was .075, under the presumptive limit in Arizona of .08 percent, said officer Brandon Banks, a Tempe police spokesman. Authorities are still awaiting results of a toxicology screen.

The 22-year-old was reportedly returning from a fast-food restaurant at about 3:30 a.m. when the compact car he was driving was struck by a southbound-traveling vehicle at the 800 block of McClintock Drive. He was not wearing a seat belt. The other driver, Brian King, 43, of Mesa, was cited for misdemeanor DUI, and the case is proceeding in Tempe City Court.

After being in critical and unresponsive condition at a Scottsdale hospital for about two weeks, Green was transported to a facility close to his Van Nuys, Calif., hometown. Last month, an ASU official visited the 5-foot-10, 187-pound senior in the hospital and reported that his condition is improving.

Green, the official indicated, is awake and alert for parts of the day. He can feed himself at times but is unable to stand up without help.