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Saturday, February 7, 2009
It’s easy to fall in love with MMA
I can understand why MMA is becoming one of the most popular sports in the world.
It’s the theatrics and the action inside the cage that make people fall in love with MMA.
It took me awhile to warm up to the sport. I just thought it was no holds barred fighting in a cage. I was wrong.
Watching New Carlisle’s Todd Smart and Enon’s Warren Roberds — both extremely talented athletes — fight last December, I saw just what it took to become an MMA fighter and what it takes to both lose and win in the cage.
And then I watched my first UFC pay-per-view in December. I was hooked. It’s a sport I’ll definitely keep following.
We’ve got some big time MMA connections to Springfield as well.
North grad Dann Stupp is the founder of MMAJunkie.com, one of the best MMA web sites in the nation.
Springfield native Jan Finney is a professional MMA fighter in the female ranks.
Here are links to a series I wrote on MMA, which was published this weekend in the News-Sun:
MMA could be ‘world’s most popular sport’
Amateur career a helpful training ground in MMA
Ohio regulations keep MMA amateurs safe
Check out this video about MMA from the National Geographic Channel:
TweetTrojans capture share of OHC title
SOUTH CHARLESTON — It had been seven years since Southeastern last won the Ohio Heritage Conference title in boys’ basketball.
But that drought is over. The Trojans beat Catholic Central 61-45, earning a share of the OHC title.
They host Triad on Friday, Feb. 13 with a chance to earn the title outright.
The Trojans also face two tough non-conference road games against Shawnee on Feb. 10 and Madison Plains on Feb. 17.
TweetGiving Wayne some props
Last night, I have to say I was pretty impressed with the Wayne High School basketball game, especially coach Travis Trice, Sr.
He’s got the Warriors’ program on the right track. He’s got a strong nucleus and lots of young players. They played a variety of halfcourt zone defense and traps that befuddled Springfield’s squad. It also helps they’ve got the athletes to play fast.
But even more impressive is the Warriors’ basketball website, WayneHoops.com, which does live webcasts of each and every game.
Every school needs a website like Wayne.
TweetOn this date in area sports history…
On this date 10 years ago, Feb. 7, 1999, the News-Sun published a series of stories on th 10th anniversary of Wittenberg University leaving the Ohio Athletic Conference for the North Coast Athletic Conference.
This year, the NCAC is celebrating its 25th year. Click the jump for the full series.
Published in the Feb. 7, 1999 edition of the Springfield News-Sun:
WITT FANS HAVE MADE CHANGE TO NCAC
By Ron Ware, News-Sun Sports Writer
The wind-chill was near zero. Sidewalks were impassable. The sheriff was advising motorists to stay off the streets.
Yet, just as they have for nearly every home basketball and football game for more than 20 years, Milton and Marti Ogden were perched behind the Wittenberg bench, cheering on their beloved Tigers.
Like many longtime WU followers, the Springfield couple longs for the days when the Tigers played in the Ohio Athletic Conference — days when late arrivals might have trouble finding a seat in old Wittenberg Fieldhouse, in stark contrast to the spacious HPER Center that remained nearly desolate at tip-off on this bleak night.
But the Ogdens, who attended Wittenberg in the mid-1950s, say fans have gradually warmed to the rivalries in the North Coast Athletic Conference, a sentiment echoed by current and former Tiger coaches.
“I think the people still come that always did,” said Milton Ogden, decked out in a red Wittenberg sweatshirt adorned with a button reading, It’s Hard to Be Humble When You’re a Tiger. “I hated to lose the OAC, and I think everybody did. But we’re in the NCAC now, and there are some good rivalries developing in the NCAC.
“I kind of miss the OAC, though.”
“But,” his wife interjected, “I understood why they did it.”
Why they did it, as former WU president William Kinnison explained in making his historic decision 10 years ago, was to position Wittenberg with other highly selective liberal arts colleges. Judging from the school’s enrollment figures, the move was a success.
There was much less of a consensus a decade ago.
“Probably we felt at the time Kinnison was de-emphasizing sports,” Milton Ogden said.
Ron Ames, a 50-year-old Springfielder who has been attending WU football and basketball games since 1957, is such a big Tiger fan, he had his wife mail him newspaper clippings during his military hitch in Vietnam. He, too, was skeptical of the move.
“I was a little bit upset when they switched, because we had good rivalries with some of the teams, and we were in a pretty good area where we could get to see some of the (away) games,” he said. “That’s the only bad thing about the NCAC, that the schools are so spread out.
“The competition (in football and men’s basketball) at first was a step down. But overall, throughout the league, I think it has come up.”
Lifelong Springfielder Larry Spicer, a 1977 WU grad, literally grew up watching the Tigers. Both parents worked at the school, and his father, Eldon, started taking him to games when he was 2.
But even though he’s still a regular, he says the school’s fan base is eroding and that the rivalries aren’t what they used to be.
“From my standpoint, the OAC top to bottom was a stronger conference,” he said. “The games were more exciting. The games were more intense. Obviously, it’s been 10 years and some of the memories have faded, but I don’t think it’s the same as what it was.
“I think we have de-emphasized athletics to a certain extent. What we’re not seeing is the fan loyalty that we used to. You can come to games and see the same people all the time. It’s not the crowds, it’s not the fan loyalty, it’s not as intense as it used to be. Wittenberg used to be the thing to do in Springfield on a night they were playing.”
Wittenberg coaches, though, say they feel fans and alumni gradually have taken to the NCAC.
“I think most definitely,” said men’s basketball coach Bill Brown, in his sixth season. “I’d have to think there’s been a tradeoff — where it used to be Witt-Otterbein or Witt-Capital (as the big games), now it’s Witt and Wooster or Witt-Allegheny.”
“I think they have warmed to the move,” agreed women’s basketball coach Pam Evans-Smith, in her 13th season. “They’re supportive of Wittenberg and Wittenberg’s tradition of a winning attitude. I think they’ve warmed to it very well. I think the fans and alumni are very loyal at Wittenberg.”
As men’s basketball and football coach, respectively, at the time of the move, Dan Hipsher and Doug Neibuhr felt the brunt of fan dissatisfaction first-hand. But both said attitudes began changing once fans grew accustomed to the other NCAC teams.
“In my time there, especially the first two years, everybody wanted to be back in the OAC,” said Hipsher, who coached the Tigers their first four seasons in the NCAC and is now at Akron. “I don’t think you ever replace Wittenberg-Otterbein and Wittenberg-Capital. Everybody wanted to see those games, so I tried to play those teams as much as I could. …
“But I felt over the four years people were evolving and that they also saw the teams that were going to be strong rivalries in the NCAC.”
Neibuhr, who coached the football team from 1989-95 before returning to Millikin, his alma mater, experienced much the same thing in football.
“I think probably so, particularly the latter years I was there,” he said. “The last three or four years when our games with Allegheny and Ohio Wesleyan were so important, I think the townspeople were truly excited about that, too. I think the rivalries did pick up.
“But I certainly can understand how people felt at the time I came to Wittenberg. The involvement with the OAC was a lifelong involvement for a lot of people. There were a lot of great rivalries and friendships created in those years. I can see why some of the people were disappointed to see it end.”
From their seats in the sixth row at the HPER Center, Milton and Marti Ogden see it, too.
“But now,” Marti Ogden said, “we’re NCAC fans.”
A BRAVE ACT
WITTENBERG’S MOVE INTO THE NCAC 10 YEARS AGO WAS CONSIDERED A GAMBLE.
HAS IT PAID OFF?
By Ron Ware, News-Sun Sports Writer
Ask William Kinnison to highlight the major accomplishments of his 21-year tenure as Wittenberg University’s president, and he’ll point with a blend of pride and modesty to the school’s academic reputation, its financial well-being and its ability to continue attracting top students.
But Kinnison, himself an authority on local history, knows he’ll also be remembered for his “brave act” of 10 years ago — one that in the minds of many alumni and townspeople appeared sheer folly.
Wittenberg’s decade of membership in the North Coast Athletic Conference has seen the Tigers foster new rivalries, if not fully replace the old ones, and claim an unprecedented number of league championships. And it’s allowed the 2,100-student institution to position itself with other academically prestigious liberal arts schools _ the most critical element in Kinnison’s willingness to forsake a 74-year bond with the Ohio Athletic Conference.
Ten years later, WU administrators and even some of his most ardent critics describe the decision as a stroke of genius. As many colleges struggle with declining enrollment, Wittenberg’s numbers have seldom been better. And the move into the NCAC, says Kinnison’s successor, Baird Tipson, is a significant part of the reason for the school’s robust health.
To provide perspective on Wittenberg’s 10th anniversary in the North Coast, the Springfield News-Sun spoke with a wide range of current and former administrators and coaches as well as other longtime followers of the program.
The questions were obvious:
Has Wittenberg gotten out of the affiliation what it expected?
How does the 15-year-old NCAC, a mere tyke compared to the granddaddy of small-college athletic conferences, stack up against the 97-year-old OAC?
Have Wittenberg fans, once aghast at the thought of leaving the OAC, warmed to the NCAC?
The answers may be surprising.
“Say what you will about him,” said longtime football coach and athletic director Dave Maurer, who often did just that during his stormy relationship with his former boss. “But I don’t have any qualms saying Kinnison has done a great job in this area and that area.”
That’s not to say Maurer, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, and legions of other WU supporters wouldn’t love to see the school back in the OAC, which even Kinnison acknowledges as “probably the best football-basketball conference in the country.”
But to attract the quantity and quality of student it desires, it was imperative, Kinnison said, that Wittenberg align itself with similar institutions committed to similar goals — diversified athletic programs, equity among sports and equity among men’s and women’s sports.
Five years before Wittenberg was invited into the NCAC, Denison, Kenyon, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan and Wooster all bolted from the OAC, joining with Allegheny and Case Western Reserve to form the new league. Ironically, Kinnison was the chief mediator in trying to keep the OAC together, arguing that with its large membership base (then 14 schools), the conference could be a leader in women’s sports and the “minor” men’s sports, just as it was in football and basketball.
“When (keeping the OAC) fell apart,” said Kinnison, who served as Wittenberg’s president from 1974-95, “(the NCAC) really was the place for us.”
When the North Coast decided to expand for the 1989-90 school year, Wittenberg — shunned the first time — jumped at the opportunity, as did Earlham, which extended the league from Ohio and Pennsylvania into Indiana. Membership remained unchanged until last year, when Case announced it was leaving to compete solely in the University Athletic Association and both Hiram and Wabash were added, all effective next fall, leaving the NCAC at a record-high 10 schools.
“In looking back, I think it’s worked out pretty much the way the NCAC presidents envisioned it,” said Kinnison, a 1954 WU graduate and lifelong Springfield resident. “I think they got a couple of surprises along the way. You’re always going to have certain schools that struggle in certain sports.
“But I think for Wittenberg, it’s met all of our institutional objectives _ which was parity for women’s sports and parity of all sports. Because the Ohio Conference was very much a football-basketball conference.”
Still, Kinnison — widely accused of de-emphasizing athletics in the early 1980s when he implemented a controversial financial aid policy that discriminated against athletes and fired Maurer as athletic director, citing philosophic differences — admits he felt the heat. His announcement on June 3, 1988, that Wittenberg would join the NCAC was met with instant ridicule by alumni, fans and newspaper columnists.
“I think it was a very brave act,” he said, “on the part of the school from top to bottom — to recognize that for positioning ourselves in the market, this is where we belonged.”
A decade later, he should feel vindicated, Tipson says.
“My perception is Bill had a vision for Wittenberg that included it becoming a member of Phi Beta Kappa and raising its visibility as a very strong national liberal arts college,” he said. “I think when people look back on his presidency, that is what people will see as his major accomplishments. And athletics is a big part of that.
“It certainly looks to me like a decision that would be very easy to make today. With hindsight, it looks like a very good decision.”
Ken Benne, dean of admission and financial aid, understood the public outcry as well as anyone. A WU administrator since 1972, he played football for the Tigers from 1964-67 under the late Bill Edwards.
Yet he insists Wittenberg would not have been as successful in attracting students had it remained in the OAC.
“I can honestly say no, because we had to become more than an Ohio-based market to survive,” he said. “When you look at the number of our students who are involved in intercollegiate sports (nearly 1 in 4), athletics is a critical factor in choosing a school.”
Benne is so convinced of the wisdom of the move that he said he’s certain the remaining OAC schools wish they could follow suit.
“I don’t think anybody here has regrets, and I say that in a positive way,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any hard feelings. If you asked anybody in the Ohio Conference if they would make the move if they had the opportunity, they’d be foolish not to take advantage of it.”
It’s possible, Benne says, to quantify what entering the North Coast has meant to Wittenberg in terms of attracting students. It’s far more difficult to analyze what it’s signified athletically.
Wittenberg has won 34 team championships since joining the NCAC, including three this past fall, compared to 22 in its final 10 years in the OAC. But comparisons can be misleading, simply because the NCAC offers a whopping 22 sports. The OAC didn’t recognize women’s sports, for instance, until 1984-85.
The Tigers have had far more All-Americans in the past decade than ever before, but that’s largely because of the proliferation of sports and of All-American teams.
And while Wittenberg has captured just one NCAC all-sports trophy after winning the OAC men’s title three of its last five years in the conference, the OAC kept (and continues to keep) men’s and women’s standings separate, nullifying comparisons.
Interest also is difficult to gauge. As with most Division III schools, Wittenberg’s attendances figures are estimates, not actual counts, making comparisons there difficult, too.
But make no mistake, Tipson says.
“We’re not talking about wimpy athletic programs,” he said, perhaps not realizing just how many NCAA team championships the conference has won since Wittenberg entered the league _ 23, compared to the OAC’s seven in that time.
“I have been told the NCAC stands for the Nice Clothes Athletic Conference,” he continued, smiling. “And we do have a disproportionate number of white, suburban kids. It’s not gritty and blue collar the way some people perceive the Ohio Conference. But we have our share of strong athletic programs.”
Eighteen of the NCAC’s national championships in the past decade have come in swimming — Kenyon has won 19 men’s and 15 women’s titles in a row — but the conference also has claimed titles in football (by Allegheny in 1990), men’s soccer (by Ohio Wesleyan in 1998) and three in women’s tennis (by Kenyon in 1993, ‘95 and ‘97). Additionally, Ohio Wesleyan won the men’s basketball title in 1988, the season before Wittenberg entered the league.
The Ohio Conference’s championships in that time include four by Mount Union in football (1993, ‘96, ‘97 and ‘98), two by Capital in women’s basketball (in 1994 and ‘95) and one by Ohio Northern in men’s basketball (1993).
Although Wittenberg hasn’t contributed to the NCAC’s total, Carl Schraibman, WU’s athletic director since 1992, points to the Tigers’ gradual rise in the conference all-sports standings as evidence of a strong, broad-based athletic program.
“I think if you look across the board at the 22 sports, we’ve been well-represented in the NCAAs,” he said. “And I think that’s the measure you look at.”
He’s especially proud of the fact Wittenberg’s varsity athletes annually compile a grade-point average virtually identical to that of the student body as a whole.
“Our success in athletics has not hurt but, in fact, (has) maintained the academic expectations of the university,” he said.
The move into the North Coast undoubtedly helped boost certain sports, coaches say — especially on the women’s side. And even in sports in which the Ohio Conference traditionally is strong, leaving for the NCAC provided a bonus in some cases. Wittenberg’s two football playoff trips in the past four years may not have happened if the Tigers were still in the OAC, battling Mount Union for a postseason berth.
“In some sports, it was a major boon,” said Pam Evans-Smith, a 1982 WU grad who has served as women’s basketball coach since 1986 and associate athletic director since 1996. “Other sports, I think they were resistant at first, but I think they’ve found their niche (in the NCAC). I don’t think it was bad for athletics.”
Linda Arena and Steve Dawson — the only other head coaches still remaining from the OAC days — agree, to a point.
“The conference is pretty strong in some sports and not others,” said Dawson, who has coached men’s soccer since 1982 and also served as men’s swimming coach from 1982-91. “That is pretty evident. The NCAC is not the OAC.
“The football and basketball coaches may not like me to say it, but that conference is a basketball-football conference. This is a soccer, swimming, lacrosse and tennis conference. That’s what they’re strong in.”
Arena, who served as Wittenberg’s first full-time women’s athletic director from 1982-92 and continues to coach field hockey, said the move into the North Coast generally has helped women’s sports. But Wittenberg already had taken significant steps to boost its women’s program, she noted.
“It wasn’t as important as getting full-time coaches or getting equitable budgets,” she said. “It certainly was secondary to that. Its impact was, I think, in publicity. In sports like (field) hockey and lacrosse, it’s hard to recruit if you’re not a conference sport. It hurt softball (which didn’t become an NCAC sport until last year).
“In terms of competition, (women’s) basketball is stronger in the OAC. But they don’t have hockey. I think it’s fair to say the move helped some (sports) and may have hindered or stymied the growth in others.
“It wasn’t that the NCAC saved women’s sports. They were on their way.”
Joe Fincham and Bill Brown, who coach Wittenberg’s most visible men’s sports, say the conference affiliation is not an obstacle in building a top-notch program.
And there’s evidence to back that. Fincham’s football team reached the national quarterfinals this past fall before suffering a two-point loss at Mount Union, which went on to claim its fourth title of the decade. And Brown’s basketball team placed third in the nation in 1993-94.
“I think every conference has its pluses and minuses,” said Fincham, who joined the football staff in 1990 and just completed his third season as head coach. “And I know in talking to people, some folks think the OAC is a better football conference. I don’t know. I really don’t. I’ve never competed in the OAC.
“But everybody has their doormats. I mean, I grew up across from Marietta when people were wearing bags on their heads to their games (in the early 1980s). So the situation we’ve had with one or two schools isn’t unique.
“But I think we have a good, competitive league. We have four or five teams that are pretty darn good. Are we as good as the OAC? I don’t know. But we’re a very competitive league.”
Brown, in his sixth season as men’s basketball coach at his alma mater, has continued to play at least two OAC schools each season (the Tigers are 20-10 against the OAC since leaving the conference, although that includes a 7-0 mark the first season; they’re 5-5 over the past four seasons). He said he’s grown weary of hearing about the OAC’s supposed superiority.
“In my opinion, in the years I have been here, the top 50 percent of both leagues is identical (in caliber),” said Brown, who also has coached at Wooster and Kenyon. “The bottom three in our league are not as competitive as (Nos.) 8, 9 and 10 in their league. What’s in the middle changes from year to year, so that’s more difficult to get a handle on.
“Top to bottom, the OAC is probably more competitive than the NCAC. But at the top, neither has to take a back seat to the other.”
But Capital Coach Damon Goodwin, a WU assistant under Hipsher and Brown from 1989-94, said it didn’t take him long to realize there are few pushovers in the OAC.
“I don’t think I realized the difference (in the conferences) when I was at Wittenberg,” he said. “I do now. I think in our league, the (Nos.) 8, 9 and 10 teams are very competitive. I really don’t think that’s the way it is in the North Coast. They have three or four very solid teams. But there’s a big drop from the top half to the bottom half.”
Wittenberg’s series history against some of its NCAC rivals tends to bear that out. The Tigers have beaten Denison 49 of the past 50 games, Oberlin 28 straight, Earlham 29 straight and Ohio Wesleyan 36 straight (even sweeping the Bishops the season they won the national championship).
The main problem with the NCAC, in the view of Maurer, is that a few schools simply refuse or have been unable to elevate some sports to a competitive level.
He recalls Oberlin and Kenyon struggling in football as far back as 25-30 years ago in the OAC, when they did not play a full conference schedule and thus were ineligible for the championship. Kenyon has had trouble sustaining its success, but it did share the NCAC football title in 1989. Oberlin, however, has won only three games this decade, going through four coaches.
“I had full understanding of what our administration was attempting to do (when it entered the NCAC),” said Maurer, who guided Wittenberg to the 1973 and ‘75 Division III football titles and also coached golf, swimming and track during his 40 years at the school. “I could see that, the objectives Kinnison laid out. Fine.
“But what you ended up with was a conference in the sports of football and basketball that weren’t nearly as competitive as the OAC. Some schools worked hard to upgrade their sports and others, frankly, I don’t think they gave a damn.”
Wittenberg administrators prefer to take Benne’s stance.
“The best thing about leaving the other conference is we still like them and respect and get along with them,” he said. “We’re in the conference we should be in, but we’re still able to play schools from the other conference, like Baldwin-Wallace in football.
“I think we have the best of both worlds.”
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