Sports News, Oregon Stater, Oregon State University Alumni Newsletter

For the first time in the ballpark’s 96-year history, Oregon State’s Goss Stadium at Coleman Field may see night baseball this season.

Bert and Shirley Babb, longtime Oregon State supporters, made a gift in February that is enabling the Beavers to construct a new lighting system for Goss Stadium at Coleman Field. The eight banks of metal halide lamps will allow OSU to host night games and may lead to more televised games and even tournaments.

"The lights are going to be Triple-A (professional) baseball quality and will add to a great facility," Oregon State coach Pat Casey said. "They will allow us to have a practice schedule in the fall that will help ease conflicts with class schedules. In addition to practicing later, we will also be able to host night games."

Completion of the project was hoped for by mid-April. When installation is finished, some games this season could be moved to evening starts.

Casey indicated that having lights opens the door for NCAA regional tournaments and other major events in the summer.

Bert Babb served on the Goss Stadium steering committee, helped raise money for its construction and made donations himself. The stadium was added to Coleman Field prior to the 1999 season, and the lights are the finishing touch.

To honor Bert Babb’s commitment to Oregon State athletics, the OSU Athletic Department presented him with the Martin Chaves Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and the Athletic Department Director’s Award in 1993. The OSU Alumni Association awarded him the 1999 Dan W. Poling Alumni Service Award for his exceptional volunteer leadership.

Football preview
Recruiting highlights:
An in-state player with Oregon State ties was among the highlights of the Beavers’ 2002 football recruiting class. The Beavers announced the signing of 15 high school players, six junior college players and one transfer from a four-year school on Feb. 6 in the Valley Football Center.

"I’ve never heard a coach say he didn’t have a good recruiting class, so I will continue to go with that and say we had a good recruiting class," OSU head coach Dennis Erickson said. "I’ll let you know in three years."

A complete list of OSU’s signees can be found at www.osubeavers.com.

Among the Beaver signees was tight end Joe Newton of Roseburg High, a first team all-state selection on both offense and the defensive line. His grandfather, Michael, is a retired forestry professor at OSU and his father, Dan, is an OSU graduate.

"We all know about Joe," Erickson said. "When you look at this class, he’s got to be a guy who is just going to be a great football player. He was recruited by just about everybody in the country. Hal (Cowan, OSU’s sports information director) has him listed at 6-foot-8, but Hal has me at 6-2, so he’s probably about 6-5, maybe 6-6. But he’s a great basketball player, he’s a great athlete. He’s the kind of tight end that we want to have — he can run and catch. He’s got a chance to possibly play next year."

Erickson said he thought his third recruiting class at OSU was "outstanding," but noted that each school is looking for different things in players, and each school may look for different things from year to year.

"Every year is a little bit different, depending on what your needs are," Erickson said. "As you look at recruiting and look at your classes, you try to balance things up — that you have enough players each year at each position. Some years you take offensive linemen more than you would; another year, receivers ... it just depends.

"Generally, you try to get the best athletes that are out there. We feel very good about the athletes that we got. We really felt we needed some immediate help in the offensive front, and in the secondary at safety, we really feel we filled that with some junior college help, and help with the transfer in the offensive front."

Beavers finalize football schedule
Oregon State will play seven football games in Corvallis in 2002 for just the second time in school history. OSU finalized its schedule by adding a home game against Eastern Kentucky on Thursday, Aug. 29. The Beavers will also host Nevada-Las Vegas on Sept. 14, Fresno State on Sept. 21, UCLA on Oct. 5, California (Dad’s Weekend) on Oct. 26, Arizona (Homecoming) on Nov. 2 and Oregon on Nov. 23.

Oregon State will also return to the city that was the site of one of its greatest football moments when the Beavers visit Temple in Philadelphia on Thursday, Sept. 5. That game will be played at historic Franklin Field, the oldest Division I football venue in the country. It was across town at the now-demolished Philadelphia Stadium (later JFK Stadium) in 1962 that Terry Baker’s 99-yard run gave the Beavers a 6-0 Liberty Bowl win over Villanova. It will be OSU’s first football game on the East Coast since a 1976 game at Syracuse.

Mazzone completes staff
Oregon State completed its football coaching staff with the addition of Noel Mazzone, 44, it was announced by head coach Dennis Erickson in March. Mazzone, who spent the past three seasons as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Auburn, will coach running backs and coordinate special teams for Oregon State.

With the addition of Mazzone to coach running backs and special teams, Erickson made one other move on the Beavers’ football staff. Dan Cozzetto, who coached OSU’s running backs the past two years, will now coach tight ends and assist Gregg Smith with the offensive line.

Gary Payton owned Oregon State’s career records for scoring, assists and steals when he completed his men’s basketball career in 1990.Now, over a decade later, he’s back in the record book at OSU.

Payton, a guard for the Seattle SuperSonics of the NBA, will donate $3 million to Oregon State to help build a new basketball practice facility. Payton’s gift, which was announced in January, is believed to be the largest one-time donation ever made by a professional athlete to a college or university.

OSU officials and Payton have discussed for years the idea of building an annex to Gill Coliseum, which opened in the winter of 1949-50.

"When we got all the quotes and all that stuff, I just decided $3 million would be a good, generous offer," Payton said. "I wasn’t thinking about giving the most."

Payton’s donation will go toward the construction of the 60,000 square-foot building, which also will include offices and a wrestling practice room. The annex will cost about $8 million to $10 million and could be completed by late 2003.

Athletic director Mitch Barnhart said donors have pledged or contributed $5.5 million toward the cost of the building, including Payton’s donation. University and state officials must approve the names of buildings, but indications are that Oregon State will name the annex after Payton, who played there from 1987 to 1990.

In Payton’s final season at OSU, he helped the Beavers to a 22-7 record and a share of the Pacific-10 championship under coach Jim Anderson. Prior to that, Payton was coached for three years by Hall of Famer Ralph Miller, who died last year.

"They gave me an opportunity to get away from the big-city life and become a basketball player and become a person," said Payton, who is from Oakland, Calif.
"When I was young, I was doing things that I wasn’t supposed to, and coach Miller and Anderson ... they were like family."

Payton still is the Pac-10’s all-time leader in assists (938) and steals (321) and is sixth in scoring (2,172).

Seattle selected him second overall behind Syracuse’s Derrick Coleman in the 1990 NBA draft.
"Gary’s individual commitment to Oregon State University and our basketball program is incredibly generous," Ritchie McKay, OSU’s former basketball coach, told The Oregonian newspaper. "Not only is he respected as one of the best players in college and the pros, he’s also shown the kind of person he is with his gift to Oregon State."

Payton told The Oregonian he saw the Beavers’ football team improve its facilities in recent years — most notably with an indoor practice facility completed last year — and thought it was time the basketball team bettered its facilities as well.

Payton’s donation will supplant Chad Johnson’s as the largest by a professional athlete to OSU. Johnson, a wide receiver on the Beavers’ 2000 team and now with the Cincinnati Bengals, endowed a $250,000 football scholarship to the school last year.

Sports briefs
Indoor Center named for Truax:
Oregon State’s new $12 million indoor practice facility is now named the Merritt Truax Indoor Center. The facility was officially named at a halftime ceremony of the Nov. 17 Oregon State-Northern Arizona football game.

The naming of the center came about as a result of a major naming gift by Merritt and Aileen Truax. Merritt and Aileen come from a family that represents four generations of Oregon State alumni. Merritt Truax graduated from Oregon State in 1934 and soon established himself as one of Oregon’s most outstanding businessmen. He founded Merritt Truax Inc., which is one of the leading commercial and retail gasoline outlets in the country.

"Oregon State has the finest president, Paul Risser, and athletic director, Mitch Barnhart, in its history and I look forward to them making Oregon State one of the finest institutions in the country," Truax said.

The building, which was completed in September, is an 85,000-square foot facility, with a regulation size Fieldturf surface football field. The Merritt Truax Indoor Center will benefit the football, men’s and women’s soccer and golf, baseball, and softball programs.

OSU picks new men’s basketball coach:
On April 8, OSU Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart announced that Jay John, former Lute Olson assistant at the University of Arizona for the past four years, will replace the departed Ritchie McKay as Oregon State’s new head men’s basketball coach.

McKay resigned the position in late March to take a similar job at the University of New Mexico.

The 43-year old John told reporters and boosters at a press conference on campus that coming to OSU is "one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me in my life. This is an amazing opportunity for me."

He becomes OSU’s 19th head coach in a basketball program that dates to 1901. John was considered for the job two years ago to replace then head coach Eddie Payne but was passed over in favor of McKay. The Oregon Stater will carry a full-length feature on coach John in the fall.

Hoffman is perfect:
Oregon State sophomore Monica Hoffman pitched a perfect game as the Beaver softball team beat Hawai’i 1-0 on March 8 in Honolulu. The perfect game was the first in Hoffman’s career and just the third in OSU history.

Hoffman had pitched her first no-hitter on March 2 against Oklahoma State; Crystal Draper, a senior on this year’s squad holds the school record with three no-hitters. In her perfect game against Hawai’i, Hoffman struck out five.

Former soccer player earns gold:
Jill Bakken, who played on Oregon State’s women’s soccer team in 1996, was a gold medalist at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Bakken was the driver in the United States’ two-woman bobsled that won the country’s first bobsledding medal in 46 years. She attended OSU for one term before transferring to University of Utah.

Throughout this past season, Oregon State’s women’s swimmers started each meet with a cheer that concluded with a countdown: "Ten, nine, eight, …" and so on, until they silently raised their index fingers to signify No. 1.

At the Pacific-10 Championships, that chant was amended. The Beavers still started at 10, but after "eight," they raised both hands with seven fingers extended.

Sometimes, when the focus often seems that you’re first or you’re nothing, it’s hard to explain just how big a victory seventh place can be. That’s where OSU finished in the nine-team Pac-10 field, and that was cause for an orange-and-black celebration on the deck of the Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach, Calif., on March 2.

"It was one of those things we all hoped to do, and we all kind of thought we could — but that it actually came true — it was pretty awesome," said OSU co-captain Jill Personius.
Oregon State placed ahead of Pacific Northwest rivals Washington and Washington State; Oregon does not have a swimming program. The other six Pac-10 schools were all ranked among the nation’s top 12 teams going into the meet, and all six earn points for diving while OSU, WSU and UW do not have divers.

OSU head coach Mariusz Podkoscielny twice represented his native Poland in the Olympics, and he was a nine-time All-American while swimming for Arizona’s men’s team. So where does that seventh place rank on your list of thrills?

"It’s got to be in the top three, and it’s pretty close to being the most exciting moment I’ve had athletically," Podkoscielny said. "Knowing where we came from and who we were competing against, to finish seventh is like a dream come true."

Seventh place matched OSU’s highest-ever finish at the Pac-10 meet, and the Beavers hadn’t risen that high since the 1990-91 season; they hadn’t even managed eighth place since 1996. Since Podkoscielny took over for the 1996-97 season, OSU had become a competitive dual meet team but hadn’t managed to climb out of ninth place at the conference championships.
OSU’s finish this year drew notice.

"Coaches would come over and congratulate us as a whole team, and they definitely talked to Mariusz," Personius said. "The one who came over and congratulated me and the other captain (Sheila Tehranchi) was Washington State’s coach (Rocco Aceto) — that was really cool, the we had finally beaten his team and he acknowledged that he was jealous."

Among those praising the Beavers were Southern California’s Mark Schubert and Stanford’s Richard Quick, both former Olympic coaches.

"They came up and told the team, ‘You guys swam great — you were the most exciting team on the pool deck this weekend. Congratulations,’" Podkoscielny said. "Our girls were just, ‘Wow.’"

Moving up from seventh place will be tougher for several reasons — no divers, still catching up in swimming facilities, and the lack of a recent tradition of excellence in the sport. The next steps are likely to be taken at the NCAA Championships, by qualifying more swimmers, some relay teams, and placing higher at the national meet.

But for a while, it may be tough to match the thrill of that seventh-place finish. OSU