1B Friday May 4, 2012 The Daily Illini www.DailyIllini.com
Sports END OF THE ROAD: PART 2
2009
PLAYING THE
MENTAL
GAME About to graduate, Nevolo considers what it takes to go pro BY GREG ZECK STAFF WRITER
Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part profile on senior men’s tennis standout Dennis Nevolo. You can find the full article online at DailyIllini.com. No other sport is quite like tennis. There’s a feeling of isolation because there are only two people on the court. With the distance between the two players, there’s essentially no trash talking. No one else is to blame if a mistake is made. That’s the reason why staying strong mentally is so important. Anybody who spends time around Illinois men’s tennis senior Dennis Nevolo knows that he can sometimes live in his own world, which to outsiders may seem like he’s not focusing. He knows he lives in it and accepts it, and so do his teammates and coaches. His teammates quickly picked up on it one day while in the weight room during his freshman year. Nevolo picked a weight up off the ground and put his hand up against a mirrored wall for bal-
ance. The strength trainer saw the handprint impression it left and handed Nevolo solution to clean it up. As he started wiping, he subconsciously put his other hand against the wall again, prompting an “Are you kidding me?” from the trainer. Parking his car is a story in and of itself. Teammates used to post pictures to Facebook making fun of how poor his parking jobs can be. “My parking job has improved tremendously over the years,” Nevolo joked. “After seeing some of the pictures, I made sure I parked the car correctly. It has improved, so don’t worry.” Living in his own world has also been beneficial. His close friend Riley Hoff-Larocca said he went up to Nevolo after a match saying that his opponent reminded him of another tennis player. “I told him: ‘Did you see his serve? He looks exactly the same,’” Hoff-Larocca said.
2012
See NEVOLO, Page 8B
TOP: FILE PHOTO, BOTTOM: JOSHUA BECKMAN THE DAILY ILLINI
Illini baseball: A superstitious bunch BY JAMAL COLLIER
B
aseball is known as a game of failures. Even the best hitters get a hit just three out of every 10 at-bats. That’s why baseball players are also the most superstitious: When something goes right, they try by any means to replicate the same process. The Illinois baseball team is no exception. “Baseball players have always been superstitious for whatever reason or other,” Illinois head coach Dan Hartleb said. “These guys all have their own thing, and the best thing I can do is to stay away from it and let them do what they do.” Here’s a closer look at some of the things the Illini have to do before every game.
STAFF WRITER
Third baseman Brandon Hohl and his bat
Everyone on the team knows which bat is Brandon Hohl’s. It’s the stickiest one on the rack, drenched with the most pine tar. When Hohl first gets a new bat, he takes off the knob on the bottom and replaces it with a new one and re-tapes it, just to avoid cutting up his hands. Then he adds pine tar, and a lot of it. Before every at-bat, Hohl reapplies pine tar for better grip until he gets a certain feel. Hohl first got used to the feel of pine tar in high school when he played in a league with wooden bats. He then decided to use it on aluminum handles and really liked the feel of it. If he doesn’t have pine tar, he uses dirt to replicate the feeling he needs to feel comfortable at the plate. But dirt can be hard to find at Illinois Field, where the infield is made of field turf. Once during the summer, Hohl decided to spray his bat with skin spray, which is used to stick athletic tape to skin, for grip when he ran out of pine tar and didn’t have any dirt.
Pitcher Kevin Johnson and his shoes
Every Friday this season, the size 12 and a half foot cleats of Kevin Johnson have toed the rubber for the Illini. The white shoes Johnson wears have been cleaned thoroughly for as many as 10 minutes with Scrubbing Bubbles. “I want to look good for my first inning,” Johnson said. ”(My shoes are) the only thing that I have that I don’t wash on a consistent basis, so I have to do something.” Since the beginning of his freshman year, the junior has prepared for his starts by scrubbing his shoes, but this is his first time ever wearing white spikes, which are harder to maintain. He even makes sure he has extra Scrubbing Bubbles at home to avoid situations like his start against Ohio State this year. Before that game, he didn’t have any and was forced to use water. It didn’t diminish his pitching that day (7 2/3 innings with five strikeouts and one earned run), but it’s not something Johnson wants to have happen again.
Shortstop Thomas Lindauer and his gloves
Thomas Lindauer is easily a defensive-minded player. He takes the most pride in the Illini being at or near the top of the NCAA in double plays turned per game all season long. So he is naturally very particular about his gloves. Lindauer can tell when something is off about his glove right away. “I let people put them on, but I try not to let people play catch with them,” he said. “I know (pitcher) Kevin Johnson likes to try and steal them sometimes.” Lindauer doesn’t like a deep pocket to develop with his gloves and wants them stiff so they don’t close very well. So once his glove begins to get a little loose, he tosses it and buys another. Lindauer enjoys buying gloves too. He normally buys them online, but during the team’s trip to South Carolina this year he had an impulse purchase at a Rawlings store. He carries a game glove and two or three other mitts that he uses in practice. “I don’t know, it’s a different glove everyday for me,” Lindauer said. “Right now I have three, working on another one. Then we have the game glove, and if it breaks I’ll move on to glove No. 2, and if that breaks I’ll move on to glove No. 3.”
Pitcher Nick Chmielewski and his resistance bands
After undergoing Tommy John surgery in April 2011, Nick Chmielewski had to start using resistance bands to help rebuild his arm strength. And he’s rehabbed adnauseum. Everyday, Chmielewski does three sets of 10 to 15 of anywhere from 12 to 15 different exercises. He joked that he’s built a bond with his resistance bands, and he doesn’t want anybody messing with them. “I’ve been using these things so much, I just don’t like anybody even like touching them. Like picking them off the ground,” Chmielewski said. The same handles he first got after his surgery are still on the resistance bands now, but he’s changed the ropes twice. He still has the two broken ropes in his locker “as trophies,” Chmielewski said with a laugh.
Center fielder Willie Argo and his goals
Before every game, Willie Argo takes out a paper and pen and writes down his goals for the day. But goals such as hitting home runs, stealing bases or throwing out someone at the plate will not be found on this list. “I try to focus on the process or my attitude,” Argo said. “It’ll be like: ‘one positive comment toward a teammate every inning, focus every pitch, be aggressive, be confident, relax or no body language.’ Just little reminders that I can take out and look at if I get flustered or start to maybe get a little negative attitude.” Argo started this habit after winter practice when he got the idea from reading the book “The Mental Game of Baseball” by H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl. Argo said the book taught him that writing down goals can serve as a reminder of what he’s doing and what he needs to do to play well. So far it’s working for him, although he admits he doesn’t always achieve all of his goals. “That’s part of it,” he said. “Taking them out and looking at them after the game and seeing if I achieved my goals. Or seeing what goals helped me or if I need to re-evaluate them.” PHOTOS BY JOSHUA BECKMAN THE DAILY ILLINI
Download the app on your smartphone today and experience Illini Baseball like never before.
IT’S A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME.
Open Augmented Reality Mode in the app then point your camera at the image to the left to see the Illini action come to life! It’s just one of the ways we’re bringing baseball into the 21st century. Download for
Android
From life to sports: much to learn at UI KEVIN KAPLAN Sports columnist
A
ll-American Laura DeBruler clapped when Bellatrix Lestrange exploded into dust. I’m pretty sure I also spotted Tyler Griffey in the theater during that midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie. If many in that jampacked room recognized the two, then like me they must have kept to themselves. The pair of Illini appeared to blend in with the rest of the Illinois students and local residents. But why shouldn’t they? Athletes are not all that different from the other classmates with whom I’ve shared the best years of my life. Moving through the ranks of the Daily Illini sports section, I have of course built a habit of keeping tabs on athletes. I am not the only one watching them sprint down the sidelines of Memorial Stadium or drain treys at the Assembly Hall: My work for the DI would obviously be in vain if I were alone in watching sports. But I watch them differently now. While many who now attend this school were growing up in Chicago’s suburbia watching Michael Jordan, I was enveloped by Lon Kruger’s Illini. I’m from Champaign, a townie, and that means I grew up bleeding orange and blue. In no way did I grow up dreaming of attending Illi-
See KAPLAN, Page 8B
™