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THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA AT MONROE
October 03, 2011
SPORTS
Season begins now for football by DeRon Talley
The football team finished nonconference play with one win and three losses. Now they move into Sun Belt play, and the action begins at home on Saturday against Arkansas State University. “This is where you have to get your bread and butter together right here,” senior Jason Edwards said. “We gotta show up.” ULM’s defense impressed critics with stances against Florida State, TCU, Iowa and held Grambling State to seven points to lead the team in a 35-7 win. “If a team doesn’t score, they don’t win,” Edwards said. “When a team scores, it’s our fault. We just have to hold them from scoring.” Last season the team began 2-0 in conference play. Despite the good start, the Warhawks fell short of a winning season, but this year, the team is in a new mindset. “We are focusing on one game at a time,” senior Nate Brown said. “Each week we need to be 1-0.” Brown said, “The only way you
“This is where you have to get your bread and butter together.”
by Zach Brown
Jason Edwards, senior linebacker make it to that big picture is if you take care of each puzzle piece one at a time.” After Saturday, the team goes on the road for its next two games before returning for Homecoming at the end of October. “We have to prove this is our year.” senior Darius Prelow said. “Any team that steps in our way, we are looking to just run over them.” Edwards said he believes the team has the athletes and the depth. “The pieces to the puzzle are there, we just have to put them in the right places,” he said. contact DeRon Talley at talleydl@warhawks.ulm.edu
photo by Robert Brown
Senior defensive backs Nate Brown (left) and Darius Prelow (right) watch as the offense runs the field at Malone Stadium.
DID YOU KNOW? ULM’s defense ranks first in the Sun Belt Conference in fewest yards allowed per game with 345, despite three non-conference losses to ranked opponents. The offense ranks first in the conference in third down conversions with a 46.2 percent conversion, and the team is one shy of the opponents’ totals in first downs with 75.
NCAA conference realignment to help the future of college sports, or is it the beginning of the end?
ANTHONY DRUMMER College football purists argue that stronger conferences are stealing teams from weaker conferences and damaging the spirit of football as well as other college sports. However, it is usually the teams in the weaker conferences that just want a fair shot at the BCS and conference revenue. The Boise State Broncos for example, have clearly been one of the best teams in college football over the last decade, yet they have never had a shot at a national championship. Furthermore, they had to practically go undefeated year after year just to get a BCS bowl bid. Rather than continually be snubbed year after year, the Broncos decided to move from the WAC to the Mountain West Con-
ference along with similarly shunned Texas Christian University. The move gives both teams a better chance at the BCS and a national championship that they would never have in their old conferences. Another factor that drives teams to join larger conferences is the money. The income gained is a large part of an institution’s revenues. Some teams want to move in order to get their fair piece of the money pie. Texas A&M, a long time member of the Big 12, became so frustrated with the University of Texas’ power and influence in the conference that they bolted for the SEC. The power of the Longhorns dismantled the entire conference as other conference members threatened to follow suit by also joining the SEC or the Pac 12. A&M’s departure forced the Big 12 to take a long hard look at how it does business and act more favorably to the conference as a whole instead of one team. In the end, college football realignment is just business. Only the strong survive and college sports are no different. contact Anthony Drummer at drummeac@warhawks.ulm.edu
Upgrades help softball swing for the fences
JERRY COX The new “Super-Conferences” aren’t right at all. They aren’t geologically correct. What is Colorado doing playing on the West Coast? And if TCU is located in Texas, why are they playing in the Big East? They aren’t even named correctly. The PAC-10 now has 12 teams and so does the Big Ten, but the Big 12 only has 10. The worst part about the sudden “wanting a change of scenery” is that it’s driven by the root of all evil…… money. The money-hungry universities aren’t even taking the time out to think about the fans, the people who actually pay all their hard earned money to the university. They forgot about the most important part, the student-athletes. Take TCU as an example, they now have to travel half
way across the country for every away game that they play because of their new conference. Think about the rivalries that are being lost in the giant jig-saw puzzle of conferences. Texas A&M is now a part of the SEC and will join the conference next fall, but will they continue their rivalry games with Texas and Texas Tech? Doubt it, the SEC is tough enough so they probably won’t continue to schedule those games ,and with that being said, there goes decades of being bitter rivals down the drain. Syracuse is now part of the ACC. When I think of Syracuse, I think of basketball in Madison-Square Garden, cold weather and those infamous Big East tournament games. But how are those games supposed to be played if Syracuse is in Greensboro, NC playing for the ACC championship? The ACC already has its teams and fame in Duke vs. North Carolina. It’s a never-ending cycle, with all the talk of who’s leaving comes the talk of who’s going to replace them. contact Jerry Cox at coxja@warhawks.ulm.edu
It’s only September and the ULM softball team’s chemistry is already coming together in hopes to bring the program to highest level ever. “Every year the bar must be raised a notch,” said Head Coach Rosemary Holloway-Hill. A few weeks ago, the team went on what Holloway-Hill called an “owl retreat.” This retreat consisted of backto-back Fridays where coaches and players worked on becoming a family by learning to trust one another, eliminating any selfishness and getting to know all the new faces on the team. Last season the Warhawks lost five seniors, and two players transferred. Ho l l o w ay - Hi l l recruited three junior college transfers and Holloway-Hill four high school graduates. The team hopes the transfers bring not only experience but also knowledge from being in big edge situations. Transfers Haley McCall, Carly Wanwright and Samantha Hamby all played in the Junior College National Championship tournament last season. McCall, MVP of the tournament, and Wanwright are former LSUE teammates from the team that won the national championship. Hamby was a Second-Team, AllAmerican pitcher from Central Alabama Community College. The players aren’t the only thing new around the softball diamond. A new scoreboard and a pair of dugouts that had not been replaced since 1963 are also added fixtures in the program. Holloway-Hill has two goals set for the team this year: a winning record in conference play (which has never been done) and to be in the top four going in to the Sun Belt Conference softball tournament in the Spring. The motto the team’s using to reach their goals is, “Everyone’s drinking ‘Hawkaid,’” meaning everyone stays on the same page and works toward the same goal. Hopefully that strategy will translate to wins in the spring. contact Zach Brown at brownzt@warhawks.ulm.edu