Outside Oberlin

Cleveland Fans Experiencing Shift in Pro Sports
by Zach Pretzer

As the ever-so-real and more exciting college basketball season prepares to begin across the nation, the NBA has already gotten its season underway, and with it our local misfits, the Cleveland Cavaliers, have embarked upon another campaign.
Among the better NBA teams, such as the Lakers, 76ers and Nets, surely fan support is something not very hard to come by — that’s just the nature of the game. When you win, people will come — no one can argue with that. However, for those people around this area who still cling to being Cleveland Cavalier fans, still longing for the day when a great team composed of players such as Mark Price, Brad Daugherty and Larry Nance can once again be one of the best teams to never win a championship — let alone get by Jordan and his Chicago Bulls, which is perhaps today’s Bryant and O’Neal’s Lakers — Tuesday’s home opener should be an indication of things to come for our local professional team.
On all of the Cleveland radio stations the day before Cleveland’s first game, the Cavs’ organization was still trying to push tickets for the game at Gund Arena, offering posters, discounts, free hot dogs and virtually everything possible to spur people to attend the contest with the hapless Boston Celtics.
There is one thing that should be noted right away; in the late ’80’s and early to mid-‘90’s, when the Cavs were still extremely competitive in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, there was one constant, win or lose, that pertained to the organization: the seats were always packed and the house was always rocking. Am I saying that Cleveland fans are completely fair-weathered? Not necessarily. When Gund Arena opened, what seems to be only a few years ago, the Cavs left their former home, the Richfield Coliseum, situated fairly close to Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Heights. The Coliseum was built perfectly for a professional basketball setting. No other team played there, not the WNBA’s Cleveland Rockers or the IHL’s Cleveland Lumberjacks (who no longer exist) — the Cavs had a home of their own that provided an atmosphere completely incomparable to that of Gund Arena.

Don’t get me wrong, now. The Gund has gotten quite loud a few times, but not as far as I can remember because of tremendous play by the Cavs. I’ve been to quite a few games in the somewhat new arena and the loudest I have ever heard the place get was when the Cavs’ President, Gordon Gund, led the ceremony of retiring the numbers of Cavalier all-time greats Mark Price and Larry Nance.
As a comparison, anyone who has ever been to Jacobs Field, especially in the last few years and in 1995-97, when the Cleveland Indians had absolutely great teams, knows how loud Jacobs can get. After all, in their own right, the Indians were one of the best baseball teams in recent memory not to win a championship, so there was certainly a unified longing to go the distance among Cleveland fans.
I would argue that not just for Cleveland, it is a sense of competitiveness that brings people into the stadium, not necessarily a completely dominant, winning team. Just look at the Cleveland Browns. No one has a clue what lies in store for them during the rest of the young NFL season because, without a doubt, they have shocked the league by starting off at a 4-2 record, after winning only three games in 16 attempts last year. They have an exciting young team led by a new talented coach and have the ability to achieve the unthinkable. So, appropriately, games at the new Browns Stadium are packed and an amazing atmosphere is provided for the fans to watch the game, the players to play the game and the coaches to direct the game. That’s what a home team crowd and home team support are all about.
However, if we turn our attention back to the Cavaliers, their organization is displaying everything that is unexciting and unattractive to a basketball fan. Sigh, where to begin. Let’s start with the fact that they lost to the Celtics in the home opener, 108-89. In that game, the Cavs’ leading scorers were Trajan Langdon, who averaged around 5.0 points per game last year, and Wesley Person, who besides being a specialty three-point shooter, has no incredible aspects to his game. The Celtics, who will most likely be one of the worst teams in the NBA, were leading the Cavaliers by 33 points heading into the fourth quarter. Cleveland outscored Boston by 14 points in the fourth to make it somewhat more respectable, but the pervasive bottom line is that they got spanked by the Celtics, on their home court, in the first game of the season. Well, at least there weren’t many people there to witness it.
Perhaps the most prevalent problem about the Cavaliers this season is quite simply their roster. Matt Harpering, unquestionably their hardest-working and most consistent player last season, was one of a few players traded to the 76’ers for Tyrone Hill, who despite contributing fairly well in last year’s NBA Finals against the Lakers, is out of commission with a back injury, and Jumaine Jones, who averaged a staggering 3.8 points per game in two seasons with Philadelphia. There are a few players on their roster, such as Andre Miller, Chris Mihm and Lamond Murray, who some people have heard of, but for the most part, the Cavaliers are a bunch of ballers (I use that term loosely) who no one has heard of.
Having a bunch of no-names on your team isn’t always a bad thing, though. Take for example Cleveland’s football team. Besides Tim Couch, their quarterback, and a few other select players, I haven’t heard of a majority of the guys on their roster. But despite their anonymity, they have already handed big losses to Jacksonville and Baltimore, the home of beloved owner Art Model. The Cavs, however, are quite a different story. Not only is their squad composed of mostly players who have either traveled from team to team or have virtually no experience, they don’t have a foreseeable future in winning, although they may become better and wiser.
The same could be true for the Indians, who just announced they will not re-sign two of their best players and will be without a dominant cleanup hitter for the first time in over six years. The Cavs may very well have become something close to the Indians of the Major League movie days, though. Don’t expect them to win many more than 30 games if 7’3” center Zydrunas Illgauskas, who has averaged over 13 points a game in his first three seasons in the league and with the Cavs, fails to return from an injury sometime soon.
If you’re from the Cleveland area, somewhere in Ohio or have just become a fan of the local sports teams since becoming a student at Oberlin, be advised — the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to be atrocious this season and the Indians could potentially be on their way to becoming just an average team for the first time since arriving in Jacobs Field in ’94. Whether you want to be a fair weather fan or are just plain tired of Cleveland teams never making it all the way, my advice to you for the next few years would be this: join the Rockers’ band wagon or hope and pray that the Browns can pull off a miracle. You never know what may happen.

The Major Championships in Sports: For Obies
by Ian Haynes

With the success of the “For Dummies” line of books, I figured I would try my hand at enlightening this college campus on the major sporting events that everyone should know. Don’t take this article the wrong way, I’m not calling you dumb for not knowing these, I’m just saving you the embarrassment of not being able to differentiate between the many major championships. It will be good to know just in case later in life your boss comes up to you and invites you to Game 7 of the World Series. How embarrassing would it be to say to him, “Hell yeah, I love horseracing.” I guarantee he would laugh his ass off until he found out you were serious. Sure, he might still take you, but I guarantee everyone in the office would send you a memo the next day asking how the “horse race” was.
We will begin our lesson with baseball, because its major championship the World Series is taking place right now. Baseball is known as the American pastime because it is one of the oldest and most well-known games. Just about everyone knows something about baseball, but maybe I overestimate how much people really know because I play the sport. Baseball is a nine-inning game, each half inning consisting of a team hitting until they get out three times. The World Series is played in late October every year with the best team from the National League and the best team from the American League (each league is one half of the Major League) playing a best-of-seven-game series. That means the team that wins four games first wins the World Series. The site of the World Series alternates between the cities of the two teams that are playing. The first two games are played in the city of the team with the best record, the next three in the other team’s stadium, and the last two if need be in the stadium where the first two were played. The two teams playing in this year’s World Series are the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees. The Yankees have won the last three World Series and are looking for their fourth World Series title in a row.
Football is probably the next most well-known sport in America. Its championship game is the Super Bowl, where the best team in the American Football Conference and the best team in the National Football Conference (each one half of the National Football League) play each other on Jan. 28 every year. The site of the Super Bowl changes each year, with a predetermined site before the season begins. In America, college football is also big. Division I football teams vie for national rankings and BCS points. BCS is a ranking system that awards points to teams according to the strength of their schedule and whether or not they win. The two teams that finish atop the BCS point standings play in a bowl game for the national championship. Other teams that have had good years also play in bowls of less significance.
Basketball is also big in the United States. The National Basketball Association plays 82 games each year, before playoffs and the NBA Championships. Just as in baseball, the NBA Championship is a best of seven series with the sites of the games alternating between the arenas of the two teams playing. This is the sport Michael Jordan plays. I know you have heard of “His Airness,” — everyone has. Jordan, possibly the best basketball player ever to step onto the court, gained his fame first in college with North Carolina, then later with the Chicago Bulls. He led the team, with teammate Scottie Pippen, to six championships in seven years. The year Jordan retired for the first time was the only year the Bulls didn’t win. Jordan again retired after the sixth championship only to return after a three-year hiatus to play for the Washington Wizards, a team he partly owns. For college basketball all one needs to know is the term “March Madness.” This term refers to the NCAA Championship Tournament, which is played every March. A field of 64 is whittled down to two teams who then square off for the NCAA Championship.
Ice hockey, a sport that is huge in Canada, is becoming more popular in the States. The National Hockey League is divided into two different conferences, the East and the West. Teams play all winter and after the playoffs the two teams left play a best-of-seven series for the Stanley Cup.
Golf has four major championships each year, the first being the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. It is the only one of the four that is played at the same golf course year in and year out. The other three major tournaments are the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship. Winning all four in a year means a player has won the Grand Slam. PGA stands for Professional Golfers Association. This is the sport Tiger Woods plays. If you don’t know him I’m not going to tell you who he is. In golf another major event, but not a major tournament, is the Ryder Cup. The Ryder Cup is a two-day event between a team from the United States and Europe. It is played every other year, with the site switching across the Atlantic each time the Ryder Cup is played.
Horse racing can be summed up with one race, the Kentucky Derby. It is the middle third of the Triple Crown, which is comprised of the Preakness, the Derby and the Belmont Stakes. The last horse to win the Triple Crown was Affirmed in 1978, but the most famous to ever win it was Secretariat in 1973. The Kentucky Derby is considered by many to be the best two minutes in sports and has given us one of the most well-known lines in sports when every year every announcer yells, “And down the stretch they come!”
World Cup soccer is huge everywhere in the world, and is gaining popularity in the United States. It is comprised of 32 national teams that go through a lengthy qualifying process. Teams that qualify then travel to a pre-selected site to compete.
In tennis, much like golf, four events comprise the Grand Slam. They are the Australian Open, the French Open, U.S. Open and Wimbledon. These tournaments are played on three different surfaces. These tournaments are played with two on hard court (Australian and U.S.), one on grass (Wimbledon) and one on clay (French). The tennis Grand Slam is considered by many to be the hardest thing to win in all of sports.
Boxing does not have a major championship, but if your boss ever asks you if you want ringside seats at the “title fight” do not say no, he is talking about the heavyweight championship. If you need to know about boxing, I suggest you watch any of the “Rocky” movies.
I hope these basic tips help you in the real world, where you can’t get by without knowing at least a little bit about each of the major sports.