National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - Briefly in the News

November 11, 1996

Coach performs a juggling act

It's not that he is the only person to have coached two college teams at the same time. But coach two teams in overlapping seasons and achieve significant success in each sport every year? Not many can include themselves in that category, but Dave Wilson can.

For the past five years, Wilson has coached both the women's soccer and women's basketball teams at the State University of New York at Binghamton -- and coached them well. Since 1994, his teams have achieved a combined winning percentage of .752, with each team earning NCAA playoff berths in 1994 and 1995.

The women's soccer team is back again this year, this time rated No. 2 in the country. Through October 31, it had outscored opponents 54-7 and had a 17-1 record.

So what is Wilson doing for four hours on an October evening after soccer practice? Teaching and talking basketball, of course.

"It's hard to change focus so quickly," Wilson said, "but this is without a doubt the best basketball team we've ever had, and I don't want us to fall behind schedule."

As if the demands of coaching two nationally competitive teams aren't enough, Wilson also has three sections of physical education to teach, along with five national committee assignments.

But enough is enough, and the 31-year-old coach will call this soccer season his last, focusing all his efforts on basketball and the program's move to Division II in 1998.

Besides, everything is beginning to run together these days. After a recent 90-minute session with the soccer team, he rushed over to basketball practice. He promptly called out for wind sprints, telling the team, "Go to the endline and back!"

After noting the puzzled looks, he directed them to the baseline instead.

Juggling act II

While all the talk in the recent presidential campaign had to do with "soccer moms," at Wagner College, the focus is on a "cross country mom."

Mary Brooks is both a mom (four young sons) and the top runner on Wagner's women's cross country team.

She actually started her college career in the 1980s at the College of Staten Island, but she soon married, left school and started her family.

Brooks, 34, had been a top runner in high school, and, according to the Staten Island Advance, she resumed road racing about five years ago. Her times improved, and she racked up several victories. Then she decided to go back to school and finish her degree.

She was apprehensive at the beginning and took only 12 credits her first semester. But has things have gone so well since that she took 20 hours her last semester -- while raising the family on the run. "It made this term a lot easier," she told the Advance.

In addition to Brooks' athletics prowess (she is a consistent scorer in conference competition), she is a giant in the classroom, having scored a nearly perfect grade-point average while earning a spot on the Northeast Conference all-academic team. She expects to graduate ahead of schedule and pursue a teaching career.

Palms down

It would appear that Bobby Cremins, men's basketball coach at Georgia Institute of Technology, isn't on board with this year's point of emphasis from the NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee.

Before the start of every basketball season, the committee releases a list of rule changes and "points of emphasis," which are reminders to officials to enforce playing rules that already are on the books.

This year's points of emphasis includes a section on palming the basketball.

"We've got to have points on emphasis every year, so I guess we had to fill in the blank this year," Cremins told the The Durham (North Carolina) Herald. "I just hope they don't take away the natural talent of the players."

Cremins even campaigned to writers about de-emphasizing the rule, the paper reported.

"Why don't you write and say how stupid this is?" Cremins said. "Send me a copy."

--Compiled by David Pickle

News quiz

1. Who was honored by the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators as 1996 National Administrator of the Year? (a) Patty Viverito of the Gateway Football Conference and Missouri Valley Conference; (b) Linda S. Moulton of Clark University (Massachusetts); (c) Marilyn A. McNeil of Monmouth University (New Jersey); (d) Mary Jo Warner of George Washington University.

2. Which school has won the most men's team titles at NCAA championships? (a) Oklahoma State University; (b) University of Southern California; (c) Stanford University; (d) University of California, Los Angeles.

3. NCAA Woman of the Year Billie Winsett-Fletcher played volleyball at which school? (a) University of Nebraska, Lincoln; (b) Boston College; (c) North Dakota State University; (d) Ohio State University.

4. Which school will host the 1997 Divisions I and III Men's Lacrosse Championships? (a) Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick); (b) University of Maryland, College Park; (c) Boston College; (d) Butler University.

5. True or false: All Division I institutions must be equipped to communicate with the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse via computer modem by January 1, 1997.

6. Which Division I-A first-year football coach won a national championship? (a) Bennie Oosterbaan, University of Michigan; (b) Barry Switzer, University of Oklahoma; (c) John Robinson, University of Southern California; (d) Tom Osborne, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

News quiz answers: 1-(a). 2-(b). 3-(a). 4-(b). 5-True. 6-(a).