National Collegiate Athletic Association |
The NCAA News - Briefly in the NewsMarch 17, 1997Ref overcomes tornado's furyBasketball official Keith Maxwell got more than he bargained for when he worked the recent Sun Belt Conference men's tournament.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette described what happened next: "I was lying on my bed in underwear watching television," Maxwell told the Democrat-Gazette. "A warning ran across the set for the following counties. I don't know what county I'm in. Then I heard some people screaming in the atrium of the Holiday Inn. "I cracked open our door and saw the ceiling tiles being ripped off the top of our hotel. I could see the edge of the thing going by, and I dived back into the room and got in the bathroom. It scared the soup out of me." The "thing" was one of the tornadoes that left more than 20 dead across Arkansas on March 1. "For four or five minutes," he told the Democrat-Gazette, "it was just 'Are we all OK? Are we all OK?' Then we walked out in the parking lot. You could just see the path this thing had made. I could see people gathered in the street and finally it dawned on me that, good Lord, there must be people hurt. So I went and helped." He treated several severe cuts and helped set a compound fracture of a woman's shin. "I've never been overwhelmed in my life," he said. "It was a poor neighborhood as it was, and then to have this kind of disaster. I just felt like crying." Once he was satisfied he had done all he could, Maxwell drove to the coliseum and called that night's game. Wrestling success storyA number of articles recently have focused on the sponsorship decline in men's wrestling. However, this year there was happy news from Happy Valley, where the Pennsylvania State University wrestling team attracted the second-largest number of fans in the history of the program. Penn State, ranked in the top five all season and posting its best dual record (16-4) since 1993, drew 26,141 fans as the Nittany Lions built a 5-1 home mark. Penn State posted an average home attendance mark of 4,356, just 177 shy of the Penn State record of 4,533 set in the 1986-87 season -- thanks in large part to a Penn State record crowd of 11,245 that turned out to watch the then-No. 4 ranked Nittany Lions take on the then-No. 1 ranked University of Iowa Hawkeyes. The December 6 dual meet, which Iowa won, 22-15, was the first collegiate wrestling action to be held at the 15,261-seat Jordan Center, the new $55 million facility that will be the site of the 1998 Big Ten Championships and 1999 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. The record crowd was the largest NCAA dual-meet crowd of the 1996-97 season and the largest crowd ever to witness a dual meet east of the Mississippi River. BCA ConventionThe Black Coaches Association will conduct its 10th annual convention May 22-24 at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami. BCA Executive Director Rudy Washington noted that the association has provided coaches with a forum to discuss relevant issues within their respective sports and that it also has served as a means for those individuals to participate in career-development activities, educational seminars, networking and personal-growth workshops. While the BCA is for coaches, Washington emphasized that it also is for "administrators and others involved in scholastic, intercollegiate and professional athletics who work together to improve opportunities for minorities in athletics." Those interested in becoming BCA members or in attending the BCA convention may call Stephannie Harvey at 310/342-8253. Record fallsJoanna Bernabei of West Liberty State University of Pennsylvania became the all-time leader in assists for women's Division II basketball February 22 in a game against Fairmont State College. The 5-foot-4 guard finished the game with 1,078 assists, surpassing the record of 1,067 set by Lisa Rice of Norfolk State University in 1995. -- Compiled by David Pickle |
Maxwell, an orthopedic surgeon from Asheville, North Carolina, was in his hotel room March 1, waiting to call a tournament semifinal game between the University of South Alabama and the University of Southwestern Louisiana.