The NCAA News - Briefly in the News

November 10, 1997

Many college football fans know that the University of Toledo ranked among the nation's unbeaten Division I-A football teams through games of November 1. What they probably don't know is that the Rockets' outstanding quarterback, Chris Wallace, was born with a foot defect so serious that he is fortunate to be able to walk today, let alone perform at a high level athletically.

Wallace was born with severely deformed club feet. According to a Toledo Blade article by Dave Hackenburg, doctors had to break the bones in both feet the morning after Wallace was born. The casts had to be changed every six weeks to accommodate his growth.

Doctors counseled his parents that his only chance to walk was a series of operations, and even then, there were no guarantees.

But through his mother's determination, Wallace was able to walk (actually, he ran before he walked) by the time he was nine months old. He played T-ball by the time he was 6 and football when he was 9. As a high-school quarterback, he set five Ohio passing records.

"I owe everything to her and her faith," Wallace said of his mother. "They said I wasn't going to walk. They gave my mom handicap stickers for the car. But my mom figured otherwise."

Fast start

Westfield State College can do no wrong in the early part of the 1997-98 academic year. The Owls were a combined 20-0 in four sports as they headed into the final weekend of the regular season. They had not lost a game in men's soccer, women's soccer, field hockey and women's volleyball.

Honoring a legend

State Farm Insurance will host a major charity dinner to honor retiring Grambling State University football coach Eddie Robinson November 29 at the New Orleans Hyatt Regency Hotel. The dinner for the all-time most-victorious coach in Division I history will feature showcase performances by Angela Bofill, Yolanda Adams and the Count Basie Orchestra.

Robinson has won 409 games at Grambling.

Tickets for the event are on sale by phone at 510/594-1400 and on the Internet at http://www.ticketweb.com and http://www.coachrobinson gala.org.

-- Compiled by David Pickle

Division III notes

A new Division III athletics conference is fully operational with six fall sports in full swing. Charter members of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference are Frostburg State University; Lake Erie College; La Roche College; Pennsylvania State University Erie, the Behrend College; University of Pittsburgh, Bradford; and University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg. Officers of the Presidents' Council are Catherine Gira, Frostburg State, chair, and John Lilley, Penn State-Behrend, vice-chair. Officers of the Athletic Directors' Council are Loyal Park, Frostburg State, chair; Sam Corabi, Lake Erie, vice-chair; and Jim Tinkey, La Roche, secretary-treasurer. Jeff Krone, sports information director at Frostburg State, will serve as conference SID for the first season. The AMCC sponsors 11 sports -- baseball, men's golf, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's soccer, women's softball, women's tennis, and women's volleyball.

The College of St. Benedict has added women's ice hockey as a varsity sport, making it the first women's college in the United States to take the ice with an intercollegiate team. The ice hockey team is the 11th varsity sport at St. Benedict and begins play in the 1997-98 academic year. Head women's soccer coach Bill Kelly will double as the women's ice hockey coach. The college is a member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. St. Benedict is one of eight MIAC colleges to receive a $55,000, four-year grant to start women's collegiate hockey programs. The MIAC received a $440,000 grant from the United States Olympic Committee for development of women's ice hockey as a varsity conference sport.

Wilmington College (Ohio) recently honored veteran coach and administrator Fred Raizk for more than a half century of service. Raizk, a four-sport letterman at Wilmington, began his career there in 1947, eventually coaching six sports: football, baseball, track, soccer, basketball and finally golf, which he still coaches today. Besides coaching, Raizk also served as athletics director for 25 years, as dean of men and as a member of the faculty from 1946 to 1990. In Raizk's honor, Wilmington is renovating the basketball portion of Hermann Court and remaining it Fred Raizk Arena. The dedication will occur December 5 when the schools hosts the second Fred Raizk Classic.