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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Wednesday, June 24, 1998
USTA rep holds clinic for students
PECOS, June 26 -- Twenty-six young tennis players braved
Tuesday afternoon's sweltering temperatures to participate
in a tennis clinic put on by Midland tennis pro Luis Valdez.
Pecos Eagles' tennis coach Bernadette Ornelas said Valdez
is the United States Tennis Association's area
representative, and was in Pecos back in March for a tennis
clinic for elementary school students.
Tuesday's sessions were each one hour long, and Ornelas
said, "I'm going to invite him over for a Saturday session,
which will probably be longer."
Valdez said he had just given a similar clinic last
Thursday in Fort Stockton, along with a weekend tournament
there. "We're just trying to introduce tennis to all the
kids in the area," he said.
That includes the 'Scoop it Up' tournament for kids, one of
which was held in Pecos during his March visit. The rules
there are laxer for the younger players, Valdez said, "As
long as the ball is still bouncing on the court it's good to
hit."
Valdez said the clinic was one of a number he's staging in
towns around the Permian Basin this summer.
Fort Stockton captures Pecos tourney
PECOS, June 26 -- A team from Fort Stockton took first place
in a softball tournament held in Pecos this past weekend.
The tournament was for girls softball, 8-9 year olds.
Grandfalls placed second in the tourney with Monahans
taking third and Pecos fourth.
The Pecos girls will participate in an All-Star Tournament
in Midland on July 17-19.
Cantaloupe tourney set for weekend
PECOS, June 26 -- Entries are still being accepted for the
Pecos Cantaloupe Tennis Tournament, set for this Friday and
Saturday at the Pecos High School tennis courts.
The tournament is divided into singles and doubles
divisions for boys and girls ages 12 and under, 14 and
under, 16 and under and 18 and under, along with men's and
women's adult divisions. A mixed doubles division is also
included in the tournament.
The tournament will begin at 8 a.m. Friday, and scoring is
best two out of three sets.
Entry fees are $8 for one event and $10 for two, with
checks made payable to Pecos High School Tennis.
For further information, call PHS tennis coach Bernadette
Ornelas at 445-1017, or call the Pecos Chamber of Commerce
at 445-2406.
Girls fast pitch clinic tonight
PECOS, June 26 -- A fast-pitch clinic for girls softball
will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. tonight at the Maxey Park
girls softball field.
The clinic will cost $20 per player. to register, call
Connie Herrera at 445-2611 or stop by Hair by Connie at 319
S. Oak St.
Clippers lean towards Olowokandi
By CHRIS SHERIDAN
AP Basketball Writer
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 24 -- On the advice of
agent David Falk, Mike Bibby had almost nothing to say on
the eve of the NBA draft.
Good thing Michael Olowokandi hired a different agent.
The 7-foot-1 center from Pacific unveiled a personality as
animated as his wingspread is wide Tuesday in an interview
session featuring 14 of the top players available in
tonight's draft.
``I always looked up to Tim Duncan more than I looked up to
Shaq,'' said Olowokandi, who has been following the NBA
closely for only a year or so. ``I didn't know much about
the NBA until video stores in England started carrying tapes
of it -- and those tapes weren't really indicative of what
it's like. Just a lot of guys running and jumping.''
Olowokandi, a 7-foot-1 center, might be the first player
running and jumping to the podium.
Despite having played organized basketball for only three
years, Olowokandi seems to have jumped ahead of Bibby as the
player most likely to be chosen No. 1 overall.
If so, the start of the draft will be a lot more
interesting than if Bibby, the Arizona point guard, is
selected first.
Simply put, Olowokandi is quite interesting. Bibby isn't.
Spinning tales of his basketball education and worldly
upbringing in an accent that was part Nigerian, part Queen's
English and part Californian, Olowokandi is looking forward
to seeing who is picked first overall by the Los Angeles
Clippers when the draft begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT.
``I anticipate a lot of things happening,'' said
Olowokandi, whose parents, Nigerian diplomats based in
London, have never seen him play.
``They have to take him, you understand that?'' said
Vancouver general manager Stu Jackson, whose team will pick
second. ``In this league, where size is at a premium and you
have someone of his size and with his athletic ability, and
you're in need of a center, they have to take him. I think
they finally realized that,''
The sudden shift left Jackson pondering whether to take
Bibby, a 6-foot-1 guard who has drawn comparisons to Jason
Kidd, or Paul Pierce of Kansas, generally considered the
best all-around player available.
Call by ref ends up shocking Morocans
By JOSEPH WHITE
AP Sports Writer
PARIS, June 24 -- The power of a referee's whistle could
hardly be more profound.
Two controversial fouls -- two cases of apparent incidental
contact -- in two games Tuesday at the World Cup led to
street celebrations on the other side of the world. They
sent teams to unprecedented levels of success and left
losing coaches angry, bitter or perplexed.
Norway -- not Morocco -- is in the second round because of a
penalty in the 89th minute that gave the Norwegians a
stunning 2-1 victory over defending champion Brazil. It's
the first time Norway has made it past the first round.
``We made history in Norway today,'' Norwegian striker Tore
Andre Flo said.
The game didn't matter to Brazil, which owned first place in
Group A. Still, even coach Mario Zagallo couldn't help but
raise the proverbial eyebrow to American referee Esse
Baharmast's decision that Junior Baiano's bump with Flo as
the two battled for position on a high ball was worthy of
the most decisive of fouls.
``I don't really know what happened there,'' said Zagallo,
shrugging his shoulders. ``The referee is FIFA's problem,
not Brazil's problem.''
It was a problem for the Moroccans, who thought they had
qualified with a 3-0 victory over Scotland. Then they
learned of Norway's stunning comeback.
Morocco's players wept on the field. Coach Henri Michel
kicked the bench, then hugged each of his stars. And he
hadn't even heard about the dubious penalty that did his
team in.
``All of us, we and the players are extremely
disappointed,'' Michel said. ``I want to pay tribute to an
excellent and an outstanding team, and I want to thank them
from the bottom of my heart.''
For truly bitter words, turn to Cameroon's Claude Le Roy,
whose tirade went straight to the top over a call that cost
his team a probable winning goal and a second-round berth in
a 1-1 draw with Chile.
``I can accept a lot of things, but I can't accept that
one,'' Le Roy said. ``I'm sorry we were eliminated,
especially on a decision that was an incompetent one.''
The foul came in the 58th minute, when Hungarian referee
Laszlo Vagner claimed Patrick Mboma pushed Ronaldo Fuentes
just before Francois Omam Biyick put the ball in the net.
``We can't really accept this unfair decision,'' midfielder
Salomon Olembe said. ``The referee will not be welcome in
Cameroon if he wanted to spend a holiday there.''
Le Roy launched into repeated verbal attacks on FIFA
president Sepp Blatter, who last week told referees to call
more fouls.
``If this is what football is all about, I hope Mr. Blatter
was watching,'' Le Roy said. ``There wasn't a shove or a
foul.
``I hope FIFA will discuss the issue of what happened
today.''
Chile moved into the second round for the first time on
foreign soil -- it finished third when it played host in
1962 -- and sent thousands to celebrate in the streets of
Santiago.
``Chile has qualified after many years of sacrifice,''
striker Marcelo Salas said. ``You have to go through
hardships. It really is a dream for us.''
Chile will play Brazil in the second round.
More celebrations and heartbreak were due today, when South
Africa plays Saudi Arabia (already out) and Denmark plays
France (already advanced) in Group C.
In Group D, unless Paraguay can upset Nigeria, then the
winner of the Spain-Bulgaria game would leapfrog into second
place and join the Nigerians in the round of 16.
Meanwhile, Tunisia became the third eliminated team to
dismiss its coach, sending Pole Henry Kasperczak on his way
after two losses. Saudi Arabia's Carlos Alberto Parreira and
South Korea's Cha Bum-kun have also been fired.
On the hooligan front, a court in Bethune convicted and
sentenced three more Germans to prison. Each received a
one-year sentence for attacking French police following
Sunday's Germany-Yugoslavia game in nearby Lens.
Also, two 27-year-old Germans were placed under formal
investigation -- a step short of being charged -- for the
attempted murder of policeman David Nivel, who remains in a
coma after Sunday's violence.
In Toulouse, an English fan underwent three hours of surgery
and was in ``very serious condition'' on life support after
being stabbed in a attack that occurred sometime around
Monday's England-Romania game.
More than 200 violence-related arrests have been made since
the start of the World Cup, a pace matched only by the
now-repetitive anti-hooligan rhetoric that follows it every
day.
``What has happened shows that we must now do everything to
prevent something like that happening in the future,'' said
German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, who voiced support for
a data bank on known soccer hooligans. ``They are
troublemakers and their activity must be stopped.''
Pecos Enterprise
Mac McKinnon, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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Copyright 1998 by Pecos Enterprise
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Pecos Enterprise