Chances are good nationally rated center Greg Smith -- who played at Edison the past two years -- will hold true to his word and play basketball for Fresno State. What remains in doubt is when because of academic eligibility questions.

He hasn't taken the SAT Reasoning or ACT tests, one of which he must pass to play as a freshman in the 2009-10 season. The tests are offered five times a year during a student's high school enrollment.

If Smith doesn't pass, he'll go to Fresno State without scholarship as a freshman (receiving financial aid grants, no doubt) and attempt to pass the minimum 24 units required for him to resume his basketball career as a sophomore. NCAA rules will prohibit him from practicing with the team as a freshman if he doesn't pass one of the entrance examinations.

Another option, should Smith fail to pass the test his senior year, is to attend junior college, where he could play for two seasons while earning his Associate Arts degree, which would be required for him to advance to the NCAA Division I level as a junior. But Smith won't choose this option.

Edison, under three-year coach Arturo Ormond, has consistently qualified its top players, such as Darshawn McClellan and Kellen Carter, for college. A common method, Ormond says, is by concentrating on one section of the test at a time. With the SAT Reasoning test, for example, the player might concentrate on the reading section one time taking the test, then the math the next. The top scores of each section are accepted, even if they're scored in different tests.

Also in question for Smith is where he'll attend high school as a senior in a month. The family plan now has him attending Bethel High in Vallejo, where his uncle, Phillip Shelley, is vice principal.

Regardless, he'll be a Bulldog -- some day.

In today's world where the kids too often run things and make bad decisions, it's nice to see the family of former Edison star Greg Smith try to steer him down the right path.

If his academic situation is as dire as it seems to be -- where they want Smith to leave Fresno to focus -- I applaud them for making the call and getting the 17-year-old outta here.

Smith's one of the best big men in the nation, according to the scouting sites. He has so much to lose if he doesn't qualify academically for college. Yes, I guess there's always Europe -- he can go the route of another former Arizona recruit (Brandon Jennings) and make pro Europe ball an option.

But not everyone wants to play overseas. Shoot, some kids don't want to play out of state.

Former Fresno State starting cornerback Damon Jenkins signed with the Cleveland Browns this summer and is currently in training camp, working to impress coaches and land a spot on the Brown's roster.

In a new Sports Buzz feature, I'll catch up with Jenkins to talk about his experiences as an NFL rookie ... and we'll probably rehash some of his good ol' Bulldog days, too.

So here we go ... Damon's first impressions of NFL training camp ...
In what city is training camp held?

(6th of 6 blogs on Granite Park)

Today, Granite Park's ballfields and soccer area are in need of care.

Weeds are common at the ballfields that resemble Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. The outfield grass at the former is turning yellow; the outfield grass at the latter has large dead spots. The field that resembles AT&T Park is unplayable.

Weeds grow inside the batting cages, despite their concrete floor. Trash cans are full. There's litter.

The small soccer area has two goals, one without a net. The grass, what's left of it, is yellow.

Barbis said Wednesday the foundation plans to sell the ballfields and soccer area to "Mr. Young." According to an August 2007 article in The Bee, Howard Young is the brainchild of Boucon Bay. (The amusement park is now called The Forest at Granite Park, has a forest ecosystem theme, and is expected to open in the fall, Barbis told The Bee in June.)

Granite Park's athletic fields couldn't compete with the city's own ballfields and soccer fields, Barbis said.

The sale would need City Council approval. Barbis said he has been in contact with city officials and expects to go to the council with the proposed sale within 30 days.

If the sale goes through, all of the former Harpain's Dairy site would be owned by Granite Park's for-profit group. The city would no longer be in the loan guarantee business at Granite Park.

Granite Park -- with its growing array of retail businesses and planned amusement park and hotel -- is turning into a $110 million project and a powerful economic engine for Fresno, Barbis said.

He added: "The Kids Foundation will fund other programs off-site."

(5th of 6 blogs on Granite Park)

In November 2007, the City Council unanimously agreed to permit Barbis to sell about half of the foundation's 20 acres to the for-profit group. The 10 acres would become part of Granite Park's amusement park.

The price, according to a city report, was to be not less than $2.4 million.

The sale left the foundation with about 10 acres and an outstanding bank loan (still guaranteed by the city) of about $2.6 million. Barbis said the ballfields and the reconfigured soccer area would continue to operate as before.

(4th of 6 blogs on Granite Park)

City Council members in December 2004 were clear about why they put the public's credit behind the Granite Park Kids Foundation: Economic development. But they also were enthused about Granite Park's green space and recreational opportunities. That part of Fresno, city officials said, was woefully short of both.

The deal with the city, for example, required the foundation to open the soccer fields to the public at no cost on Monday through Friday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., excluding national holidays, until the end of 2012.

But Granite Park's vision has changed.

In 2006, Barbis said the for-profit portion -- The Village at Granite Park -- would feature Boucon Bay. This amusement park would have a pirate theme and up to 15 rides, including roller coasters, flume rides and merry-go-rounds. In 2007, Barbis announced plans to build office buildings along Granite Park's north side.

Since half of Granite Park was a private venture, any change in vision was not the public's business. But that wasn't the case with the foundation's 20 acres and the bank loan guaranteed by City Hall.

And in 2007, changes were afoot with those 20 acres.

(3rd of 6 blogs on Granite Park)

Granite Park and City Hall cut a deal in 2004 because they decided their agendas were complementary.

The foundation was in debt, having borrowed to build the fields. It was a private loan, and the interest rate was onerous. The foundation had a refinancing deal lined up with a bank, but needed a city guarantee to close it. The reason: The project was a start-up business, and ballfields aren't typical loan collateral.

The city, in turn, was keen on getting someone to turn those 40 or so acres that were once Harpain's Dairy into something productive. City officials defined productive as: Property taxes, sales taxes, jobs, green space, recreation, entertainment, consumer services, a place of pride for an area of town that was once the cutting edge of the post-World War II suburban explosion but had since struggled to rediscover its identity.

Council Member Mike Dages cast the lone vote against the loan guarantee. Too many unanswered questions, he said.

Perhaps history also was a factor. Fresno in the 1980s made several public investments in private ventures that, at least short-term, turned sour and controversial. They included Far West Airlines and the Roxford Foods turkey-processing plant.

A council majority in 2004 embraced Barbis' vision.

Said then-Council President Brad Castillo, who represented the Granite Park area: "We're actually building something that will benefit our children, and it will create jobs and provide economic stability to this area."

(2nd of 6 blogs on Granite Park)

Getting to this point in Granite Park's history has been quite a journey.

It's easiest to go back to Dec. 21, 2004. That's when the Fresno City Council voted 6-1 to guarantee a $5.2 million bank loan to the non-profit Granite Park Kids Foundation. The Foundation at the time owned about 20 acres at the site, and had already built the ballfields and soccer fields. If the foundation defaulted, the city had several options including paying off the loan and acquiring the land.

Barbis' plan in 2004 for Granite Park was simple. The foundation would provide places for people to play, places so unique they'd attract locals plus athletes from outside the Fresno metropolitan area. A for-profit group would build a retail complex on Granite Park's other 20 acres. There was to be a hotel, restaurants, a physical therapy office, a sporting goods store with a rock-climbing wall, a cheerleading studio and a permanent home for the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame.

The project's 20-acre halves would complement each other. Barbis was an official with the foundation and the for-profit group.

On Dec. 21, 2004, Council Member Henry T. Perea thanked Barbis and his partners: "You could have chosen to build anywhere in Fresno or out of Fresno, but you chose the inner city."

(1st of 6 blogs on changes at Granite Park)

The days of Granite Park as a home for participatory sports such as softball and soccer most likely are drawing to a close, said project developer Milt Barbis.

Granite Park is a multi-use project on the site of a former dairy on Cedar Avenue between Dakota and Ashlan avenues in east-central Fresno. The project has gone through several visions. Retail has always been a key component, and businesses are moving in. Several restaurants are open, and construction of rocker Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Cantina is underway.

Baseball, softball and soccer also were a key part of the Granite Park business model. The site has three ballfields that resemble well-known major league stadiums: AT&T Park, Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. Hitters can taste the glory of hitting one off the Green Monster in left field. The site also had soccer fields under the lights.

"This is probably the last season," Barbis said Wednesday of the ballparks and soccer area. "We're going to turn it into the theme park."

Follow the series in these links:

No. 2 -- Loan guarantee was critical

No. 3 -- Both sides saw a benefit

No. 4 -- The vision starts to change

No. 5 -- Foundation sells 10 acres

No. 6 -- City competition was too tough

Couple things that struck me regarding Marty Martin's lawsuit against the Clovis Unified School District:

** The district had months to respond to his original claim, cut him a relatively small check (what, $200,000?) out of court and send him on his horse to Kerman. But it didn't. And, of course, it had to be advised not to. The district -- as opposed to Fresno State -- has little history of being sloppy with litigation. Odds are it knows what it's doing.

** It doesn't require a beautiful blonde to shape a sexy trial in Fresno County Superior Court. Just imagine if a handful of those prominent Clovis West booster/parents that Martin says drove him out take the chair under oath. Buckle up.

This fall is the 50th anniversary of probably the greatest football team in Lindsay High School history. The Cardinals of 1958 beat Exeter, Dinuba, Wasco and Redwood in non-league games, then won their five Central Sierra League games by a combined score of 233-19.

There were plenty of standouts: Larry Pickering, Bob Baird (younger brother of Bill Baird, the superb defensive back for the Super Bowl III champion New York Jets), Brad Holmes, Rudy Avina and Ron Atteberry, to name only a few.

That was the era when high school football teams had only two coaches. Lindsay had two of the best: J.R. Boone (who moved up the ranks to be Fresno State’s head coach from 1973 through 1975) and Bob Padilla (Fresno State’s head coach in 1978 and 1979).

Perhaps such a stirring legacy will inspire the Cardinals of 2008 and their new head coach, Robert Hurtado. Lindsay has lost 23 straight games, including consecutive 0-10 seasons. The football program hasn’t had a winning record since 2002.

“The biggest challenge is getting the enthusiasm in the players back,” Hurtado said last week.

Maybe they’ve forgotten the greatness that was once Lindsay High football.

Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh says he’s trying to bring some conformity to the contracts of head coaches in team sports: five-year deals for each, and no talks about renewals or extensions until the end of the third year.

For example, Boeh says, the 2008-09 school year is the third in football coach Pat Hill’s five-year contract. When this season is over, perhaps by next spring, he and Hill will sit down and talk about the football coach’s future at Fresno State, Boeh says.

Gone, then, are the days when a coach with a five-year deal got a near-automatic one-year rollover after every season. Such rollovers kept coaches happy, but hampered the school’s hiring flexibility. After all, unless a contract had a reasonable buy-out clause, the school couldn’t afford to get rid of failing coaches if they had three or four expensive years remaining.

Still, Boeh’s policy raises questions. Getting off the mark by giving five-year deals to team-sport head coaches solves one challenge – gender equity. But what does Fresno State do when successful coaches’ get down to that two-year mark?

If the school routinely gives them three-year extensions, then it’s back to square one – no flexibility should a coach suddenly go to seed. If the school varies the length of extensions – one year for coach A, two for coach B, three for coach C – then the equity question is raised again. And if the school is stingy with its extension for a particularly successful coach, that opens the door for another university to come poaching.

Call it the "48- to 60-month rule of advancement." For ambitious mid-major Division I college athletic directors, that is.

Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh says ADs at mid-majors often begin looking for a new job further up the food chain after four or fives years in the saddle. Only Boeh doesn't use years -- he says 48 to 60 months.

Boeh came to Fresno State in July 2005 from Ohio University of the Mid-American Conference. He's now nearing the end of his 37th month at the helm of Bulldogs athletics.

There have been some rough spots. There's still plenty of bad blood in local wrestling circles over Boeh's decision to drop the Bulldogs wrestling program in 2006. And some critics say his bedside manner when it comes to stroking the egos of big boosters needs work.

But if Boeh gets the blame for things that go awry on his watch, then he gets credit for the good things. Budgets were balanced in two of three years. A big boost in a student fee earmarked in part for athletics was approved. Academics in most sports are strong or improving. The NCAA infractions cops aren't pounding on the door. A new women's lacrosse team and a reborn women's swimming/diving team are here. And Fresno State athletes -- from football players in the fall to national champion baseball players in the spring -- excelled in 2007-08 on a level unprecedented in school history.

So, is Boeh thinking about moving on 10 or 12 months before his "rule of advancement" applies to him?

He laughs at the suggestion: "We have tremendous things still to do."

There's a diplomatic answer worthy of Foggy Bottom.

In the fall of 1972, several of my good friends lived in a second-story apartment at the Village Apartments on what is now Bulldog Lane in north Fresno.

I could stand on the balcony facing north and, looking to my right, see Fresno State's Beiden Field. But directly in front of me I could see only a huge field, full of weeds and the occasional jackrabbit.

On Sept. 13 — only seven weeks away — the University of Wisconsin football team of the Big Ten Conference will show up in the middle of what used to be that seemingly worthless, forlorn field. The 41,031-seat Bulldog Stadium now fills much of that area, and coach Pat Hill's Bulldogs will host the Badgers in a non-conference game.

It's the biggest, most important home football game in Fresno State history. No other game comes close.

Not the so-called "Stadium Builders" game on Oct. 8, 1977 at Ratcliffe Stadium (Bulldogs beat mighty San Diego State 34-14); not the Bulldog Stadium opener on Nov. 25, 1980 (Bulldogs beat Montana State 21-14); not the official stadium opener on Sept. 5, 1981 (Bulldogs beat Oregon 23-16); not the thrilling Cal Bowl II on Dec. 18, 1982 (Bulldogs beat Bowling Green 29-28); not that day in late September 2000 when the Golden Bears of Cal finally came to town (Bulldogs won 17-3); not the the Sept. 2, 2001 game against Sport Illustrated's preseason No. 1 team Oregon State (Bulldogs won 44-24).

A Big Ten powerhouse football program is coming to town.

Anyone who remembers that ugly swath of dirt and trash and off-road bicycle trails next to Beiden Field can only marvel at the transformation, both in Fresno State's facilities and the Bulldogs' football program.

Sports fans are pretty used to seeing the occasional bench-clearing bash in Major League Baseball. This week, the minor leaguers pitched in, literally, and did their best to outdo the big leaguers. Peoria Chiefs pitcher Julio Castillo was arrested Thursday after throwing a ball that hit a fan. See video below ...

Video: Fight in Ohio

Luckily, reports are the fan's injuries were not serious.

Read the story ...

Who said the WNBA isn't exciting enough to be in the national spotlight? Well, action from this week was bigger than ever ...

The Los Angeles Sparks and Detroit Shock provided plenty of "spark" and "shock" in a rumble during Tuesday's game which led to multiple suspensions.

"None of us can recall an incident like this," WNBA president Donna Orender said Thursday during a conference call. "The events Tuesday, however, were inexcusable and in no way are indicative of what the league stands for. We hold our players to a very high standard and these suspensions should serve notice that the behavior exhibited at the end of Tuesday's game will not be tolerated."

WNBA suspends 10 players and Mahorn for skirmish

WNBA reviewing fight between Detroit, LA players

Maybe popularity of the sport will pick up ... too bad it is due to negative publicity.

Could this incident have anything to do with the respective coaches Michael Cooper and Bill Laimbeer, who by the way don't really like each other and have expressed that publicly? Both coaches were fierce competitors when they played for the Lakers and Pistons in the 80s.

[edit: This blog was typed on July 22, but lost to cyber space for a couple weeks. Our apologies.]

Been unloading my voicemail box here at the blog-cave for about 20 minutes now. Any time you write about Stacy Johnson-Klein, it is guaranteed that your voicemail will be jammed like a Chinese commuter train. I could write the shortest column in history, one sentence -- "Stacy Johnson-Klein has yellow hair." -- and the next day I would have 14 messages saying it was the best column ever written, and another couple dozen saying I was absolutely wrong and should consider a career in sewer-dwelling.

One friendly caller led off his voicemail by saying, "Apparently, you do not believe in our justice system."

This is a great place to start for a little surplus to last Friday's SJ-K column*, which 10 out of 11 dentists agree had unhealthy levels of sarcasm. My point was pretty simple. Stacy Johnson-Klein now has a job in marketing, which she is really good at. And she does NOT have a job coaching college students, which about ever single player she coached at Fresno State would say is a great thing. So really, it's win-win. The caller was obviously not a fan of the column, and in that snippet of his message was referring to the rather large settlement ($9 million) that Johnson-Klein won in a civil suit against her former employer, Fresno State.

Here's the thing: Whether Johnson-Klein deserved to win a settlement against Fresno State, and whether she should be a college basketball coach, are two entirely different topics. Did she deserve to win a settlement? Probably. Maybe. I just don't know because I don't know how much of what was said on the witness stand was true and how much of it was lies. There were obviously a lot of lies. Johnson-Klein said she was groped by the athletic director, Scott Johnson, in a car wash. He said it didn't happen. A school employee said Johnson had sex with another school employee as she was lying in the bed next to them. He said it didn't happen. Johnson-Klein said Johnson asked her to go to a cabin, or somewhere like that, for the weekend. He said it didn't happen. The contradictions went on and on. My guess is, at least a half dozen people committed purgery at some point in the trial.

The trial was filled with wild accusations and startling statements*, and sorting it out would take us roughly 17 years. Imagine someone being dragged by a horse. Rope around the ankles. Head bouncing off cactus. Now imagine yelling at that person, "What's the square root of 192,211?" That's the look the Fresno State defense attorneys had for most of the trial.

*Take this example: At one point, Johnson-Klein said on the witness stand that she had been raped by her uncle while growing up in Oklahoma. It really had no relevence to the Fresno State lawsuit, other than to show how traumatized Johnson-Klein felt while trapped in the alleged car wash incident. (You would assume that a scenario like that would be traumatic for anyone, not just a former rape victim, but you can see why the prosecution wanted it out there. It makes her more sympathetic. That's in no way to minimize what might have happened back in Oklahoma, but sexual harrassment is sexual harrassment regardless of the person's past trauma, right? The answer to that question is of course, "No." In a jury trial, it's all about emotion and sympathy, and as you can see, it worked, because the jury originally awarded her $19.1 million.) But the uncle story went pretty much unchallenged. I mean, we're talking about rape here. That's a serious allegation. Who is this uncle? What's his name? Does he deny this? Was he charged? Is he in jail? If not, shouldn't someone be getting him off the streets?

It just kind of got buried in the next day's wild accusations and startling statements.

I should say that even though my column concerning Johnson-Klein's new employment could be construed as anti-Johnson-Klein, I don't have any strong feelings about her personally. I don't really know her. We've had two phone conversations a couple years ago after I first moved to Fresno. She called me at the Bee office and I got the impression that she was recruiting me. I'm still not exactly sure for what, but clearly there were two sides, her side and another side, and she was trying to get me to come aboard.

At that time I couldn't fully fathom who Stacy Johnson-Klein was, didn't know most of her story, and certainly didn't know most of what came out in her civil suit against Fresno State. Mostly, I just listened. She talked about Jesus quite a bit. She cursed quite a bit. She was all over the place. It was, as are most things involving the former Fresno State women's basketball coach, entertaining. It was interesting, though, to be having a conversation with her and not have ever met her. I knew what she looked like, but only in headshots. Now almost everyone will tell you that Johnson-Klein smothers men in whatever it is that she puts off. I don't mean that she comes on to men. I mean that she wears low-cut tops and tight skirts and she is touchy. She hugs a lot. She stands close. It's tough to explain, but she just oozes sexuality. Again, I have no experienced this first hand, but have heard plenty of stories from other reporters.

Having heard the evidence and talked to many of the people involved, there is a very good chance Stacy Johnson-Klein should have won a lawsuit against Fresno State. Was the monetary amount fair? I don't know. But as a reporter, I can tell you that the university does not share anything negative with the media, especially concerning personel matters. Yet after the Johnson-Klein firing they held a press conference detailing pretty much every one of her shortcomings. You can't treat your employees differently. It's just asking for trouble.

The point of all of this, though, is that winning the lawsuit doesn't vindicate Johnson-Klein as a coach of young people. She was, by all accounts, a tyrant. She yelled and stomped. She went for days at a time without even coming to the office. She missed practices. She went on a recruiting trip to China that yielded no recruits. She had a sleepover at her house for her players (according to testimony) and talked about innappropriate things. Oh, yeah, and she took pain pills from at least one of her players, which is probably a misdemeaner. She constantly threatened to take away their scholarships. If you even mention her name, they still glare you into silence. They hated her. Even worse, they didn't respect her. Maybe it was her personality, her behavior; maybe it was all affected by the pain pill problem. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

But the real problem with Johnson-Klein coaching college athletes was that she was the star. She was the focus. She was, without a doubt, the most important thing about Fresno State women's basketball during the years she coached. The media guide was filled with her glamour shots. Her career was more important than her players' careers, and that is absolutely unacceptable. That might be true of a lot of coaches (although I hope not), but at least they hide it a little better. She was pretty unapologetic. You cannot blame something like that on pain pills. It's just who she is.

So when I hear Johnson-Klein supporters say things like, "Apparently, you do not believe in our justice system," it's frustrating. (And believe me, I hear a lot of it every time I write about her.) The trial and Johnson-Klein's coaching are completely different topics. The trial was about Fresno State and its treatment of an employee. Whether Johnson-Klein deserved to be fired -- or should have been coaching young people in the first place -- had absolutely nothing to do with it. I think that was a lot of the defense's problem in the trial. They spent too much time focused on Johnson-Klein's issues, playing the blame game, and not nearly enough time showing how it was innocent. It doesn't matter how much blame Johson-Klein deserved. She wasn't the one being sued.

So Johnson-Klein is now the general manager for an arena football team, which is great. She's in charge of putting people in the stands and that's pretty much her specialty. There was -- according to a Lawton, Okla., reporter who was there -- a grand press conference held for Johnson-Klein's introduction. Her celebrity agent was there, the woman who is trying to get her a movie deal. It was a great big production of a press conference that only about three reporters bothered to show up for. It's apparently only in Fresno that Stacy Johnson-Klein has been made into something she's not. Someone of importance.

I was covering Fresno State men's basketball at the time. I walked through a back door in the North Gym, near the basketball office, and there, standing by himself in the hallway, was assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Charles Fisher. He had a stunned look, a faraway stare.

“He’s gone,” Fisher said.

“Who?”

“Gary,” said Fisher. “He’s not coach anymore.”

A few hours later, Gary Colson announced he was resigning after five years as Fresno State men’s basketball coach and would take a new job as an assistant to then-athletic director Gary Cunningham. Colson, only weeks from his 61st birthday, cited the mental and physical strain of being a Division I basketball coach.

Even in that pre-Internet, pre-text-messaging era, all of metropolitan Fresno seemed to explode at once. Tarkmania hit with a force matched in intensity only by the 1983 NIT title, the 1992 Freedom Bowl victory over USC and the baseball team’s national championship in 2008.

But Tarkmania, unlike those other thrills, didn’t dissipate after a few days. It didn’t die three weeks later when Jerry Tarkanian was hired to replace Colson. It didn’t die when Tarkanian himself resigned nearly seven years later. For many Bulldogs fans, it still hasn’t died.

For sustained passion and immense dreams and unwavering fan loyalty, nothing in the history of Fresno State athletics compares to Tarkmania.

The unfulfilled expectations were of an unprecedented scale, too.

It all began that day Gary Colson said it was time to move on and Charles Fisher saw his life change.

March 15, 1995.

Keep that date in mind. It’s one of two pivotal dates spotlighting the unique pressures that converged to make the administration of Fresno State athletics from 2001 through 2005 a challenge unlike anything ever faced by any other school in NCAA history.

(9th and final day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

For an hour after the June 26 rally at Beiden Field, fans wandered out to the center-field fence, near the 400-foot sign. A huge photo of the Bulldogs celebrating after the national championship baseball game was hung high on the dark screen that serves as a hitter's backdrop.

Dads and sons posed under the photo, with moms working the camera. Families posed, with strangers doing the snapping. One young man, his face painted red, jumped atop the fence and posed for a friend.

Groups came and went, but there were always dozens of people around the site.

Larry Vasquez of Reedley had a homemade sign: "Dear Pete Beiden and Cathy Wetzel, thanks for the Heavenly Help!!!"

Beiden is the late Bulldogs coach who, in 1959, guided Fresno State to the College World Series for the first time. Cathy Wetzel, mother of Bulldogs second baseman Erik Wetzel, died in August 2006.

Said Vasquez: "So many people overlook some of the miraculous things that happen right in front of our faces."

(9th and final day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

An estimated 6,500 fans were waiting at Beiden Field on June 26 when the Fresno State baseball players arrived after a brief but joyous parade through the campus.

The rally at Beiden Field was full of speeches, many of them punctuated by crowd chants of "Fresno State! Fresno State! Fresno State!"

Nearly a year earlier, after a jury awarded millions of dollars to former volleyball coach Lindy Vivas, critics had demanded the resignation of university President John Welty.

About six months earlier, after a jury awarded millions of dollars to former women's basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein, critics also demanded Welty's resignation.

On this pleasant June evening at Beiden Field, Welty took it all in while seated next to the 2008 NCAA champion baseball team. He couldn't stop smiling.

The scene brings to mind the maxim quoted by historian William Manchester in his biography of Douglas MacArthur: "England always loses every battle in a war except the last one."

Fresno State introduced its new track and field coach Friday.

Longtime Notre Dame assistant Scott Winsor takes over the Bulldogs program and replaces the retired Bob Fraley, who spent 28 years at Fresno State, including the past seven has the head coach.

Winsor vowed to bring the Fresno State track and field program to another level.

Meanwhile, the Fresno State administration is hoping ts hiring of Winsor will show that the university is serious about supporting the sport after the men’s and women’s teams competed amid perceived instability the past five years.

(8th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

The June 26 rally at Fresno State in honor of the national champion baseball team was a dramatic conclusion to a year that began with a public-relations black eye -- the multi-million-dollar jury award to former volleyball coach Lindy Vivas.

An estimated 5,000 cheering fans lined a mile-long parade route through the campus.

Typical of the enthusiasm was the man who waved a hand-painted sign at Bulldogs outfielder Steve Detwiler, hitting star of the championship game.

The sign said: "Detwiler to rottweiler."

(8th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

Fresno State has some of the Western Athletic Conference's best facilities. But university officials say they aren't good enough if the program expects to remain in the top tier of non-Bowl Championship Series schools.

Of course, that has never been Fresno State's true goal. The university wants to be among the nation's elite.

Since universities can't woo athletes with salaries, they do it with better facilities. The result is what associate athletic director Danny White calls "the facilities arms race .... If your facilities aren't on par with your competitors, you're going to lose the recruiting battle."

Fresno State officials in 2007-08 unveiled ambitious plans for new or improved facilities. They mentioned no price tag, but it will take millions of dollars and many years.

Two new facilities are short-term priorities: an aquatics center for the revived women's swimming and diving team, and a soccer/lacrosse stadium.

(7th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

Fresno State football coach Pat Hill wasn't content just to sign his name on footballs and discuss next season with parents at a Bulldogs brand-building event last month in Tulare.

Standing on an almost-bare platform at the International Agri-Center, microphone in hand, Hill delivered a simple message to a good-sized crowd of youngsters, parents and grandparents.

The Bulldogs are the Valley's football team. Fresno State is the Valley's university. Together, the Valley and the university can do great things.

"I want to let you know, we're going to do the best we can to represent you in this community every time we take the field," Hill said. "Not only on the field, but off the field."

Hill left the stage to applause and cheers.

(7th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

Fresno State did plenty of brand-building in 2007-08. Bulldogs football coach Pat Hill showed how.

On June 1, Hill joined several current and former players for a three-hour event -- billed as a tailgate party -- at the International Agri-Center in Tulare.

Snacks and soft drinks were on sale. So were Bulldogs t-shirts and season tickets.

Dozens of youngsters lined up early to take part in non-contact drills: high-stepping through tires with football in hand; sprinting 40 yards in a timed dash; catching long passes at full speed.

Mothers, fathers and grandparents watched with smiles.

"I want to show the boys that I can do what they can do," said Allison Souza, a fifth grader from Bakersfield who participated along with her younger sister.

Angel Manzano of Tulare watched his son, Angel Jr., fire 25-yard passes through several car tires suspended about six feet off the ground.

"He wants to go to college and be a football player," Manzano said. "That's his dream."

Asked why he came, Angel Jr., a seventh-grader, said: "I wanted to see Pat Hill."

I am still not exactly sure what goes on in college basketball recruiting. I think that people who do college basketball recruiting don't even know what goes on in college basketball recruiting. I suspect that it is very, very slimy. You know when you accidentally hold on to the release button on your fishing pole for too long and the hook goes slamming straight down into the edge of the river and you drag it out along with 17 pounds of seaweed? Pretty sure that's still big-time college basketball recruiting. Except with extra sludge and maybe a piranha on the hook that flies out and bites you on the eyeball.

I am referring, at least in part, to the case of Reggie Moore, the point guard from Seattle who notified the Fresno State coaching staff just before June 1 that he wanted out of his letter of intent to play for the Bulldogs. Moore was the supposed prize of a four-player freshmen recruiting class for Fresno State. He was rated the 34th-best point guard in the nation for the class of 2008 by someone who is probably never seen Reggie Moore in person. My column about the ordeal ran in Wednesday's paper, where I lamented about how this was the last thing Steve Cleveland's program needed right now. It's already dealing with unfair NCAA sanctions* and Dwight O'Neil's domestic disagreement** and Bryan Harvey's unsure status and the fact that if Harvey doesn't make next year's squad, that leaves exactly one senior (O'Neil) and one junior (Sylvester Seay) on scholarship. That could change if Cleveland signs a junior college transfer with one of his two remaining scholarships, but you get the point. It is not good to enter a season where your entire roster has exactly 60 starts*** at any level of college basketball. (Three asterisks in one paragraph could be a new world record. Let's get to them.)

*I could go on for many days about the stupidity of NCAA rules and penalties, but this example is perfect. Fresno State is losing four hours of practice time per week and one scholarship next season because it's APR (Academic Progress Rate) score wasn't high enough for the '06-'07 season. But the NCAA takes that scholarship away from the average number of scholarships a program has used over the last four seasons, as to equally penalize universities who don't fund the same number of scholarships. In other words, reducing a school's total number of available scholarships from 13 to 12, doesn't hurt much if it only funds 10 anyway. But since Fresno State had been penalized so much in the past for various other transgressions, it had only averaged 11 scholarships the last four seasons, so it's total number of scholarships for next season was reduced from 11 to 10, even though it had planned to finally have the full allotment of 13. You could of course argue that if it had stayed out of trouble in the first place, Fresno State wouldn't be in this situation. Sure. But you absolutely, positively, without a doubt, have to see that the Bulldogs were double-penalized for old violations. That's just wrong. So Fresno State appealed and lost. The NCAA couldn't see past a technicality, apparently. The excruciating part is that the team might not have gotten penalized at all had the APR score simply been an improvement on the year before. (The NCAA gives a reprieve for APR improvement, even if it's still a sub-standard score. Just ask the Fresno State softball team.) So if the '05-'06 Fresno State men's basketball APR score had simply been a little worse, Fresno State might have 13 scholarships. Instead, it has 10. Go figure that one out and try not to put your head through a double-pane window. On a bright note, though, the Bulldogs don't have to practice as much.

**It is a simple case of he-said, she-said. O'Neil said she's a stalker. She said she needs a restraining order. This blog does not take sides, but reminds everyone out there to date wisely. Because someday, you might find yourself with a broken universal remote, some dead goldfish and a matching brown microfiber couch and chair you didn't want in the first place because it wasn't even comfortable. The blog is just saying.

***A quick breakdown: O'Neil started 39 games, all at Fresno State, seven his freshman year ('04-'05), 20 his sophomore year ('05-'06) and 12 last year ('07-'08) when he was out a lot of the season with a broken wrist. Nedeljko Golubovic started nine games last season as a freshman for Fresno State. Seay started 12 games at Arizona State, 11 as a freshman ('05-'06) and one as a sophomore ('06-'07) before transferring to Fresno. So yeah, that's 39 ... plus 9 ... plus 12 ... carry the 1 ... yeah, that's 60 total starts for a roster. Even if you assume Harvey is going to be back (think academic and attitude issues), that still only adds the 12 games Harvey started last year before becoming ineligible. Harvey did play in 18 games as a freshman for Louisville, but never started. Again, Fresno State has two scholarships to give, but that's where the Bulldogs stand now.

Not to re-hash the entire column* but there are a few theories on what happened to Moore. No one backs out on a full ride scholarship this late without another plan of some sort. You hope there would be enough people involved in a young man's life to keep that from happening. Parents. High school coaches. AAU coaches. Guardians. Siblings. Someone. There is always a chance that Moore really doesn't have a plan and just decided one day in late May that he hates Fresno, or is too good for Fresno State, and is now hoping against hope that not only will Coach Steve Cleveland give him a release, but that some Pac-10 school has been saving him a scholarship all this time. Chances are much greater that some college coach has convinced Moore to go to a prep school next year, and will give him a scholarship for the '09-'10 season. Or the coach has told Moore's AAU coach to tell Moore that's what he should do. Either way, it's unethical. It would be --- yes, we can say it -- dirty dirty dirty shennanigans. Only nasty bottom-feeding pond scum would mess with another school's signee, but it happens. There is plenty of scum out there. We'll see if Cleveland ultimately does Moore an enormous favor and releases him, and we'll also see where Moore ends up and wonder to ourselves how the connection was truly made.

*I've been told that knowing a little information behind the column is interesting, so this blog is going to try to do an entry for nearly every column from now on. There really isn't too much inside information behind the Moore column, I just called a couple sources who also wished they knew the entire truth, but agreed that there seems to be more to Moore's decision than simply not being excited about Fresno State. It would be safe to say that the Bulldogs coaching staff is more than displeased with Moore's lack of loyalty and consideration for a program that offered him a scholarship back when not that many schools were doing so.

On one last side note of college basketball shadiness, we should note that Ray Lopes is back in college coaching. The former Fresno State head coach and former Oklahoma assistant was hired in June as an assistant at Idaho, which absolutely makes no sense since the Vandals are also in the Western Athletic Conference, the league where Lopes was fired for committing NCAA violations. So Idaho can't claim to have been unaware if it all goes bad later, which it easily could. You might recall Lopes did the same stuff at Oklahoma, as did Kelvin Sampson, who went on to Indiana and -- what do ya know? -- same thing, more cheating. If I were a sports reporter in Idaho, I would already be filling out that public information request for Idaho's men's basketball phone records.

A few months ago, I made a call to the Idaho Stampede, the Developmental League team where Lopes was an assistant. I just wanted to see what he was up to, or if he wanted to explain how he'd been wrong, or if he wanted to make any gut-wrenching apologies to college basketball fans everywhere. Hey, I figured it was worth a shot. He doesn't know me. We'd never spoken. He'd already been fired by the time I got to Fresno. I hadn't written anything overly critical. OK, it was a long shot, especially since I'd already left him messages a couple times. This time, though, I caught him in the office and the secretary said she would see if he was available. She came back with a far darker tone, said he wasn't available and then started to hang up before I could give her my number. After I stopped her and she took my number, I said something like, "So, you think he's really going to call?" Without pausing, she said, "I wouldn't count on it." Never heard a word.

(6th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

As has been the case all too often in past years, several Fresno State athletes in 2007-08 found themselves facing legal charges.

Football -- Quaadir Brown pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vandalism and trespassing charges; Chris Lewis pleaded guilty to throwing a substance at a woman's vehicle; Jason Shirley was charged with misdemeanor DUI and hit and run; in a separate incident, Shirley was cited for driving with a suspended license.

Shirley pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to begin this summer. He has signed a contract with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Men's basketball -- Rekalin Sims had charges of second-degree robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery dropped by the District Attorney's Office for lack of sufficient evidence. A temporary restraining order was served on Dwight O'Neil after a woman charged he had thrown a hard object at her, pulled her hair and pushed her.

Fresno State responded with a mix of compassion and discipline.

Shirley, for example, was suspended after the DUI arrest, reinstated, then kicked off the team after the suspended-license incident. Sims was kicked off the team without playing a game in a Bulldogs uniform.

(6th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

A key issue in 2007-08 figures only to grow in importance and controversy throughout the NCAA: the Academic Progress Rate.

The Fresno State men's basketball team learned in May that it would lose three scholarships next season as a penalty for its historically low APR score.

The team's score improved for the third straight year, but still fell below the NCAA-mandated minimum. The baseball team also was penalized, but only a small part of one scholarship -- valued at a few hundred dollars.

The APR is a student-retention policy. Most universities have their own policies and programs to keep students in school until they graduate. What makes the APR different is it's punitive.

The APR's fairness and its effect on recruiting was a major topic at the annual WAC board of directors meeting in June, says conference Commissioner Karl Benson.

But the topic is so sensitive that Benson refuses to say what was discussed. He says only, "Coaches today are having to be very judicious in the student-athletes that they are selecting."

(5th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

Just about everyone at Fresno State hopes for better days in the men's basketball program.

The Bulldogs struggled in the last half of the 2007-08 season to finish 13-19. It was one and gone in the WAC tournament. And, regardless of what official attendance figures say, many fans voted with their feet and stayed away from games at the Save Mart Center.

The program's historical problems aren't helping public perceptions. These include self-imposed and NCAA disciplinary actions in the wake of violations during the eras of former coaches Jerry Tarkanian and Ray Lopes.

But there's something amiss more fundamental than a losing record or a less than stellar non-conference home schedule or relatively old rules violations. It's as if the Valley has lost faith in college basketball.

Coach Steve Cleveland speaks to as many as 40 groups a year -- service clubs, schools, boosters -- in an effort to paint a new picture of Bulldogs men's basketball.

"There's been a lot of issues with this program, on and off the court," Cleveland says. "And also a lot of misinformation."

(5th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

Officials at the Bulldog Foundation say better days may be ahead for the nearly 60-year-old booster group.

The past year was a challenge. The foundation generated about $7 million in pledges from its recent fund-raising drive, down about $500,000 from last year's pledge total. The donations are pivotal to funding athletic scholarships.

The shaky economy hurt, say foundation officials. And, with Big Ten Conference powerhouse Wisconsin coming to Bulldog Stadium this football season, there's still hope for making up the difference, they add.

At a Bulldog Foundation Annual Fund trustees meeting earlier this year, several members said the organization had a morale problem. But at the June meeting, after an impressive spring by Fresno State athletes, the talk was only of better times.

"High tides raise all boats," says long-time Bulldog Foundation member John Wallace.

(4th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

A year ago, Fresno State Athletic Corp. board members charged with overseeing the program's finances were trumpeting what they called a prudent 2007-08 budget. If everything clicked, the surplus would be barely $5,000.

Everything didn't click, and board members on June 25 learned they were facing a nearly $600,000 deficit. Lower than expected sales of football season tickets and men's basketball season- and single-game tickets were the main culprits. A spike in travel costs hurt, too.

Board members filled the gap with an internal loan and the transfer of a surplus in another account. They're also counting on strong merchandise sales spurred by the baseball team's thrilling run through the NCAA playoffs.

It's too strong to say board members were worried about the state of the athletic department's finances. But they're concerned. A rebound in the fortunes of men's basketball would do wonders.

(4th day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

Angie DiLiddo, a long-time Bulldog Foundation member, says the public must get more involved in Fresno State athletics.

"The thing people don't understand is they think these kids that win these championships just automatically show up here," she says.

The reality, as 2007-08 proved, is that Fresno State athletics is a complicated business, she says.

"You need to support the kids who play the sport, because without the kids on the field, there's not going to be a winning team," DiLiddo says.

Fresno State and Bulldogs softball coach Margie Wright agreed to use Susan Haldeman, a San Francisco-based attorney, as the mediator last month during their settlement talks. The talks resulted in a $605,000 deal: $45,000 for Wright's attorneys and the rest for Wright. Wright's concerns involved equity for her and her softball program.

The mediator's last name may sound familiar to readers of a certain age or a fondness for American history. Susan Haldeman is the daughter of H.R. Haldeman, chief of staff for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973. H.R. Haldeman died in 1993 at age 67.

"She is a very talented mediator," said Susan Westover, an attorney for the California State University system who represented Fresno State during the mediation.

(3rd day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

They said it of events in 2007-08:

“Nothing has changed.” — Oakland lawyer Dan Siegel of Fresno State’s commitment to Title IX, the federal law mandating equity between men’s and women’s athletic programs. Fresno State is the subject of a federal investigation for alleged Title IX violations.

“It was a year of contradictions.” — Fresno lawyer Warren Paboojian.

The year “represents a program that has turned a corner and is going to have an exceptionally bright future.” — Fresno State President John Welty.

“There’s an opportunity here for this university’s athletic program to make the greatest turnaround in public perception in college athletics.” — Long-time Bulldog Foundation member John Wallace.

“It was a tremendous year. It’s really a tribute to the commitment of the student-athletes, the coaches and the staff.” — Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh.

“We felt it was unfortunate that the past was overshadowing the new generation. We did our part” — Fresno State hammer-thrower Grace Wiesmann on the athletes’ view of 2007-08’s controversies.

(3rd day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

And don’t underestimate the influence of coach Pat Hill’s football team to the success of Fresno State’s athletic program in 2007-08.

A timeline of 2007-08 shows two distinctly different periods. Fresno State’s reputation took a beating throughout the first six months. Then, on Dec. 31 in Boise, Idaho, Hill’s Bulldogs manhandled Georgia Tech in the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl. It was Fresno State's second victory of the season over a Bowl Championship Series school.

The Bulldogs, 4-8 in 2006, finished 2007 with a 9-4 record.

Coincidence or not, the year’s final six months were full of good news for Fresno State.

(2nd day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

It didn’t get a parade or garner big headlines, but winning the Western Athletic Conference’s annual Commissioner’s Cup for the first time had Fresno State officials beaming. The cup signifies the conference’s top overall program.

Fresno State fans for years have claimed the WAC is too small a stage for the program. At the very least, they said, Fresno State should join the best from the WAC and the Mountain West Conference in a new conference capable of forcing its way into Bowl Championship Series.

But the claim rang hollow as long as there were other WAC schools with better overall programs.

For now, that’s no longer true.

(2nd day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

Oakland lawyer Dan Siegel dramatically summed up the significance of the year’s three high-profile sex discrimination lawsuits.

He represented the plaintiffs in all three: former volleyball coach Lindy Vivas, former women’s basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein and former associate athletic director Diane Milutinovich. Johnson-Klein and Milutinovich also were represented by Fresno lawyer Warren Paboojian.

Minutes before the Johnson-Klein jury returned to Judge Donald S. Black’s courtroom on Dec. 6 with its verdict, Siegel swiveled in his chair at the plaintiff’s table and surveyed the gallery.

“Equal protection of the laws,” Siegel said to no one in particular. They are the final five words to Section 1 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Johnson-Klein sought the laws' protection, saying she had been brutally treated by the university. Many of her former players testified it was they who had been treated brutally by Johnson-Klein, and the university was right to protect them by firing her.

Moments after Siegel’s comment, a unanimous jury delivered a multi-million-dollar verdict for Johnson-Klein.
In October, Fresno State and Milutinovich reached a $3.5 million pre-trial settlement. In June, Fresno State and Johnson-Klein reached a settlement worth $9 million. Fresno State’s appeal of the Vivas verdict remains active.

Edison graduate and San Antonio Spurs small forward Bruce Bowen threw out the first pitch at Chukchansi Park on Thursday and said his first love was baseball ... not basketball.

Edison's poor baseball squad during his year's there helped push Bowen towards basketball -- to his benefit. If you include the 96-97 season in which he played in one game with the Miami Heat, Bowen just wrapped up his 13th season in the NBA.

He said he has two years left on his contract and is not planning on going anywhere, except perhaps to the NBA Finals ... again.

In any other year, Fresno State’s first WAC women’s basketball title would be the No. 1 highlight.

On Dec. 5, the same day as closing arguments in the sex discrimination trial of former women’s basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein, the Bulldogs lost at Loyola Marymount to fall to 0-6.

Two of the Bulldogs’ best players — Tierre Wilson and Erica Henry — had given heartfelt testimony during the trial. Henry at one point was moved to tears.

But the Bulldogs of coach Adrian Wiggins changed once the trial ended. They won 22 of their next 26 games to make “The Dance” — the National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament — for the first time in school history.

The year’s top athletic feat? Is there any doubt? The Bulldogs have the best collegiate baseball team in America.

The value is as much in how the Bulldogs did it as that they did it at all. From the bottom of the third inning in the championship round’s second game through the third game, Fresno State outscored No. 8 national-seed Georgia 25-6.

To describe the Bulldogs’ textbook excellence under the highest pressure as “scrappy” is to damn it with faint praise. Don’t be fooled by the four errors in the championship game — Fresno State won the title because it was the best.

The Fresno State athletic program has never seen a year like this one.

The school year began in early July 2007 with a Fresno County Superior Court jury returning a multi-million-dollar verdict for former Bulldogs volleyball coach Lindy Vivas in her sex discrimination lawsuit against the university.

It ended in late June with the Bulldogs baseball team stunning the college sports world by winning the national title, then returning to the cheers of more than 11,000 fans at a campus homecoming celebration.
The intervening 50 weeks were filled with two other hard-fought legal battles, athletes’ high-profile troubles with the police, the classroom success of hundreds of athletes, a historic conference championship by the women’s basketball team, a strong effort by a young softball team, a dramatic turnaround by the football team, major changes to the athletic department’s finances, and the university’s first Commissioner’s Cup signifying the Western Athletic Conference’s top overall athletic program.

How to make sense of it all? Impossible.

It’s all too big, too fresh, in many ways still too controversial to permit one person to definitively judge 2007-08. Let each observer of Bulldogs athletics decide the year’s significance.

To give readers some context, I’ll provide 18 observations on the past year — two a day beginning today and concluding June 19. All 18 will be published in The Bee on June 20, along with a timeline of the year’s significant events.

The observations will be numbered so they’re not confused with other blogs I post along the way.

I’ve followed Fresno State athletics for 50 years. This past year was one of a kind.

A reader responded unfavorably to my suggestion that former Fresno State athletic director Scott Johnson deserved some community gratitude for hiring Bulldogs baseball coach Mike Batesole.

The reader wrote: “Uh, Scott had lobbied hard for the Clemson coach, not Batesole. C’mon, George.”

Fair enough.

But I’m still confused why Johnson apparently is judged by a double standard.

In Stacy Johnson-Klein’s sexual-discrimination trial, Johnson was portrayed as a chief executive so obsessed with signing her up as women’s basketball coach that he ignored the university’s hiring protocol. He allegedly went over the heads of search-committee members.

Then Johnson-Klein was portrayed as the best thing to ever happen to Bulldogs women’s basketball — a winner on the court, a successful fund-raiser off the court, firm but caring with her players, wildly popular with fans and advertisers.

Scott Johnson got no credit for cutting through the bureaucratic red tape to hire such an outstanding employee.

When the Bulldogs needed a baseball coach, Johnson apparently played by the personnel department’s rules. He wanted someone from Clemson. Others in the hiring process wanted Batesole. The buck stopped with Johnson as athletic director, yet he went with the consensus choice.

Then Batesole led the Bulldogs to the 2008 national baseball title.

And, of course, Scott Johnson gets no credit for embracing the bureaucratic red tape to hire such an outstanding employee.

I don’t get it.

Trent Dilfer, who told reporters on Wednesday that he's retiring after 13 seasons as a quarterback in the NFL, was only a freshman at Fresno State when he made what has to rank as one of the clutch passes in his illustrious career.

The scene: Nov. 23, 1991, San Jose State vs. Fresno State, a then-record 40,513 fans in Bulldog Stadium.

The Bulldogs were ahead 31-13 with just a little over three minutes to go. Then Spartans quarterback Jeff Garcia threw two touchdown passes 20 seconds apart to make it 31-28.

At stake was a Cal Bowl berth. The Bulldogs need a victory. The Spartans needed a win or a tie.

It was third-and-8, about two minutes left. Dilfer dropped back and completed a 29-yard pass to Malcolm Seabron. The Bulldogs ran out the clock.

Dilfer threw for 253 yards and two touchdowns, and rushed for another score.

Said Bulldogs coach Jim Sweeney: “He was absolutely amazing.”

Almost a generation has passed since Dilfer arrived at Fresno State. It’s all too easy to forget how good he was.

Former Fresno State quarterback Trent Dilfer clearly was nervous when he made his first NFL start on Oct. 23, 1994 against the 49ers at Candlestick Park. He completed 7 of 23 passes for 45 yards, threw an interception and produced no points for his Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But Dilfer was anything but meek or despairing in post-game interviews. Sitting in a tiny dressing cubicle in the visitors’ locker room, a small army of reporters closing in on him, Dilfer displayed nothing but grit and grace.

“My confidence won’t get shaky,” Dilfer said. “I’ll get disappointed. But I have absolutely no doubt I can do this. I’m not doing it now, but I will eventually.”

Dilfer told reporters on Wednesday that he’s retiring. He played 13 seasons in the NFL and led the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl victory in January 2001.

He wasn’t Johnny Unitas or Joe Montana. But he deserved every cent he got. And he did Fresno State and the Valley proud.

I’ve covered as a reporter only one pro football game: Oct. 23, 1994, Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park. It was the former Fresno State quarterback’s first NFL start.

Dilfer and the Bucs struggled against a 49ers team that three months later would crush San Diego in the Super Bowl.

Players from each team stayed in their half of the field during pre-game warm-ups. Well, all but Deion Sanders. While Dilfer warmed up next to the Tampa Bay bench, the flamboyant 49ers cornerback jogged past his own bench.

No big deal. His teammates were doing the same.

But Sanders kept going. He jogged — it wasn’t much faster than a casual walk — to the end zone, made a right, got to the Tampa Bay sideline, then made another right toward the Bucs’ bench. And the rookie Dilfer.

Then they crossed paths. Dilfer was practicing his dropbacks. Sanders slowed almost to the pace of a baby’s crawl. Neither looked directly at the other, or said anything.

I don’t recall a pass thrown in Sanders’ direction that day.

In my story today I wrote about how the heat was affecting the Fresno Grizzlies.

Today when I got to the ballpark, I expected them to be on the field taking batting practice. The field was bare, though, save two tarps covering the mound and home plate.

Neither the Portland Beavers nor the Grizzlies chose to take BP outside. Some players took some swings in an indoor cage.

Most of the the Grizzlies didn't even start arriving at the park until 5 p.m.

Staying out of the heat during the day seems to have helped the Grizzlies: In the bottom of the first Nate Schierholtz and Scott McClain singled, and Travis Ishikawa doubled both home (McClain nearly had a close play at home). So far it's 2-1 Grizz after one.

So, Hollywood might make a movie about the Fresno State baseball team’s run to a national title. Here’s one scene the screenwriters should include.

It’s the June 26 parade at Fresno State. The procession of golf carts and fire trucks has made its way along Barstow Avenue, turned south on Cedar Avenue, and is making a right toward Beiden Field.

It’s slow going because of the crowd. Seems like all 5,000 fans along the route are now clustered at this turn. People scream — “No. 1, baby!” and “Fresno State!”

A young woman wearing a Bulldogs shirt rushes up to freshman shortstop Danny Muno, then turns. Muno signs his name on her right shoulder.

Smiles don’t come any brighter than Muno’s.

“Awesome,” he says of the parade. “It’s beautiful.”

Fresno State plans to build an aquatics center for the revived women’s swimming and diving team. What to name it? My suggestion: The Ara Hairabedian Aquatics Center.

Hairabedian, who died in 2004 at age 77, was the heart and soul of aquatics at Fresno State for nearly a quarter-century. He started the swimming program in 1954 and the water polo program four years later. He resigned from his final coaching job (water polo) in 1977 and retired from the university in the mid-1990s.

Hairabedian was a nationally-famed swimming coach, and a courageous, blunt advocate for Bulldogs aquatics. Men’s swimming and water polo were eliminated in the 1990s.

Hairabedian taught at Fresno State for more than four decades, but he felt he was dishonored in his final months at the university. It all came to a head in July 1994 when Hairabedian was told to move from his office so it could be made into a new secretary’s office for women’s sports as part of Title IX compliance.

Hairabedian didn’t move fast enough, so the university packed up his belongings — 36 boxes. According to Hairabedian, the university left the boxes sitting unattended outside the office.

Said Hairabedian at the time: “My dignity has been repudiated.”

The women’s swimming and diving team is being revived as part of Title IX compliance. Naming the new aquatics center after Hairabedian is valid not only on the merits of his life, but as a gesture of reconciliation among all the parties involved.

Fresno State has posted its 132-page facilities master plan on the university Web site. A new aquatics center -- home of the revived women's swimming and diving team -- is slated for an area next to the North Gym. But the plan isn't clear on what is to become of the North Gym's indoor pool.

Here's one vote for keeping the indoor pool. It's an architectural classic, a piece of the campus that highlights its mid-20th century roots.

The facilities master plan focuses on students' quality of life as well as their education. Remodel that pool, fix up the walled courtyard next to it, and future students would have a unique and enticing way to enjoy their Fresno State experience.

Cynthia Teniente-Matson, Fresno State vice president for administration, says the new aquatics center should cost in the $7 million range and be financed with a loan from within the California State University system. She says it's too early to identify the center's features or construction timeline.

The scene: June 26, an estimated 6,500 people packed into Beiden Field. The agenda: A celebration of the Fresno State baseball team’s day-old national championship. The theme of the many speeches: Praise, praise, praise. Mainly for the Bulldogs who did the work with class and excellence, and for coach Mike Batesole who shouldered the burden of leadership with MacArthur-like calm and skill.

But just about everyone else remotely connected to the program also got their verbal pat on the back. Even campaigning politicians who muscled into the event.

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but no one thought to thank former Fresno State athletic director Scott Johnson. He was the one who hired Batesole.

“We’re getting a head coach with a proven winning record, a tremendous recruiting reputation in California and high integrity — all the ingredients I feel we needed,” Johnson said of Batesole in late May 2002 when Batesole’s hiring was announced.

The day will come when the Johnson-as-athletic-director era at Fresno State will get a sober reassessment.

The Western Athletic Conference has a new revenue-sharing formula for payouts should a WAC school play in a Bowl Championship Series football bowl, Commissioner Karl Benson says.

Two WAC school have played in BCS bowls: Boise State and Hawaii. Their multi-million-dollar payouts were shared with other WAC schools.

Benson says Boise State and Hawaii each took home 70% of the payout, with the WAC’s other schools sharing the remaining 30%.

There will be a one-year transition to the new formula, Benson says.

If Boise State or Hawaii gets into a BCS bowl after the 2008 regular season, they will retain 50% of the payout and the other WAC schools will share 50%. If any of the other seven WAC schools gets into a BCS bowl this year, they’ll keep 70% of the payout, leaving 30% for the others.

In other words, there are seven WAC schools that haven’t played in a BCS bowl: Fresno State, Idaho, Louisiana Tech, San Jose State, New Mexico State, Utah State and Nevada. They get one more shot at same 70% payout that Boise State and Hawaii got.

When the 2009 regular football season comes, Benson says, the 50-50 split will apply to all WAC schools.

Western Athletic Conference Commissioner Karl Benson was asked if the WAC board of directors at its annual meeting last month made any decisions on conference realignment.

“No,” Benson said, with a firmness that invited no further discussion.

So, Fresno State’s athletic family remains unchanged: Hawaii, Boise State, Utah State, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, Nevada, San Jose State and Idaho.

That means two things.

First, WAC schools are moving ahead with the conference strategic plan of several years ago. In a nutshell, it calls on member schools to grow themselves (budget, facilities, competitive performance) to parity with mid-level Bowl Championship Series schools such as Iowa State and Colorado.

Second, any marriage of selected WAC and Mountain West Conference schools apparently isn’t on the horizon.

So, don’t expect to soon see a conference like this: Fresno State, San Diego State, Nevada, Boise State, BYU and Utah in one division; New Mexico, New Mexico State, UNLV, Air Force, Wyoming and Colorado State in the other.

The Western Athletic Conference board of directors held its annual meeting June 1-4 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This is the year’s big meeting, with the chief executives (eight presidents, one chancellor) of the nine member universities gathering to chart the WAC’s future.

“It was a pretty quiet agenda,” says WAC Commissioner Karl Benson.

Always the consummate diplomat, that Benson.

Let’s see: Intensifying NCAA focus on academic reform, the constant struggle between Bowl Championship Series conferences and non-BCS conferences, tight budgets in a struggling national economy, a facilities arms race only growing in scale and expense, rising travel costs in a conference that stretches across about one-sixth of the planet, and the ever-present quest within each university for an equitable distribution of assets among parties who don’t always see eye-to-eye on the definition of justice.

Those are just a few of the issues facing all conferences, including the WAC.

Doesn’t look like a quiet agenda to me.

Visalia native and former Fresno State Bulldog (and WAC MVP) Richie Robnett has a number of memories he can be proud of when looking back on his brief career.

The first-round draft pick by the Oakland A's in 2004 (26th pick) now plays for the Sacramento River Cats and is in Fresno playing against the Grizzlies this weekend. He has one more game in town, Sunday at 6:05 p.m.

Robnett, who is definitely one of the cooler players I've interviewed while in Fresno, had one "lucky" memory he shared with me before Saturday night's game.

What does Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh make per year?

According to his original five-year contract, signed in 2005, he was to be paid $235,000 — $196,812 from the university and $38,188 from the Fresno State Athletic Corp.

On Aug. 28, 2006, Fresno State President John Welty sent Boeh a letter saying Boeh was getting a raise to $246,750 per year — $208,620 from the university and $38,130 from the Athletic Corp.

“Your contributions to the University are greatly appreciated,” Welty wrote. “I wish you continued success at California State University, Fresno.”

Welty informed Boeh by letter in December 2006 that Boeh would get a bonus of $37,600 for his performance during the past year.

Last August, Welty told Boeh by letter that Boeh would get a bonus of $19,740 for his past year’s performance.

Both bonuses were to be paid by the Athletic Corp.

Here are some performance areas in which Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh apparently qualifies for a bonus this year.

* 3% of base salary if the baseball team competes in the NCAA College World Series.

The Bulldogs not only competed, they won it. Boeh’s original contract says nothing about a bigger bonus should Fresno State come home with the title.

* 3% of base salary if the women’s basketball team competes in the NCAA tournament.

Coach Adrian Wiggins’ team, after a 0-6 start, won 22 of its next 26 games to qualify for tournament — “The Dance” — for the first time in school history.

* 3% of base salary if the football team competes in a Western Athletic Conference-contracted bowl game.

Coach Pat Hill’s Bulldogs beat Georgia Tech 40-28 in the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl, one of three-WAC-affiliated bowls.

* 3% of base salary if the year ends with no NCAA major allegations against Fresno State, and if the requirements of any NCAA sanctions are implemented and completed within the fiscal year.

Anyone hear of NCAA major allegations against Fresno State this year?

Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh appears ready to collect some major cash by way of a bonus, thanks to Bulldogs’ overall strong showing in 2007-08.

For example, his original contract calls for a bonus of 3% of base salary if Fresno State ranks in the top 75 in the Directors Cup standings of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, and 6% if in the top 50.

The cup ranks the overall performances of the athletic programs at 279 Division I universities.
Fresno State finished No. 62 with 326.50 points.

The university had only 45 points in the fall, and picked up another 25 in the winter. But the Bulldogs thrived in the spring: 21 points from women’s golf; 50 from softball; 64 from women’s tennis; 21.5 from men’s track and field.

And, of course, baseball — 100 points. The baseball team was seeded No. 4 in the four-team Long Beach regional that began in late May. If the Bulldogs had gone two-and-out, Fresno State would’ve dropped out of the top 75 in the Directors Cup standings.

Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh’s original 5-year contract, signed in 2005, includes a bonus clause based on 14 areas of performance.

He’s likely to fall short this past fiscal year in some areas.

For example, Boeh gets a 3% bonus of his base salary if the athletic budget has a surplus between $1 to $199,999. The bonus jumps to 5% if the surplus tops $200,000.

University officials said on the morning of June 25 that the 2007-08 budget was facing a deficit of about $585,000. The fiscal year ends June 30.

Of course, in the evening of June 25 the Fresno State baseball team beat Georgia 6-1 to win the NCAA baseball national championship. The Bulldogs’ storybook run through the tournament has sent merchandise sales soaring at The Bulldog Shop.

Enough to fill such a deep fiscal hole?

This is the time of year when Fresno State President John Welty usually reviews the contract of athletic director Thomas Boeh.

If the past is any indication, Boeh almost certainly will get a one-year extension on the five-year contract he signed in 2005. He got a one-year rollover in July 2006 and another in July 2007.

A year ago this month, Welty wrote Boeh:

“Dear Thomas:

“I write to confirm the extension of your employment agreement until June 30, 2012.

“Thank you for your hard work and dedication. I look forward to continuing to work with you to improve the Fresno State athletic program.

“Sincerely,

“John D. Welty.”

Then I thought a bit more about the reader's question, and the key word in particular: Does Fresno State's NCAA baseball championship rank among the greatest UPSETS in all of sports history?

An article of faith in sports is that the final score never lies. The best team in a baseball game is always the one with the most runs at the end.

In that sense, there can be surprises (we humans are always confidently predicting the future) but never upsets.

Maybe the Bulldogs' championship reflects simple mathematics.

There are so many youngsters in this nation of 300 million people playing sports with such relish, and with excellent coaching for the most part, that's it's impossible for a handful of college teams in any sport to stockpile enough talent to guarantee dominance.

Maybe the Bulldogs baseball team, blessed all along with championship-caliber talent, simply got on a roll at the right time.

How to explain Fresno State’s title — upset or parity?

I told the reader that my heart, fond as it is of drama and wonder and mystery, embraces upset.

As to ranking the Bulldogs' title among the all-time great upsets -- I'm not that brave.

A reader recently e-mailed me a question: Does Fresno State's NCAA baseball championship rank among the greatest upsets in all of sports history? If so, where does the Bulldogs' feat rank?

Great questions. I gave him two answers.

What are the requirements for a great upset?

A worthy stage, for starters. The local municipal softball league doesn't qualify. NCAA Division I baseball does.

Public interest. Much of the nation was thrilled by the Bulldogs' amazing run through the tournament.

Contrast. The Bulldogs were a tepid 33-27 going into the Western Athletic Conference tournament. A few weeks later, they're on top of the collegiate baseball world.

So, yes, by beating Georgia 6-1 in the College World Series championship game, Fresno State turned in one of the great upsets in sports history.

Every Fourth of July is special. July 4, 1972 was particularly sweet for me.

I spent the evening at Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox. I was a newly-minted veteran on my way home to Lindsay from Fort Dix, N.J.

I had stopped in Chicago to visit a friend from basic training, Norm Harelik. Norm is the world's No. 1 baseball fan and No. 1 Cubs fan. But I repeat myself.

Many events from the night's White Sox-Baltimore Orioles game have faded with time, but three memories remain vivid:

* White Sox first baseman Dick (Don't Call Me Richie) Allen hit a towering home run in the first inning; he'd be named American League MVP that year. The man had Hall of Fame talent.

* There was a good crowd, and the beverages flowed.

* Great game (Baltimore won, 2-1), but even better fireworks show.

Fresno State Athletic Corp. board members on June 25 approved the Bulldogs' tentative 2008-09 budget: $25.4 million. It won’t be official until signed by President John Welty.

Several things make the budget most interesting.

First, there's no anticipated surplus. Fresno State plans on $25.4 million in revenues, $25.4 million in expenditures, says board chairman Paul Oliaro.

No margin for error there.

Second, Fresno State officials for several years have worried about declining revenue streams. That's how the 2007-08 budget came in about $585,000 in the red as of June 25. Revenue from season-ticket sales in football and men's basketball, for example, was less than expected.

Yet, Fresno State officials expect 2008-09 revenues to jump $2 million over last year's estimate. A boost in a student fee, much of it earmarked for athletics, will generate another $1.3 million or so a year. But university officials at the meeting weren't clear on sources of the remaining revenue bump.

Maybe it's those football guarantees from Rutgers, Toledo and UCLA.

Third, university officials expect more ticket-revenue challenges in the two sports where such trends can be devastating to an athletic department's bottom line. They predict declines in gate receipts of $461,000 in football and $330,000 in men's basketball.

Granted, coach Pat Hill's football team has only five home games this year, compared to six in 2007. But Fresno State has never had a home game against a program with a tradition as rich as Wisconsin's.

And in 2007, the Bulldogs were coming off a disappointing 4-8 season. A fall in fan interest could be expected, at least until the Bulldogs proved they’d turned things around.

But, after the Bulldogs went 9-4 and beat Georgia Tech in the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl last year, Fresno State in 2008 is blessed with a compelling sales pitch.

Something is amiss, and it can’t all be blamed on the ailing economy.

The finances of Division I college athletics never cease to amaze. Take, for example, guarantees, those checks (often hundreds of thousands of dollars) that schools either cut to attract big-name opponents for home games, or receive to play on the road.

University officials say the Fresno State football team in 2008 will get $400,000 to play at Rutgers, $250,000 at Toledo and $450,000 at UCLA.

Big 10 Conference powerhouse Wisconsin is getting $350,000 to come to Bulldog Stadium.

That's a net to Fresno State of $750,000 in guarantees. Fresno State also is pocketing a $250,000 buyout from Kansas State because the Wildcats wanted out of a scheduled game in September at Kansas State.

Fresno State men's basketball is a different story. University officials say the Bulldogs will pay $205,000 in guarantees this season, but receive no cash guarantees.

University officials note that Fresno State is paying to get into the Las Vegas Classic basketball tournament. Fresno State then gets two home games for its participation, they said.

These details were revealed at the June 25 meeting of the Fresno State Athletic Corp. board. Board members and university officials did not reveal the tournament's cost or the Bulldogs' opponents in those two home games.

But board members were unanimous on one point: Paying to get into someone else’s tournament, then landing some home games in return, is unusual.

Long-time Bulldog Foundation Annual Fund executive director Pat Ogle is talking retirement. Sort of.

Ogle says the 2008-09 school year will be his last at his current post. But, come the end of next June, he'll take a part-time job as a major gifts officer for Fresno State athletics.

University officials see major gifts -- $10,000 or more -- as a fund-raising area with big potential.

Ogle has seen many changes in Bulldogs athletics and the Bulldog Foundation since he became the latter's executive director in January 1982. The athletic department's evolution has been well documented to the public, the foundation's less so. Suffice it to say that today's Bulldog Foundation, in organizational structure and scale of mission, is immensely more complex than when Ogle began his gig.

Through it all, Ogle has served Bulldogs athletics with grace and distinction.

Of those almost three decades, Ogle says: "It's been a great time."