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Show THE THUNDERBIRD MONDAY APRIL 18, 1988 PAGE .1 i tn ft 5 XT". RENT AN EVENING & i OF. a! I'd Sooner be in Division . . II There is a nightmare that occurs to me in my darkest sleep these April nights. It all begins with a dinner that am having with Willie Mavs, Nikita Khrushchev and my mother (aren't dreams great?). After the sewing of the main course, a waiter, who at times looks like Mayberry's Floyd the barber and at other times resembles President Gerald R. Sherratt, brings in a television and a basketball game is in progress. The date is December 7, 1988. The scene is the sweltering heat of the activity center at the University of Oklahoma, which has been called by those who have played there "The warmest college basketball arena in the United States." So horrible is the athletic devastation being shown in this game that wish to get up and leave but find myself restrained by the waiter who alternately looks like Mayberry's Floyd the barber and President Gerald R. Sherratt. His hand points to the television screen and the name of the college which has become the Sooners' quite mangled sacrificial lamb comes into focus: Southern Utah State College. In a departure from any conceivable reality, our valiant Thunderbirds will be pitted against a basketball team that came only two Danny Manning hooks away from a NCAA Championship. That dark day will occur Dec. 17, 1988 Black Saturday. SUSCwill join a procession of early season patsies that OU thrashes as badly as possible to run up OU's impressive winning margin average. The Sooners are also known never to pull their starters off the court even when the game score reaches frightening degrees of competitive inbalance. Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs maintains that it is counterproductive after demanding a week of intensity in practice to tell the players to "let up" on an opponent. The results are a Sooner team that regularly massacred basketball programs more competitive than SUSC by as many as 40 points. Into this dark fray comes our valiant men's basketball team. No knock on SUSC men' basketball, certainly a team on the rise in Division II NCAA. SUSC, led by Neil Roberts, collected 16 wins against 1 1 defeats last season with a schedule that consisted almost entirely of NAIA and Division II NCAA schools. A respectable season for a program making a transition under a new coach. However, not even in the wildest hallucinations of SUSC's "Project Image" can such a record justify the pitting of SUSC against an opponent the caliber of Oklahoma. Black Saturday promises to provide a ghastly example of what occurs when athletic planners lose touch with reality. If the prize sought is national exposure, certainly SUSC will be exposed much like a man with no clothes in the Sahara Desert is exposed. The national exposure that will fall upon our college on Blac k Saturday will be in the form of a score that promises a historic lopsidedness. This type of national exposure will do little for our school and will give SUSC alumni and students little to be proud of. Our students, alumni and basketball team deserve more astute longterm athletic planning than went into the scheduling of this game. Perhaps the rationale for this folly is the extensive gate receipts that SUSC would realize playing an opponent such as the Sooners. If such is the case, SUSC would seem to have joined the ranks of colleges g who are concerned little about prestige, honor and the of their plavers and have become mesmerized with the financial allure of gate receipts much to their eventual ruin. There are many ways in which SUSC can expand its national recognition and reputation. However, the current philosophy in basketball scheduling reflects a prevailing feature of longterm college planning that seems to put a premium on momentary public relations spectacles and minimizes substantial growth in significant areas of the college. Our SUSC basketball players are worthy of the greatest degree of respect for the level of basketball that they play. However, the grandiose delusions of SUSC athletic planners to move our school to NCAA Division and the scheduling of dates such as Black Saturday against OU will do little to achieve prominence for our athletic program or to encourage support on the part of the students. Frankly, this writer would much rather see a victory at Adams State than a 'Bird massacre at Norman, Okla. Eight months from this day will be Black Saturday. For those of us who will have graduated at that time and hail SUSC as our alma mater, what a proud moment it will be when we can announce to astonished listeners that, yes, we are from that school that OU beat by 60 points. What a proud moment that will be. 1 well-bein- I DR fl.F. RICH. 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