Good morning, Gator Nation: And to all my buddies in the press room at the Indianapolis 500 – Harold Lowe, Charley Hallman, Bob Markus, Terry Boers, Dave Van Dyck, Herb Gould, Robin Miller, Bill Benner, David Benner, Tim May, Tim Considine, Jim Murray, Mike Harris, Jim Litke, Deke Houlgate, Bob Queenan … Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!
1. FLORIDA ASSISTANTS’ PAY: The Gators’ football coaching staff will earn $2.66 million in base salary for the 2010 season. According to the Gainesville Sun, new defensive coordinator Teryl Austin is the highest paid at $440,000, followed by offensive coordinator Steve Addazio at $375,000. Defensive line coach Dan McCarney comes in at $340,000 and secondary coach Chuck Heater is at $305,000. Quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler, tight end coach Brian White, running backs coach Stan Drayton, linebackers coach D.J. Durkin and receivers coach Zach Azzanni each will earn $240,000. Each of the assistants will receive $10,000 as part of a new apparel deal with Nike and each receives a courtesy car. And I think they are underpaid. Back in the days of peace and love, Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian did commercials for the Ford Motor Company, and part of his payment was that the car manufacturer supply each of his assistants with a courtesy car.
2. FOR ALL THE MARBLES: The Fineran household will have two televisions tuned to baseball tonight. One will have the Rays-Yankees game on, but I’ll give most of my attention to the first of the three-day showdown for the SEC regular-season baseball championship between the Florida Gators and South Carolina Gamecocks in Columbia. Whichever team wins the series wins not only the baseball championship but also the top seed in the SEC Tournament that begins Wednesday at Regions Park in Hoover, Ala. Even though the Western Division winner (Auburn currently has a one-game lead over Mississippi and Arkansas) can not tie Florida and South Carolina, the Western Division winner gets the second seed and the South Carolina-Florida loser is the third seed. The only way the Gators and Gamecocks can meet in the tournament is if they meet in the championship game on Sunday, May 30. Florida will send sophomore lefty Alex Panteliodis (8-2, 3.34 ERA) to the mound against South Carolina ace, senior right-hander Blake Cooper, who is 10-0 with a 3.01 ERA. The teams play again Friday and the series concludes Saturday at 4. All three games will be carried on SUN or FSN.
3. THE ROAD TO OMAHA I: Looking ahead to a week from Monday, May 31, when the 64-team NCAA field is announced on ESPN at 12:30 p.m. (the regional hosts will be revealed on Sunday, May 30), there will be 34 at-large berths after 30 automatic berths are given to conference champions (the SEC Tournament champion receives the automatic berth). Currently, Dartmouth (Ivy), Cal State Fullerton (Big West) and San Diego (West Coast) are in the field. I figure teams have RPI rankings of 35 or less are in, which means the SEC should get 9 bids (No. 4 Florida, No. 8 Arkansas, No. 13 Vanderbilt, No. 14 South Carolina, No. 15 Alabama, No. 16 Auburn, No. 21 Kentucky, No. 22 LSU and No. 26 Mississippi). The Pacific-10, which does not have a postseason tournament, will have No. 1 Arizona State or No. 7 UCLA as champion, the other as an at-large team along with No. 17 Arizona, No. 23 Oregon and likely No. 32 Washington State, No. 33 Oregon State and No. 35 California. The Big 12 tournament champion receives the automatic berth and only No. 6 Texas and No. 25 Oklahoma are in the top 30 (Texas A&M is 31 and Kansas State 41). The ACC should receive seven berths, one its tournament champion from among No. 2 Virginia, No. 9 Miami (Fla.), No. 10 Georgia Tech, No. 12 Florida State, No. 19 Clemson, No. 27 Virginia Tech and No. 30 North Carolina.
4. THE ROAD TO OMAHA II: Not counting the champions, those four conferences – the SEC, Pac-10, Big 12 and ACC – will eat up 22 of the 34 spots. The Big East will get one if either No. 5 Louisville or No. 24 Connecticut is the champion, two if neither is. The Mountain West likely gets two (No. 20 Texas Christian and No. 38 New Mexico) if either is champion or three if both aren’t. That leaves these teams for the final seven spots: No. 39 Tennessee (SEC), No. 46 Boston College (ACC), No. 45 Florida Gulf Coast (if it doesn’t win the Atlantic Sun), No. 49 Baylor (Big 12), No. 50 Texas Tech (Big 12), No. 47 Pittsburgh (Big East), No. 44 Liberty (Big South), No. 52 UC Irvine (Big West), No. 60 Southern Mississippi (C-USA), No. 43 Stanford (Pac-10), No. 42 Citadel (Southern), No. 51 Elon (Southern), No. 48 Texas State, No. 34 Louisiana-Lafayette (Sun Belt), No. 36 Florida Atlantic (Sun Belt), No. 37 Western Kentucky (Sun Belt). FYI: Last year, the SEC and Big 12 each had eight teams, the ACC six and the Pac-10, Mountain West, Conference USA and Big Ten three each.
5. FORE! The Florida men’s golf team is in South Bend to play in the 54-hole NCAA Central Regional, one of six that will produce the field for this year’s NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship. The low five teams and one individual not on those teams qualify at each regional for the finals June 1-6 at The Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn. Coach Buddy Alexander’s team, seeded No. 2 in the regional, is one of 14 teams at the Warren course that was designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore. Competing for those five spots along with the Gators are top-seeded Stanford, No. 3 Florida State, No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Louisiana State, No. 6 North Carolina State and Big Ten schools Iowa, Michigan, Northwestern and Indiana. The Gators haven’t played since running away with the one-day Golden Ocala Invitational title on May 6. The Florida five – Andres Echavarria, Tim McKenney, Tyson Alexander, Bank Vongvanij and Phillip Choi – finished a collective 31-under-par to win by 29 strokes over North Florida and 33 over Florida State. Florida, Florida State and Stanford are paired together. Back in October, the Gators finished second by two shots over Stanford and five shots behind winner Oklahoma State at the Isleworth Invitational in Windermere.
6. SNOWMEN! Hopefully, the Gators will stay away from shooting any dreaded 8s at the par-70, 7,023-yard Warren course, which was built on property that used to be one of Notre Dame’s parking areas for football and also an estate of sorts. I not only shot a couple of snowmen during several rounds there, but I also built a couple of snowmen, too. A friend lived in the house there and we used to hold many a Super Bowl party there (and drove snowmobiles) until Notre Dame decided to turn the land into a golf course. Crenshaw and Coore, who had redone the greens at Southern Hills in Tulsa, were contracted to do the course by donor Bill Warren, a Notre Dame alumnus and Southern Hills member. The land is relatively flat, but has a nice creek running through it that comes into play on several holes. Still, most of the tricks to the course are in the greens, which Crenshaw, one of the game’s all-time best putters, crafted. The course has a links-style look and feel to it with its fescue grasses rolling fairways, and the designers wanted players to be able to play the ball down in windy conditions. Notre Dame’s Golden Dome is visible on the first two holes. The course has hosted qualifying for the U.S. Open and Western Amateur and this summer will be the site of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links. It would not surprise me if the NCAA Finals – either men or women – come back sometime soon.
7. GATORS HOST SOFTBALL REGIONAL:The NCAA Division I Softball Championship tournament gets underway with play in 16 regionals across the nation. All but one – the Austin (Texas) Regional featuring Texas, which begins play Thursday – will be played Friday through Sunday at 16 campus sites. Florida (43-8), seeded No. 4 (behind No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Michigan and No. 3 Washington, the defending champion) in the 64-team tournament, opens at 6 p.m. Friday at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium against Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion Bethune-Cookman (32-22) at 6 p.m. following the game between FIU (36-19) and UCF (35-21) at 3:30 p.m. The double-elimination tournament continues Saturday with the winners’ bracket game at 1 p.m. followed by two losers’ bracket games (at 3:30 p.m. and 6). Sunday, the team remaining from Saturday’s play will meet the winner of the first game Saturday at 1 p.m. (and if another game is needed, it will be played at 3:30 p.m.). Coach Tim Walton’s team is coming off a 9-1 loss to Louisiana State in the SEC Tournament semifinals, its worst loss of the season (surpassing a 10-4 loss at Alabama March 27 and an 8-3 home loss to FIU April 20) and its worst since an 8-0 shutout by Washington in the Women’s World Series best-of-three championship opener last June 1. If the Gators win, they most likely will play 13th-seeded Arizona State, which figures to be the favorite in the Amherst, Mass., Regional hosted by Massachusetts.
8. TENNIS ANYONE? Both Florida tennis teams are in Athens, Ga., for Round of 16 matches in their respective NCAA Division I Championships. The Gator women, seeded No. 3, play SEC foe Mississippi today at 9 a.m. at the University of Georgia’s Dan Magill Tennis Complex. The winner gets the winner of another 9 a.m. match between No. 11 Miami (Fla.) and No. 6 Northwestern. The Gators did not play Miami this season but did beat Mississippi 6-1 on March 28 after losing a 4-3 match to then No. 3 Northwestern in the quarterfinals of the ITA Indoors back in February. The No. 6 Gator men play conference foe (and tourney host) Georgia on Friday at 6 p.m. and the winner gets the winner of the match between Oklahoma and No. 3 Texas Sunday at 5 p.m. Florida has played only Georgia this season, beating the then No. 8 Bulldogs 5-2 on April 11. Likewise, two victories put the Gators into the semifinals.
9. LOVE THEM RAYS: Don’t look now but the Tampa Bay Rays have opened up a four-game lead over the New York Yankees after their 10-6 victory Wednesday night in the new Yankee Stadium. Jason Bartlett had a leadoff home run off A.J. Burnett, the Rays banged out 15 hits and stole six bases against the defending World Series champions, and only a four-run ninth by the Yankees made it look respectable to the announced crowd of 43,283 (but much, much, much less. Getting a little tired of hearing my pro-Yankee fans tell me that Tampa Bay doesn’t draw. Apparently the Yankees don’t, either). The Rays are now 29-11 and 16-4 on the road. Oh, the last Rays run came on a sacrifice fly by Carlos Pena to deep center that drove in Ben Zobrist – from second base.
10. SOME FINAL MUSINGS: Alex Rodriguez, who dated actress Kate Hudson most of last summer and then dumped her after the Yankees won the World Series, is now apparently playing pepper with Cameron Diaz. … Hard to believe it has been 25 years since Danny Sullivan’s “Spin and Win” at the Indianapois 500. Sullivan made a daring move to get around Mario Andretti but then spun between turns 1 and 2, allowing Andretti to get past him. Sullivan managed to keep his car off the wall, got new tires and then beat Andretti to the finish line. I asked him afterward what was more dangerous – driving in the Indianapolis 500 or driving a cab in New York City (which Sullivan did while trying to determine his future). Team owner Roger Penske enjoyed the question as much as I enjoyed asking it. … Speaking on Indy, defending champion Helio Castroneves, one of Penske’s drivers, has the fastest speed – 227.046 miles per hour. The three-time Indy champion is followed on the speed grid by 2008 champ Scott Dixon 226.971. Pole qualifying is Saturday. Oh, how I miss the Month of May in Indianapolis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ3_2A5x53I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsN7fiZCPSU
As we say at Indianapolis: “There’s a window over Terre Haute.” Later, Gators.
John Fineran