Sports Capitol’s athletes are school’s ambassadors Hob’s Reaction A Sports Editorial by Rob Rejmaniak In the past year, Capitol sports have brought a number of plea sant suprises to campus. Last Fall, the cross-country team competed as a varsity sport for the first time since Capitol has been in existence, and won its conference. This year, the team has already repeated as conference champs and has one runner, Joel Hager, who has a chance at “Academic All-American”. This past Spring, the baseball team had its finest season, finishing with 17 wins and 12 losses while making the play-offs for the first time in its five-year history. The baseball team proudly honored senior Mike Skurko, who A UNIQUE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WHO VALUE THE HERBALIFE PRODUCT. For more information, call: 944-4504 or 732-5422 and ask for John or Heidi. DISCOVER made “Academic All-American”, and Head Coach Ron Melchiorre, who was named “Coach of the Year”. The team also had four players named to the first team All-District, two players to second team All-District, and one player who received honorable mention. The tennis team, winless in the 1982 season, tied for first place in their conference last spring. The team placed second in district competition and had two players, Randy Owcar and Randy Nelson, who were invited to Nationals. The team’s coach and Captain, Frank Caparell, not only went undefeated during the season, but was named District 19 “Coach of the Year”. The soccer team has made its debut as a varsity club this year and has already shown signs of becoming a prideful part of Capitol Campus. „ Adding to all of these ac complishments, the basketball team, under Head Coach Charles Bowen, made it clear at the end of last season that the team was not to be taken lightly, winning three out of their last six regular season games. Okay, you say, what does this mean to the rest of the students at Capitol Campus? It means, as Head Baseball Coach Ron Melchiorre put it,“the whole campus is upgraded by these accomplishments.” But it goes further than that. The records of these teams are not as important as the teams themselves. “Capitol Campus is in good standing with other schools because of our athletic program,” says Athletic Director Bud Smitley,“we have established our academic reputation through athletics.” That’s right, these teams in themselves are important, the athletes are your campus am bassadors, your representatives of a sort. y afj 211 W. Water Street Middletown, PA 17057 I, for one, think students should know one of the main reasons Capitol has a good reputation with other schools is because of the way our athletic teams conduct themselves at games. These people experience long, hard practices, travel hours just to play games, and win or lose, show the kind of sportsmanship that will hold you, the students here at Capitol, in high regard with other schools. The athletes are as much representatives of our school as Olympic athletes are represen tatives of our nation. To look down on these individuals as mere glory-seeking jocks is absurd. Each one of these teams comes in direct contact with between ten and twenty-five different schools every season. “The students who participate in sports are the best or worst allies this school has,” says Smitley. So the next time the kid with the calculator on his belt tells you about the immaturity of a person who likes to run around chasing a ball, ask him when the last time was that he represented Capitol Campus in such a direct, positive way. 944-7268 Page 19 ] *V~' v A o a 8