No Bus fue The Steelers will have tt face the 7-4 Jets without Jerome Bettis, Page 15 E DAILY COLLEGIAN Christie Welsh winds up to score her Big Ten record-tying 58th career goal. Rose not holding back on his team PSU volleyball coach realizes the need for improvement after NCAA tourney loss. By Dustin Dopirak COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER djd2l6@psu.edu You can call Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose harsh, but'if nothing else you have to call him honest. Rose goes to a number of lengths to make sure his players know where they stand. None of the sometimes harsh criticisms he utters about his team in media interviews are things he wouldn't say in front of all of his players. He holds four meetings a year with each player in which he goes over her strengths and weak nesses, tells her where she stands in the lineup and discusses other perti nent matters. And he doesn't hold much back "I don't think I've ever lied to my players," Rose said. "I've identified some of the problems some players have brought to this team and I've issued challenges that those prob lems be fixed. That's what I do as a coach. Maybe if I pretended that we didn't have some of the problems we had this season, and that the players weren't making the mistakes the group could've been affected differ ently, but I'm not wired that way" After the struggles his team has had this season with chemistry, and their unsatisfactory performance against UCLA in the second round of the NCAA tournament that led to their earliest exit in 12 seasons, Rose had a lot to talk about in his end-of the-year meetings this week. It's like ly that a lot of that wasn't pleasant. However, it is not his brutally honest words, but the response he got from his players that tells the story of the Nittany Lions' season. In two separate interviews, Rose asked players for their assessment of the team. According to him, both responded in the same way. "I wouldn't exactly call this a team." See VOLLEYBALL, Page 20 Big Ten well-represented in women's volleyball Sweet 16 By Dustin Dopirak COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER I djd2l6@psu.edu By accepting all six of its qualifying teams, the NCAA Women's Volleyball tournament committee put a lot of pres sure on the Big Ten, and once again the conference didn't disappoint. Fbr the third straight season, the Big Ten went undefeated in the first round of the NCAA tournament. They were the only conference with as many teams to do so, as both the Big 12, who qualified eight teams, and the Pac-10, who quali fied six, each saw teams eliminated in the first round. The conference will be well represent ed in the regional brackets with Wiscon sin and Ohio State each advancing to the Sweet 16. "Pm•really happy with the way the Big Ten performed this weekend," Wiscon sin coach Pete Waite said. "It once again validates the strength of this confer ence 7 Mite's Badgers represent the best O.N''ira I I t t It S Welsh named top The junior was awarded the Hermann Trophy as the NCAA's top women's soccer player. By Jason Bartolone COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER I jfbl66@psu.edu Christie Welsh has been an outstand ing soccer player throughout her colle giate career. Yesterday, she took her place among the elite of the sport. Welsh, a junior forward on the Penn State women's soccer team, was award ed the Hermann Trophy in a ceremony at The Bryce Jordan Center. The award honors the nation's best soccer player. Nebraska football coach Frank Sokh stands in front of his players. The Nebraska weightlifting method is legendary across the nation, and it uses an Olympic-style program that emphasizes power over mere strength. . Penn State spurns Olympic weightlifting method Editors' Note: This is the third story in a six-part series about the Penn State weight program Stories trickle back from the Mid west. Tales of quarterbacks that clean 300 pounds. Tales of offensive linemen that can bench press 500 pounds without breaking a sweat. Stories that tell of a better way. For the most part, these stories have their genesis at Lincoln, Neb., a city whose population swells to become the largest in the state when the Cornhuskers play football on Sat urdays. It is where the first college football weight room was installed in 1967, where the original dumbbells now sit behind velvet ropes. Inside the West Stadium Strength Complex hope to get the conference its second national championship (Penn State, 1999). After defeating Wisconsin/Milwau kee and Michigan State in their first two matches, Wisconsin draws No. 11 seed Texas A&M in the regional semifinals Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. Should the Badgers advance past the Aggies, they will be looking at the winner of the match between regional host Stanford, the No. 3 seed in the tournament and No. 14 seed Utah. The Badgers are feeling a bit of a sense of urgency this season. They will be losing two of the most productive players in the history of the program in setter Lizzy Fitzgerald and middle block er Sherisa Livingston, the Badger's all time kills leader. "I think our players always play with a sense of urgency," Waite said. "But we're losing some great players, and I think part of what fuels them this season is the opportunity to play together longer." The Buckeyes draw a daunting regional semifinal opponent in Southern Explosive alternative By Jeff Frantz and Chris Korman COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITERS jbfl42@psu.edu, ckorman@psu.edu The Big Ten's Player of the Year three seasons in a row, Welsh notched 25 goals and 18 assists this season in leading the Nittany Lions to a 24-4-1 record, a Big Ten regular season crown and an appearance in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Tournament. The junior cred ited her fellow Lions as the main reason for her recognition. "I'd like to thank my team first of all, because without them I would definitely not be able to receive this award," Welsh said. Welsh has been an offensive dynamo in her three years with the Lions, and is the owner of all Penn State and Big Ten career offensive records. But Lions' head coach Paula Wilkins said that beyond the numbers, Welsh brings much prestige and recognition to. Penn State soccer. strength and conditioning coach Boyd Eply runs a thriving Olympic style training program that has pro duced some of the largest physical specimens to strap on pads. "We're going to take an athlete, and we're going to make him bigger, faster and stronger and by doing so, improve his performance," says Eply, the Nebraska strength coach. "Power is the component we're after. We want guys with natural explosive ness, and then we make them stronger." Power, when most strength coach es use the word, refers to the ability not only to lift heavy objects (strength) but to do it at high velocity (explosiveness). Which is why schools such as Nebraska train its players using Olympic-style methods. Clearly, foot ball is a game of explosiveness. The very nature of the contest character izes it that way: game play is based on short spurts of activity, during California. The Trojans are seeded No. 4 in the nation after finishing the season 24-3. They blew past Duke and Liberty in the first and second rounds, sweeping both teams, and winning five of their six games by double digits. The Buckeyes also dominated both of their first round opponents. Minnesota was close to joining Ohio State and Wisconsin in the round of 16. They lost a deuce game to Northern lowa in game five 17-15. Golden Gopher coach Mike Hebert expects his young team to take a lot from Their NCAA tour nament. "I think we were playing the best vol leyball we played all year at the end of the season," Hebert said. "I'm really impressed by the way we played down the stretch. We just never had an easy game, and we played all of those games on par with out opponents. I'm really excited about this team next season. Saying Goodbye A number of Big Ten teams will be los ing their cornerstones this off-season. player in country "The stuff she brings on the field is in the record books," Wilkins said. "But I think she brings a lot of acknowledge ment to our program, so that other peo ple get noticed." Still, Welsh is the most decorated play er in women's soccer history at Penn State. The Massapequa Park, N.Y. native was a candidate for the Hermann 'Tro phy last year, and with a season remain ing in her collegiate career she figures to again contend for the prestigious award in 2002. "I don't think she'll realize until she's older the significance of this award," Wilkins said. "A lot of her work has paid off." Robert R. Hermann, the former Chairman of the North American Soccer League for whom the trophy is named, was on-hand at yesterday's ceremony which a player is exerting all the force he can. Then he gets a 30-sec ond break before he does it again, or he goes to the sideline for a few min utes rest. "You've got to take into account what a sport is comprised of," says Derek Shore, a strength trainer in the Philadelphia Phi'lies system, who works in Canada during the off-sea son. "Football is a power-based sport. It requires acceleration and strength. You've got to gear up to be explosive for short spurts." Force equals acceleration times mass. This concept is central to why Olympic-style trainers employ the methods they do. They want players to be explosive in the weight room so that it carries over onto the field. Sport specificity is a relatively new, but simple, concept that has taken over the strength-training communi ty. Bluntly stated, mainstream.train ers believe a workout regiment See WEIGHTLIFTING, Page 20. The Badgers losses of Livingston and Fitzgerald will clearly be costly, but Min nesota, Penn State, Michigan State, Ohio State, lowa and Illinois will have big shoes to fill next season as well. In All-Big Ten players Lindsey Berg and Stephanie Hagen, the Golden Gophers lose the only two experienced players they had this season, and the other four teams will be losing a lot of offense in outside hitters Katie Schu macher, Erin Hartley, Anne Botica, Sara Meyermann and Shadia Haddad respec tively. Even so the strong young teams in the conference, such as Ohio State, Michigan, the Golden Gophers, Michi gan State and Illinois should make some national noise, and perennial powers Penn State and Wisconsin should still have the talent to compete with the country's best. "This league is losing a lot of genuine superstars," Hebert said. "But I think with the good young teams in the league the pendulum is going to be swinging upward again for the Big Ten. INSIDE Scoreboard . .. 14 NFL 15 College Football 16 WEDNESDAY, Dec. 5, 2001 13 and said that Welsh won quite easily in the voting. But Welsh said that she was surprised on Monday when she heard that she was this year's recipient. "The people that it came down to, they're really great players," Welsh said. "People could argue that anyone could have won this award. I'm very happy that I was chosen." While she was pleased with her recog nition, Welsh said that it does not take away the sting of the Lions' exit from the NCAA tournament at the hands of North Carolina last weekend. And although she is considered*by many to be a strong favorite for next year's Hermann Trophy, Welsh said that she has different hopes for her senior season. "I'll take a national championship first." Lions look to start new streak By Chris Adamski COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER I cxal9B@psu.edu When the Penn State men's bas ketball team had a 54-game non-con ference home winning streak snapped in the opening game of the season against Yale, the team set out to start a new streak After all, all good things must come to And the Ifiga's Basketball previous Lehigh at Penn St. streak had 7:30 tonight encom- Bryce Jordan Center passed more than nine years, two head coaches and two home courts since the last non conference home loss, a 67-65 loss to Pittsburgh in the first round of the 1992 NIT So the Nittany Lions went out and won their next game, a 75-66 triumph over Lafayette Nov. 21. But that new streak didn't last quite as lung as the previous one. Penn State lost its next time out at The Bryce Jordan Center, Nov. 28 to Clemson (79-66). Tonight, the Lions (1-4) look to start yet another home winning streak as they take on the Lehigh Mountain Hawks (0-6) at 7:30 at the Jordan Center. Penn State is coming off a loss at Temple Saturday, a game in which the Owls took control from the open ing tip. Temple led 40-22 at halftime and extended that lead to as much as 27 before the Lions made a late comeback on the heels of Sharif Chambliss' three-point shooting. Despite the 75-63 loss, the Lions had posted a solid rebounding effort, losing the battle of the boards only 32-30 against a team much bigger on the inside. It was quite an improvement over Penn State's previous outing, when in the Clemson game the Tigers out rebounded the Lions 46-22. Although Penn State has grabbed more rebounds than its opponent only once all season (39-35 in the win over Lafayette), the Lions should have an advantage in tonight's game. The Mountain Hawks' tallest starter is 6-foot-7 Scott Taylor. The senior forward is averaging 5.7 boards per game, second on the team in rebounding to 6-5 senior Bobby Mbom (6.8). Taylor is the only Lehigh player taller than 6-5 to see significant play ing time thus far this season. See BASKETBALL Page 20. Mlshka Levy and Nadia Edwards block against Ohio State, a Sweet 16 team.
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