The mens basketball season already resembles a roller coaster after only three games . After a Nov. 25 season-opening 65-57 victory over host Luther, in which head coach Dan Kosmoski, now in his ninth season, notched his 100th career victory, the Oles lost their conference opener on the road to Concordia 80-68 on Nov. 29.
All the hard work that Kelly Fulton 05 has put into cross country and track throughout his running career paid off in a big way when he ran to a 34th-place finish at the National Championship Meet on Nov. 22, earning him All-American status. Fulton traveled to Hanover, Ind. joined only by Coach Thornton as the team was not able to qualify for the meet. Fulton did his teammates proud by running a spectacular race and becoming the first St. Olaf male to be named All-American in cross country since 1997.
You would think, that the NCAAs new policy to begin punishing programs that dont graduate 50 percent of its athletes by taking away scholarships and threatening to ban them from postseason play would be enough to make a bald coach go even balder or a high school senior with a decent jump shot go pro. However, you wont see overweight coaches clutching their chests and hyperventilating into brown paper bags just yet. Nor will you find athletic director scrambling to find loopholes in the new NCAA codes or see this years crop of McDonalds All-Americans quaking in their $150 Nikes. While it may seem that the NCAAs reform policy will only bring good to this era of scandal-ridden sports, it will, in all actuality, simply fuel the underbelly of college sports, which have been wrought with academic fraud for quite some time.
Four games into their young season, the Ole womens basketball team is still looking for that elusive first victory. This rocky start, however, has done little to dampen the teams morale. Saturday afternoon, when the Oles head onto the court at St. Marys, theyll be focused on the future instead of dwelling on the past.
