Dec. 5, 2006
Commodore Notebook Archive – click here
A Foursome of Contenders
Since President Theodore Roosevelt founded the National Collegiate Athletic Association on December 28, 1905, hundreds of teams have been crowned national champions. None have been Vanderbilt Commodore teams, however, and that has led to a friendly internal race to be the first at this university.
We had two near misses. In 2003, our SEC Tournament champion men’s tennis team took No. 1 ranked Illinois into the No. 6 singles match before losing the NCAA Championship by a 4-3 margin. Two years earlier, Geoff Macdonald’s women’s tennis squad advanced to the championship match by upsetting defending national champion Georgia but it fell short against Stanford.
To be honest, there were too many years when we didn’t have a legitimate shot at winning an NCAA team title in any sport but over the last few years, those fortunes have changed with the addition of dynamic new coaches or our ability to retain the top coaches we already have.
As most of our teams head for the holiday break, we find ourselves with four teams that have a very good chance of becoming the school’s first national team champion. (Track’s Ryan Tolbert is our only individual NCAA champion, winning the 400 hurdles in 1997.)
How do I define “very good chance”? At this point we have as good an opportunity to win as anyone else – we would not trade places with any other team to enhance our odds. We have more than four contenders if we stretched that definition to include teams that could advance via upset.
In no particular order, here is my list of our spring NCAA title hopefuls:
Baseball
Women’s Golf
Women’s Tennis
Bowling
Baseball will enter the season rated very high – possibly in the Top Five. A key publication, Baseball America, already wrote that Vanderbilt was much like 2006 NCAA-runner-up North Carolina heading into last season. Tim Corbin’s bunch could have the Major League’s top pitching prospect in David Price and the top position player in a year, Pedro Alvarez. It had the No. 1 ranked recruiting class in the nation, now turning into sophomores and red-shirt freshmen.
Martha Richards Freitag’s golf team made a big impression in the fall and jumped into fourth place in national rankings. Led by long-hitting sophomore Jacqui Concolino and senior Chris Brady and Kristin Svicarovich, the Commodores won two significant tournaments this fall.
The women’s tennis team could become the best Geoff Macdonald has ever fielded at Vanderbilt, which automatically tells you its potential. The roster includes the school’s first ever Southeastern Conference “Player of the Year”, Taka Bertrand, who won the honor last year as a sophomore.
The Vanderbilt bowlers are our highest rated team – checking in at No. 2 heading into the break. The young program had a monster fall season, winning two of the three tournaments it entered and finding an incredible balance throughout its lineup. There is no rival that has a better chance than these `Dores to win the trophy this April in Orlando.
You may be wondering why I omitted our women’s basketball team from this list. As I write, we are unbeaten in eight games and ranked No. 12. Certainly it is a program with a history of going relatively deep in to the NCAA Tournament with 11 Sweet 16 appearances. This team could evolve into one of our best but for today’s purpose, I am content to include teams that would seemingly not need to score upsets to accomplish their mission.
The road to a championship is precarious. A team needs to have great skill, of course, and teamwork but it also needs good luck, even if the good luck is simply no bad luck. One of these days a Commodore team will ring the bell, get the cigar, be the bride and not the bridesmaid. This might be the year and, if it does, it could even happen more than once.
Reaching Out
A tip of the hat to Melanie Balcomb and her women’s basketball team for their tremendous effort promoting breast cancer awareness. Balcomb’s program has volunteered to work at the Race for the Cure the last several years, registering runners, manning water stations and whatever else needed done. They took their efforts to new heights last Sunday with the “Pink Out” game against Clemson on ESPN2. Vanderbilt worked closely with the Ingram-Cancer Center to promote the game and raise money for the cause. Those who attended the game saw lots of pink in the stands.
More Kudos
Former Commodore All-America golfer Brandt Snedeker has received a lot of local attention for earning his PGA Card, which puts him on the PGA Tour with the greatest golfers in the world. Brandt has a big gallery of fans in McGugin Center, where he was known not only as a terrific golfer but also as a first-class person. He once did a summer internship in this office to help hone his media skills, where he already possessed excellent natural instincts.