May 6, 2011
Quick Slant is an array of brief insights and occasionally opinionated overviews of collegiate athletics in general and the Vanderbilt Commodores in particular.
The sport of baseball, with its many games, has always struggled with a no-show problem at virtually every level from Major Leagues to sandlots. We have some passionate fans urging us to “do something” to fill our sold but unoccupied seats that are scattered about The Hawk. We continue to explore solutions along with every other collegiate and professional baseball team selling enough tickets to qualify for the problem. Quick Slant can fairly report that this is a topic much easier to fix from afar – unencumbered by facts and details – than up close, where among other factors we are not allowed to sell the same seat twice. If solving this was simple, the New York Yankees would have solved it many years ago. A frequently asked question column will soon be posted on this web page that should be helpful to both old and new baseball fans.
A quick congrats to Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach Tasha Weddle, who was named Master Strength and Conditioning Coach by the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches association May 5 at the organization’s annual convention in Kansas City. This honor is the highest given in the strength and conditioning coaching profession.
Five of the first six picks in last week’s NFL Draft were from the Southeastern Conference. Holy cow!
The amount of local attention that West End Avenue “Wall of Fame” receives is interesting. It is not owned or controlled by Vanderbilt Athletics, yet it works its way into the news more often than some topics we would dearly like to promote.
Individual game tickets for the regular season finale baseball series with Florida May 13-15 went on sale May 2 and the bowl section for the Friday night is already at near capacity. Plenty of outfield seats remain and there is more availability for the Saturday and Sunday afternoon games.
Name dropping –Chuck Offenburger and Douglas Bates, Class of 1969, were here for the Tennessee baseball series. These best buddies not only collaborated as student reporters with Larry Schmittou to get the student body fired up for baseball 42 years ago but also gave the former Commodore coach the nickname “Smokie”. Offenburger went on to become one of the top journalists in the Midwest while Bates is an attorney and one of our solid gold super fans…basketball alumni Wendy Scholtens Wood, Sarah Maness, Renae Sallquist, Jill Goldberg, Julie Carroll, Kristin Becker, Karen Booker, and trainer Julie Gibbs were back for that weekend excursion mentioned in this space a couple of weeks ago.