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REBEL, INC.
Greg Anthony doesn't have to reveal his income to anybody but the IRS. But Anthony, UNLV's point guard cum entrepreneur, is doing quite well, thank you—so well that he relinquished his athletic scholarship, worth $12,212.
Anthony, a senior political science major, decided to pay his own way because NCAA regulations forbid scholarship athletes from holding jobs during the season, and holding on to his scholarship would have forced Anthony to relinquish at least some of his rather extensive business interests. In the off-season, Anthony is a public-relations and marketing representative for a title company, Land Title of Nevada, and with three partners he recently opened a sportswear and silk-screening company, Two Hype, of which he is vice-president.
Anthony has a few other irons in the fire, as he and his boardroom buddies would probably put it. For Anthony, the choice between scholarship and entrepreneurship was simple. "It's always been a dream of mine to own my own company," he said. "This experience is giving me a lot of incentive to make it."
A NEW RECRUIT
From now on, when college coaches swap stories about the rigors of recruiting, it's hard to believe anyone will be able to top this opener from Tennessee women's coach Pat Summitt: "Did I ever tell you about the time I went into labor on a recruiting trip?"
On Sept. 20, Summitt, with her doctor's permission, flew in the school's jet from Knoxville to Allentown, Pa., to visit high school senior Michelle Marciniak. Summitt's due date for her first child was not until Oct. 5, but after she landed in Allentown it became apparent that the baby had become impatient. Soon she was back on the jet for the nearly two-hour flight back to Knoxville.
While Summitt, 38, concentrated on her breathing exercises during the flight, assistant coach Mickie DeMoss flipped through a pamphlet on childbirth. At one point Summitt was asked if she wanted to land immediately.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"Somewhere over Virginia."
Perhaps remembering how Virginia knocked Tennessee out of the NCAAs last season, Summitt said to fly on.
Upon landing in Knoxville, Summitt was whisked to St. Mary's Hospital, where after 4½ hours of labor she gave birth to 7-pound, 2-ounce Ross Tyler Summitt—Tyler to his friends.
Tyler, a frequent visitor to Lady Vol practices, is clearly a highly regarded addition to the Tennessee program. He held his first press conference two days after his birth, and he has already been outfitted with home and away uniforms and warmups. The circumstances of his birth will also be recounted in the Tennessee media guide.
HOOP COUTURE
The word is in from the top college basketball designers. The new season's line will continue the trend of the last few years: Shorts will be big and droopy, revealing no more than a hint of thigh.
Call this the Michael J look, as in Jordan, who is widely credited with igniting the trend. "I think once kids saw Jordan flying with that look, they started thinking big and baggy," said Lewis Hardy, vice-president of marketing for Champion Products, which manufactures more than 30% of the uniforms used in college basketball. "We started making a larger cut, called the boxer cut, with a larger inseam and just bigger in every way. Now we've adjusted our base patterns to that type of cut because it's not a trend anymore, it's the standard."
The players say the look features function as well as fashion. "Part of it is just that the look is what's happening right now," said Michigan State All-America guard Steve Smith. "Part of it is that you feel like you can move better in them. It might be all psychological, but that's how it feels."
In an update of this trend, the truly hip hoopster this season wouldn't be caught dead without tights poking out from underneath his oversized shorts. Bike Athletic Co. began manufacturing the tights—compression shorts, to those in the business—for football players in 1981, but they eventually found their way into basketball.
"The first place I saw it show up was on TV at Notre Dame about five years ago," said Randy Black, vice-president of sales and marketing at Bike. "[Coach] Digger Phelps was being interviewed and I could see the players practicing in the background with our compression shorts on. I called Digger and he told me he believed in the product from a preventive sports medicine standpoint, in the support it gives to the hamstring, groin and abdominal muscles."
The rest is basketball fashion history. If you think the trend makes players look as though they're wearing Mom's girdle under Dad's boxer shorts, remember: Fashion goes in cycles.
GOOD GOLLY
Molly Tideback was the 1988 Miss Iowa Basketball as a senior at Columbus High in Waterloo and one of the most highly recruited players in the country. That is why fans across the state all but went into mourning when she decided to attend UCLA instead of Iowa. The home folks had tried too hard.
"There was the glamour of Los Angeles, but a lot of it was just wanting to get away from everything," says Tideback. "My mother and my coaches wanted me to go to Iowa, just about the entire state wanted me to go to Iowa. I suppose I wanted to get out from under that."
But Tideback, a 6'3" center, didn't know what she was getting herself into when she headed west. She played well enough to be named 1988-89 Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, but she averaged only 12.8 points a game, peanuts for someone with her skills. Injuries were part of the reason for her lack of production—she had operations on both knees and on her left ankle after arriving at UCLA. But above all else, Tideback missed the very thing that had driven her from home—the hoop hysteria.
That was why she transferred back to Iowa before second semester last season even though Hawkeye coach C. Vivian Stringer, after signing six recruits, was holding her final scholarship for a guard. Tideback, the walk-on, will be eligible to play in January. "Maybe you have to go away to appreciate what you have at home," she says. "It is a little weird to be a walk-on, though."
It will no doubt feel even weirder when Tideback sits on the bench for the Hawkeyes' first home game on Nov. 24. Their opponent? UCLA.
DOES BO KNOW ADAM?
Adam Knows Volleyball? Adam (Prime Time) Keefe? Doesn't quite work, does it? Stanford center Adam Keefe will probably never make commercials or have a flashy nickname like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, but he does have a nice athletic double life of his own.
Keefe, a 6'9" junior and one of the best big men in the Pac-10, is a legitimate NBA prospect. And if he doesn't make it, he may just become one of the country's best volleyball players.
When pressed, Keefe, a middle blocker, hints that he prefers volleyball to basketball. "I feel like basketball should be my preference, but volleyball is so much fun," he says. "I have a greater feeling of self-improvement than I do in basketball. But it's not like basketball's a chore or anything."
Stanford basketball coach Mike Montgomery will be glad to hear that. Keefe led the Cardinal in scoring and rebounding last year. He was cut last summer from the U.S. team that played in the world basketball championships in Buenos Aires, but he traveled to the country anyway with the U.S. volleyball team, and joined the national B volleyball team that later toured Argentina.
TIP-INS
In the basketball version of Texas A&M's 12th Man football custom, Kermit Davis Jr., the school's rookie basketball coach, presents the Sixth Man. Davis will have six walk-ons on the roster, one of whom will be in the starting lineup for each home game.... Circle Jan. 12 on the 1991 calender. That's the date of the first meeting between 7'6" BYU freshman Shawn Bradley and 7'2" senior Luc Longley of New Mexico. Sampson versus Ewing, it's not. But it'll be worth a look.... Let's call the Missouri-Illinois contest on Dec. 19 the what-might-have-been game.
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ANTHONY NESTE
SUMMITT'S NEW RECRUIT IS A SLEEPER
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PETER READ MILLER
THE MICHAEL J LOOK: THE BIGGER AND BAGGIER, THE BETTER
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DON SMITH
KEEFE IS A SMASHING SUCCESS AT TWO NETS GAMES
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