Looking Ahead at Story Lines

9/4/92

It was a pretty good summer for Cobber sports. The coaches took time to rejuvinate their competitive fires, mostly by doing things unrelated to the sport(s) they coach, like golfing and sailing and traveling and whatever else struck their fancy (and fit their budget).

Most of our graduated athletes from last year spent the summer settling into their first real jobs or summoning the energy for grad school.

And our returning athletes, along with a host of incoming freshmen, spent the summer dreaming of success in the face of heightened expectations, their own and those of others.

Each new Cobber team and athlete will try in their own way to fullfill an ambiguous set of expectations, the parameters of which lie all too frequently beyond their control. None, we hope, will face the silliness of this summer's Olympic hype, where anything short of gold was often treated as abject failure. But all will be measured. In numbers, in wins, in conference standings, in NCAA post-season appearances, and individual honors. We do keep score.

As non-scholarship Division III athletes, promised as they were that education would come first, with sports being an integral but lessor part of their educational experience, Cobbers will again struggle with just how much time and mental focus to put into their sport. Some will find in themselves the ambiton and energy to do it all with a smooth blend of ease and excellence. Others will balk at the demands and wonder how they will ever get through it, much less excell. All will learn how they measure up to new challenges.

There are, as Brent Musburger is fond of saying (over and over and over), story lines galore as we enter this 1992-93 Concordia sports year.

The football program is coming off a 3-6 performance in 1991 that marked only their third lossing season in the past 42 years.

Will the new seniors be able to lead the team back to their more familiar role as conference contenders? Will quarterback Dan Sward be more successful as the starter from day one?

Will he get time to throw and room to run? (Will an all-Montana backfield make Montana jokes a thing of the past on campus?) Will senior Andy Becker and his defensive buddies be good enough to earn themselves an occasional rest?

Do they have that vital combination of heart, passion and simple God-given athletic ability to excell in their evenly-balanced league?

The less-publicized fall teams face comparable questions.

Can new men's soccer coach, Jim Cella, (a former Johnnie no less) usher in and era of excellence in what should be a pretty good soccer town? And how far can juniors Lydia Kabaka and Nancy Umland carry a women's soccer team that lost the high-scoring Deb Idstrom to graduation?

Will a veteran volleyball team, led by senior Laura Dahl, return to the MIAC's elite top-3? And how will they handle a Houston Astros-like schedule, which calls for their first home match October 9th, six weeks into the season?

Can senior runner Jason Trichler defend his MIAC cross country title? And does he have the help to possibly get the whole team to NCAA Nationals? Can sophomore Sarah Berg improve on her rookie performance as an all-MIAC runner despite some tender knees? Who'll run with her?

Can all-American golfer Lisa Hanson get herself and her teammates a repeat MIAC title and a trip back to the Division III Nationals? Can Moorhead's Brock Swanson lead a men's golf charge to the MIAC's upper echelons?

Looking ahead only slightly, there's both optimism and excitement surrounding preparations for winter sports. Bob Kohler takes over a women's basketball team with four returning starters, several other solid veterans and some nice rookies. And, for the first time in three years, the MIAC race actually looks to be up for grabs.

Duane Siverson's men's basketball team will try to build on the confidence gained in going 10-5 in the second half of last season. Some talent returns, joined by a rookie class that includes Minnesota's top prep scorer in 1992.

Hockey coach Steve Baumgartner feels he had one of his best recruiting years ever. And second-year wrestling coach Doug Perry will get to show off the fruits of his first full year of teaching and recruiting.

The spring should find baseball hunting for a return trip to the NCAA tournament and the track teams trying to fill the holes left by three graduated all-Americans in the weights.

It promises to be an interesting year in Cobber sports. We look forward to you being with us and keeping you informed as things progress.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@www.cord.edu . These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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