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(05/14/07 12:03am)
EVANSTON, Ill. – Their season ended with a 4-1 loss to No. 5 Northwestern in the second round of the NCAA championships Saturday afternoon, but the Hoosier women’s tennis team didn’t seem to mind. The team acted the same way they had the day before, after their defeat of No. 43 Boise State – joking with each other, smiling and taking pictures with their families and coaches.\nThe fact is that the team had nothing to be upset over. At the beginning of their season, the team was placed in the middle of the Big Ten conference with a mediocre record. At the end of the season, the Hoosiers had achieved a 9-1 record in the Big Ten conference and a 21-7 record overall. Four of those losses came to teams ranked in the top 10 nationally and the last three to teams in the top 25.\n“I was really happy with the season we had,” Head Coach Lin Loring said. “I couldn’t be more pleased with the girls. ... In January, we felt like we would probably be 5-5 in conference and a national ranking somewhere 55 to 60. So to go 9-1 in conference and the second round of the NCAA (tournament), we couldn’t be happier.”\nWith a strong breeze off Lake Michigan no more than a block away on Friday, playing conditions were anything but pleasant. But that didn’t seem to bother the No. 24 Hoosiers as they defeated Boise State four wins to two in a best of seven series.\nThe match was not an easy one for the Hoosiers. With the teams tied in the match at two, sophomore Alba Berdala and senior Laura McGaffigan had to come from behind in their third sets to win the number one and two matches, respectively.\nOn Saturday, the Hoosiers began their bout against Northwestern in control of the doubles matches, but the Wildcats battled back to earn the point. From there, Northwestern didn’t look back, winning the match 4-1.\n“I feel like we fought every single match so hard throughout this entire season,” McGaffigan said. “I feel like we played with so much heart, we can’t be too mad at ourselves. And Northwestern is always a good team. We came out here and fought as hard as we could, and there was not much more that we could have done.”\nMcGaffigan finished her career by earning IU’s only point versus Northwestern, defeating the No. 43 singles player in the nation, freshman Samantha Murray 6-3, 6-3. \nBerdala was poised to gain another point for IU when Northwestern gathered its last needed point of the day. Berdala was leading No. 13 sophomore Georgia Rose 6-3, 3-3 when the match ended, marking with it the end of Indiana’s season.\n“It just simply wasn’t one of the better teams we had at IU, but they didn’t know it,” Loring said. “We forgot to tell them they weren’t supposed to be that good. I’m serious, they just very much overachieved with the talent we had and the team’s chemistry accounted for a lot of that. The team got along great.”
(05/10/07 12:08am)
Led by the Big Ten Coach of the Year, two All-Big Ten athletes and an attitude that says they don’t have anything to lose, the Hoosier women’s tennis team will head to Evanston, Ill., to compete Friday in the NCAA regional tournament.\n“We were, at the beginning of the season, picked at fifth or sixth because we lost our senior, Sarah Batty, who graduated an All-American, and we really didn’t replace her,” head coach Lin Loring said.\nThough Loring thought his team would have to fight for fifth or sixth, the team finished second in the Big Ten behind Northwestern. According to Loring, this was because every member of the team stepped up, and his players agree.\n“I think it’s that we have a solid team,” senior Laura McGaffigan said. “Everyone came through when we needed them to. It was never just one person winning everything.”\nMcGaffigan, one of the squad’s two captains, plays at No. 2 singles and pairs up with sophomore Alba Berdala for doubles play. \n“It’s a lot of fun to play with Alba,” McGaffigan said. “She is very laid-back. We match up well together and play together well.”\nThe pair certainly does play well together. Together this season they had a 7-3 record, including a 2-0 record against ranked opponents.\nOn April 8, the duo dealt the No. 13 pairing of Northwestern’s Georgia Rose and Alexis Prousis their first loss of the season. Then on April 15, Berdala and McGaffigan defeated the No. 45 pairing of Brooke Beier and Mallory Voelker of Purdue.\n“Laura is an amazing doubles partner,” Berdala said. “She is the kind of person who makes it fun to play. She makes me want to play harder.”\nBoth Berdala and McGaffigan were named All-Big Ten athletes this year, while Coach Loring was named Big Ten Coach of the Year for the fifth time in his career.\nLoring holds the all-time record for having coached the most wins in women’s tennis, with 696 career victories. He has been at IU for 30 years and led the women’s team to a national championship in 1982. The championship was the first for any women’s sport at IU.\nIn the first round of the tournament, the Hoosiers, ranked 25th nationally, will face the No. 43 Boise State Broncos. The two teams have never faced each other, and Loring said he welcomes the challenge of a new opponent.\n“We don’t know anything about them,” Loring said. “We looked at some (of) the scores, and they are obviously very good. We played a little tougher national schedule, but they have done well – they are like 42 nationally.”\nCoach Loring also said Boise State was a well-rounded team because every player except for their number one has a winning record. This did not seem to bother Loring who, confident in his squad, said it would come down to the matchups at each level of the teams.\nIf IU beats Boise State, they will face the winner of the match between No. 5 Northwestern and No. 63 Western Michigan. IU is looking forward to a possible rematch with Northwestern, whom they lost to earlier this year 4-2.\n“They are ranked really high,” Berdala said, “but we don’t really have anything to lose if we face them.”\nFriday could mark the end of the season for the team, but that doesn’t seem to be on the players’ minds.\n“I just think that if (we) go out and have great performances where everyone does their part we will be fine,” McGaffigan said. “We have had a really great season and are really excited for Friday.”
(05/10/07 12:06am)
The culmination of a long season of indoor and outdoor meets for the IU track and field squads is in sight. This weekend, the squads will be traveling to Penn State for the Outdoor Big Ten championships.\nFor the women’s team, their formula is set – strong senior leadership earning their expected points and an up-start freshman class stealing points other teams expect to get.\nThe head of the women’s senior class is Stacey Clausing. Clausing is the workhorse for the squad. This week, she was named Big Ten track athlete of the week after running a leg in the 4x100-meter relay that qualified for the NCAA Mideast regional meet.\nThis was after she ran and qualified in the 200-meter dash and ran in the 100-meter dash where she finished second overall. At any meet, Clausing could run up to five events, said women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson. \nClausing qualified for the NCAA Mideast regional in the 200-meter dash, 400-meter dash and has a leg of the 4x100-meter relay squad that has qualified.\n“(The award is) well deserved,” Wilson said. “Stacey has done a lot for our program, and I don’t think she is done. We’re hoping to get the 4x400-meter relay squad qualified for regionals this weekend, and she will be running in that.”\nThe standout freshman on the squad is undoubtedly pole-vaulter Vera Neuenswander. Neuenswander is ranked the No. 1 freshman pole-vaulter in the nation and sixth in the nation overall. Last weekend, she set an IU record for women’s pole-vault with a mark of 4.12 meters.\nBut it was Neuenswander’s second place performance at the Big Ten indoor meet where she set a Big Ten record with a clearance of 4.11 meters that, according to Wilson, got everyone on the team excited and led to IU doubling their point total from the previous year.\n“At these meets, anything can happen,” Wilson said. “We just need to go and compete. If the seniors can perform well, it will set a tone for the team, and we have a big class of 22 freshmen, which are the ones who are on the bubble of scoring that we need to get scoring.”\nOn the men’s side, the bottom line is to simply perform, because they are a threat to finish anywhere in the top five with the talent they have after finishing fifth at the Indoor Big Tens.\nSophomore sprinter Wil Glover injured his hamstring, leaving big holes in the 100-meter dash and 4x100-meter relay squad. Luckily, junior Marcus Thigpen, football running back and sprinter, is good at running through holes. He was able to help the squad qualify for regionals, but the team would have been much stronger had both Thigpen and Glover been running.\nThe good news is that men’s interim head coach Wayne Pate has his jumpers healthy and assistant coach Robert Chapman has his distance team running the best they have all year.\n“Our distance crew is going to show up, I’m counting on it,” Pate said. “Our runners have been running well. Coach Chapman has done a great job in preparing them and hopefully they’ll be ready to run.”\nThe jumpers were the team that gathered the most points for the Hoosiers at Indoor Big Tens. Junior Kyle Jenkins took first in the triple jump and Senior Kiwan Lawson won the long jump.\n“Kyle and Kiwan did well at indoors and now know what to expect and what it takes to win,” Pate said. “Hopefully we have worked on the right things and it all comes together. Our goal is to do better than we did at indoors.”
(05/04/07 4:00am)
Every freshman comes to IU in search of their identity, and even if they think they know it, it will change throughout the year. Senior track and field standout Kiwan Lawson was no exception to this rule.\nLawson had a rough transition from high school to collegiate track. Now, wrapping up his career with the team, he took time to reflect on those problems and how his coach has helped him through them to be what he is today, a Big Ten champion in the indoor long jump.\n“Freshman year was tough for me,” Lawson said. “I had a few home problems, but really just issues in finding myself and having doubts as to whether or not I was ready for collegiate track. I had real identity problems coming in and being in the shadows, as all eyes were on (former Hoosier) David Neville and the Jefferson twins.”\nAccording to Lawson’s coach, interim head coach Wayne Pate, it isn’t uncommon for a freshman on the squad to have transition problems.\n“Of course he struggled his freshman year; most freshmen do,” Pate said. “Most kids were the stars of their high school teams – that’s how they got to college – and no longer are top dog. That’s where it is our job as coaches to help them through that time.”\nThough Lawson might not have been the focal point of the team his freshman year, this year was different. During the indoor Big Ten Championships, eyes were finally on Lawson, and he definitely was a sight to see.\nLawson took 3rd in the 200-meter dash and earned himself the title of Big Ten champion when he finished first in the long jump in front of family and friends at IU’s Gladstein Fieldhouse. \n“That was probably the best time of my career here at IU,” Lawson said. “My friends came down and it was great getting that first Big Ten title in front of them.”\nLawson has been chasing that title his whole career at IU, a title that would have come a lot sooner than his senior year if not for injury. \nAfter finishing third in the long jump at the indoor Big Tens his freshman year and qualifying for the regional meet during outdoors, Lawson has not been able to stay healthy enough to compete in an outdoor season.\nDuring the indoor season his junior year, Lawson took second in the long jump at Big Tens and was set for nationals when he suffered an injury. He still competed at nationals but finished last, leaping 6.88 meters – nowhere near his personal best of 7.75 meters. The same injury kept Lawson from competing during that outdoor season.\n“I can’t explain how hard it is to not be able to perform,” Lawson said. “It is no longer personal when outdoors come because I have a relay team to compete with. But I think that it is good for athletes to get setbacks early, because it makes them stronger.”\nThis year, the strength that Lawson gained growing up led to his being named a team captain by Pate.\n“It has been good working with (Lawson),” Pate said. “We’ll be sorry to see him go. He has been a good leader and team captain and has done a lot to add to the team. Once in a while I see him off to the side talking with the younger athletes about technique, and that is what you want out of a leader.” \nAs Lawson and his coach gear up for the outdoor Big Ten championships and then for one last shot at the outdoor national championships, they also have one more meet to go. Lawson and his team will be competing along with the women’s team today as IU hosts the Billy Hayes Invitational. \n“I’m anxious for (the Big Tens), because it has been a long season,” Lawson said. “The coaches have been going easy in practice, because I need to have my body at its freshest. Hopefully I will be able to move up the regional list.”
(04/26/07 4:00am)
The 98th running of the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa this weekend will play host to the Hoosier track and field squads as they look to fill that bus headed for the NCAA Mideast Regional the weekend of May 25 and 26.\nSo far, the Hoosiers have eight athletes headed to Columbia, Mo., for the regional, but the Hoosier squads could add to that total in bunches at the Drake Relays. That is because this weekend’s meet is primarily made up of relay events for the runners. \nAssistant coach George Freeman said the Drake Relays are historic and very traditional in that sense.\n“(The meet) became popular in the mid-’50s,” Freeman said. “Back then it was almost like an extravaganza, sort of like a carnival. The lines of the (dirt) track used to be perfectly painted on, now it just has a really nice track with a rich history.”\nOther than nostalgia, the relays will provide IU with a level of competition they have not come up against this year. The competition will be similar to what they will be facing at the Big Ten championships May 11-13.\nFreeman said that he hopes the strong level of competition will push his athletes harder, and that more of them will qualify for the regional meet. \nBoth the men’s and women’s 4x100-meter relay teams and 4x400-meter relays teams are on the cusp of qualifying.\n“I think both teams should qualify this weekend,” Freeman said. “We should also qualify in the four-by-two, which is an odd event for us, because we normally don’t run it.”\nThis will be the first time all year that IU has competed in the 4x200-meter relay.\nSophomore John Gunnell will be running a leg of the 4x400-meter relay team. Gunnell did the same last weekend at the Cardinal Invitational in Louisville, where he ran the anchor leg of the relay and the squad ran a time 3:13.75.\n“3:10 is qualifying. I’m hoping we will run a 3:07,” Gunnell said. “In order to do that everybody has to be good, and we will have to have good handoffs, not like last weekend. Last weekend we almost ran out of our lane on the handoff.”\nGunnell said that the team wasn’t worried about handoffs this week and spent time running shorter distances and taking longer rests to focus on speed. \nThe 4x100-meter relay team will be missing a key member this weekend. Sophomore Wil Glover has an injured hamstring and coach Freeman said that he is considering redshirting Glover for the rest of the year so he can fully recover.\n“We might just let him rest for the rest of the year – we aren’t sure,” he said. “We would be disappointed if we had to, but we don’t want to hurt him. He has worked so hard to get to that next level of performance, but his hamstring just hasn’t been able to hold up.”\nGlover was replaced by two-sport athlete junior Marcus Thigpen last weekend, and will be again this weekend. Thigpen’s teammate from the Hoosier football team, senior Tracy Porter, began working out with the track squads this week as well.\n“Porter is out here now, and we are anxious to see how his speed is,” Freeman said.
(04/23/07 4:00am)
Forgive the math, but for a women’s sprinter to qualify for the regional meet in the 100-meter dash, she must cover the 100 meters in 11.75 seconds or less, which would average her speed out at roughly 19 mph. \nSo imagine, plowing through another person at that speed. IU’s junior sprinter Zakiya Robinson did just that in a warm up for her dash.\n“She was prepared to come out of the blocks and collided with a guy,” IU sprinting coach George Freeman said. “She hurt her rib and knocked the air out of her. She is fine now but she missed the 200- and 100- (meter dashes), and we were looking forward to her running in those.”\nFreeman said that Robinson should be able to run in next weekend’s Drake Relays.\nOther than Robinson’s setback the IU track and field teams had a strong meet at the Cardinal Invite hosted by Louisville.\nThe meet was unofficially scored between Louisville, IU and Indiana State. The coaches kept score as if the meet were a head-to-head team competition, even though it was an open invitational. Freeman said that keeping score really pushed his athletes to compete harder.\n“We were at the point where Stacey (Clausing) wasn’t going to run in the 4-by-400-meter relay, but she did and they ran their fastest time,” Freeman said. “Audrey Smoot ran a really good split, which wouldn’t have happened unless we ran it. The scoring keeps our competitive edge sharp.”\nEarlier in the day, Clausing, a senior sprinter, recorded her first regional qualifying mark of the outdoor season in the 400-meter dash with a time of 54.42 seconds. She finished first in the event.\nAlso winning her event was senior Lorian Price, who ran a time of 13.77 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles. Her teammate and classmate Courtney Johnson finished right behind her in second with a time of 13.80 seconds. That time was also a regional standard time, the third for Johnson this season.\nThe men’s track and field team also had a strong meet, particularly from its standout freshman thrower.\nEric Werskey improved his regional standard in the shot put with a toss of 17.48 meters, finishing second. Werskey qualified for the regional meet in both the shot put and the discus throw.\n“Eric is in a spot where he could win in the shot and/or the discus at the Big Tens, but he has to be able to put it together in the same weekend,” throwers coach Wil Fleming said.\nHe said for Werskey to do that, Fleming is going to change practices around. Instead of throwing either the discus or the shot one day, he will have Werskey do both in the same practice.
(04/20/07 4:00am)
Originally, the IU track-and-field teams had the Little 500 weekend off. But when the Indiana Relays were canceled April 7 due to bad weather, their coaches added this weekend’s Cardinal Invitational to their schedule.\nThe meet will be Friday and Saturday at the University of Louisville’s Cardinal Park.\nThe coaches of IU track and field hope their squads compete aggressively this weekend at the open invitational and gather more individual regional qualifying times.\nOne way the coaches are encouraging this is by unofficially scoring the meet. That means the coaches of the Louisville Cardinals and the Indiana State Sycamores will keep score as if the meet were a team meet, not a normal open meet.\n“The Cardinal Invite is an open meet, so it brings in random athletes to compete,” IU sprinters coach George Freeman said. “What we want to do is keep score between the Cardinals, us and the Sycamores. Our athletes always compete better when the meet is scored – this one will be scored, but not officially.”\nAccording to the coaches, if the meet were scored and the results turned into the NCAA making them official, athletes who have been redshirted or who are just not using eligibility – running unattached – for their teams would not be allowed to compete.\n“In track and field, you can’t have unattached athletes scored in meets, because that would lose their eligibility for the year,” IU women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson said. “It helps the competition when you have unattached athletes compete – for example, post-collegiate athletes.”\nFreeman hopes that with the level of competition and the fact the meet will be scored will make his athletes perform better. So he is taking nearly all his sprinters to this away meet, something the teams normally do not do.\n“We have roughly a full team going,” Freeman said. “We’re looking at leaving only four out of 19 sprinters.”\nTwo of Freeman’s sprinters who won’t be making the trip are sophomore Wil Glover and junior Doug Dayhoff. Both are nursing minor injuries. To cope with their losses, Freeman plans to move sophomore John Gunnell into Dayhoff’s leg of the 4x100-meter relay squad, and will possibly bring two-sport athlete Marcus Thigpen into the meet to take over Glover’s races.\nThe men’s sprinting squad has yet to have an athlete qualify for the regional meet in late May, but Freeman hopes this weekend could change that.\n“I’ve worked them so hard, but now we have been doing more things on speed and I have pulled them out of the weight room,” Freeman said. “Now that it’s warm out, they will run faster, because sprinters need heat. It was only 40 degrees in Missouri, and there is no way you can run fast in that.”\nThe women’s team is also hoping to capitalize on the warm weather and get more regional qualifications, Wilson said. They are planning on taking a nearly full squad as well, with 25 or 26 athletes traveling.\n“We are hoping to get warm weather and more people qualified for regionals,” Wilson said. “Last weekend was great getting to see where the regional meet will be held, and this weekend will be good training for next weekend’s Drake Relays, where we are hoping to face really strong competition.”
(04/16/07 4:00am)
Apparently no one told the men’s and women’s track teams that the weather in Columbia, Mo., would be miserable, and that they wouldn’t be able to perform well at the Tom Botts Invitational. That or the teams simply were not listening as, despite horrid conditions, the men and women combined to win 15 events.\n“The weather was bad, and the times reflected that,” said IU sprinter’s coach George Freeman. “But it was like the team was hungry and had a great meet.”\nThe invite was a relatively small one because IU went up against host Missouri and rival Purdue. \n“The meet originally had six teams scheduled to participate, but the weather scared some of the teams off,” Freeman said.\nThe weather was 48 degrees and raining both days of the invite, according to The Weather Channel, but it didn’t faze Hoosiers and senior sprinter Stacey Clausing. Clausing competed in the 200- and 400-meter dashes and ran a leg in both the 4x100-meter relay and the 4x400-meter relay.\n“I really pushed her,” Freeman said. “But after the meet was over, she told me that she liked being pushed.”\nClausing won both of her dashes and helped the relay squads win both of their events.\nAnother winner on the women’s side was senior Courtney Johnson, who posted another regional qualifying time of 13.89 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles. Teammate senior Lorian Price finished second with a time on the cusp of qualifying for the regional meet – 14.01 seconds. Price also finished first in the long jump.\nThe men’s squad also featured many first-place finishes this weekend. Junior sprinter Keith Heerdegen took first in the 200-meter dash after finishing second in the 100-meter.\n“Keith ran a great time,” Freeman said. “It didn’t matter to him where the wind was blowing or if it was raining.”\nHeerdegen’s time of 21.59 seconds in the 200-meter dash is a new personal best.\nOff the track, field athletes were also bringing blue ribbons. Cutting through the wind and rain, freshman Eric Werskey won the discus throw with a regional qualifying distance of 51.78 meters. And indoor Big Ten champion Kiwan Lawson won the long jump with a leap of 7.18 meters.\nAll in all, the times were not the best that these Hoosier squads will put up, but IU’s showing tenacity to perform no matter what is a tribute to the team’s character, said men’s interim coach Wayne Pate.\n“We won a lot of events, and it was nice to be able to do that,” he said. “The team had a lot of character in that in a meet like this, you can throw the times out of the window, but they still went out there and competed. They showed a lot of heart this weekend, and that makes a coach happy.”
(04/13/07 4:00am)
Despite unfavorable weather for meets, the men’s and women’s track and field teams will continue to clear hurdles this season. \nAfter canceling last weekend’s Indiana Relays, the teams will be taking their top athletes to Columbia, Mo., this weekend to compete in the Tom Botts Invitational held by the University of Missouri.\nAs with every outdoor meet, the teams hope to have their athletes post regional qualifying marks. The athletes who post these marks will be able to compete in the regional meet, which will also be hosted by Missouri. The regional meet is where these athletes will then try to qualify for nationals by finishing in the top five for automatic qualification or finishing sixth or seventh to enter a wild card pool.\nOne event where the Hoosiers, especially the women, routinely send athletes to the regional meet and then on to nationals is the steeplechase. The steeplechase is a 3,000-meter run with four barriers and one water pit strewn out every 400 meters. \nAccording to women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson, the team has had two women compete at nationals and place high enough to earn All-America honors since the team started competing in the event in 2002.\n“It takes tough people for the steeplechase,” Wilson said. “It is grueling to watch, because you hit a hurdle and it will fall, but if you hit one of these barriers that sucker won’t budge.”\nOne athlete who feels she is tough enough for the steeplechase is junior Maura Ratcliff. Wilson hopes that Ratcliff can hit a regional qualifying time in the event soon. \n“It is definitely a possibility,” Ratcliff said about her coach’s hopes. “I am trying to keep my eyes ahead to that.”\nWith the event combining a distance race with obstacles normally reserved for sprints, Ratcliff said that the event can be difficult to train for.\n“It’s an interesting event, running fast while getting over barriers and the water pit,” Ratcliff said. “You have to balance your time between the two.”\nAccording to Ratcliff, steeplechase athletes do a lot of training to get their legs strong for jumping the barriers, and then also run 1,500-meter runs and 3,000-meter runs to build up enough speed and endurance for the race.\nThe teams are hoping that their training and the momentum from their last meet on March 31 will carry into a strong performance at their toughest invite yet.\nOn March 31, the teams had four athletes qualify for the regional meet.\nFor the men, sophomore Jordan Kyle ran a personal best in qualifying with a time of 14:03.83 in the 5,000-meter run. Freshmen thrower Eric Werskey also qualified for the regional meet. He posted a mark of 16.85 meters in the shot put.\nThe women’s side also had two qualifiers. Senior Courtney Johnson sprinted her way in to the meet with a time of 13.63 seconds in the 100-meter dash. Senior Jessica Gall had probably the best day of all of the Hoosiers though, as she posted a time of 33:54.65 in the 10,000-meter run. That time was a personal best for Gall and would place her second all-time at IU in the 10,000-meters.\nTo carry this momentum will be difficult, however, as the temperature in Columbia will be in the low 40s and wet, according to Weather.com, vastly different from the weather of Palo Alto, Calif., where they competed March 31.
(04/11/07 4:00am)
Focusing on fitness, the IU club rugby team’s new coach looks to make his players keep up a stellar season on the pitch.\n“We try and do a lot of fitness work,” head coach Matt Vogler said. “Rugby requires a lot of running, tackling (and) hitting that will take a lot out of you, especially if you are not in shape.”\nSince Vogler has taken over, he said, he has tried to introduce more physical drills that emulate game situations. A lot of the players get to practice early and scrimmage until their coach arrives and the practice begins. \n“(Vogler) has a tough job to do,” said Harry O’Donnell, a senior student on exchange from Australia. “He has to teach the sport while trying to train an A-grade team.”\nAfter sprinting and practicing passes, the team runs what it calls the “four corner drills.” The drills involve four athletes running at each other from four lines. Before colliding they – hopefully – pass or hand off the ball to the runner directly in front.\nAfter the pick and post drills, the team starts its hitting drills. The six-on-six drill is where they practice trying to advance the ball by plowing through the defense much like football, only play is constant and the players are not wearing pads.\n“Well, back home we always say that gridiron players are a bit girly for wearing pads,” O’Donnell said about the physicality of the sport.\nThe club members like that the practices are physical because it’s the nature of the sport.\n“I think the practices prepare us really well for games,” junior Nick Walker said. “In a game you will be sprinting, jogging and getting hit, and games are 80 minutes, so you have to be physically prepared.”\nThe team is a very close-knit one, which, Vogler said, is bound to happen: The team meets three times a week for almost three hours at a time, a lot of the players are in fraternities together and some even played together in high school.\n“The camaraderie of the team is the best part about this sport,” Walker said. “That’s what I love about it.”\nUnder coach Vogler, the team has a 4-1 record this season and is preparing for the next game April 19 against Ball State. The winning record comes as no surprise to the team as it is consistently one of the best three teams in the Midwest. \n“It’s a good sport. It’s growing,” O’Donnell said. “They have a good core group of guys. ... They’re a pretty good team compared to the rest of the teams they face in the Midwest.”
(04/05/07 4:00am)
All of those in Assembly Hall on Wednesday for the taping of CNBC’s business information show, “Mad Money” with Jim Cramer, were treated to a very candid side of the exuberant host.\nBetween every segment, Cramer was personable with the audience of over a thousand. He constantly updated them on what segments were coming up, while dishing out financial advice and making jokes.\nDuring one of those breaks a student in the audience yelled out, “You are a Hoosier today, Jimmy!”\nTo which Cramer said, “You bet I am!”\nCramer had a segment in his show where he opened up questions to the audience in what he calls the “lightning round.” The round gave students time to get on national television and ask Cramer about different stocks and whether they should buy, hold or sell those stocks. \nWhen the cameras stopped rolling, Cramer did not. Even while his producer gave him instructions for the next segment, audience members were yelling out stock names. Cramer would then interrupt his producer to throw out advice about those stocks.\nCramer would also stop between segments to talk up his guest for the show, Mark Cuban. Cuban is an IU alumnus and owner of the Dallas Mavericks.\n“He is a great guy,” Cramer said. “The moment I knew I was going to IU, I e-mailed him and asked him to be a guest on my show. Two minutes later he got back to me asking where and when.”\nWhile on set, Cuban seemingly stole the show. After running out onto the court, he grabbed a basketball and drained a 10-foot jumper, causing the crowd to roar. \nCuban and Cramer combined to answer questions from students and give advice, even though that advice was sometimes conflicting.\n“I got to get people in, because if they don’t start now they will be catching up,” Cramer said on air about students starting to invest in the stock market. “You got to get in early so you have a lifetime to invest.”\nCuban’s advice was contrasting. Cramer wanted students to think about investing in the stock market, while Cuban thought students should be more worried about investing in something else.\n“Invest in yourself,” Cuban said on air. “What is more valuable to you than sweat equity?”\nCuban assured the students that now is the time for students to experiment with what they want to do for their careers.\n“Right now you have nothing to lose,” Cuban said on air. “You don’t have to have all of the answers when you graduate. What are they going to do, move you from the Forest Quad to the McNutt Quad? Find what you want to do and work your butt off at it.”\nThough constantly loud and applauding, students did calm down enough to listen to what these very successful men were saying.\n“I thought (Cuban) gave good advice about using the education you get here,” senior finance and real estate major Suzy Guediguian said. \nCramer knew that IU would enjoy having Cuban on set.\n“I think he is a hero – particularly on a show like mine,” Cramer said in an interview Tuesday, “because he is an example that you too can make it big.”
(04/04/07 4:00am)
Of all of the schools that wanted Jim Cramer to visit on his “Back to School Tour,” Cramer said IU was not only an important one, but one with star power.\nCramer, who was on campus Tuesday to tape a segment for the CNBC show “Stop Trading” and will do a live taping of his show “Mad Money” today, will host special guest IU alumnus and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban. Cramer wanted to bring Cuban to campus to add what he called, “star power” to his show.\n“Cuban is one of those guys who is honest in a society where we claim we like honesty, but in truth, we are scared by it,” Cramer said. “Because it is during the season, very close to the playoffs and his team is on a roll, I thought he would say, ‘Jim, catch me in the off-season,’ but it was just the opposite – ‘you’re going here, well you can count on me, where and when?’”\nCramer’s show combines investment tips with guest interviews, viewer calls, loud sound effects and Cramer screaming out his opinions on what stocks to buy, sell or hold. He gears his show for anyone interested in investing, including college students. Cramer said he likes to think of himself as being similar to Stephen Colbert of the “Colbert Report” or Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show,” only college students come to him for business instead of politics.\nThe “Stop Trading” segment was filmed in front of a crowd of business school students on the west side of Assembly Hall. After filming, Cramer talked with his fans and thanked basketball coach Kelvin Sampson for letting him use Assembly Hall to film “Mad Money” in front of a live audience featuring IU students.\n“There is a lot more history to the hall than any other place we’ve gone to,” Cramer said. “I feel like I’m borrowing a tradition and hopefully I live up to it.”\nTickets for the filming of “Mad Money” are still available to IU students with a student ID. They are free, and check-in begins at 1:30 p.m. in the south lobby entrance of Assembly Hall.\nCramer is at IU as a part of his “Back to School Tour.” IU will be among a short list of prestigious schools that Cramer has visited on his tour, such as Harvard, Columbia and Georgetown.\n“My message to college students is a couple-fold one,” Cramer said. “One, that you too can be like me and make a lot of money. The second part is that there is a greatness to business that you may not realize or recognize.”\nCramer also feels that college students can use his advice on what stocks to move. He feels that students can still be investing even if they don’t have a lot of money.\n“A lot of people spend their money, like I did, on beer,” Cramer said. “Maybe they should spend that money on one share of ‘Bud’ instead. I remember thinking, ‘I just made 25 bucks – I’m calling a woman.’ Now I am buying a share of ‘Yahoo!.’”\nThe show from Assembly Hall will air at 6 p.m. tonight and then again at 11 p.m., both on CNBC.
(04/02/07 4:00am)
The track-and-field squads packed up and moved west to kick off their outdoor season at the 33rd annual Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.\nEven though the last two weeks have been intense training for the Hoosiers, four athletes posted regional qualifying times.\nThe regional invite is an event where athletes try to qualify for nationals. The top five finishers in each event at the regional qualify for nationals. The sixth- and seventh-place finishers are thrown into an “at large” pool from which they can be selected from based on their times.\nSenior Jessica Gall provisionally qualified for the regional invite with a personal best time of 33:54.65 in the 10,000-meter run. Gall was on pace for the school record with six laps left in the run, but ended up second all-time at IU. She finished 16th in the event.\n“She (Gall) has been sick for the last two weeks or so,” women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson said. “So we were not sure what to expect from her, but her time should be good enough for nationals.”\nAlso on the women’s side, senior Courtney Johnson posted a regional qualifying mark. Johnson ran a time of 13.98 seconds in preliminaries for the 100-meter dash. In the finals she posted her qualifying mark of 13.63 seconds. \nThe men’s side also had two qualifiers for the regional meet. Sophomore Jordan Kyle ran a personal best 14:03.83 in the 5,000-meter run, qualifying and finishing second on the day. Freshman Eric Werskey posted a toss of 16.85 meters in the shot put, finishing fifth in the event.\n“To come out qualify for regionals is no small task,” throwers coach Wil Fleming said. “His technique was good, but from all the lifting we have been doing, you can tell he didn’t have as much pop in his throws. But this performance definitely bodes well for Eric’s outdoor season.”\nThe majority of IU throwers were not in California. They had a trip to Purdue in West Lafayette, where they competed unattached to IU in the Purdue Mike Poehlein Invitational. Freshman Faith Sherrill competed in the hammer throw for the first time in her career. Sophomore Paul Fearnow cleared his personal best by six meters.\n“Paul’s throw is great. This is his third year throwing, so we can expect a lot of good things from him,” Fleming said. “The results this weekend are pleasing because we have been lifting hard for the last two weeks. They (the throwers) have been really beat up.”
(04/02/07 4:00am)
Assembly Hall will be enlivened Wednesday, when Jim Cramer and special guest Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and an IU alumnus, will tape the financial investing show “Mad Money” in front of hundreds of IU students as a part of his college tour.\nThe taping marks the culmination of almost a year of planning for the IU Mad Money Club. The Mad Money Club was established last spring to organize the student fans of the show who wanted it to come to IU.\n“Mad Money” airs daily and involves Cramer doling out tips on what stocks to buy and sell.\n“The show makes stocks fun for everyone,” said club treasurer junior Hank Graves. “(Cramer) is so eccentric and, with his energy, makes stocks exciting.”\nAccording to the IU club’s founder, senior Winston Kotzan, the club has 10 core members, but a mailing list of students interested in Cramer includes about 100 more.\n“The club made IU more appealing,” Kotzan said. “I got in contact with the producers of the show, and they wanted something more. So over the summer we made a film pitching IU.”\nThe video, which Kotzan said took the whole summer to produce, is filmed in a style similar to that of the TV show “24,” one of Cramer’s favorites. In the show, there is a message from the dean of the Kelley School of Business, along with different scenes depicting possible filming sites. \nThe scene of Assembly Hall – eventually selected by the show’s producers – had the IU cheerleading squad, the Marching Hundred and a flashback to former men’s basketball coach Bob Knight launching a chair across the court. Cramer often throws chairs on his show. “We also sent in an IU Mad Money Club coffee mug, which appeared on set as a prop,” Kotzan said.\nA month after the mug was shoved in front of the camera, Cramer announced on air that he would be coming to IU. A caller gave a shout-out promoting the IU Mad Money Club, to which Cramer responded by pulling a dollar from his pocket and yelling into the camera.\n“We’re getting Indiana University, you can bet your bottom dollar!” he said. “Which I actually have one here. ... Those guys love this show and I love them!”\nKotzan came up with the idea of having a T-shirt contest in which the winning entry would be worn by every student in attendance. The winning design was a combination of two entries featuring the business school logo and the logo of “Mad Money” with Jim Cramer on the front, and a quote from Cramer on the back saying, “I’m not here just to tell you about stocks. I’m here to teach you to think like Cramer!”\nCramer takes the court at 4 p.m. Wednesday to film “Mad Money” but will also being doing a short segment for another show, “Stop Trading.” The segment will be filmed outside Assembly Hall’s west side and is open to all students with tickets. Tickets were available for free last week.
(03/30/07 4:00am)
Mom always said never play ball in the house. The same, one would expect, goes for the javelin. \nWell, someone can tell Mom the indoor season for track and field is over, as this weekend’s Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., marks the beginning of outdoor meets.\nA new event added to the outdoor season is the javelin throw. Throwers coach Wil Fleming says the javelin throw, though popular, is a relatively misunderstood event.\n“A lot of people watch the javelin throw and assume that a football player could throw it really far,” Fleming said. “But the mechanics of the throw are different.”\nJavelin throwers begin their throws by sprinting down a runway, holding the javelin behind them, the tip slightly up. The sprinting provides the power to the throw, and holding the javelin back gives the thrower a longer release, allowing the most power to transfer to the javelin. \n“The whole goal of the run is to be in a good position to transfer your speed into the throw,” freshman thrower MacKenzie Cutter said. “At the end of the run, you want to plant your left leg in what is called the block. This will stop your left side and speed up your right.”\nFleming also mentioned “the block” as being very important. He said planting the left leg straight and strong will create a fulcrum for the throw to move over.\n“As I throw, I like to pull down my left arm into me,” sophomore Chris Klakamp said. “The farther you bring down your left, the more you bring your right around.”\nFleming said this motion makes the throwing arm into what looks like a whip. All of the momentum from the run is planted and transferred through the arm to the javelin. \n“The hardest thing to do when you start,” Klakamp said, “is throwing through the point” – that is, not letting the javelin tip come out too high, because then the javelin becomes perpendicular to the ground and fights the wind, he said.\n“Wind can also be a problem, depending on where it is,” Klakamp said. “Obviously a tail wind is great, but you can really get it to go in a head wind, because it keeps the tip from sinking. They make javelins designed for different types of wind.”\nThe javelin throw is just one of many events added to outdoor meets. It is these events that men’s interim head coach Wayne Pate hopes will help his team.\n“The indoor Big Tens are focused primarily on mid-distance,” Pate said. “Outdoors strains out to more events, and since we are a more complete team, it could help us.”\nBoth Pate and women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson said their main goals for the outdoor season were for their teams to improve on their finishes at the indoor Big Ten championships.
(03/19/07 4:00am)
As some IU students were heading home or to the beach for spring break, three IU track and field athletes were kicking off their spring breaks with a trip to Fayetteville, Ark., for the NCAA indoor championships. \nJumpers, junior Kyle Jenkins and senior Kiwan Lawson competed for the men, while freshman pole vaulter Vera Neuenswander competed on the women’s side.\nJenkins finished sixth in the triple jump with a leap of 15.77 meters, just shy of his indoor personal best of 15.86 meters. Sixth place was good enough to earn Jenkins All-American honors.\nThe trip was Jenkins’ first time competing in the indoor championships, but he earned All-American honors at last year’s outdoor championships, finishing fourth with a jump of 16.19 meters.\nLawson leapt his way into 10th place in the long jump with a distance of 7.49 meters. This was Lawson’s second trip to nationals. He placed 15th last year while battling an injury. \n“Kyle made All-American in his first trip to indoors, and Kiwan did better than he did last year,” men’s interim head coach Wayne Pate said. “Both had a few fouls that could have been really strong jumps.”\nJenkins fouled on two of his six jumps, while Lawson fouled on two of his three jumps.\nNeuenswander finished 12th in the pole vault, good enough to make her the highest placing freshman in the field. She cleared 4 meters, short of her personal best, 4.11 meters, set at the Big Ten championships.\n“I was just focusing on doing my best and I am happy with where I finished,” Neuenswander said. “But I definitely have more to work for and look forward to with outdoors coming up.”\nThe indoor championships marked the end of the indoor season, and the beginning of outdoors. The indoor season was a strong one for the both the men and women. \nThe men finished fifth in the Big Ten. The women moved up from ninth place in last year’s competition to finish eighth, while more than doubling the amount of points they earned.\nThe outdoor season will introduce new events to competitions, while changing around the events that are in both indoor and outdoor. Pate and Neuenswander said weather can make a big difference at the events. \n“Wind becomes a large factor – whether head on, from the side or behind, it can really affect a jumper’s approach,” Pate said. “The wind can really play havoc with steps in the approach.”\nThe first meet for both the men and women is March 30 as the teams travel to the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
(03/09/07 5:00am)
As the rest of the Hoosier track-and-field team prepares for the outdoor season, three athletes are preparing for one last indoor meet – the NCAA national championships. \nThe three competing on March 9 and 10 in Fayetteville, Ark., are freshman pole vaulter Vera Neuenswander, junior triple jumper Kyle Jenkins and senior long jumper Kiwan Lawson. \nNeuenswander was named the Big Ten freshman of the year after setting a conference record. Her vault of 4.11 meters placed her in second in the Big Ten championships behind sophomore Mallory Peck of Purdue, who cleared the same height but on fewer attempts. Neuenswander is the highest ranked freshman at the pole vault in the nation at No. 13. She said she is excited to be going to nationals so early in her career.\n“It feels good to be going, feels like a lot of hard work has paid off,” Neuenswander said. “My coaches have been telling me that if I keep working hard, things will come together.”\nNeuenswander chose pole vaulting after giving up gymnastics in junior high school because of the easy transition between the two sports. She said the mentality of sprinting at a stationary apparatus in gymnastics really helped her when she started vaulting. \nThis year Neuenswander has been working with assistant coach Jake Wiseman on being more aggressive with take-offs and concentrating on her body position in the air.\n“Vera is a very hard worker and competitor,” Wiseman said. “She works every day and has done a lot of drill work to get where she is.”\nThere will be two IU jumpers competing this weekend on the men’s side.\nJenkins goes into the meet a Big Ten champion in the triple jump and ranks No. 12 in the nation. Lawson also goes into nationals a Big Ten champion in the long jump, ranking No. 7.\n“If both of them set personal bests in the meet, they will be right in the thick of things,” men’s interim head coach Wayne Pate said. “Unlike past years where there has been a real favorite going into these events, this year any one of the 16 athletes could win it. It all comes down to how they are doing that day, and who wants it more.”\nThis will be Jenkins’ first trip to nationals, while Lawson will be making his second consecutive trip.\n“Last year I hurt myself between Big Tens and the championships, so even though I ranked fifth or sixth, I finished dead last,” Lawson said. “It was nice to go, but it was bittersweet almost, in that I could go and see but not touch. I’m looking forward to being able to compete this year.”\nJenkins tweaked his hamstring earlier in the season, but Pate said the hamstring does not seem to be bothering Jenkins at all. Jenkins and Pate have been working on increasing Jenkins’ speed through his sprints and into his take-offs.\n“We have also been working on running and jumping taller,” Jenkins said. “And that has really helped my jumps.”\nHaving great jumpers is nothing new for IU. \nAarik Wilson won both the triple jump and long jump at the 2005 indoor championships. Wilson has since left school and now competes professionally.\nBoth Jenkins and Lawson attribute the program’s success to Pate, and both said he was the reason they chose to come to IU.\n“He has taught me a lot and he was the main reason I came here,” Jenkins said. “If you look at his resume, he has a lot of All-Americans in both the long and triple jump.”\nPate has coached 45 All-American jumpers, including seven NCAA champions.\n“We come to IU with talent, and then Coach brings even more of that talent out,” Lawson said. “He is like a magic man in that aspect. He saw how far I was jumping and told me I would jump farther. He doesn’t try to be a friend; he is a coach and tells me what to do and how I will benefit from it.”\nPate was reluctant in discussing the tradition of strong jumpers he has created at IU.\n“Call it whatever you want – a legacy, or just dumb luck,” Pate said. “It is just that jumping is my area of expertise, and I seem to be able to attract talented athletes.”
(03/05/07 5:00am)
The men’s and women’s track teams sent select members who were on the cusp of going to nationals to South Bend this weekend as a part of the Alex Wilson Invitational held at Notre Dame. \nThe women sent their distance medley team, another distance runner and two hurdlers, while the men’s team sent its 4-by-400-meter relay team.\nThe women’s distance medley team ran its strongest time of the year at 11:25.16. The time was fast enough to beat the school record of 11:41.99 set in 2002. However, the time was not fast enough to be considered for the NCAA indoor national championships as it places the team 22nd in the nation.\n“It was a really good effort,” women’s interim head coach Judy Wilson said. “We just wanted to see what we could do; we knew we were going to break the school record.”\nThe relay team comprised senior Stacey Clausing and sophomores Caitlin Lauer, Molly Beckwith and Wendi Robinson.\n“I was happy with our time – that was our goal,” Clausing said. “We knew we had to run faster for nationals, so we were happy to break the record.”\nSenior distance runner Lindsay Hattendorf also ran this weekend. She ran a time of 16:50.29, finishing fourth in the women’s 5,000-meter run.\n“Lindsey ran the 3,000- and the 5,000- last weekend at the Big Tens,” Wilson said. “So to turn around and run another 5,000 only five days later was very difficult.”\nSenior Courtney Johnson finished first in the finals of the 60-meter hurdles after posting a personal best of 8.39 seconds in the preliminaries. Johnson’s time ranks fifth all-time at IU. Her teammate senior Lorian Price was second after the preliminaries with a time of 8.46 seconds. Price did not run in the finals.\n“Courtney had a good race, she was just slow in her start,” Wilson said. “She was hurt for part of the year so we are happy with what she has been able to do.”\nThe men’s team sent its 4-by-400-meter relay team, which edged out Purdue’s team in the final event of the Big Ten Indoor championships last weekend, vaulting IU ahead of its rival in the overall standings. The team ran a time of 3:12.82 this weekend, finishing eighth and falling short of their goal to qualify for nationals. \nThe team comprised juniors Doug Dayhoff and Ryan Smith, senior Trey Warfield and sophomore Martin Stephen.\nThis weekend’s invitational marked the end of the indoor season for the two squads. IU will be sending a few athletes to the indoor nationals next weekend, however, and will find out today who those athletes will be. The three athletes that are likely to go are senior Kiwan Lawson, junior Kyle Jenkins and freshman Vera Neuenswander. \nAccording to www.trackshark.com, Lawson ranks No. 7 nationally in the long jump, Jenkins ranks No. 11 in the triple jump, and Neuenswander is the highest ranking freshman pole vaulter in the nation at No. 14.\n“All in all it was a better indoor season than last year, and we are looking forward to the outdoor season,” Wilson said. \nThe outdoor season begins March 30 as the squads travel to the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
(03/02/07 5:00am)
After a brilliant performance in the women’s Big Ten championships, freshman pole vaulter Vera Neuenswander was named Big Ten freshman of the year.\nNeuenswander set a Big Ten record with a vault of 4.11 meters. The jump not only set a personal best for Neuenswander, but also broke a school record of 3.91 meters set by Emily Tharp in 2002. Neuenswander attributes her training to her success.\n“It was mostly everything coming together for me at the right time,” Neuenswander said. “And fortunately it just happened to be at the Big Tens.”\nWith her jump, Neuenswander vaulted herself into an 11th national ranking – the highest ranking freshman in the nation. She also provisionally qualified for nationals. \nNeuenswander’s coach Jake Wiseman said the pole vault competition he watched was one of the best he has ever seen, because of Neuenswander’s competitiveness.\n“She’s a competitor, that’s the main thing about Vera,” Wiseman said. “She didn’t know she had broken the school record; she didn’t know she had broken the conference record; she didn’t know she was now the number one freshman in the country; none of this was obvious. She just went out and competed, she forgot about what was happening – she just wanted to win.”\nNeuenswander finished second to Mallory Peck of Purdue at the Big Tens. The two cleared the same height, but Neuenswander had more attempts. In the competition, she vaulted 13 times, which according to Wiseman is astonishing in its own right, and really speaks of her desire to compete.\n“In a normal competition, you would only want to jump somewhere around six or eight times,” Wiseman said.\nWomen’s interim head coach Judy Wilson was very pleased with the spark she got from her freshman.\n“Vera had a rough meet the weekend before and was upset,” Wilson said. “We talked about that, and at this meet she got everything going for us. It’s great for Vera, and great for our program.”\nThe women’s team finished eighth, which is an improvement from last year. On day one, the Hoosiers scored 18 points, one shy of their total for the entire Big Tens last year.\n“We had women qualify for the finals on the second day in every event except for the 60-meter dash,” Wilson said. “Last year, we hardly had anyone run on the second day.”\nFifteen of the 27 athletes that participated for the Hoosiers at the meet were either freshmen or sophomores, Wilson said. \nThe top athletes from both the men’s and women’s sides will be heading up to South Bend this weekend for the Notre Dame qualifiers. The meet will primarily be used for the athletes who will be attending nationals in Fayetteville, Ark. \n“We’re just keeping it to the athletes who provisionally qualified for and who still can put up better times for Arkansas,” Wilson said.
(03/01/07 5:00am)
!!! formed in the mid-'90s in Sacramento based on the knowledge that they would be playing an all-night house party. More than a decade later, the party is still going strong. Since that fateful night, the band has alternated between club-hopping and label-hopping with each release, starting with GSL, moving to Touch & Go and now finding their rhythm with Warp Records. To answer the question that is on the tip of your tongue, the band's name can be pronounced by using a series of three one-syllable percussive sounds in succession, but "chk, chk, chk" is typically the "name" chosen by most !!! followers.\nMyth Takes, the third full-length release by !!!, contains the driving beats, healthy low-end spindly guitars and well-placed electronic embellishments that made their previous albums so delightful. While their previous works were undeniably fun, Myth Takes is more developed and leads you into walls of wailing synths, dense percussion, catchy hooks and an undeniable groove that flows freely throughout the songs. !!! is developing a prowess for creating multi-layered tunes that provide a good middle ground or starting point for those with a background in rock who are interested in dance music.\nUnlike many dance tunes, the songs aren't menacingly long and !!! manages to mix electronic dance music, disco, funk, punk and hints of other styles and present them with a dose of arrogance added into the mix. However, !!! has never been a band to have overly impressive lyrics. Lyrical content for the band is often crass, rebellious or abstract. However, dance music thrives on veiled lyrics and rock encompasses the defiant mentality that the band presents. Since !!! uses both styles as their framework, the lyrics actually work.\nThe album flows well until the last moments. "Infinifold," the album's closer, is a dark lament that sounds absolutely stunning on its own, but it is completely out of place on the album. It is curious that !!! decided to put the track on the album even though it is contrary to the style of the other nine songs. Though, if the band continued in the direction of that song, the results would surely be well worth a listen.\nDespite the awkward transition to close the album, Myth Takes is another dance in the right direction for !!!. Overall, the album is fun, engaging and full of tunes that will make you want to get on the dance floor. It would be a huge "mythtake" not to give chk, chk, chk a chance, chance, chance.