14 The Beacon Sports September 3, 2009

Upsilon Omega Pi voluntarily withdrew university recognition. According to a Feb. 4, 1993 is-sue of The Beacon, because the fraternity no longer possessed university recognition, its mascot was no longer permitted to ap-

events. The following fall, Wally de-

buted after another makeover. His new look was a result of much compromise between Uni-versity Public Relations and the students themselves, who argued that because the original mascot was designed by a student to rep-resent the entire community, the new and improved Wally should be approached accordingly.

The new version, designed by student Terry Morrin and spon-sored by the University, modeled a menacing brow juxtaposed with a blindingly white smile. His look was complete with the addition of white gloves, a dark overcoat, and a captain’s hat.

Ten years later, Wally the riverboat Pilot sailed away once again. According to Tricia Miller, Athletics Marketing director, he made his last appearance during the 2003-2004 basketball sea-son. His departure was a result of “complete apathy for him,” and, the following season, no one

seemed to notice he was gone, Miller wrote in an e-mail.

A few years later, that atti-tude reversed and the movement to reinstate a mascot began. The class of 2009, in conjunction with the Athletic Department, made it their goal to bring a mascot back to The Bluff. They held a focus group with last year’s seniors, headed up by former ASUP Pres-ident Kyle Bunch and raised over $7,000, which covered a good portion of the cost, said Athlet-ics Group Sales and Promotions Manager Beth Connell.

After a period of coopera-tion involving both student in-put and mascot producer Alinco Costumes, Wally’s most recent

at last Friday’s women’s soccer game versus UC Berkeley. Wally, however, was out and about in a variety of venues this summer, including fairs, festivals, and the 100th anniversary of Tillamook Cheese. His attendance at events on-and-off of campus is part of the Athletic Department’s quest to create awareness.

Wally’s increasing celebrity status is also enhanced by his very own website, facebook page and postcard series. Connell says he will be attending important away games and hopes that Wally “makes an appearance at as many sports as he can,” including soc-cer, volleyball, basketball, and

tennis.His image represents who the

Pilots are, according to Connell. Junior Drew Hegarty explained, “Every big school has a mascot and Wally gives an identity to the University.”

Wally’s appearance is similar to that of the last mascot, with a few minor alterations. “We didn’t necessarily know if we wanted to go with a human again,” Connell said, but the current Wally tech-nically is a more recent adapta-tion of a riverboat pilot.

University Archivist the Rev. Robert Antonelli, C.S.C., who helped compile and organize Wally’s extensive history, be-

appearance and presence “shows the University’s willingness to keep abreast of its student pref-erences.” Indeed, Wally’s cut off T-shirt and exaggerated strut appear vastly different from the characteristics of his predeces-sors. “The University remains the same, but public image of it

population,” Antonelli said. Sixty years after the Spirit

-peared, the University’s vision for its mascot remains the same, “Overall we hope for a really positive camaraderie and school spirit, and we want to capture that school spirit,” Connell said.

With the Pilots rated third

popular website TopDrawerSoc-cer.com, Head Women’s Coach Garrett Smith had some positive comments about the shutout win.

“I feel it was a great night all around … The performance from the team was outstanding. Not just the victory of 4- 0, but to put it away early and allow us to get as many freshmen and new faces

not tonight, but down the road.

I think that is probably the big-gest thing that we take out of this game,” Smith said.

Coach Smith went on to say that the team knew they had to gain the upper hand early so they could get some playing time for the players on their 23-person roster. The early practice, Smith stressed, offers invaluable expe-rience to the new players which will continue to “pay dividends for the rest of the season.”

“It was a good learning ex-perience against a quality team from Cal. It tested us at times,

but we came through in the end,” Smith said.

The coach also stressed that the team needs to buckle down. Referencing three Pilot turnovers and trouble close to the penalty box in the second half, the squad showed promise and will contin-ue to improve as the season goes on. Additionally, Enyeart said that the team was “still a work in progress,” that had two good results so far and that she looked forward to the game versus the University of Washington.

The Pilots’ game at UW,

which occurred last Sunday, also developed into the third consecu-tive shutout win for the Pilots this season with two goals scored by Foxhoven.

“It was not one of our better performances this year. That was

Danielle Foxhoven. It was good to get her some rest on Friday night because she was fresh and basi-cally won the game for us today,” Smith said. Scoring at 21:26 and 38:55 on the Huskies home pitch, the Pilot women managed to stay ahead of the barrage of 17 shots.

Sophomore goalkeeper Hailee

shutout of the season and fourth of her career with six saves in the match.

Although the Saturday game troubled the women’s soccer team, through hard work and coaching by Garrett Smith, the Pilots continue to stun the Uni-versity of Portland community with shut-out wins. “If our crowd is that loud all season, how can we lose?” senior Kevin Mowrey, said. “I’m bringing bubbles to the next game.”

WALLY: Riverboat captain back in style

SOCCER: Explosive home opener

Continued from page 16

Continued from page 16

Jordan Schager | THE BEACONJunior Keelin Winters changes direction to avoid University of California senior Katie Oak’s tackle attempt as Pilot Michelle Enyeart looks on. The third largest crowd in Merlo Field’s history watched as the Pilots beat the Golden Bears 4-0 to start off the home season.

Courtesy of University ArchivesWally Pilot poses with a newspaper in 1985. Wally has recently un-dergone another change, following a five year sabbatical.

The Beacon 15September 3, 2009 Sports

West Coast Conference Standings:Women’s Soccer

1) #3 Portland (3-0-0)

2) Gonzaga (2-0-0)

3) San Francisco (2-0-0)

4) #22 Santa Clara (2-1-0)

5) #12 San Diego (2-1-1)

6) LMU (2-1-0)

7) Pepperdine (2-1-0)

8) St. Mary’s (1-2-0)

The Pilots have recorded

three straight shutouts, de-

feating University of Ore-

gon, University of California

and University of Washing-

ton. Danielle Foxhoven also

earned WCC player of the

week, scoring four of UP’s

six goals.

Men’s Soccer

1) Gonzaga (1-0-0)

2) LMU (1-0-0)

3) Portland (0-0-0)

4) Saint Mary’s (0-0-1)

5) San Diego (1-0-0)

6) San Francisco (1-0-0)

7) Santa Clara (0-1-0)

The Pilots will compete this

weekend in the 2009 Nike

Invitiational, competing

Goalkeeper Austin Guer-

Warner were both voted to

the WCC’s Preseason All-

Conference team. Overall,

the Pilots were picked to

(Courtesy of WCCsports.com)

Volleyball

The Pilots fell last night

to the OSU Beavers 3-0,

though posting impressive

games, 25-16, 25-21 and

25-23. The Pilots fall to 1-3

on the season. The Pilots

will also compete in the

Nike Portland invitational

starting today against Ameri-

can University at 7 p.m.

Cross Country

Both men’s and women’s

cross country were picked

Preseason Coaches’ Poll,

receiving the maximum 49

by every other coach in the

conference.

(courtesy portlandpilots.com)

This week in sports

After a summer of restructur-ing, the UP athletic department boasts the addition of a new head athletic trainer and an assistant women’s basketball coach.

Richard Bennett, the new head athletic trainer, is steadily working towards making the ath-letic training program the best on the west coast. The women’s bas-

new assistant coach Catherria Turner’s experience, leadership, and enthusiasm.

Growing up in Syracuse, New York, Bennett was heavily involved in sports, playing soc-cer at Boston University. Unfor-tunately, his career as an athlete was cut short by numerous inju-ries, including over twenty bro-ken bones, a ruptured disc and multiple knee surgeries.

Despite being sidelined by injuries, Bennett turned his mis-fortune into motivation by pursu-ing a career in sports medicine. He received his undergraduate degree at Boston University and his master’s at Eastern Michigan University.

Following internships at schools such as Boston College and Harvard, Bennett worked for a year as the head trainer at the University of Albany. For the next three years he worked as a trainer at Saint Bonaventure Uni-versity, an east coast school much like UP. During his time at Alba-ny and Bonaventure, he also in-terned for the New York Giants.

After working at Saint Bo-naventure, he worked as an as-sistant trainer at Oregon State University and then came to UP as the new Director of Sports

Medicine. Once at UP, Bennett and his

handpicked staff started from scratch with one goal: becom-ing the best athletic training pro-gram on the west coast. There is certainly work to be done but as Bennett stated, “UP is exactly what I want.”

Bennett’s athletic background makes him an ideal trainer; his intimate knowledge of the sport-ing world works to his advantage alongside his admittedly aggres-sive approach to sports medicine. As a former athlete, Bennett knows exactly how hard to safely push an athlete so they are healthy and playing as soon as possible. Though speedy recovery is im-portant there is an emphasis on injury prevention and adequate care focused on the mind, body and spirit.

“The difference between this year’s program and last year’s is like black and white,” sophomore soccer player Michelle Olivier said. “Rich’s approach to train-ing is very aggressive but also very personal and very hands on. He even comes to practices and games.”

Also new to the UP athletic program is assistant women’s basketball coach Catherria Turn-er. She grew up in Tucson where she led the state in scoring and steals averaging a triple double her senior year in high school despite being sidelined by a torn ACL the previous season. Her impressive performance earned

team All-State from three Ari-zona newspapers. She went on to play for the University of Oregon Ducks for one year before trans-ferring to Oklahoma State Uni-versity where she led the country in minutes played.

After completing her under-graduate studies, Turner directed her natural leadership abilities towards coaching. During this time she also started her own company called Ms. Balla Sports Gear. Turner was head coach for the Tucson Miracles, an AAU

girl’s basketball team, from 2004 to 2006. She then moved on to Simpson College where she was assistant coach and a diver-sity recruiter. During her time at Simpson, Turner helped the team to a record-setting twenty-seven wins. Turner again worked as an assistant coach and a recruiter for the women’s team at the Univer-

-ing to UP.

Now a Pilot, Turner is excited to work with Head Coach Sollers and looks forward to a promising season for Pilot Women’s Basket-ball. She is also working towards her masters in management com-munication.

John McCarty Staff Writer

mccarty12@up.edu

New trainer, assistant coach

banner? Maybe so. The women’s soccer home opener recorded the third-highest attendance record-

the reason for the attendance was the single-largest freshman class in UP history, and not the re-re-designed mascot.

School mascots are highly effective tools at driving school spirit, but the University seems to have a long-standing prob-lem with the notion of Wally the Riverboat Pilot. The mascot has been lost and forgotten more than once, renamed and recostumed. When the seniors decided to make their senior gift a mascot for the school, why would the students elect to pick another Wally?

There was obvious effort that went in to Wally’s comeback.

The postcards are quaint, the biography is interesting and the costume is ridiculous.

Wally even attempts to entreat the younger audience of UP ath-letics. A small sentence directed to the younger UP supporters reads, “Kids, Wally wants YOU to join the UP Kid’s Club…”

But what child would not be

The other choices the students had were a purple muppet (the photo on the Web site was actu-ally a green muppet), an English dog called the Schipperke, and some mascot resembling Syra-cuse’s “Orange”, except adapted to be UP’s “Purple”.

Instead, the University’s stu-dent body elected a Wally Pilot who would not have been out of place as a mascot for the Village People.

Why not the Schipperke? Its name even means “Little Sailor.” And if it was a live, trained dog, that would have been even better. You can’t pet Wally without look-ing strange, but you could pet a small sailing dog. Who knows? Maybe it would even do tricks.

And even the rather nebulous idea of the Portland Purple would be an interesting concept to see in action. One can never go wrong with a giant blob of purple for a mascot or even a giant purple muppet.

It was time for the mascot of the University of Portland to change, especially with such an exciting year mounting in Pilot athletics. But instead the commu-nity is left for another bout with a different version of the same riv-erboat captain.

When I see the peregrine fal-

con of the Air Force Academy

Thunderbirds scream overhead I get excited.

When I see a riverboat pilot sporting a maniacal grin, sleeve-less T-shirt and Styrofoam forti-

cheering. The mascot seems, if anything, to mock UP.

I don’t expect the might of the United States Air Force to appear at our sports events, but it would be nice to have a mascot which didn’t detract from the sports en-vironment.

But who knows? Maybe this Wally is the charm.

Aaron O’Connell is the Sports

Editor of The Beacon. He can be contacted at oconnell11@up.edu

MASCOT: Time for a change?Continued from page 16

Jordan Schager | THE BEACONRichard Bennett tends to the foot of sophomore Kassi McCluskie. Bennett is the new head athletic trainer, and he strives to bring excellence to UP’s training program.

New faces in athletic department bring experience, leadership and enthusiasm

THE BEACON IS HIRING!

Positions are available on The Beacon as:

Sports Writer

Copy Editor

Artist/Illustrator

Online Producer

Contact The Beacon at beacon@up.edu ASAP

for more information. Interviews begin next

week!

16 The BeaconSports

September 3, 2009

Bears sent back with bruises

Jordan Schager | THE BEACONSophomore Michelle Oliver heads the ball away from Lisa Kevorkian, a University of California junior during Friday’s home opener. The Pilots beat the Golden Bears 4-0, scoring their first goal in the opening three minutes.

streaked into the sky, the Pilot women’s soccer squad’s excite-ment soared with each blue, green and red plume. Shutting out their Cal Berkeley challeng-ers on the cloudy afternoon, the Pilot women rained goals in their 4-0 home opener at Merlo Field on Friday.

The Pilot defensive jugger-

throughout the course of the 90- minute match. The Pilot offense

seven of which were on target, and punched through the violent Bears’ defense.

With Cal committing eight -

ing the only two yellow cards in the second half, the Pilot women fought through the barrage of abuse, sending the Bears back to California with only bruises and scarred feelings.

All-WCC sophomore Dan-ielle Foxhoven helped the Pilots break away early, scoring a goal

the game. Assisted by senior Mi-chelle Enyeart, another All-WCC player and U.S. U-20 national team player, this goal foreshad-

Bears would not recover. “We always aim for a goal in

said after the game. “We try to get them down early and then we just take it from there.”

Following the quick and de-moralizing goal, Foxhoven tallied

another goal at 19 minutes and 34 seconds with another assist from Enyeart.

“As a forward, our job is to al-ways follow on shots and follow on shots and they repeatedly put it in our minds, so I think that is what I did, instinct I guess,” Fox-hoven said after the game.

This instinct led the Pilot women to score another two goals in the course of the game, with a header from sophomore defender Michelle Olivier in the 27th min-ute and another goal from junior Sophie Schmidt in the 59th min-ute of the match.

The night was also one of new

records. Enyeart, with two assists on the night, became the sixth player in UP history to join the 30/30 club for goals and assists.

“It’s great, but really we’re just looking to take on games one by one,” Enyeart said of her accomplishment. Stressing team play, she said her deeds are part

of the team’s collective efforts. In addition to her individual per-formance, the school boasted the third highest attendance in Merlo Field history, with 5068 fans in the stands.

Jordan Schager | THE BEACONWally Pilot, University of Portland’s new mascot, watches the wom-en’s soccer home opener against the Golden Bears. Wally recently emerged after a school voting and a $5,000 senior gift.

New mascot Wally Pilot re-turns to the UP sidelines with a new look, but don’t be fooled by his fantastic physique. The be-loved riverboat captain was con-ceived 60 years ago and the nu-

university’s struggle to keep up with the times.

The Beacon sports staff cre-ated a contest at mascot-less UP in March of 1948 with hopes of discovering a “suitable symbol to represent the University of Port-land athletic teams and the school in general.”

Two months later, the staff announced its competition cul-minated in a tie. Sophomore H.J. Frison suggested the construc-tion of a boat around a war sur-plus Jeep. Another student, junior Nolan Drurey, came up with the slightly more practical concept of a riverboat pilot.

Drurey’s original sketch de-

an overcoat hanging down to his oversized shoes and a pipe wedged in the corner of his mouth. His shirt is adorned with nautical stripes and he clutches a spyglass in his hands.

Both Frison and Drurey

it seems Drurey’s vision was deemed more feasible (and less

courts). His concept appeared in subsequent editions of both the

Pilot Student Guide and The Log, both of which introduced him as “SPU” or “Spirit of Portland Uni-versity.”

Sometimes referred to as “Captain SPU” or, more formal-ly, “Mr. SPU,” Wally came to ex-ist under his current moniker in the early 1970s.

Portland Magazine editor Bri-an Doyle reported in a 1998 issue that Wally’s nickname probably originated in reference to the late Rev. Paul Waldschmidt, C.S.C., who served as President at UP from 1962 to 1978. Waldschmidt acknowledged the probable as-sociation of names in his Feb. 10,

-ing the following week “Wally Pilot Week.”

The idea became a reality thanks to the funding of a for-mer fraternity, Upsilon Omega Pi, which constructed and regu-larly paraded the signature out-

-bersome head made of paper maché. Despite the discomfort experienced by the men behind the mask, the riverboat pilot ap-peared at pep events and danced his way into — and out of — the hearts of many UP students and fans.

In a 1992 Beacon article, former sports editor Peter Ju-lian called Wally an atrocity and wrote, “I’ve seen my grandpa come home drunk and beat up, and still look better than Wally.”

His frightening face disap-peared from athletic events when

Wally returns to !e Blu"Lisa McMahan

Staff Writermcmahan11@up.edu

See Soccer, page 14

See Wally, page 14

Aaron

O’Connell

Staff Commentary

Wally’s back?

Wally Pilot has once again reappeared on The Bluff, un-dergoing a costume reinvention and new biography to explain his

Apparently the University’s previous stabs at creating this particular mascot were not indi-cation enough that a rather fright-ening rendition of a riverboat pi-lot does not inspire pride or spirit within the University of Portland community. Instead, once again, the cheerleader for Pilot athletics — in fact the quintessential Pilot fan — is Wally.

The last time Wally made an appearance on The Bluff, he was eventually decommissioned because nobody cared anymore.

reason that students have been pining for the exact same mascot? True, Wally has undergone some changes in his absence, losing

facial features and evidently tak-ing steroids. But will Wally’s cos-tume change suddenly cause Pi-lot supporters to rally behind his

See Mascot, page 15

Nicholas Slepnikoff Staff Writer

slepniko10@up.edu