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Week of 5 September 1997 |
Vol. I, No. 2 |
Sports
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Young BU football team hopes to start in right directionGame Preview Football by Brian Fitzgerald Dead last. That's where the media have picked the Boston University football team to finish in the standings this year &emdash; primarily because the Terriers were the conference cellar dwellers last year with a 1-10 record. Similarly, prior to the 1993 season, BU was picked to finish low in the standings: 11th out of 12 Yankee Conference teams to be exact. But what followed was BU's best season ever.
The Terriers proved the pundits wrong and amassed a school-record 12 wins &emdash; with no regular season losses &emdash; and a trip to the second round of the NCAA 1-AA Tournament. Can BU make the media eat their words this year and get some respect in the inaugural season of the Atlantic 10 Football Conference? "The first thing we have to do is learn to be competitive," says second-year coach Tom Masella. In 1996 "we lost a lot of games by a lot of points because we weren't competitive. Once we learn to be competitive, then we can learn to win games." It sounds simple enough, and Masella will have plenty of young, inexperienced players to teach. One-third of the 75 Terriers this year are freshmen. The team has just two veteran senior lettermen: defensive back and cocaptain Randy Smith (COM'98) and All-American punter Brad Costello (MET'98), who holds a BU record 41.1-yard career average. The other three seniors on the roster don't have much game experience. But turn back the clock to 1990, when former Terrier coach Dan Allen (now with Holy Cross) took over the program. BU was loaded with freshmen, whose future contributions to the team were uncertain. Nonetheless, in 1993 and 1994, those players formed the nucleus of arguably the most successful group of athletes to don scarlet and white football uniforms. A 12-1 season was followed by a 9-3 campaign. Then, after graduation claimed those former freshmen, Allen knew he faced a rebuilding season in 1995. "It's hard to remain on top," he said at the time. "It is not like the pros, where you can remain on top for five, six, or seven years because you have the players around for a longer period of time." BU went 3-8 that year. This year the offensive and defensive lines may be strong enough to keep BU competitive. With Julien Dale (MET'99), a two-time leading rusher for the Terriers, serving an indefinite suspension, the running back position is a question mark. Highly touted freshman quarterback Dave Pizzotti (SMG'01) led Reading (Mass.) High School to an 11-0 record in 1995, although a comparable record at BU might be a few years away. "They have to play, and they have to mature," says Masella of his young squad. Because the Terriers will be underdogs in every game they play, a season-opener victory on the road would boost their confidence tremendously &emdash; and Hofstra just happens to be the Terriers' sole victim in the 1996 season. |
Athlete of the Week
Sigurd Dalen
Soccer standout Sigurd Dalen (SMG'00), from Oslo, Norway, scored not only the game-winning goal in BU's 5-1 victory over Iona College August 29, but also provided BU with an insurance goal two days later when Boston University defeated California Polytechnic, 2-0.
In addition, he picked up an assist in each game. His game-winner against California Polytechnic was a 16-yard shot that went between the legs of the charging Iona goaltender.
Dalen is part of BU soccer's (and the School of Management's) Norwegian connection, having played for the same Norway club team (Lyn) as former Terriers Ola Olsen (SMG'95) and Gisle Sorli (SMG'95) and current teammate Christian Steen (SMG'99).
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