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Section
Charlotte ^ostt
SPORTS
THURSDAY JUNE 1,2006
INDY RACING LEAGUE PHOTO/BILL WATSON
Sam Hornish Jr. (left) beats Marco
Andretti to the finish line at the Indy 500
by .0635 seconds.
New day
in racing
circles
Indy 500 shows that
best on-track product is
in open wheel series
Sunday was auto racing Nirvana, with
Formula I’s Grand Prix of Monaco,
Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the
same day The best - by far - was Indy
The 500 - which had lost a lot of luster in
recent years because of a
split between American
open wheel racing organi
zations - got most of it back
in one day Dan Wheldon
dominated early, and led
the most laps. The Andretti
clan, one of U.S. racdng^s
royal families but a hard
luck story at Indy had a
shot at winning late with
third-generation driver Marco whipping
by dad Michael for the lead with four laps
to go to set up a whale of a finish.
Sam Homish Jr., the best of the
American-bom drivers, thundered by 19-
year-old Marco with a daring pass at the
stripe to win by .0635 seconds. I don’t
think my eyes will blink that fast. That
kind of duel isn’t for the faint of heart, but
dang that was great theater, something
NASCAR rarely replicates on the track.
Uh, oh. I did it, putting stock cars second
in wanna-be NASCAR Valley Don’t get me
wrong. The stock car gang has U.S. racing
by the crankcase, a citadel built primaiily
by a mighty marketing machine and open
wheel dulled edge after a nasty 10-year
feud. But that’s the past. Indy took the
wraps off a new era of open, wheel radng,
much like the 1979 Daytona 500 did for
NASCAR, minus the Allison brothers and
Cale Yarbrough wreckin’ and fightin’ on
the last lap. If you like to see drivers duk-
ing it out at 220 miles an hour and inches
away fix>m disaster. Indy Car racing is
Please see NEW DAY/2C
Saunders says
griping isn’t
new problem
for Pistons
By Tim Reynolds
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI - Flip Sarmders led the Detroit
Pistons to 64 regular-season wins, the
most in fi'anchise history and the best
record in the NBA this season.
And he almost certainly has come to the
realization that those accomplishments
won’t matter much if the Pistons don’t end
this season with theii* second champi
onship in three years.
Sarmders was in the crosshairs of some
player gripes before Game 4 of the Eastern
Conference finals in Miami, with Rasheed
Wallace _ who snapped at him at least
once in Game 3 _ upset that he resorted to
the Hack-a-Shaq strategy in that -game
and Ben Wallace saying the team has for
gotten its defense-first roots.
For his part, Saunders says he’s fine
with the criticism fiom players.
“They gripe aU year. Everybody just
doesn’t know about it,” Saunders said.
PHOTO/CURTIS WILSON
Charlotte Sting rookies Monique Currie (above) and LaToya Bond (below) ended their first week as
WNBA players as Charlotte’s first- and fourth-leading scorers.
Kids are all right
Sting rookies Currie and Boyd settle in as team leaders
By Herbert L. White
herbwhite^thecharlotteposicom
Muggsy Bogues had been
checking out Monique Currie
long before she wound up with
the Charlotte Sting.
Bogues, the Sting’s head coach,
through four years at Duke and
marveled at her offensive skills
Coming off a 6-28 season last
year, Bogues figured Charlotte
needed someone like Currie
‘When you are watching tal
ent, you know the level and the
type of athlete that you need,” he
said, “I watdied Monique early
on in her career, not really giving
it much fhaou^t that I woiild
be coaching her one day”
He is, and Currie is producing.
Please see PISTONS/3C
She leads the 1-2 Sting in scor
ing at 13 points a game and con
nects on 41.7 percent of her
shots.
‘T think coach having confi
dence in his players helps us a
lot,” Currie said. “He doesn’t
allow you to get discoursed and
he continues to encourage you.
You know he has your back and
he’s suppoiting you, so you want
to go out there and do the things
you know you can do.”
Currie isn’t the only rookie
standout, however.
LaTbya Bond is fourth in scor
ing at 10.7 and converts 47.6
percent of ha- shots. They were
instrumental in Charlotte’s first
win of the season, a 73-63 victo
ry over Washington May 25.
Currie scored 11 of her 13 points
in the fourth quarter, while
Bond came off the bench for 12
on 4-of-4 shooting.
As a tandem, the accounted for
17 points, two rebounds and an
assist in the fourth,
“They played hi^,” Bogues
said. ‘We were strug^ing at the
See STING/2C
‘ I think coach having confidence in his players helps us a lot. ’ ’
Charlotte Sting guard Monique Currie on coach Muggsy Bogues’ influence
It’s the bronze age for Charlotte boxer
Wade Bolton finishes third
in international tourney
By Herbert L. White
herbMhile®ihecliarlottepostcom
Wade Bolton 11 went around the world to earn
his latest boxing prize.
Bolton, 15, won a bronze medal at the 2006
Aliyev Cup boxing tournament last week in
Baku, Azerbaijan, which fix>m 1920 imtil 1991
was part of the Soviet Union. It is now an inde
pendent repiiblic wedged between Russia and
Iran on the Caspian Sea.
Bolton, a ninth-grader at Harding University
High, had never been on an airplane, or out of
the country
‘Tt was fim bdng up there, looking down at
the clouds.”
See HARDING/2C
MECKLENBURG PARK AND RECREATION
Wade Bolton, a freshman at Harding High, punches a
speed bag under the watchful eyes of Charlotte Boxing
Academy coach Alvin Simpson.
CIAA
wary of
NCAA’s
motives
Realignment
forces league into
a r\esv region
RALEIGH — Blame it on bas
ketball.
That’s the consensus among
CIAA athletic directors, coaches
and staff on why the entire
NCAA Division IT is being over
hauled.
For those living
in a cave for the
past two weeks,
the NCAA
regionalization
task force -will i
revamp all I
regions in D-II by
2008 to create
eight new super
regions: West,
Central, South Central,
Midwest, South, Southeast,
Atlantic and New England,
The CIAA, which currently
resides in the South Atlantic
along with the Peach Belt and
South Atlantic conferences, is
scheduled to be moved to the
new Atlantic Region which
houses the Pennsjdvania State
Athletic and West Virginia
Athletic conferences.
The Carohnas-Mrginia
Athletic Conference, which has
been trying to get into the
South for years, finally whined
and schemed long onougb to
take the CIAA’s spot in the
South Atlantic, which will be
renamed the South in 2008.
(Got all that?)
But, as has been stated here
numerous times before, this
isn’t about regional fairness; it’s
about one word: basketball.
The CIAA is a D-II power
house - ESPN doesn’t knock on
just anybody’s door - and has
owned the South Atlantic over
the years. Tfeams in the Peach
Belt and South Atlantic know
the mad to the Elite Eight -
Division IPs version of the Final
Four —goes throi:^ the black
neighborhood.
In order to justify its decision,
the task force voted to redo the
entire division and include ALL
sports, so no one could claim
favoritism.
Sharon K. Cessna, NCAA
See CIAA/4C
For Bonds,
755 mark
far from a
sure thing
By Janie McCauley
THEASSOCAITED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO - Barry
Bonds once seemed on an
inevitable march toward
becoming baseball’s home run
kii^.
The San Francisco slugger
homered at a
dizzying rate,
sending pitches
both good and
bad over outfield
fences. Now he’s
lucky to hit one
out once a week.
What only
few years ago
appeared a relatively simple
task has become daTinting: 40
home runs to tie Hank Aaron’s
record of 755.
“If my health feels good and I
feel like I can play then I’m
going to play,” Bonds said
Monday before the Giants
played at Florida, then minutes
later became a little less defini
tive. ‘Tf Pm healthy enough, it’s
See BONDS/4C
Bonds
QOOf