At Least There Are No Ads When Watching College Golf

It’s early spring and UC Irvine’s golf season is in full swing. So here are Anteater Coach Jeff Johnston’s top 10 reasons to come watch a college golf match:

No. 10. Check out young people preparing for their retirement.

No. 9. March Gladness: no announcers, no commercials, no halftime shows, no blimps; just pure sport, baby.

No. 8. Good academic sport. It’s an outdoor library, quiet enough to study (Shhhh!).

No. 7. See the No. 1-ranked defense in the nation--the course.

No. 6. Don’t tell anybody, but you’ve just walked 4.5 miles.

No. 5. No show-boating. Of course, we’ll see what happens if we actually get people to come out.

No. 4. It’s an impact sport, unless you can duck green-side.

No. 3. Come heckle, you’re guaranteed to be heard . . . and escorted off.

No. 2. No tattoos, no brawling, no pierced tongues, just honor, integrity and class. It didn’t take a court order for us to let Casey Martin use a cart. We’re boring that way.

No. 1. You might actually see a real live college golf coach. What he’s doing there is anyone’s guess.

Johnston’s wife, Lisa Bohan-Johnston, is the Bren Center director, giving her two full-time jobs.

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Johnston is the man the NCAA entrusted to keep the scorebook during last week’s West Regional men’s basketball games in Sacramento and he’ll do the same during this week’s games at The Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. He also keeps the book for Irvine home games.

“Jeff has the respect of every official who comes through here,” Sports Information Director Bob Olson said. “He is very professional. He did do one game with ice packs on various parts of his body.”

Ice packs?

“I had tried playing basketball that day,” Johnston said.

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Basketball seems to be a rather dangerous hobby around Irvine. Men’s tennis Coach Steve Clark is not playing tennis these days because of a cracked rib he suffered while playing in a pickup game with some of his players.

“I was doing one of those 12-second hang times and landed on a guy’s shoulder,” Clark said.

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The women’s tennis team has improved significantly under second-year Coach Mike Edles. The Anteaters already have beaten four teams they lost to a year ago--Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Colorado State and Portland.

Irvine, 0-4 in Big West Conference play last season, is 3-0 this season. The Anteaters are 7-4 overall.

Their success can be attributed to Edles’ first recruiting class, as four of the top five singles players are freshmen.

“Any time you start four freshmen, you don’t know what you have until you start playing matches,” said Edles, who was an All-American and played at Irvine from 1975-79. “They are still learning. The intensity, day in and day out, is tough if you have never been through it before. The upside is they are here for three more years.”

Darian Chappell (Camarillo High) has been the top player thus far. She is 6-5 as the team’s No. 1 singles player and is 7-3 when teaming with sophomore Liz Yim (Laguna Hills) at No. 1 doubles.

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Members of the men’s and women’s track teams turned in a slew of personal bests at the Ben Brown Invitational at Cal State Fullerton last week, including Carrie Quinn, who won the 3,000 meters in 10 minutes 13.1 seconds.

It was the second consecutive week the Anteaters had a large number of top times.

“We’ve been working pretty good, doing things without having to back off,” Coach Vince O’Boyle said. “This weekend might settle us down a little bit.”

Both teams go to UCLA Saturday to compete against the Bruins, Air Force and California--all top programs.

“We’ll have some really good performances,” O’Boyle said. “That’s all we can do in that meet.”

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The Big West Conference will consider changing its format for its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The most talked-about plan would still have eight teams making the tournament, with the top three teams from each division qualifying, then the teams with the next-best conference records.

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What does a conference commissioner do on his day off? The Big West’s Dennis Farrell goes to Rolling Stones concerts. He has been to two this year, one in Las Vegas and one in the rain in San Diego.

“I’m a child of the ‘60s, I admit it,” Farrell said.

Not even his conference--founded in 1970--can claim that.

Anteater Notes

Arika Earley finished 13th among 38 divers in the one- and three-meter competition at the Zone E NCAA Championships last weekend. . . . Sarah Libecap, a junior on the women’s volleyball team, and Mike Lawrence, a junior on the golf team, have been selected to participate in the second NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference, May 25-28 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

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Coming Attractions

Key events for UC Irvine this week:

* Women’s tennis hosts Arkansas at noon Saturday. The Anteaters have won five of their last six matches.

* Men’s and women’s track and field compete against UCLA, Air Force and California Saturday at UCLA. Field events begin at 11:30 a.m., running events at 1 p.m. Shawn Frack had a personal-best in the 5,000 meters last week (14 minutes 46.55 seconds).