SMU Golf Gets 'Home Course'
SMU and The Dallas Athletic Club in North Dallas have entered into an agreement to establish the DAC as the home of SMU men's and women's golf programs. SMU will construct a new $4 million practice facility and clubhouse on the DAC grounds, and donors are being sought.
Sports Shorts
SMU golfer Colt Knost ('07) wrapped up his amateur career as only the second golfer in history to win both the U.S. Amateur Championship and the U.S. Public Links title in the same year. He was the first amateur since 1993 to qualify for the 2007 Byron Nelson Championship and was unbeaten as a member of the first U.S. Walker Cup team since 1991 to win the match overseas.
Title IX At 35: Equal Access Matures
Senior women's basketball player Katy Cobb is unfamiliar with the details of Title IX, but she is a prime example of its results. Growing up in Rio Vista, Texas, she played girls' soccer, volleyball, softball and basketball, ran cross-country, competed in rodeos and in fourth grade played on a boys' football team.
Walk-Ons Strengthen SMU Teams
From her first pony ride at age 8, Betina Matoni was smitten with horses. For the captain of the SMU equestrian team, however, finding the opportunities to continue her passion was more challenging.
When she was 5, Matoni and her family immigrated to the United States from Romania because of its political turmoil and settled in Richardson, Texas. As a teenager, Matoni mucked out stables, worked at children’s riding camps and exercised horses in exchange for riding lessons and the opportunity to compete. She delayed her dream of riding competitively while attending community college for two years. When she transferred to SMU, Matoni contacted equestrian coach Jenny Passow about joining the team.
Sharing History
Former SMU tailback/wide receiver Jerry LeVias (’69) met in February with students in a class on “Blacks and the Civil Rights Movement” taught by History Professor Kenneth M. Hamilton. LeVias spoke about his time at SMU when he was the first African American to receive an athletic scholarship in the Southwest Conference. Last fall he received SMU’s Distinguished Alumni Award....
SMU Awarded 2008 College Cup
SMU and MLS team FC Dallas will host the 2008 NCAA Division I Men’s College Cup at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas. The 21,293-seat, $105 million complex is the home stadium of FC Dallas. SMU athletics has hosted two NCAA Division I soccer championships – the women’s in 2001 and the men’s in 2002....
New Coach For Women’s Soccer
Brent Erwin, former SMU men’s assistant soccer coach and University of Central Florida head coach, is the new head coach of the women’s soccer team. He takes over a team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championships before falling 4-0 to Texas A&M and closing the season with a 17-5-1 record. Ashley Gunter, Carley Phillips and Olivia O’Rear earned first-team NSCAA All-Central Region honors. Kimber Bailey received third-team honors....
So close
After maintaining a No. 1 ranking for most of the season, men’s soccer fell to eventual national champion UC-Santa Barbara in the second round of the NCAA tournament. SMU earned a 17-2-4 record. Senior defender Jay Needham, a Hermann Trophy finalist, was named to the NSCAA All-American first team and, along with midfielder Chase Wileman, was selected to participate in the 2007 Adidas MLS Player Combine. DC United selected Needham in the 2007 MLS SuperDraft. ESPN The Magazine named senior goalkeeper and finance major Matt Wideman its Academic All-American Division I Player of the Year....
Only The Beginning
Freshman quarterback Justin Willis was named Conference USA Freshman of the Year and received third-team Freshman All-American honors from The Sporting News. Willis’ 29 touchdown passes were the most in a season in SMU history and ranked him 10th nationally in passing efficiency for the season....
Running The Distance
Junior Rachael Forish was named Conference USA Female Cross Country Athlete of the Year. She placed first in the league’s championship meet and earned All-American accolades after finishing 35th at the 2006 NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana....