America’s Team Has Got Nothing on Irvine’s Team

What do the Dallas Cowboys and UC Irvine’s men’s basketball team have in common?

Both received worst-of-the-year designations for 1997 in the latest edition of the National Sports Review magazine.

The Cowboys were named worst franchise of 1997 because they “had lost too many players to free agency and [their] stars were aging. They also seemed to endure a scandal a week, drug-induced or otherwise.”

Irvine’s sad-sack Anteaters--sometimes known as the Can’t-eaters during a 1-25 season in 1996-97--were christened worst team by the Sports Review.

“Surely, in the era of limited scholarships, parity and cupcake matchups with teams from lower divisions, any college basketball team could win more than one game,” the magazine decreed. “Cal Irvine didn’t. The Anteaters finished 1-25, a record so horrid that Coach Rod Baker lost his job.”

Things are looking up for Irvine, though--the 1997-98 Anteaters have already won two games. Win a few more and maybe next year, the Sports Review will even get the school’s name right.

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Trivia time: In 1997, Utah’s Karl Malone became the oldest professional basketball player to do what?

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Add Sports Review awards:

--Happiest moment: “Was there any more singularly joyous image than [Tiger Woods] hugging his father after winning the Masters? The embrace seemed to last forever and provided a poignant starting point for what promises to be a remarkable career.”

--Saddest moment: “No one felt much like playing tennis on the first Sunday of the U.S. Open. It was a day after Princess Diana had died in a horrible car wreck in Paris. Diana was an enthusiastic tennis fan who took lessons and occasionally hit with Steffi Graf. A number of other top players also knew her, including Andre Agassi, who wore a black ribbon on his pink Nike shirt in her memory when he faced Mark Woodforde that day.”

--Most heart: “Would that other professional athletes were as selfless as Carlos Rogers. Although he knew it would probably mean the end of his career, the Toronto Raptors’ young forward did not hesitate to offer his sister one of his kidneys. In the end, though, his sister died and Rogers did not have to undergo the surgery.”

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Nearly perfect: Soccer America graded UCLA goalkeeper Matt Reis nine of a possible 10 for his performance in the Bruins’ 2-0 victory over Virginia in the NCAA men’s soccer final.

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According to the magazine: “No goalkeeper has dominated a final four in recent memory quite like Matt Reis. . . . Reis posted 20 saves in the wins over Indiana and Virginia and extended the Bruins’ shutout streak in Division I finals dating back to 1973.”

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Trivia answer: Malone became the oldest winner of the NBA most-valuable-player award.

And finally: All 20 members of the Brazilian national soccer team shaved their heads before the recent Confederations Cup in Saudi Arabia in order to look like star forward Ronaldo.

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“Everybody wants to talk to Ronaldo or take his picture,” a Brazilian team official explained. “This way we can confuse them a little and take some of the attention off him.”