Tech Coach Is Ramblin’ After Field Left Wrecked

Georgia Tech’s football team went 9-3 last season and ought to be pretty good this season.

But Coach George O’Leary spent time whining that the Atlanta Beat soccer team left worn spots on his field this summer in its inaugural season at Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Georgia Tech allowed the Beat and the Women’s United Soccer Assn. to use the field for 11 games.

“I think we need to understand that we’re doing the Beat a favor right now,” O’Leary told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We need to make our presence known and theirs not.”

Beat Coach Tom Stone’s response: “I’ll ask my 120-pound players to take it easy on the field on Saturday.”

The Beat already plans to play elsewhere next season.

“To insinuate that 11 soccer games can do that kind of damage is a little disconcerting,” Beat General Manager Lynn Morgan said.

Good thing Georgia Tech’s game against Florida State is on the road. That might save the field some trampling.

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Trivia time: What St. Louis Cardinal outfielder was the target of batteries and other debris thrown by Philadelphia fans at Veterans Stadium in 1999 because he’d refused to sign with the Phillies after being drafted?

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All in the family: Mark Shapiro, the Cleveland Indian assistant general manager, is the epitome of the modern, broad-minded baseball executive, according to Jerry Crasnick of the Bloomberg news service.

Crasnick reports that Shapiro advocates cooperation, rather than confrontation, with player agents.

“The agent, player and organization have identical goals 95% of the time,” Shapiro said. “If you work with an agent, there’s a better chance of the player reaching his potential.”

And how does Shapiro know this? His father, Ron Shapiro, has been negotiating contracts with baseball executives for 25 years.

The elder Shapiro represents Cal Ripken Jr. and about 70 other major and minor leaguers.

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Night-and-day game: In the Alaska Baseball League, a collegiate summer league, extra-inning games are no problem, lights or no lights. A recent 7 p.m. game between the Anchorage Pilots and a Fairbanks team went extra innings--and it never got dark, the Providence Journal noted.

Sunset was at 12:10 a.m.

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Trivia answer: J.D. Drew.

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It’s a snap: Randy Chevrier, a seventh-round draft pick from McGill University in Montreal, has a chance to make the Jacksonville Jaguars as a long snapper.

“I kind of knew nobody was going to take a Canadian guy who plays defensive line,” Chevrier said. “I figured long snapper was different.”

Chevrier started playing football six years ago, when he was looking for a way to kill time because he’d skipped hockey camp that summer.

“I took the ball home, snapped it toward the ceiling, asked friends to catch snaps for me while they looked at film, snapped it against the gym wall, against the goal posts,” he said. “I think I drove some people a little crazy with it.”

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And finally: Chevrier knows his job is like a referee’s, or perhaps a cornerback’s.

“The way it is with this position, no one knows you until you mess up,” he said. “If that’s the case, I hope no one hears from me for the next 10 years.”