Long's last games at CU bittersweet
Alexis Del Ciello

Th e dream of playing college sports came true for one
little girl growing up in the small town of Cameron, Mo..
Cameron University’s senior Middle Blocker volleyball
player, Whitney Long, not only dreamed of becoming a
college athlete but is living the dream to tell her story.
“I never knew I would actually get here,” Long said.
“For me, the biggest thing was stepping out of my comfort
zone, taking that chance and going somewhere. I used to
be pretty shy, but you’re forced to get out of that when you
don’t know anybody.”
Brianne Smedley, CU’s head volleyball coach, said,
“Whitney defi nitely has a passion for winning. She is one
of those players that’s always mentally analyzing what we’re
doing. Every drill and every thing
always in the back of her mind [she’s]
kind of thinking, ‘How should this
be running? How should we be doing
this and what can I do to make this
drill successful?’ and then applies that
towards it.”
Stepping out of her comfort zone,
Long found that small-town girls can
run with the big dogs.
“Th ere is something about being
from a small town,” Long said. “Not
that big cities don’t have morals, but it’s like the smalltown
friendly values that you get, hard work, dedication
and commitment to the organizations that you’re part
of. Th ey set you apart once you get up against girls from
bigger schools that have done bigger things and been bigger
places.”
“I didn’t know I could do it until I just tried, until I
went on those [college] visits, met other coaches, and saw
all these other girls and realized that I could compete with
these people I used to think were so good,” Long said. “I
never knew I had the potential I had until I got out there
and tried.”
Before playing for CU, Long’s college athletic
career became reality when she played for Coff eyville
Community College (CCC) in Coff eyville, Kan. while
earning her associate degree in arts. While attending
CCC, she was a CCC presidential scholar and a member of
Phi Th eta Kappa, a junior college honor society.
Having come a long way from being a shy small-town
girl, Long realized the importance of community college
and CU athletic families.
“At a community college you know one semester
somebody might be there and then the next they’re not
going to be there, so it’s really hard,” Long said. “You make
really good friends, but you know that they are going to be
gone in a short period.”
Long said that at CU, “everybody has been here
semester after semester. Th at has been one thing you can
count on. Friendships I made in Coff eyville were just as
important, but at Cameron it’s maybe a deeper bonding
relationship that will last after I leave here.”
For Long, her senior year at CU has been fi lled with
mixed emotion.
“From a volleyball aspect it has been bittersweet,” Long
said. “It is exciting to know that during conditioning week
that this is your last time you are going to have to be under
the control of a coach that can make you run whenever
they want you to run, but at the same time I am a very
sentimental person.”
Long was recognized in high school as volleyball’s Most
Athletic and Best Female Athlete,
made the All-Athletic Female Team for
the local newspaper, and landed on the
All-Conference and All-District teams.
In high school basketball, she was
recognized as an All-Conference player
and All-District Area Radio station
Dream Team member.
“I know I am going to miss
[volleyball] a lot because in high school
and Coff eyville I was involved in all
kinds of sports and then when I got
here I just focused on volleyball, which still took up all my
time,” Long said. “Now that I am not going to have that,
I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I have always been an
athlete. Th at’s kind of scary, thinking that I’m going to be a
student with nothing to associate myself with. Now, I’ll be
able to get more involved in other aspects of the university.”
Because she grew up in Cameron, Mo., Long said she
gets asked about the relationship between her hometown
Cameron and Cameron University a great deal.
“Sometimes I just say I’m from Kansas City so I don’t
have to explain the whole Cameron, Mo., Cameron
University thing, but putting on a Cameron jersey to me is
more like a representation of here and where I came from.”
After graduation, Long plans on attending law school,
but in the short-term will continue her volleyball career
through a graduate assistant position and later plans to
coach club volleyball while in law school.
“Th at’s what I want to do eventually, but I’m not sure
I’m ready to give up volleyball yet,” Long said. “I took the
LSAT (Law School Admission Test) this summer and I’m
working on applying to law schools back home. I want to
go is the University of Missouri--Kansas City and that’s
the plan. As soon as the season gets done I will get all that
stuff fi nished up.


MMA promotion 'sliced' off far too much
Bennett Dewan

The proprietor of the first
Mixed Martial Arts fights
televised broadcast, Elite XC, has
ceased operations due to financial
difficulties after just two years of
business.
During its run, Elite XC
became known as much for its
promotion of fighters who often
received more attention for their
actions outside of the cage than
inside it as it did for garnering the
first major network deal in the
sport with CBS.
With its colorful stable of
fighters, the organization seemed
to have all the makings of a
successful and long lasting fight
promoter. That was before the
organization’s top leadership
made a few too many high-profile
mistakes in a very short period of
time.
Earlier this summer, women’s
MMA came to the national
forefront due to the popularity of
Thai kickboxing champion Gina
Carano. Rather than promoting
Carano as a fearsome striker
with an ever-improving arsenal of
chokes and joint locks, Elite XC
instead labeled her a bikini model
with muscles.
In order to keep their
investment intact and to preserve
Carano’s valuable bone structure,
the organization set up fights
with an array of over-glorified
amateurs to inf late Carano’s fight
record while keeping their newest
property safe. This promotional
ploy created an unforeseen effect.
The MMA purists and hardcore
fans tuned out due to the lack of
interesting matchups involving
Carano and the over-promotion
of the fighter’s sexuality. The
spectators drawn in by the appeal
of an attractive woman being
paraded around their television
screen were turned away by the
fact that it is not that appealing to
watch a sex symbol get punched
in the face. Thus, an immensely
talented athlete went relatively
unnoticed for her abilities.
The promotion of Carano was
lecherous at best, but it pales in
comparison to the Pandora’s Box
unleashed upon the world with
the marketing of Kevin “Kimbo
Slice” Ferguson. Slice rose to fame
as a YouTube phenomenon due
to his highly viewed bare-knuckle
alleyway brawls for money. Elite
XC viewed this mountain of a
man, full of gold teeth and trash
talk, as its big meal ticket.
There was just one problem.
MMA is a skilled fighting
sport that takes years of study
in many different combat
disciplines, and Slice was just a
big guy with no formal training.
The fight promoters enlisted
the services of the Ultimate
Fighting Championship’s former
champion, Bas Rutten, to train
Slice in the art of ground fighting
and technical striking. But
evolving as a fighter takes time,
so Elite XC created fights with
opponents far past their prime
to build up the reputation of
their most marketable athlete.
As Slice ran through his aging
competition with relative ease,
the organization began saturating
mainstream media outlets with
claims that their elite heavyweight
was the most dangerous fighter in
the world. Elite XC hemorrhaged
money in order to promote its
Oct. 4 fight card with Times
Square billboards and other
expensive mediums. All this
posturing went on harmlessly
enough until Slice faced an
undersized journeyman in Seth
Petruzelli.
The main event between
Slice, 6’2” and 260 pounds, and
Petruzelli, 6’ and 205 pounds,
lasted only 14 seconds, with
Slice getting knocked out by
an awkward jab that all but
discredited him as a fighter.
Elite XC shelled out an
astonishing $35, 714 per second to
the dethroned Slice.
To add insult to injury,
Petruzelli then claimed that he
was paid by the organization to
stand in front of Slice and turn the
fight into a brawl; an unfavorable
style for fighting a much stronger
competitor. This would be like a
baseball team asking a pitcher not
to throw fastballs for an entire
game. These allegations showed
massive amounts of impropriety
that suggested Elite XC was fixing
fights.
Petruzelli’s statements spawned
an investigation by the Florida
Department of Business and
Professional Regulations into the
possibility of legal infractions.
With the impending legal
inquiry and heaps of bad press
and angry fans, CBS terminated
its contract with Elite XC.
Without their major financial
contributor and $55 million in
debt due to financial missteps,
the organization stated in a
press release that it would cease
operations immediately.
Elite XC was innovative in its
mainstreaming of the sport of
MMA, but with its gimmicky
matchups and over-promotion of
questionable talent, they may have
done more harm than good.


Men's basketball leaps back into action
Bennett Dewan

During the summer, the
Athletic Department at Cameron
University welcomed a new men’s
basketball coach. Wade Alexander
came to campus with a goal:
making the Aggies a better team.
Alexander saw great potential in
his new southwestern Oklahoma
home.
“Going to the volleyball games,
there is such a great atmosphere.
The students are really involved,”
Alexander said. “There is a lot of
potential for Cameron to become
a basketball school.”
In order to turn CU students
into basketball fanatics, the
Aggies must rebound from last
season’s disappointing results. The
new coach has already formulated
his recipe for on-court success
in the ’08-’09 campaign. Adding
to a team that had no problem
scoring points last season, coach
Alexander has focused his sights
on the team’s weakest link.
“If we don’t defend, it doesn’t
matter what we do on offense,”
Alexander said.
The Aggies, under the careful
tutelage of head coach Alexander
and assistant coach Nate Gamet,
are exhibiting a newfound sense of
determination and a belief in the
strength of the team.
“We did a lot of work in the
preseason to try and build the
players’ toughness,” Alexander
said.
The change in culture of
an organization to meet the
expectations of a new coach takes
the commitment and dedication
of all the players as a unit to try
and be constantly learning and
progressing in their craft.
“They have bought into the
system,” coach Alexander said.
“Everybody has been working
really hard. The players want to
get better; they want to improve as
individuals and as a team.”
The Aggies are a focused and
cohesive basketball team. Unified
under one message, the squad is
prepared to execute the coaching
staff ’s new team philosophy on the
court.
“You put teams away by
stopping them on the defensive
end,” Alexander said. “We have
to limit teams to one shot with a
hand in their face and then keep
them off the boards.”
Coach Alexander has put his
confidence in this simple game
plan.
With improving athleticism,
speed and toughness, the Aggies
are prepared to impose their will
on the Lone Star Conference.
“I want the other team to say,
‘we could hardly run our plays
and we couldn’t get our shots off,’”
Alexander said. “And hopefully
they say that Cameron is a good
rebounding team; we may not be
the biggest team but we have some
guys who are really solid on the
inside.”

Aggie women's basketball shoots to thrill
Bennett Dewan

Excitement abounds among
coaching staff for the Cameron
University women’s basketball
team. The elation is promoted by
the upbeat and affirming attitude
of first-year head coach Tom

and we couldn’t get our shots off,’”
Alexander said. “And hopefully
they say that Cameron is a good
rebounding team; we may not be
the biggest team but we have some
guys who are really solid on the
inside.”
Webb, the workmanlike attitude
of assistant coach Steve Lowe and
the improved play of the team as
a whole.
The Aggies grossly
underachieved last season, despite
their plethora of talent. Although
to some this may seem like a
monumental task to turn this
team into around, the CU Coach
has everything going to plan.
“They are great kids; they have
worked really hard,” coach Webb
said. “They have bought in to our
system. They understand it is
going to take a lot of work, and
they understand that.”
The first goal of the Webb’s
coaching staff was to promote
team cohesiveness.
“The team is very tight;
they goof around together and
they work hard together. They
understand it is about each other
getting better. They understand
it is about team first, the bigger
picture,” Webb said. “Our team
motto is ‘together we will,’ and we
understand that it takes all of us
to do everything we can possible
to reach our goals.”
The road to improvement is a
long journey, and its one that the
Coach thinks that is an everyday
struggle. The advancement of the
players on and off the court is a
top priority.
“The job as a head coach
is being a people-builder. My
goal everyday is to wake up and
help them be better people,”
Webb said. “That means better
students, better student athletes,
daughters and sisters, we want to
help them be better people.”
Along with improving the
character of the team, there is a
game plan in place for making the
Aggies a formidable force on the
court.
“We would like to get up
and down the court and play
transition basketball. We want to
be the fastest team in the nation
from free throw line to free throw
line. We have to get in better
shape to do that, but we are going
to get there,” Webb said.
Coach Webb is not likely to
make promises or predictions
for his team this season, but he
is willing to comment on what
Aggie fans can expect.
“Our number one goal is to
make the playoffs,” Webb said.
“We want to reward our players
and the fans. We will give the
fans physicality and intensity.
There is a spirit in the gym when
we step between the lines. If we
do a good job, and put the right
product on the f loor, the fans will
come out and have fun.