ustxtxb_obs_1979_03_16_50_00021-00000_000.pdf

For the Sport in your Life. RUNNING CLOTHING TENNIS SOCCER 4772Sporting Feet DOBIE MALL 2021 GUADALUPE AUSTIN. TX 78705s 472-8610 WORLD LEADER IN RELOCATION Company Personal Service Quality Insurance ALICE ANDERSON AGENCY INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE 808A E. 46th, Austin, Texas 459-6577 Erratum Inadvertently omitted from the article entitled “Held to account” in our March 2 issue was an acknowledgment of the research assistance provided by Helen Jardine and Anne Norman, Observer staff assistants. tgracar* THE COMMODORE HOTEL On Capitol Hill Owned by Texans. Run by a Texan. 520 N. Capitol St., NW Washington, D.C. 20001 the legendary RAW DEAL Steaks, Chops, Chicken open lunch and evenings 605 Sabine, Austin No Reservations low-key, patient, attentive to your situation member firm with RELO complimentary nationwide home locatorsmember brokers in all major cities ED BENNETT 10102 N. Lamar, Austin 78753 r”1 JBGa:dwin .,,11 and Associates 502 W. 15th Street Austin, Texas 78701 REALTOR ‘ 9′ Representing all types of properties in Austin and Central Texas Interesting & unusual property a specialty 477-3651 E Evenin’ Stephens After work or during the evening, enjoy the quiet sophistication of the newest bar in town. STEPHEN’S, located in the historic Stephen F. Austin Hotel, offers a buffet lunch. Happy hours are 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with free hors d’oeuvres. Enjoy the piano entertainment of Peter Williams from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. STEPHEN’S provides a welcome change of atmosphere in the downtown area. We’ll be looking for you some evenin’. ST_ HEN’S al Inc 7th and Congress Ave. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 Longhorns rate only a fraction of the space given to the men Longhorns, and television coverage is hardly any better. The three commercial stations in Austin report scores and summaries of the women’s games, but videotaped interviews with Jody Conradt are rare, though Abe Lemons even has his own TV show. Interviews with players or women’s game highlights are virtually never shownin fact, boys’ high school teams from the Austin area fare better than the Longhorn women on this score. Part of the publicity problem is that, in spite of their national ranking and their exciting fast-break, full-court-press basketball style, the Longhorn women have not had much opportunity to show their stuff to potential fans. It’s something of a vicious circle. Because the women’s team cannot afford the $2,500 rental fee for each night’s use of the UT Special Events Center until its games draw enough attendance to break even, it is forced to play before the men start their game at 7:30 p.m. That means that the women’s games have to get underway at 5:15 p.m., when rush hour is at its peak on the neighboring freeway. Small wonder, then, that attendance is between 50 and 100 fans when the games begin. Only during the second half of the women’s games will the crowd swell somewhat, as early arrivers for the men’s games dribble in. But an experiment Conradt made this season gave clear proof that a following exists for highquality women’s basketball in Austin. When the Longhorns played the Wayland Baptist Flying Queens on a night in January when the men were playing at Rice, the 7:30 p.m. game drew 3,500. Money, of course, has always been the missing factor in women’s basketball. Although the current UT program dates from 1966, the team operated for eight years under the auspices of the intramural program, with minuscule budgets and unpaid volunteers as coaches. As late as 1972-73 the basketball team was allotted a mere $430. The players made their own uniforms, which were shared with the volleyball team. It wasn’t until 1974, at the urging of Dr. Thompson, that the university administration agreed to commit enough money to a women’s intercollegiate athletic program to make it nationally competitive in seven major sports, including basketball. This year, the budget for UT women’s basketball reached $77,500. That doesn’t approach what the men get by a long shotcompare, for instance, the $40,000 the men’s team currently receives for travel with the $17,000 allocated to the women, who travel just as much. But UT’s modest investment is actually no small sum by the miserly standards long applied to women’s basketball, and the Longhorns have made the most of it. The current Longhorn team includes no less than nine star-caliber players,