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8 Thursday, June 17, aoio | The Red a Black Mcßee: Baseball or bicuspids? By MITCH WLOMERT The Red & Black When Georgia pitcher Alex Mcßee was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 14th round of last week's Major League Baseball Draft, he was faced with two options for the future go profession al and leave academics behind, or continue the pursuit of graduate school. Mcßee’s choice? Both. The senior, who is pur suing a pre- dentistry degree, will play in the Dodgers' minor-league system this summer while preparing his application to dental school. “I’m going to go ahead and apply in the fall, and if I’m doing good in the pros 111 defer,” Mcßee said. "I’U either make the bigs, and if I’m not going to. I’ll go to dental school from there." Mcßee signed a $5,000 contract with Los Angeles following his draft selec tion and will report to the Ogden Raptors, the team’s rookie affiliate, on Sunday. The e-foot-6 lefty will play for the Raptors until August, when he returns to Athens to finish his degree and take his Dental Admission Test. Although the hectic schedule of professional baseball on top of a dental Rates Start at $299! Sign now Visa Gift Card! ? •■m -.tv********.. i ■ Save gas, shuttle to class! Abbey West NOW HAS the best NEW PRIVATE shuttle service in town! campus crossings IB ABBEY WEST [ • TCjj a campus apartments community Jua 250 Epps Bridge Pkwy. Athens GA 30606 * (706) 549-0098 Text Abbey to 47464 campusapts.com/abbeywest & cave S2OO hpctai^ RIVER CLUB Wl¥ RIVER WALK AV\R I M I NISI o W N 'll O M I S {mm Qthensstudenthousing.com 111 AN AMERICAN CAMPJS COMMUNITY • . .• ...,„ - ~, |) ■ ■. ■ school application may seem like pulling teeth, managing time between sports and academics has become the norm for Mcßee. who has a 3.4 grade point average and is a four-time member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll. “That’s just how It was growing up,” Mcßee said. “If you want to make A’s, you have to do whatever It takes.” Mcßee’s choice to do whatever it takes has left him with both athletic and academic opportunities ahead of him. If his base ball career doesn’t pan out, he can earn his Doctor of Dental Medicine at the Medical College of Oeorgia, the school he is applying to, In four years. The short length of the program Is what attracted Mcßee to dentistry over his second choice, ortho pedic surgery. “It’s four years to do medical school, then six years to do residency, and I wasn’t too sure about that,” Mcßee said. “But with dentists It’s four years, then you’re done.” But Mcßee isn’t taking any of his possible future plans for granted after watching his draft stock fall the past the two sea sons due to injuries and I * ifa ’ Ii mw" HN . ~:w '.ijaEi “ % fILK I Tm Rid * Buck ▲ Alx Mcßee will prepare his application for dentistry school while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rookie team in Ogden, Utah. Inconsistencies. After a successful sophomore campaign that included seven wins and a 3.98 eamed-run average, his performance declined, making only 15 appearanc es his Junior year while battling mononucleosis. Control Issues pocked his senior year, finishing with a career-worst 7.25 eamed-run average while walking 32 batters and throwing 14 wild pitches in 20 appearances. The pitching struggles SPORTS Mcßee encountered his last two seasons reminded him that even though he is now a professional base ball player, it Is not a bad idea to be professional in something off the field as well. “Baseball is never a guarantee, as I found out,” Mcßee said. “You don’t ever know what is going to happen. You’ve got to have a backup plan. “You want to devote 100 percent to baseball, but you have to split time.” Money at the root of conference changes It is a very rare event in college athletics when the big-time decision makers elect to keep things the same, or God forbid, downsize. Everything in college sports is always about get ting bigger, and supposed ly, better. Witness the expansion • of the NCAA Tournament to 68 teams in late April. Though the format still must be approved by the men’s basketball commit tee later this summer, it seems like a foregone con clusion it will go through. Another example of the “bigger equals better” phi losophy of the NCAA is to look at how many teams go to bowl games now. There are 35 (!) bowl games approved for the next four years, with the addition earlier this year of the New Era Pinstripe Bowl in New York City and the Dallas Football Classic at the Cotton Bowl. This is not to be confused with the old Cotton Bowl game, which moved to the new Cowboys Stadium In Arlington, Texas. So count me among the surprised when earlier this week it was announced that the Big 12 Conference would not “dissolve,” as some people forecasted after the departure of Nebraska to the Big Ten Conference and Colorado to the Pac-10 Conference. ESPN’s Andy Katz reported June 15 that “a number of influential peo ple Inside and outside of college athletics mobilized over the past week to save the Big 12 Conference,” mainly due to the fact they did not like how the Pac-10 went about trying to poach six teams from the Big 12, and then turn themselves Into a “super conference" involving 16 teams. I was all but ready to give Texas, Texas A & M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech a pat on the back for not going after the money and head westward to the waiting, open arms of the Pac-10 Conference. However, that was only until I realized they stayed in the Big 12 for one rea son money. Quite a shocking revela tion, right? Katz reported Texas will see increased revenue from television rights and the chance to have its own network, and this new con figuration stands to make UT between S2O and $25 million annually. There’s a reason for the phrase “everything’s bigger in Texas," you know. But now that the dust has settled and revealed the Big 12 will not be going away, where does that leave the state of college athletics? One of the biggest doubts I have is the Big 12 will stay at only 10 teams. Is the Big 12 comfort able not having a confer ence championship game in football? And if not, . \UJ Ryan Black what schools will they go after to return to 12? Texas Christian seems like a logical fit for geo graphical purposes and Utah seems like an upgrade over Colorado football-wise. Utah has been much more of a BCS contender than Colorado in the last half-decade, going unde feated and winning two BCS bowl games In 2004 and 2008. And while Nebraska is on the way back towards prominence with head coach Bo Petal, there is no doubt that TCU owns a better program than the Comhuskers at this Junc ture. The Pac-10 is in a simi lar quandary to the Big 12. With the addition of Colorado, they now have 11 teams, Just one short of the NCAA minimum need ed to hold a football con ference championship game. Now spumed by the Big 12 schools, who would they look at? Utah would have to be considered the front-run ner, and reports from Comcast Sports on June 15 said the Pac-10 will extend an invitation for the Utes to join the confer ence. If for some reason Utah does not accept the Pac 10’s overture, don’t count out Brigham Young. They certainly would not pass up the chance to head to a guaranteed BCS conference, and BYU could hold that as a recruiting advantage over Utah, their bitter in-state rival. Though most experts feel the Mountain West will be awarded an automatic bid to the BCS party next time the talks come around, one can never be too sure. One less serious issue is the way the three confer ences in question Big Ten, Pac-10 and Big 12 are misnomers. The Pac-10 now has 11 teams, and added a team in Colorado that isn’t close to the Pacific Ocean. And for the Big Ten and the Big 12, there is a rever sal of sorts going on, where the Big Ten has 12 teams and the Big 12 has 10. Might I propose they just trade conference names? Or would that make too much sense? But the NCAA isn’t in the business of making “sense” they’re more about making “cents.” This recent reshuffling of conferences reminds us that though the NCAA is open to change among its member institutions, one thing, one phrase, always stays the same money talks. SPORTS NOTEBOOK USC LB transfers to UGA The University line backer corps is about to welcome anew addition. Jarvis Jones, a transfer from Southern California, was a star linebacker at Carver High School in Columbus who chose USC over Georgia, LSU, Texas and Florida in a heated recruiting battle in 2009. This time around, the Georgia native felt the Bulldogs were the right choice for him. picking Georgia over Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina. Jones spent June 14 and 15 in Athens, touring the school and meeting with fellow football play ers. Most importantly, Jones met with UGA doctors, who cleared him to play in 2011. Jones ir\jured his neck in USC’s eighth game last season and missed the remainder of the year. Per NCAA transfer rules, Jones must sit out the 2010 season before being eligible to play next year. Jones appeared in eight games in 2009, accumulat ing 13 tackles and 1.5 tack les for loss. Ryan Black