BASEBALL

Berque has earned Texas' head tennis job with national title

Cedric Golden
cgolden@statesman.com
Texas interim men's tennis head coach Bruce Berque watches action against South Florida during a second-round NCAA tournament match. He led the Longhorns to the school's first-ever team tennis national championship. [RUDY GONZALEZ/FOR STATESMAN]

This week's nuggets are dedicated to the Texas men's tennis team for overcoming one of the toughest outside-the-lines seasons to become NCAA champions.

The title should be a message to athletic director Chris Del Conte to not overthink the hiring of Center's replacement. Interim coach Bruce Berque kept the train on the tracks under adverse circumstances and brought home the trophy. The promotion should be his. Get rid of the "interim" and keep it moving.

Former UT coach Michael Center famously told reporters that his team’s story was more interesting than his even as his career crumbled amid federal charges of accepting a $100,000 bribe. It turns out he was right.

That investigation resulted in Center pleading guilty, which took away all the attention from a team that turned out to have an historic season. The first team tennis championship in school history isn't tainted, but will always be remembered as coinciding with the coach who broke the law. The win over Wake Forest should be celebrated on its own merit, but we know it doesn't work out that way.

Great job by Berque and his players for making it happen.

Survive and advance: The Texas softball team showed the clutch gene — particularly pitcher Miranda Elish, who threw 429 pitches and gave up only two earned runs in four games — over the weekend, making head coach Mike White a super regional participant in his first season.

White told us on last week's "On Second Thought" podcast that his program has a ways to go before it can get on the level of Oklahoma, which, as is turns out, had to overcome a loss to Wisconsin in its own regional before advancing. Maybe the Horns are closer than their coach realizes. After all, the name of the game is survive and advance, and the Horns did just that and sent Texas A&M packing for the offseason in the process.

Texas should be reasonably confident at Alabama (55-7) for the supers because Bama actually had to overcome a loss to advance. Win or lose, it's been a step-up season for the Longhorns.

Season to forget: Texas baseball coach David Pierce isn’t the type to rip up the game film and start out fresh after what turned out to be a horrible season. Rather, he will look at every piece of film and examine every practice imaginable to avoid the horror of another last-place season.

Besides banning all players from riding on those pesky scooters, expect Pierce to get a lot more offensive in his approach in 2020 because the Horns, who went 27-27, simply didn’t put up enough runs to take some of the heat off a pitching staff that crumpled under the weight of the offensively challenged lineup.

Augie always said that at Texas, Omaha is mandatory. I'm guessing that included qualifying for the NCAAs as well.

Zeke's Sin City antics: Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel continues to make questionable off-the-field decisions. The latest came over the weekend in Las Vegas when he was reportedly handcuffed and detained after an argument with a woman reported to be his girlfriend and an exchange with a security guard who fell after Elliott  bumped into him. TMZ posted video of the incident.

Two seasons after he spent the first six games on league suspension for his role in a domestic violence incident, Elliott still can't get out of his own way. They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but the person who came up with that had never heard of cell phone cameras.

Bad look for Zeke.

The Greatest: If you haven’t already, check out the fantastic HBO two-part documentary "What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali." Director Antoine Fuqua chronicles the boxing/civil rights icon’s rise from a small boxing gym in Louisville to a career that ended with him being on the short list of greatest athletes ever.

All boxing fans have seen the videos of Ali’s epic fights against Joe Frazier and George Foreman, but I was blown away by the vintage video of a young Cassius Clay at the 1960 Rome Olympics and in his two bouts against Sonny Liston.

While he owned breathtaking athleticism, Ali’s mic skills were 30 years before their time. Like most boxers, he stayed too long at the fair and it played a large role in the health struggles that plagued him in the second half of his life. Footage from his interview with Howard Cossell before the Leon Spinks rematch in 1978 was particularly telling as the champ slurred his words and looked to be punch-drunk.

It's a wonderful telling of a true American success story. Ali was a master boxer and a genius of a self-promoter who would be worth two LeBron James in today's era.