Minnesota’s 19th-ranked men’s tennis team opens its 2003 dual meet season with Saturday matches against No. 30 SMU and No. 38 Tulane. Minnesota faces the Mustangs at 10 a.m. at the Baseline Tennis Center and plays the Green Wave at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Minnesota returns six letterwinners from a team that finished second at the Big Ten championships and ranked 22nd in the country last season. The Gophers also earned a win over eventual national champion USC last year.
Leading the way for Minnesota is senior Thomas Haug and junior Aleksey Zharinov. Haug is a returning All-American and two-time All-Big Ten selection. Zharinov is coming off a 31-12 season and a 9-1 finish in the Big Ten. Haug is ranked 54th in the country, while Zharinov is 58th.
A sidelight to Saturday’s tennis action is a family reunion. Senior Manuel Lievano enters his second and final season with the Gophers, while his older brother, Jorge, is a junior for the Tulane Green Wave. The Lievanos were born two years apart in Bucaramanga, Colombia.
A milestone could also be reached on Saturday night as Minnesota head coach David Geatz is two wins shy of becoming the all-time leader in coaching wins. Geatz is entering his 15th season at the helm of the Gopher program and has a 259-123 record. His predecessor, Jerry Noyce, had a 260-132 mark in 15 seasons from 1974-1988.
he Arizona State University Foundation announced Thursday the hiring of Jeff Schemmel, Senior Associate Athletics Director for University of Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletics, as Executive Director of Development for ASU and the Senior Vice President of the ASU Foundation.
At ASU, Schemmel will be responsible for leading and managing all college-based development efforts, in addition to university-wide programs such as planned giving, relations with private foundations and special annual giving programs.
Schemmel joined the University as associate director of athletics in 1991. In addition, Schemmel served as the director for all men’s NCAA and Big Ten championships hosted by the U of M.
In 1995, former men’s athletics director Mark Dienhart promoted Schemmel to senior associate athletics director where he served as chief operating officer. Working closely with former ADs, Dienhart and Tom Moe, Schemmel oversaw all departmental operations, including all men’s sports, business operations, marketing, ticket office and all legal matters regarding the athletic department. Schemmel played a similar role in the combined Intercollegiate Athletics Department under Joel Maturi.
In addition to his administrative work in the department, Schemmel served as the executive director of the 2001 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four held at the Metrodome. Schemmel was also instrumental in the “Save Gopher Sports” campaign and the “Save Gopher Sports” telethon which raised more than $600,000 toward saving the men’s and women’s golf and men’s gymnastics programs at the University.
