Madsen Will Rebound for the Lakers
Power forward Mark "Mad Dog" Madsen, '00, was drafted in June by the Los Angeles Lakers, who made him the 29th and final pick in the first round of the NBA draft. The only Bay Area college player selected in the draft, he is expected to receive a contract worth $2 million over three seasons. Madsen led the Cardinal advance to the Final Four in the 1997–98 season, and in his junior year the team captured the Pac-10 championship. Madsen says he's eager to work with coach Phil Jackson, whose Lakers won the 2000 NBA championship. "It's a huge honor to be playing for a living coaching legend," Madsen says.
New Faces at Maples, Maloney and Taube
Women's basketball, soccer and tennis will welcome new assistant coaches this fall. Julie Rousseau, former head coach of the Los Angeles Sparks of the wnba, joins Tara VanDerveer's staff as an assistant coach, replacing Tia Jackson, who resigned to become the top assistant at UCLA. Stephanie Erickson, former first assistant coach at Harvard University, has been named assistant coach for Cardinal women's soccer. The all-time leading scorer in her days at Northwestern University, Erickson once netted a pair of goals in a span of 5 seconds to set the NCAA record for fastest consecutive goals scored in a game. Frankie Brennan, son of recently retired tennis coach Frank Brennan, was promoted from part-time to full-time assistant women's tennis coach. Currently the assistant pro at the Fremont Hills Country Club in Los Altos, Brennan led the University of Redlands team to the semifinals of the 1993 NCAA Division II championships.
Revamped: Sunken Diamond and the Swim Center
Sunken Diamond, an NCAA postseason regional site for the past five years, will feature remodeled dugouts and improved seating in time for the start of the baseball season in January. Nearby, the expanded Avery Aquatic Center boasts a new training pool and state-of-the-art diving complex with a concrete dive tower flanked by two springboards, making it the nation's largest competitive aquatic facility.
Levick Takes Charge at Santa Clara
Cheryl Levick, senior associate athletic director at Stanford for 12 years, became director of athletics at Santa Clara University on June 1. She is the first female athletic director at SCU and the first ever in the West Coast Conference. A former assistant commissioner of the Pac-10 and an assistant director of women's programs for the NCAA, Levick originally coached gymnastics and synchronized swimming at Indiana University. Sports Business Journal named her one of the nation's top 25 female sports executives in 1998 and 1999.
