SPORTS

Ray Steps down as Director
For the Wichitan

Midwestern State University’s Jeff Ray announced Friday that he is stepping down as the school’s Athletics Director so he can devote his full attention to coaching the Indians men’s basketball team.
“I felt I wasn’t doing as good a job as I should have been because of time demands,” said Ray. “There was just no way around it that sometimes I needed to be in two places at once.”
“Jeff approached me before the end of the last basketball season and told me that he enjoyed serving the university as Athletic Director, but that he was first and foremost a basketball coach and wanted to devote full-time to coaching,” said MSU President Dr. Jesse W. Rogers. “His ability to make this change was our agreement from the day that he was named head men’s basketball coach and Athletics Director.”
“I just felt it would be better to concentrate on coaching basketball and doing the best possible job I can do there,” added Ray.
Associate Director of Athletics Kurt Portmann will assume the Athletics Director’s responsibilities effective September 1.
“I appreciate the opportunity that I have been given, and I look forward to the challenge of running the MSU department of athletes,” Portmann said. “We have a great staff already in place, and that should make the transition a lot easier.”
“I am very pleased that we have someone of the quality of Kurt step in as Athletics Director at Midwestern State,” said Rogers.
Assistant Director of Athletics Andy Austin will move into the area vacated by Portmann, and a search will begin soon for a new Sports Information Director.



MSU Softball Team Reunites Pitching Pair
Trey Reed | For the Wichitan

Brittany Willson always had dreams of playing college softball at Midwestern State.
There was only one problem when she graduated from Burkburnett High School in 2001 – MSU didn’t have a team.
“I always hoped MSU would come up with a softball team by the time I got to college, but they never did,” she said.
So she took her blistering rise ball and devastating change-up down to Texas Woman’s University in Denton where she earned Lone Star Conference Pitcher of the Year honors in her freshman year.
“After I took my year off and heard they were getting a team together, I really wanted to play,” Willson said. “I couldn’t imagine playing anywhere else now.”
Meanwhile, current teammate Jenna Deweber was finishing up a prolific high school career in 2001 at Bowie leading the Lady Jackrabbits to a state final appearance in her sophomore season.
But Deweber had dreams to play at a bigger university, so she headed off to the University of Loyola-Chicago.
“I’d always wanted to play college softball at the Division I level, but several things made me unhappy there.”
Deweber suffered through a miserable year both on and off the field. She developed a stress fracture in her lower back that landed her in a hard-back brace for six months.
The timing for the announcement of the new softball program couldn’t have been timelier.
“When I found out Midwestern was going to have a team, I wanted to play,” she said.
When Deweber arrived on the MSU campus, she found an old friend waiting for her – Willson.
And it wasn’t the first time the two had split time toeing the same rubber for the same team.
The two first crossed paths as pitching students of Burkburnett coach Allan Hennan when Deweber was just 9 years old and Willson had just extinguished 11 candles.
“Jenna was really tiny when she was younger, but she was the best pitcher I’d ever seen for her size,” Willson said.
The pair formed a dominant pitching duo for five teams spanning from the Bowie-based Pink Panthers to the Wichita Falls-based Lady Coyotes.
The two now form two-thirds of the No. 2-ranked pitching staff in the Lone Star Conference.
Willson leads the Lady Indians with a 1.26 ERA in just under 189 innings with a team-best 201 strikeouts.
Deweber, who has allowed just one earned run in her last 36 innings, sports a 1.88 ERA in just under 127 innings of work.
As a team, the staff is limiting opponents to 1.55 earned runs a contest and a .226 batting average.
MSU coach Brady Tigert said although Willson and Deweber bring different approaches to the mound, it’s the rest of the team’s responsibility to take the pressure off the two aces.
“Defensively, we want to make sure that we make the game simple,” he said. “The key for us when the pitchers throw well is to make the routine plays behind them.”



Battle-tested Lifter Presses for Olympics
David Roach |  Staff Reporter

He is a collegiate national champion and record-holder, a former U.S. Marine and a freshman at Midwestern State University.
23-year-old Donny Shankle of Wichita Falls has been competing in Olympic-style weightlifting for only about 19 months now.
“Donny was so dominant this year at collegiates,” MSU Weightlifting head coach Glenn Pendlay said, “that no one wants to be in that weight class, because no one thinks they have any chance of beating him. Having talked with other coaches of other teams, they’re like, ‘We’re not going to have our best kid at 105 (kg).’ It’s very rare when you’ve got one person who is so dominant that they have that kind of effect in a weight class in their very first year.”
“He is a keeper,” USA Weightlifting coach Mike Burgener, who owns Mike’s Gym at Bonsall, Calif., said about his former student.
Shankle led the men’s MSU Weightlifting Club to its fifth Collegiate National Championship this spring with record-breaking lifts in the “clean and jerk,” “snatch” and total (combined) in the 231-pound (105 kg) weight class.
Shankle hoisted 341 pounds (155 kg) in the “snatch” and 422.2 pounds (192 kg) in the “clean and jerk.”
A “clean and jerk” is the type of lift in which the lifter raises the bar from the ground to his shoulders then pushes it in the air above his head. A “snatch” is when the athlete raises the bar from the ground up over his head in one motion. Both lifts look extremely difficult to accomplish – especially if the bar has 400 pounds on it.
“It’s a very hard, technical lift to get down,” Shankle said about both lifts. “The ‘snatch’ is a little bit more difficult, technical-wise. You’ve got to have good timing, good speed, flexibility, agility combined with strength and courage to go underneath that kind of weight.”
Shankle is nowhere near satisfied, though, with what he has accomplished so far.
“I broke some records,” he said. “That was then. I don’t really pay attention to those now, because if you say, ‘Well, I did that,’ you’re never going to get better. The goal is to get to the Olympics in 2008. My dream since I was born is to compete in the Olympic games.”
Shankle said he thinks he must lift a combined 781 pounds (355 kg) at the Senior National Championship at Cleveland on May 6-9 in order to qualify for the World Championship.
Pendlay said Shankle is an “absolute animal.”
“The guy has got a lot of natural talent,” Pendlay said. “He is a very strong guy, strong mind, strong body. He has gotten to the top in a very, very short time. Most people take much longer than that to get to where he is. I really think that Donny is going to go a lot further than he has now.”
Mark Rippetoe, USA Weightlifting coach and owner of the Wichita Falls Athletic Club, said Shankle is “stronger, pound for pound, than anyone else on the MSU weightlifting club right now” and has the potential to compete in this sport for 15 to 20 more years.
“There’s no telling what he can do,” Rippetoe said. “Donny’s limitation is his own brain.”
Rippetoe has allowed the MSU lifters to train at the WFAC, as they currently have no place to train on campus, and he said Shankle is there “all the time” training. He said Shankle needs to improve his speed and explosiveness, but he also said Shankle has the numbers to be a resident athlete at the Olympic Training Center “very soon.”
“He is a genetic freak,” Rippetoe said of Shankle. “The guy’s ‘clean and jerking’ over 400 pounds. There aren’t many Americans who can do that. And he’s doing it slow, which means that if he has the capacity to improve his explosion just a little bit, then he’s national championship material. There’s no doubt about that. Donny’s got very few physical limitations. Donny’s challenge is maintaining his eye on the prize.”
Burgener’s son, Casey, is a current resident at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the reigning senior national champion.
“I told my son, Casey, that he’d better watch out for Donny Shankle,” Burgener said. “Donny is passionate about his improvement. Donny worked hard at the iron game at a very young age.”
Burgener said Shankle’s passion, motivation and work ethic separate him from other lifters he has trained.
Shankle began lifting weights when he was 9 years old and could bench press 385 pounds by age 15.
“It was a little dumbbell that my dad had given me,” Shankle said. “Growing up, I built my own squat rack. I used to grow up watching the Strongmen competitions on ESPN and just loved it. I like picking up heavy things. Some guys get a rush sitting in a car going from 0 to 60, some guys get a rush playing video games, and I don’t understand that. My rush is weightlifting.”
Shankle said concentration is important, but he considers discipline to be the key trait for a weightlifter to have.
“If you’re going to get good in weightlifting,” he said, “you need to come train, practice consistently every day.
“We compete in this gym (WFAC) every day, not for money or for prestige. We do it just because we like it. We like the feeling of picking up that bar and putting it up over our heads. It gives us a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride.”
Shankle no doubt learned his discipline from being a Marine.
He joined the Marine Corps upon graduating early from John Ehret High School in Marrero, La., where Marshall Faulk and Kordell Stewart graduated, in January 2000. Shankle’s wife, Meiko, also an MSU student, was in the Marines at the time, as well. They were both stationed at Camp Commando in Kuwait in 2002.
When Operation Iraqi Freedom began, Shankle was forced to leave his wife behind as he advanced into Iraq.
“March 19, 2003, I was talking with my wife next to one of the billeting tents just having a conversation,” Shankle recalled. “And all of a sudden – boom! A scud went off. Luckily, it did not go off the way it was supposed to. Instead of taking out a 500-meter radius, it took out maybe a 20-meter radius. It was just chaos on the camp after that. I got in my Humvee, I told my wife I loved her and I just ripped-ripped away. I had a job to do. If I didn’t do my job, people would die.”
Shankle got into weightlifting when he was surfing the Internet one day at what was once Saddam Hussein’s 38th palace in Babylon, and found Mike’s Gym listed on a website. He recognized that the gym was close to the base he was stationed at in California.
“When I got back from Iraq, about four or five months after the war started, I got on a bus and went out there. I told the coach I’d like to give it a try, and it worked out pretty good.”
 Shankle had to go through some harsh situations in his life even before the war. His mother died when he was 16 years old, and when Shankle was in Kuwait, his father died.
“I had to grow up real fast,” Shankle said. “I compete for them. When I’m on the platform, I say a prayer: ‘This is for you, Mom. This is for you, Dad.’”
However, through all of the difficult situations Shankle has encountered, he has tried to use it to his advantage in weightlifting.
“I think it’s made me mentally stronger,” he said. “When I go on the platform, there’s more on the line for me.”
“He has seen things that the normal individual has not seen,” Burgener said. “Donny will put all this into perspective and make it work to his advantage. Marines work that way.”
Burgener said he expects his son, Casey, and Shankle to be in the top two or three to go the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
“I learned from Donny,” Burgener said. “Donny is one of the best athletes that I have ever worked with.”