VOL. CXVIII, NO. 106
DAILYBAROMETER.COM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2016 OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Final Four festivities
OSU club cyclist dies in bike accident By Riley Youngman News Editor
ADAM WOOD | THE DAILY BAROMETER
The Oregon State womenʼs basketball team returned to Corvallis Tuesday, bringing back the Dallas Regional Championship trophy. The team was in good spirits as many laughs and cheers were shared amongst the crowd and players.
Team returns to Corvallis, ready to face UConn in Final Four Matchup By Michael Kiever Sports Reporteer
The OSU women’s basketball team gathered in front of hundreds of fans to celebrate the monumental achievement According to OSU radio announcer Mike Parker, it was one of the greatest days in Oregon State athletic history. And the OSU women’s basketball team showed up late. Fresh off an airplane from Dallas, the OSU women’s basketball arrived back in Corvallis about an hour after hundreds of Beaver fans had gathered in Parker Plaza in front of Reser Stadium to celebrate Oregon State’s first Final Four berth. The Beavers defeated Baylor 60-57 Monday night in the Elite Eight.
The Beavers looked like movie stars as they got off the bus at Parker Plaza, taking in a raucous welcome from the fan base. Fans cheered and waved pictures of the players’ faces as the team took the stage. It was a fitting show of support from a fan base that had the team’s back all year long. “You don’t have to win every game to get support at Oregon State, but when you do, just look around,” head coach Scott Rueck said, pointing out to the crowd and eliciting cheers. “We don’t just do this for us. We understand who we represent and we take that seriously.” Several players had the chance to speak on stage during a surprisingly revealing Q&A session with OSU broadcaster Ron Callan. Senior
guard Jamie Weisner admitted that she slept with the Final Four trophy, and Senior Deven Hunter professed that it was the team’s ultimate dream since her freshmen year to make the Final Four. “It’s not a dream anymore,” Hunter said. “It’s an amazing opportunity to get to play the best team in the country.” As a whole, the rally served as both a tribute to the team as well as a thank you to the fans. OSU recorded an average attendance of 4,356 fans per game at Gill Coliseum, while the teams they faced on the road had an average attendance of 2,421 fans per game. OSU president Ed Ray and
OSU vs UConn Date: April 3, 2016 Time: 3 p.m. PST Where: Indianapolis, Indiana
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29-year-old Albany resident and Oregon State University graduate student Randall Fox died last Saturday after losing control of his road bicycle while riding downhill and colliding with a guardrail. Fox was competing for the OSU Cycling club team near Auburn, Washington at the University of Washington Omnium when he crashed. According to Steve Clark, the Vice President University Relations and Marketing at OSU, Fox was a Ph.D. student focusing in thermal fluid sciences. “Members of the Oregon State community are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Randall,” Clark said in a statement from the university. “Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with Randall’s wife, members of the cycling team, his friends and his OSU colleagues.” Fox is survived by his wife Leslie Fox, his parents Greg and Judy Fox, in-laws Rosemary and Paul Minner, and his siblings Jana and Brian Fox. “He was at peace and surrounded by his wife, Leslie and immediate family at his passing,” Fox’s family released in a statement. The family has asked for privacy at this time. “He always offered to provide office hours for classes in which he was the graduate teaching assistant,” Fox’s professors said in the statement from the university. “If another faculty member needed anything, Randall was the first to volunteer. He just recently spent all day pulling together calibration equipment for another faculty member’s students.” Sentiments regarding Fox’s kind hearted nature and passion for cycling were echoed by his club teammates as well. One of Fox’s teammates, Rutger Farry, a junior in computer science, met Fox through the club and raced was in the same racing category as him. Farry was behind Fox when the accident occurred. Farry described the incident, saying himself and a competitor from another university saw Fox lose control of his bike and hit his head on the guardrail. Farry and the other racer immediately stopped and ran back up the hill to Fox’s side. According to Farry, Fox and others were trying to catch up to the main group when the crash happened. “There was a car following us, a race car, and there was a ski patrol lady who knew first aid, and another man who called 911,” Farry said. “The hill we were on was really steep.” Those in the car and Farry has been on the Oregon State Cycling club team for the last year, but has not began competitively racing consistently until the last few months. This is the first accident of this kind he has seen or heard of while racing. “How fickle life is,” Farry said. “Randall was a great guy and I was looking forward to many more races with him.” According to his cycling computer and those of his teammates and competitors, Farry estimates that Fox was travelling more than 50 mph at the time of the crash. Farry said Fox was wearing a helmet, as is required by the collegiate rules. Fox was airlifted from the scene of the accident by helicopter, and was later pronounced dead at the hospital. “Holding his hand as the paramedics arrived was the saddest and most power-
See Fox, Page 4
OSU CAPS: 5th floor Snell Hall 541-737-2131 walk-in consultations M-F 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. Parking availability, NEWS, PAGE 2 Where are they now?, SPORTS, PAGE 6 Letter to the Editor, Tuition hikes, FORUM, PAGE 7