Last season, the Wildcats went five games into their Pacific 10 Conference season before they got their first win.

This year the Pac-10 season hasn't even started and the Wildcats are off to a rough start öö despite having a 3-1 record.

Going into their first Pac-10 game this weekend against No. 8 Oregon, the Arizona injured list is longer than · well, its just long. And even the starting lineups resemble a MASH unit. [Read article]

The story, or lack thereof, behind the shaking of the keys

Ryan Slack focuses his attention elsewhere,Jim Livengood thinks it's the greatest thing in the world and Clarence Farmer thinks it's not loud enough.

It's key shaking: Probably 75 percent of the fans do it during every kickoff at UA home football games, but the tradition's origins are murky at best.

Not even Livengood, Arizona's athletic director, knows how it started. [Read article]

Since the day Bob Huggins was hired to coach the Cincinnati basketball team, graduation rates have been one of the biggest hot-button issues in college sports.

After all, what better way to fill the sports pages than with stories about how these athletes ÷ especially basketball players ÷ are simply "using" colleges as a minor-league pit stop for the pros? The entire dialogue was laced with latent racism, because graduation rates had been a problem in collegiate baseball for years. As soon as the vast majority of student athletes leaving early became football and basketball players ÷ and were predominantly black ÷ it became a problem that might eventually destroy college sports, if not the world, if one believed what was said. [Read article]

No one will ever say the women's soccer team gives up in the face of adversity.

After dropping two games in a row, the Wildcats (4-3-1) struck back last weekend by dismantling Belmont 10-0 and barely allowing previously nationally ranked Kentucky to slip by 2-1.

"This was our finest hour as a team," head coach Cathy Klein said. "We were well-organized and we were dangerous."

On Saturday, Arizona took the field in Nashville, Tenn., against an opponent that UA had never faced, Belmont (0-8-0). [Read article]

The UA women's tennis team opened its 2002 fall season over the weekend with a dominant team performance, including several impressive individual accomplishments at the Rice Invitational Tournament in Humble, Texas.

UA sophomores Maja Mlakar and Dianne Hollands both advanced to the individual championship match Sunday.

Hollands, the 85th-ranked player in the nation, upset her teammate and 13th-ranked Mlakar in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, to claim the top-flight championship. [Read article]

Q: What is the average height of Arizona gymnasts?

A: 5'3"