Teen prodigy Ko says no to turning pro - coach

New Zealand's teenage golfing sensation Lydia KoSnapback Hats On Sale will resist pressure to turn professional following an eye-catching performance at the Women's Australian Open, her coach said on Monday.

The 15-year-old, already the world's No 1 amateur and the youngest tournament winner in US LPGA history, came close to upsetting South Korea's Shin Ji-yai before a poor final round saw her relegated to third.

Her form at the Royal Canberra Golf Club, which included a career-best 10-under-par 63 in the opening round, has a number of pundits, including Tiger Woods's former caddy Steve Williams, calling for her to turn professional.

"There's no negative on going pro in my mind," WilliamsNFL Snapbacks said of his fellow Kiwi, who was born in South Korea and moved to New Zealand at the age of six.

"There is nothing I can think of to suggest she shouldn't play on the LPGA Tour," he told the New Zealand Herald.

"These days she could continue to study while playing. Let's face it, she already plays a schedule where she misses plenty of school."

But Ko's coach, Guy Wilson, said the prodigy had no intention of cashing in on her growing profile and was content to remain an amateur for the time being.

"She hasn't got any new plans for it to move from being a game to a job," he told Radio New Zealand.

"In our plans, she's probably got about a year andCheap Snapback For Sale a half to go (before turning professional)."

Arsenal's profit puts heat on Wenger

Arsene Wenger will face renewed calls to splash out on new signings after Arsenal announced a pre-tax profit of 17.8 million pounds ($26.8 million) in its half-yearly financial results on Monday.

Wenger has been criticized repeatedly in recent years for failing to spend big money on new players while Arsenal's results on the field continue to suffer.

The Premier League club's latest healthy financial report, Cheap New Era Hats to the end of November 2012, will only add to the pressure on the Gunners' boss to loosen the purse strings at the Emirates Stadium after eight years without a trophy and embarrassing exits from the FA and League Cups against lower league opposition this season.

The profit, down on 49.5 million pounds for 2011 and achieved by the 24 million pound sale of Robin van Persie to Manchester United, accompanies an increased figure of 123.3 million pounds in cash reserves.

The Arsenal Supporters' Trust claimed the figures highlight the need for the club to spend more money on the team.

"These figures contain few surprises. They show that Arsenal Beanie Hats yet again made a profit from the sale of their best players and that the club has large cash reserves," an AST spokesman said.

"Arsenal fans have contributed to this financial health through paying some of the highest ticket prices in world football. AST members want to see this money used for more, and better, investment in the team".

However, rather than promise to break the bank for star players, Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood insisted the club's financial stability was the foundation of their regular presence in the Premier League's top four and the Champions League.

"Our ability to compete at the top of the game here and in Europe LA Lakers Snapback is underpinned by our financial performance which gives the club strength and independence," Hill-Wood said.

Tennessee's lesson in pounding the zone

In Tennessee's bullpen in Knoxville, a string runs in front of home plate, set at a height a little above an invisible hitter's knees. It's something head coach Dave Serrano did at Cal State Fullerton, Cheap New Era Snapback Hats and he brought the practice with him when he took over the Volunteers last season.

"It shows the guideline of pitching at the bottom of the strike zone," Serrano says. "But if we're not gonna do that, then why have it?"

I called Serrano a day after he returned from Las Vegas for Tennessee's opening series at UNLV, and he was a little frustrated. In four games, his pitching staff walked 20 Rebels, NCAA Snapbacks a number that irritates a man who has always molded quality pitching staffs.

"The walks are disheartening to me," Serrano says. "But what hurt us more was the lack of quality pitches we were missing on. Our misses were misses no one would ever swing at.

"I'm going to hold them a little more accountable in bullpens this week. It's just committing to throwing strikes. Command of the strike zone is all about focus and mechanics. So I'll have a rule that if there's more than a certain number of pitches above the catcher's head, they'll be punished in a way that makes them realize, 'I gotta make the adjustment in one pitch, not three or four.'"

Serrano wasn't completely unhappy with his staff's performance last week. He actually was pleased with the majority of his pitchers overall, and he thought it was a positive experience that would help his team when No. 20 Arizona State visits this weekend.

As for the Sun Devils: Get your bats ready, Wholesale New Era Hats boys. There will be action in the zone.

Tony Gwynn's signature season

When at-bats boarded an Amtrak for hell, which every man's share will do in a 20-year career, Tony Gwynn rode them the opposite way.

There was no panic in being behind in the count, no fear, Cheap Beanie Hats as that green pasture out beyond shortstop, his safe place, always existed. Gwynn would wait on a tough pitch, whack it the other way and cackle down to first base with another single, one more of his 3,141 career knocks.

"I always knew I had the ability to let the ball get deeper," Gwynn says. "And no matter what happened, I could always hit it to left field."

If you want to understand something about Gwynn, you ask him about hitting. He is hitting. Large portions of his life, from Long Beach (Calif.) Poly High School to San Diego State to a Hall of Fame career spent entirely with the Padres, have been defined by the odd physics of a meeting between cylinder and sphere.

Hitting made Gwynn an All-American Aztec. Hitting made Gwynn a big leaguer. Hitting made Gwynn "Mr. Padre." And for 11 seasons now as San Diego State's head coach, Gwynn has been doing what he's done all his life: riding pitches the other way, taking his singles.

But what happens when, even in a seemingly relaxed place like San Diego, people start wanting a little more? What happens when university officials and boosters and fans ask for some of those singles to turn into doubles? And maybe, occasionally, some of those doubles to turn into triples and dingers?

San Diego doesn't love Tony Gwynn; it adores him, reveres him. And in his first 10 seasons, Gwynn's Aztecs made one NCAA regional appearance, coming in 2009 with pitcher and No. 1 MLB draft pick Stephen Strasburg. There's an uncomfortable marriage between those two things.

Eventually, winning underscores everything in sports. Even for the idolized and beloved, days on the job run dry once the wins do. Gwynn's life has been sports; he knows this.

"No question, you feel the heat," Gwynn says. "I do. I want to win. NFL Snapbacks We're trying to win. And at some point you have to win. But it ain't just that easy."

Gwynn's name hangs on the ballpark in which he coaches, and this provides him a deep reservoir of pride. He has a contract to coach through the 2014 season, and despite summer television work with the Padres and two surgeries in the past three years to treat cancerous tumors in his mouth, he says he's more committed than ever to coaching the Aztecs.

Yet, there's a sense Gwynn needs a signature season, a breakout for his program, soon. The Aztecs opened the 2013 season last weekend by sweeping No. 18 San Diego on the road, giving Gwynn and others hope that this season could be it, the one in which San Diego State builds on its 2009 success and moves forward, ascending into a higher class.

"I'm hoping this is that year," Gwynn says. "We have the right mix of talent, depth in the pitching staff. But you realize there's more to it than W's and L's. There's more to this job than just baseball."

Gwynn is right, of course. Nobody would say unequivocally that coaching college sports is solely defined by the cold truths spelled out by scoreboard lights.

But at some point ...

That's one of the lessons Gwynn has learned in his decade-plus at SDSU. There have been many of them. He was announced as Jim Dietz's successor before he even played his final game for the Padres in 2001. He had talked with his brother Chris about becoming a coach for years before that, and he went from a big league diamond to a college one without even dusting his uniform off. He anticipated what his new job would be like and then quickly realized he had undersold the challenge.

"I thought it was going to be easier than it has been," Gwynn says. "I thought kids should know more than they know. Little things: how to bunt, how to run the bases. After a couple years, it dawns on you that you have to work with them like they don't know anything. You have to teach them the things you want them to know. That was a shock to me coming from the major league game."

It took even longer for Gwynn to understand perhaps a coach's most critical job: recruiting. He didn't lack intelligence or an eye for talent, of course. He didn't lack hustle. His rug was pulled out from underneath by his own inexperience.

"It wasn't until five or six years ago did I understand what we needed to do," Gwynn says. "You need to find the right formula. At first, I thought we just needed to go out and get the best guys. But then the draft comes and you're left holding an empty bag."

Gwynn believes the recruiting work he and his staff have done is now beginning to pay off. He believes in the direction his Aztecs are headed. "We're getting good kids in here," Gwynn says. "I think we're on the right path."

But at some point ...

Healthy and energized, Gwynn is able to talk about his team and his tenure with self-awareness. He tells you what he learned about himself from fighting cancer. How it reminded him baseball flows unburdened through his veins, how it reinforced his appetite for teaching, how purely satisfying it feels to be called "Coach" again after being away from his team while undergoing treatments.

"I don't take that for granted," Gwynn says.

He also tells you about the stakes of this season, the expectations of his job. He's acutely aware of both.

No. 14 Oregon State comes to Tony GwynnSnapback Hats On Sale Stadium this weekend, and Gwynn giggles at the opportunity for his club to prove there's something real here, something tangible building off the San Diego shore.

Yes, at some point, Gwynn's Aztecs need to win consistently, and it's impossible to predict whether that trend is beginning. And it's impossible to predict what will happen if that trend doesn't surface soon.

Tony Gwynn is fine with all of that. Because here he stands, more than a decade into the gig, still believing a good pitch to hit is on the way.

Accomplished Donovan still owes us something

Landon Donovan made his first public comments since it was announced Sunday that he would return to the Los Angeles Galaxy in late March. But in the process, he sounded more Cheap Beanie Hats like a player who needs to retire than one who will be coming back from an extended break.

And if that is what Donovan's heart is telling him, that is perfectly fine. That is what his 14-plus years as the face of U.S. soccer have bought him. But what he is doing at present, essentially trying to have it both ways by missing training camp and the first two months of the MLS regular season, is damaging to his club and the U.S. national team and seems incredibly self-indulgent.

Donovan appeared at a forum at a USC journalism class Wednesday night, and many of his comments were tweeted by Jesse Xiao, a student in attendance. The record U.S. goal scorer said, among other things, that he does have an interest in once again playing for the U.S. national team "if given the opportunity." He added, "I was so exhausted from the weight of the past 15 years ... really the past 28 years."

Donovan, 30, later added that he will be spending the next 10 days in Cambodia.

It's a move that is more Ricky Williams than Lionel Messi, Tampa Bay Lightning Snapback and if social media is anything to go by -- and it is by no means a scientific survey -- then there are many willing to indulge Donovan's behavior. The thinking goes that Donovan's work at the forefront of the game here in the U.S. has earned him his sabbatical and that no one has the right to dictate what decisions the Galaxy attacker makes, especially if he's feeling burned out. "He doesn't owe us anything" is among the most common refrains.

Except Donovan does owe us something. From the moment he signed a professional contract, he agreed that in exchange for being paid handsomely to play soccer for a living, he would show up for things such as training camp and competitive matches. This is the bare minimum that is expected. Yes, Donovan has done much more than that over the years, giving countless clinics, interviews and PR bits. But Donovan is not asking to lessen his workload away from the field. He's demanding that he be allowed to step away from all of it, then come back at his convenience.

Is Donovan going about this in a malicious way? That has never been his style, and it's highly doubtful that is his intention here. He remains among the most thoughtful players in the game. But Donovan is also not making these decisions in a vacuum. His club is affected, as is the national team, and not for the better. There are important games coming up, critical ones in the case of the national team, which will face Costa Rica and Mexico next month. Donovan would no doubt help his team win.

But perhaps the bigger problem is the incredible double standard created by Donovan's behavior. Had David Beckham decided to miss the first two months of the MLS regular season because he had lost his passion for the sport, he would have been rightly excoriated by all involved. But Donovan deserves a free pass because of his long service to the game? It makes little sense and has the potential to cause problems down the road.

How this will be received by teammates currently slogging through training camp or club seasons in Europe is a headache that both Galaxy manager Bruce Arena and national team boss Jurgen Klinsmann will have to address going forward. Imagine being the player Donovan is replacing in the lineup, one who has done all the right things, made it through the drudgery of training camp, only to be told later that he has to sit in favor of another player whose commitment is in question. In the Darwinian world of professional soccer, that is a recipe for locker room discord if there ever was one.

This is not to minimize the demands of being Cheap Beanies a professional athlete. Yes, there are downsides to such a career, and the toll, both mental and physical, is extreme. But no one is forcing Donovan to play, and no one demanded that he sign a professional contract in the first place. All that is really required is for Donovan to decide what he is. Is he a retired soccer player or an active one?