On Our Board:
Elizabeth Sullivan

Getting a fast start on an exciting year in sports

It's an extremely busy time to be filling in for our executive director, Dean Munro, but that means it's an exciting time for sports in San Jose.

Within the next two months our city will host five high-profile, high-impact events:

• The Amgen Tour of California will bring an international field of cyclists Feb. 21.
• The State Farm Pac-10 Conference Women's Basketball Tournament returns for the fifth consecutive year March 2.
• The California USA Wrestling Youth Tournament will pack more than a thousand athletes into the McEnery Convention Center on March 10.
• The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship West Regional will serve a slice of March Madness to the nation from our city March 22 and 24.
• The USA Hockey Girls'/Women's National Championships at Logitech Ice on the last two weekends of March will be the largest hockey tournament ever staged in California.

Out of breath? Don't be. Wait until you see what we've got lined up for the rest of 2007.

Patricia Ernstrom
Acting Executive Director

America's premier cycling event – the Amgen Tour of California from San Francisco to Long Beach – starts Sunday when an international field of 144 athletes begin an eight-day, 650-mile trek through the state.

The 94.6-mile Stockton-San Jose stage of the Tour will finish at City Hall downtown about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21.

A preview of the San Jose stage will be Saturday's Webcor San Jose King-of-the-Mountain Ride, a participatory event beginning at 10 a.m. from City Hall. Local riders on this 27-mile ride of a lifetime will do the Tour's tortuous Sierra Road climb – the most difficult mountain stretch that the pros will face in their competition.

More information about the King-of-the-Mountain Ride is here. The ride benefits Fit for Learning, a Santa County Schools initiative that addresses the crisis of childhood obesity, encourages physical activity and healthy nutrition among elementary school students.

The San Jose Sports Hall of Fame will induct its 13th class of athletes and coaches in the fall. Inductees range from professional athletes such as Brent Jones of the 49ers to San Jose State and Olympic judo coach Yosh Uchida. Each has made an extraordinary contribution to the local sports world

Now is your opportunity to make a contribution by nominating a worthy candidate.

Established in 1995, the Hall of Fame usually inducts a class of four people who developed their skills in Santa Clara County, played or coached for a county team or school, represented the county as an individual athlete or contributed in some extraordinary way to the greater San Jose community in a sports-related program or project.

Nominees are being accepted online through March 5 here.

The State Farm Pac-10 Conference Women's Basketball Tournament has become a fixture on the San Jose sports calendar each year, and the Sports Authority is working to ensure that this premier women's sports event remains at HP Pavilion.

The tournament, which determines the Pac-10's automatic entry in the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship, returns for the fifth consecutive year March 2-5. It is set for San Jose again in 2008, and the Sports Authority recently submitted its bid to host the tournament through 2011.

Since the Pac-10 moved the tournament to HP Pavilion in 2003, the Sports Authority and the Local Organizing Committee, headed by former Mayor Susan Hammer, have raised more than $134,000 to distribute nearly 8,000 tickets to local youth. The LOC has already surpassed this year's $40,000 fund-raising goal.

Nine years after women's hockey gained recognition as an Olympic sport, the growth of the game has brought two huge tournaments to Logitech Ice at San Jose.

More than a thousand players will participate, and the event will account for more than 4,500 room nights in local hotels for two weekends in March. The USA Hockey Girls'/Women's National Championships involves 78 teams, the largest hockey tournament ever held in California.

The Senior A, B and C divisions compete March 22-25. The girls' 12-, 14-, 16- and 19-and-under divisions will compete March 28-April 1.

The Visa Championships have been one of the most requested tickets by callers to the Sports Authority since USA Gymnastics announced it had awarded its 2007 men's and women's national championships to San Jose.

Now they're on sale.

Tickets to the Visa Championships on Aug. 15-18 are available online at www.ticketmaster.com, at the HP Pavilion ticket office or by phone at (408) 998-8497. Here are the full details on package pricing, event schedules and more.

The 2007 Visa Championships in HP Pavilion at San Jose and the McEnery Convention Center will offer a preview of the U.S. hopefuls for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Tickets sold out long ago, but the big event comes in March when – for the third time in 10 years – San Jose's HP Pavilion is the site of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship West Regional.

CBS Sports will televise all three games on March 22 and 24. Thousands of fans from across the country will visit the city for the tournament. The West Regional winner advances to the Final Four in Atlanta on March 31 and April 2.