Opening Ceremony from inside TI see the photos here.
A good time was had by all as we hosted 5 Special Olympics athletes - more than any other company.
Tug-O-War (7th place tie)
Late male no-shows doomed us. We were short of folks and under the weight limit - a hole we couldn't dig out of. Great effort from the folks who were there, but we lost 2 matches and ended in a tie for 7th place. 0 points. Lesson learned - have plenty of alternates.
Softball (3rd place)
The team got better each inning and rolled over Dr.Pepper/7UP for our first victory. The team ended up with bronze hardware, a 3rd place, and 6 valuable team points.
Racquetball (1st place)
TI earned it's first gold medal of the games as Julie England and Maria Mott defeated Nortel for the Women's Title. Bill Breden and Jim Evans lost to Nortel in the finals to take the silver medal. Julie England then paired up with Steve Enty for another gold medal over Nortel and gave TI the event victory!!! 10 points.
5K (1st place)
The rain cleared just in time and the TIers poured it on the competition for a solid win. Luke Luo (17:48), Jim Dietz (17:55), and Scott Steffen (18:30) teamed up with Becky Riggle (21:01), Beth Shockley (23:29), and Margaret O'Brien (23:34) to capture the gold medal with a combined time of 2:02:02 (a new meet record). Other TIers ran the race in impressive times as well: Dianna Hager (23:53), Brian Schmidt (19:46), and Mark Crojnaeger (22:16) helped insure the team victory. 10 points.
Bass Fishing (3rd place)
The TI Team of Brian Wedge, Ron McMasters, Steve Whaley, and Travis Wick reeled in 3 fish totaling 7.34 lbs and capture a bronze medal. Another 6 points.
Miniature Golf (2nd place)
Toni and Randy Andrews took the silver medal in the Mixed. Toni and Mandy Diercks took the bronze in the Women's, and the Men's Team (Randy Andrews and Matt Soucek) took a 4th to add up to a 2nd place overall finish and 8 points.
Horseshoes (5th place)
The Women (Calli Kent and Dana Norton) took 5th on Tuesday night. The Mixed Team (Randy Andrews and Dana Norton) lost a very close first match 15-14 and took 5th in the Mixed. The Men (Bob Graham and Steve Mitchell) took 4th on which gave us an overall 5th for the event and 3 TI team points.
Tennis (5th place)
The Women (Lee Ann Baker and Stefanie Kincaid) and Mixed (Ajay Patel and Aline Sadate) teams lost, but fought back through the losers bracket. The Men (Ajay Patel and Brian Kincaid) dominated their first game and won a close match in the second round. The Men finally lost a very close match to Alcatel, then won to go to the championship. They lost to Alcatel in the championship and took the silver medal. Overall 5th for 3 more team points.
Soccer (5th place)
The team rebounded well from their opening night loss to Nortel (2-0) and racked up an 8-0 win in the second game. They then lost a close contest 2-1. That placed us tied for 5th for another 3 points toward the team total.
Basketball (1st place)
This one was sweet to watch. These guys played well as a team and played hard on defense. They rolled through the brackets undefeated for the gold medal and a big 10 points for the overall total.
Bike Race (1st place)
Awesome. Top 2 men's and top 2 women's times add to determine your team score. We won by almost 5 minutes. Frazer Worley (21:30 for 15K) and Dirk Fruhling (21:48) finished 2nd and 3rd overall. To seal the victory TI had the first 3 women across the line. Kelly Stark (23:43 - 1st women, 12th overall) and Melissa Hewson (25:39) dominated the other women and Kathy Morse was right there in 26:03 as an insurance policy. Teamwork played a big part with Jason Cook (21:53), Les Stark (23:43), Dave Parks (25:38), Bruce McWilliams (25:39), and Clark Hise (26:04) all contributing to the victory. Another 10 points for the TI Team.
Billiards (1st place)
The Billiards Team dominated the competition and won the Mixed (Tom Martin and Giselle Whitworth) and Women's (Michelle Boyer and Carrie Gehlbach), and took the bronze in the Men (Tom Martin and Ali Ahmadi) for an overall 1st place in the event. TI picked up 10 points and Nortel finished 3rd overall and picked up 6 points. In the overall standings, TI climbed on top by 2 points (79-77) with 9 events to go.
Golf (7th place)
Only 8 strokes (out of 36 holes) separated 1st from 7th. We had a 128 total (64 by each of our two teams) but were on the bottom of that tight scoring stack.
Bowling (5th place)
Team captain Joe Scott had a 3 game total of 635 (3rd best overall) as the team bowled to a 5th place finish.
Darts (1st place)
Maybe the Darts team should form a company to manufacture steppers. Showing precision and alignment that would make Nikon and ASML jealous they won all 3 contests. On Monday night Suszi Gagnon and Susan Dixon went 8-0 as they zipped through the bracket for the gold. On Tuesday night the Mixed Team of Suszi Gagnon and George Gata darted through the bracket for a gold. Then on Wednesday night the Men, Steve Gagnon and George Gata, put the icing on the cake and took the gold as well. George Gata threw a ton eighty. For those who aren't familiar with the dart term "ton eighty" that simply means George threw, in one turn (three darts), THREE triple 20s. It's the most you can hit on the board, period. Excellent job by team captain Tom Form. Nortel finished 3rd overall.
Table Tennis (3rd place)
The Men's Team of Mark Ma and Mouli Vaidyanathan took the silver medal. The Women's team of Amanda Phan and Fengchun Duan took 4th and the Mixed Team of David Underwood (team captain) and Amanda Phan took 4th for an overall bronze medal in Table Tennis. Good job team. It was fun to watch. Just as TI did in darts, Nortel won all 3 contests to take the overall gold.
TI and Nortel pulled out away from the tight field with just 5 events remaining. Nortel was up 101 - 98 for the overall title.
Volleyball (7th)
The TI Mighty Oaks ran into the Nortel Giant Spiking Sequoias in the first round and it wasn't pretty. The TI team rebounded and played a better game on the second night, but were still defeated.
Nortel finished 1st in volleyball and pulled ahead of TI by 13 points in the overall standings. It will be tough to catch them, but we'll give it our best.
42 (Dominos) (1st place)
I don't know anything about this game, but thank goodness team captain David Underwood did. He located some great players who bagged the gold medal. Jim and Pam Barr were one team and Bob Graham and Richard Mach were the other.
Nortel took 4th, so we closed the gap back to 9 points (117 to 108).
Track and Field (1st place)
When you are the current 3 time national champion in track and field you are expected to win, but injuries and business travel caused a bit of concern. Turned out to be no problem as people stepped in and filled the roles to dominate the track and field competition. The TI Team scored 82 (out of a total possible max of 92) and the second best team, Sprint, could only muster 52 points. Marlon Thomas (11.53) and Tim Earl (11.62) finished 2nd and 3rd in the 100m. Mariquita Gordon (13.79) and Kelly Stark (13.87) finished 2nd and 3rd in the women's 100m. Aaron Hall won the long jump (20'4" - new meet record) and Gashaw Ayalew took second (19'6"). Mariquita Gordon dominated the women's long jump (16' 1" - new meet record) and Beth Shockley took 3rd (14'8"). Then TI won the 4x100 in 49.93 seconds (Mariquita Gordon, Kelly Stark, Randy Wight, and Marlon Thomas) and the 4x400 in 4:03.77 (Beth Shockley, Beth Michalak, Tim Earl, and Marlon Thomas). Great work team.
Nortel took third. Two events to go and we're only down by 4 points (122 to 118).
Swimming (1st place)
Our swimmers were practically unbeatable. Derek McEachern took 4 gold medals. He won all 3 individual men's events and anchored the winning relay. Remember this is a team sport and the rest of the team was just as impressive. Derek's wife Jennifer took home a gold and silver. Dawn Wolfe took home 2 golds and a silver. Kristen Norton took home a silver. MJ Blasiak took a gold and bronze. Overall the team scored 93 points out of a possible 118 max. Second place scored only 40. Great job by team captain Lara Wallentine and coach Greg Treadway.
With just 2 swimming events remaining Nortel was in 3rd overall, but picked up points in Men's Breaststroke and the 200M Relay to pull up to second place overall in swimming. With one event remaining TI was down by just 2 points (130 to 128).
Flag Football (1st place)
The flag football team went undefeated, but it was a close call in game 2. We won our first game and Nortel won theirs by forfeit when the opposition failed to show up. TI and Nortel met on Saturday morning with the championship on the line. The game ended in a tie and we went to overtime. The overtime ended in a tie and we won the tie breaker rule by something like 6 yards!!!!! We moved on and beat Alliance while Nortel got another forfeit win in the losers bracket. Nortel then beat Alliance to move back into the championship game against us. We soundly defeated them 26-0 to take the gold medal and the 10 team points. Nortel finished second in flag football.
And the Winner is . . .
Texas Instruments ended in an overall tie with Nortel. There are no tie breakers listed in the rules so we were named co-champions. Quite an amazing run for our rookie year. 10 of our teams won gold medals and accounted for 100 of our points. The other 11 teams accounted for 38 points, so we have plenty of room for improvement in 2003. The final Division A standings were:
TI - 138
Nortel - 138
Sprint - 114
Ericsson - 106
Alcatel - 98, Fujitsu - 54 , Alliance Data - 51, Dr Pepper - 30
Most importantly, the TI athletes donated over $2,300 to Special Olympics.
TI Team Coordinator: Paul Westbrook
