Attacks ground women’s teams

FAYETTEVILLE — Like thousands of other Americans, the Arkansas Lady Razorbacks golf team had its travel plans interrupted by Tuesday morning’s terrorist attacks that rocked New York and Washington.

The Lady Razorbacks were returning to Fayetteville from a tournament in Lincoln, Neb., when they learned of the attack.

“The team was making a connecting flight in St. Louis, and that flight had already been delayed for other reasons,” said Bill Smith, the women’s sports information director. “During that delay, they learned of what had happened, and the airport was evacuated a short time later.”

Smith said women’s athletic department officials were able to get in touch with assistant coach Adrienne Mucci by cell phone to confirm the team was safe. The team went to the home of a friend of the program near St. Louis, and two department staff members were dispatched in a van to pick up the team and bring it back to Fayetteville. The team was scheduled to arrive in Fayetteville late Tuesday night.

“We felt it was safer for us to send our people with our van to pick them up rather than have them try to get ground transportation from St. Louis,” Smith said.

The UALR women’s golf team participated in the same event. After competition ran long on Monday and caused the team to miss its return flight, UALR golfers rented a van in Omaha and drove back to Little Rock.

Arkansas women’s athletic director Bev Lewis is in Philadelphia, where she was taking part in NCAA Championships Committee meetings that were canceled following the attacks. Lewis is expected to return to Fayetteville by private plane as soon as such flights resume.

Smith said all student-athletes, coaches, department staff members and recruits who visited over the weekend were accounted for within an hour of the attacks.

Arkansas’ tennis, soccer and volleyball teams have home events scheduled for this weekend, but plans for those events are unclear.

“At this point, meetings are under way at the national and conference levels ... so it would be prudent to say that all plans are on hold,” Smith said. “No decisions have been made yet.

“We are most concerned about the safety of the student-athletes and the fans, and that’s what’s going to drive the decisions.”