An excerpt from today's Birmingham News below.  Seems to indicate that the bass students no longer care about coming to USM....200 people just attended one over here.

More From The Birmingham News   |   Subscribe To The Birmingham News


Bassmaster U lets amateurs go to school with the pros

Monday, January 30, 2006
MATTHEW GLENESKNews staff writer

AUBURN - Fifteen years ago, Mike Iaconelli made the two-hour drive from his home in New Jersey to Harrisburg, Pa., to learn tips and techniques from professional bass fishermen.

Twelve years later, he stood at the pinnacle of the sport, winning the 2003 Bassmaster Classic.

Whether the next Mike Iaconelli was seated in Room A113 of the Lowder School of Business at Auburn University Sunday is yet to be determined. But the same goals of the Bassmaster University program remain since Gary White established it in 1975 - to teach the sport at a grass-roots level across the nation and to provide unprecedented access to the sport's stars.

 Advertisement












on error resume next
plugin = ( IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.3")))
if ( plugin

"You can read magazines, you can look at video, but until you actually get in front of these guys and see and ask questions, that's a unique opportunity," Iaconelli said.

"What other professional sport can you do that in?" he said. "You can't go to a baseball clinic and talk to Barry Bonds. You can't go to a basketball clinic and talk to Allen Iverson face-to-face and have that kind of interaction, so that's awesome."

For the 12th consecutive year, Auburn played host to the two-day Bassmaster University over the weekend with six professional fishermen eager to teach the 200-plus participants the latest techniques in bass fishing and the best new equipment to load in the tackle box, among other topics...................