sports__
Collins jumps out of her frustrations
By Robert Collias
Of the Kmarald
Saturday at the NorPac Track
and-Field Championships,
Shari Collins could clear only
5-6 in the the high jump finals
in Pullman, Wash.
And it looked as if she had
finished another frustrating
season without living up to her
potential.
“I don’t know what was
wrong, but I just felt terrible,”
Collins said of her disappoin
ting performance in Pullman.
On Sunday, she found her old
rhythm. Collins went to
Hayward Field with some
friends and cleared 5-11 at a
special heptathlon meet, which
qualified her for the upcoming
NCAA Championships, Collins’
jump also solidified Oregon’s
team chances at the NCAA’s.
“I just went out there
(Hayward Field) to watch, and
then my friends convinced me
to jump,” Collins says. ‘‘There
wasn’t any pressure, and I’m
glad that I jumped.”
Collins admitted that she had
felt the pressure in Pullman. In
fact, the pressure has probably
been building on Collins since
she arrived on campus in 1982
as one of Oregon’s top recruits.
Collins was the state of
Oregon’s second six-foot high
jumper in history. In her junior
year, Collins cleared 6-0 for
Chiloquin High School, which
is in a small community 30
miles north of Klamath Falls.
Collins received a lot of fan
fare in Chiloquin. In her senior
year, Collins posted her third
straight Class A high jump title
as she cleared the 6-foot barrier
three more times. By the time
she arrived at Oregon, people
were expecting big things from
Collins.
“When I first got here, I really
wanted to do well,” Collins
says.
Collins started her career at
Oregon right on a positive note.
Emerald file photo
Shari Collins qualified in the high jump for the NCAA's Sunday at Hayward Field.
Holmes closes in on Marciano’s record
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Larry Holmes moved to
within one fight of Rocky Marciano's record
Monday night with a unanimous but hard
fought 15-round decision over Carl "The
Truth" Williams.
Holmes used his reknowned left jab. some
good rights to the head and body, and the sav
vy he has acquired in 15 years in the pro ring
to build his record to 48-0.
Marciano, the only heavyweight campion to
retire without having lost, was 49-0 when he
hung up his gloves at age 33 in 1956.
But while the 35-year-old Holmes was a
unanimous winner to retain his International
Boxing Federation title, he was very tired at
the end, his left eye was almost swollen shut
and at times he appeared tentative against his
25-year-old opponent, who went into the fight
with a 16-0 record.
Judge Jerry Roth scored it 143-142, and Al
Rothenbery and Paul Gibbs saw it 146-139, all
for Holmes, who was winning his 21st title
fight.
Holmes hurt Williams on a few occasions,
but when he did he was never able to put
together the kind of attack he needed to finish
The 6-foot-4 Williams, who weighed 215,
exhibited a fine left jab of his own and held his
own with Holmes, 222, through the first six
rounds, although he was cut above the left eye
in the third.
Williams had an extremely good round in
the fifth, when he brought roars from a crowd
of 6,046 at the Lawlor Events Center with five
or six shots to the head and body at about the
mintue mark. Then, with 45 seconds left,
Williams landed six or seven more shots.
She set the Oregon school
record in her first meet as a
Duck. Collins cleared 6-1 in the
1983 Portland Indoor.
But her glory was short-lived
at Portland. On Collins’ third
try at 6-3, she bruised her heel.
Then her troubles began. The
heel injury forced Colling to
redshirt the rest of her freshman
year.
Hopeful to come back strong
for her next season, Collins ran
into another roadblock — one
that almost ended her career.
While doing some strength
work in a long-jump drill dur
ing the summer, Collins tore her
anterior cruciate ligament in her
knee.
“Those kind of injuries can
be really bad,” said Mark
Stream, Oregon assistant track
coach for field events. “It was
lucky that the injury was to her
off leg. Because if it would have
been to her jumping leg, she
probably would never have
jumped again.”
Collins spent three months in
a cast and lost virtually all of
her season as she competed in
only three meets.
Collins found it hard to face
her injuries. She rarely takes off
the tights that cover her surgery
scars. In fact, Collins took her
sweats off for the first time in a
recent meet in Corvallis against
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Oregon State University. It was
the first time Collins had
jumped without her tights since
her injury.
“Kory Tarpenning (Oregon’s
top pole vaulter) told me that I
would never qualify for NCAA’s
unless I took them off,’’ Collins
says.
Collins took the sweats off,
but still failed to qualify as she
cleared 5-8, three and a half in
ches away from the NCAA
qualifying-standard of 5-11V2.
“That is the way the whole
season was going,” Collins
says. “I would feel really good,
but it would never quite be
there.”
Last Sunday it was finally
there as she cleared 5-1IV2.
Stream thinks that there is more
good things to come for Collins
and the Ducks.
“I think that Shari has had
that jump in her for a long
time,” Stream says. “The thing
is that she is only probably at 85
percent strength in her leg even
now.”
Now that the pressure is off,
Collins thinks she will do well
at the NCAA's in Austin, Texas
next week.
“It seems so weird to have
finally qualified,” Collins said.
“At NCAA’s, there will be a lot
of great jumpers, and I think the
competition will help me go
even higher.”
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