Portland Observer
The Portland Trailblaaera by defeating
Denver 93 91 at home Friday night
clinched the beat record in the NB A thus
assuring them the home court advantage
in all play off series.
Portland, playing sloppily and Denver
following suit, finally capped a brilliant
season despite losing eleven of their last
fourteen games. Now it appears that the
hadlv needed momentum has finally
returned. W ith all hands healthy the
Blazers would seem to have a good shot
at repeating as W orld Champions. But.
realistically one has to believe that
forward Bobby Gross will not play again,
effectively this season.
Gross will be sorely missed, especially
if it should come down to a Philadelphia-
Portland final again. In this series Bobby
Graus is so vital because his perpetual
motion se e m s to take it's toll on the much
heralded D r. J.
Bill Walton has missed 22 games this
year and is still trying to prove that he's
durable enough to stand the 82 games the
pros play without sustaining a serious
injury.
W alton, of course, only plays w hen he
thinks he should play, and never plays
with pain. Now. it has been said all year
that Bill should be the NBA most
valuable player this year, and he just
might be selected. But when you select
an M V P for the Trailblazers...then Lionel
Hollins is the one. Hollins. “T rain ”, "The
Man,” “The glue.” w hatever you call him
has been the hub of the Blazer attack.
He's led the team in minutes played
(2.741). He's averaged 15.9 points while
leading the team in both assists and
steals. And when it comes to making the
dutch shot...nobody, I mean nobody does
it better. So when the voting is done for
M VP cast one for the “Train."
The defense minded Oakland Stompers
gave the Portland Timbers too much
room Saturday night allowing Archie
Roboostoff to score 30:58 into the game
as Portland shutout Oakland 1-0 in their
North American Soccer League opener,
Roboostoff scored the game winning
goal after taking a cross from W illy
Anderson on the right side. Roboostoff s
initial kick was rejected as Oakland goalie
Stop Messing made a sliding save but
f J e d to control the ball which rebounded
sons.
Look for the Lakers to come on strong
during the play offs. They've had a lot of
new faces this year and are now begin
ning to jell.
However, the lack of a
bonafide strong forward will keep them
from going all the way. Laker Coach
Jerry West often complains about his
hack court, and has repeatedly said that
the general position was his weakest
point.
Not so. The Lakers biggest problem is
at forward and it's there that they fail to
match up with the Blazers. Nuggets,
Sixer's, etc.
Seattle vs. Lakers, my pick L A in two
straight. Somes and Lakers were two of
the hottest teams in the NB A down the
stretch. The saying is that the cream,
oops Kareem always rises to the top and
Jahbar will do just that in the play-offs.
It's nice to see Portland getting so
much ink now-a-days. and good to see
them being compared with other great
NBA teams of the past.
Now the big eastern cities are finally
realizing that there's something in Ore
gon other than rain. Bill Walton, Maurice
Lucas and Lionel Hollins are rapidly
becoming household names. I t has been
said that the Portland team plays good
team ball and that they didn't have a
genuine superstar. W ell, if those three
just mentioned aren't superstars then...
who is?
^3^
She’s pregnant.
She’s deserted.
She needs help.
She should call
Prep Scores
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In the second half the Timbers kept the
crowd of 10,554 alive with continued
attacks on goal but the efforts proved
fruitless.
Timbers Roboostoff and Best kept the
pressure applied from the forward posi
tions with repeated shots on goal, in
cluding a cross from midfielder Stew art
Scullion to Best that sent both Best and
Messing to the turf. Portland outshot the
Stompers 30 to 11.
Late in the game Oakland's offense
showed itself briefly. W ith little more
than four minutes to piay OSMands Sam
Rosenthal almost tied it but Tim ber Brian
Gant was there to safely head it away.
Oakland's lack of pressure in the first
half wasn't part of the game plan accord
ing to Stomper coach M irko Stojanovich.
"We made them look more offensive in
the first half. For no reason the defense
moved back in the first half and gave
them a lot of space. In the second we
began attacking a little more," Stojano
vich concluded.
The Stompers played without the
services of two forwards. Andy McCul
loch from England and West German
Charlie Moroskc, while Portland is three
men short of filling their roster.
The next Tim ber home game is Satur
day. April 15th against the San Diego
Sockers.
Benson 7, Marshall 4
Madison 10, Cleveland 4
Grant 7. Franklin 6
Central Catholic 8, Jesuit 0
Boy* Track
Madison 92’/t, Grant 52*/>
Cleveland 83. Lincoln 59
Jackson 99. Wilson 44
Benson 111. Washington 32, Roosevelt 30
G irl* Track
Grant 82, Madison 45
Lincoln 77, Cleveland 50
Jackson 68. Wilson 60
Monroe 53, Roosevelt 48. Washington 40
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FRED’S PLACE
Presents
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TALKING BOOK
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51J and Johnson a t 51.9. Madison made it four straight with a 92*/« to 52*/i win over
Grant.
Jackie Jackson led the G n a t girls to an 82-45 win over Madison as she led in the
100-yard dash, the 220 and anchored the winn ing relay team.
Grambling public relations director retires
G R A M B L IN G - Collie J. Nicholson,
whose promotion ability lifted a small,
southern Black college and its athletic
teams from total obscurity to interna
tional fame and respect, announced his
retirem ent from Grambling State U n iver
sity.
Nicholson is leaving his post as public
relations director at the university after
31 years, his service at Grambling inter
rupted only one tim e for one year in 1957
to take a fling at public relations work in
California.
A native of W innfield, Louisiana, N i
cholson first came to Grambling as a
student in 1942 and was a self-described
“good field, no-hit" second baseman on
the baseball team. He was a Marine
combat correspondent photographer d ur
ing W orld W ar I I , serving much of his
time with a M arine reconnaissance unit in
the South Pacific.
Nicholson returned to Grambling by
happenstance after the war.
He was
enroute to school in Wisconsin and
stopped by Grambling to visit President
R .W .E . Jones, who retired last year after
51 j—ars at Grambling, 41 of those years
as top administrator.
Jones assumed Nicholson was back at
Grambling to resume his studies and as
Nicholson put it, “Prez had always
treated me like a son, so how could I tell
him I was enroute to enroll at some other
school." So he w ent to a dormitory,
unpacked his meager belongings - and
stayed.
Nicholson handled some sports publi
city as a student and joined the college’s
public relations staff upon graduation in
1948.
Nicholson’s first tool to gain national
prominence for Grambling came in the
form of a big, burly fullback named Paul
(Tank) Younger, who was to become in
1949 the first player from a Black college
in the professional ranks. Younger went
on to fame with the Loa Angeles Rams,
earning all-pro distinction as both an
offensive running back and defensive
linebacker.
There followed a long parade of Gramb
ling athletic stars to the professional
ranks, now numbering more than 150.
Other earlier ones included W illie Davis
of l ii i Green Bay Packers, Buck Bucha
nan and Ernie Ladd of the Kansas City
Chiefs in football, and Bob Hopkins of the
Syracuse Nationals and W illis Reed of the
New York Knicks in basketball. The late
Stone Johnson, an Olympic sprinter, also
helped propel Grambling into the national
spotlight.
Grambling’s marching band appeared
at halftime for an American Football
League playoff game in 1964 and that set
off a continuing parade of appearances
around the nation and on national televi
sion for that fast stepping, gyrating musi
cal unit.
Nicholson steered the Grambling foot
ball team into an appearance in Yankee
Stadium in New York City in 1968, a
series with Morgan State that earned
national network coverage by ABC in
1971. The image building for the rural
institution in Lousiana continued with an
appearance and victory over Sacramento
State 34-7 in the Pasadena Bowl in Cali
fornia, culminating the 1968 campaign.
Capitalizing on success, Nicholson soon
had national sponsors for a nationwide
highlight show of Grambling's football
games and immediately the school be
came known as “The Black Notre Dame”
and “The Pride of Black People E ve ry
where."
The highlight show" was shown at
varying times around the nation Satur
day night and Sunday mornings. Dw ind
ling attendance at services on Sundays
caused many preachers at Black churches
in the country to shift the hours of
worship to accommodate the Grambling
football highlight show.
A t various
times, national radio hookups have also
carried the Grambling games.
Nicholson's next move, working closely
with this noted coach, Eddie Robinson,
was to practically vacate the antiquated
and dilapidated home stadium and hit the
road with a globetrotting football team.
Big crowds, many times capacity, follow
ed the team into the Astrodome in
Houston, the Superdome in New Orleans,
the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, as
well as to other stadiums in such cities as
Los Angeles, Chicago, Kansas City,
Cleveland, D etroit, Washington, Nash
ville, and Pittsburgh,
N ext on Nicholson's agenda for Gramb
ling was overseas travel.
The band
appeared at a presidential inauguration
in Liberia representing the United States
while the football team played a series of
games with the University of Hawaii in
Honolulu and ventured on to Japan to
play the first collegiate regularly sche
duled game there.
Despite presently being on a first name
basis with television network presidents,
heads of advertising agencies and cor
porations, plus practically all of the
sports editors in the nation, Nicholson
well remembers the days of a segregated
society and a segregated press.
Grambling's first national attention
had to come through the country's net
work of Black newspapers and he still
pays tribute to w riters on those news
papers who first gave Grambling a
“break.”
W hile the team now travels by airline
charter, Nicholson vividly recalls less
comfortable trips. For instance, in 1946
the team left Grambling on a Tuesday to
play Morgan State in Baltimore. In those
days of segregation, rest stops, res
taurants and hotels were not readily
available for Black teams. The squad's
bus made stops at Tuskegee Institute In
Alabama, West Virginia State, and
Fayetteville State in North Carolina
enroute to play before less than 2,000
fans and lose by 46-7.
A fte r the lop-sided loss, Nicholson
recalls the trip back was even longer,
with the team arriving home the follow
ing Tuesday. As a student publicist then,
Nicholson rode in the back of the bus,
using football helmets for a seat.
Nicholson says he is not leaving be-
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cause there are no longer any goals to
accomplish at Grambling. He still plans
to be in the promotion area, starting a
public relations firm in Shreveport in
conjunction with Lousiana State Repre
sentative Alphonse Jackson.
And never one to dilly-dally, Nicholson
says, “I may be retirin g but I ’ll be in my
office in Shreveport Saturday morning
ready for business."
THE BLUE PENGUIN
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back to Roboostoff for the score.
Portland was on the attack throughout
the first half with several near misses. A t
one point Tim ber midfielder John Bain
booted a hard straight shot from 25
yards out that rebounded off the goal
support. Clyde Best fielded the rebound
and sent a shot on goal just wide to the
rig h t
Page 5
Portlsnd has definitely established
their supremacy over the Lakers boating
them nine straight times over two sea
Timbers stomp Oakland
by Richard O T o o le
Thursday, April 13. 1978
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