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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 25, 1981)
Page 12 Portland Observer, November 25, 1981 Salvation A rm y Night at tha Wlntarhawka— The Portland Winter- hawks are supporting The Salvation Army's efforts to provide food for the needy at Christmas by designating December 19th as Salvation Army Nish, at the Winterhawks. On that night, children 14 and under will be admitted to the game against the Seattle Breakers free o f charge, so long as they donate 2 cans o f food to The Salvation Army. The game begins at 7:30 pm. Sports T a lk by Ron Sykes. Sports Editor /ïàt RENE L A C H E M A N N Better year Rene Lacheman, Seattle’ s second year manager, has vowed to have a better club than last year. Lache man, who took over the club from a beleaguered M aury W ills had the Mariners on an upswing midway through the season. “ We feel that we helped ourselves in the re-entry d ra ft by picking righthander Juaquin Andujar o f St. Louis, and lefty reliever Sid Monge o f C leveland.” Seattle’ s fin a l choice, Joe Rudi, o f Baker, O rc., should provide some much needed help at the plate. Archie G riffin , the only player to win two Heisman trophies, is w in ning few medals in business. The G riffin C o rp ., which operates an Ohio athletic shoe and apparel fran chise. has piled up more than 5200,000 in debts fo r A rchie and Raymond G riffin , members o f the C in cin n ati Bengals, and their brother James, court records show. Perhaps too much already has Perhaps, as one form er coach games. As a result he was taken been w ritten and said about the suggested a week and a half ago, he completely by surprise by the con Magic Johnson vs. Paul Westhead was in over his head, that he didn't flict between Magic and Nixon last matchup. For whatever reasons have the experience to coach profes A p ril and was stunned again last Magic has epierged as the villa in . sional basketball and that he was week by M agic's demand to be Quite a few years ago I was taught lucky to inherit such a massive array traded. Westhead later revealed taht that in every story there's always o f talent and was especially lucky to he hadn’ t the slightest idea that his two sides. Richard Levin o f the inherit such a sound and effective offense wasn't acceptable to the L .A . Exam iner gives his version system as the one constructed by players. quite candidly: Jack McKinney in the autumn o f Westhead was consumed by the It is Friday night. May 16, 1980. 1979. A fte r a ll, he had run into offense and constantly redesigned Inside the Spectrum in Philadelphia, trouble at La Salle before jo in in g plays. A stubborn man, it became Paul Westhead is joyous. He is o ff McKinney, his former coach at St. obvious he would live or die with his the bench and straddling the out-of- Joseph's, and was in jeopardy o f system. E ventually, like Nero, he bounds line. Behind him equally as losing his jo b . Perhaps, he was a fiddled while Rome burned. West- joyous is his assistant coach, Pat coach who worked best with medi head was distant and never ex Riley. The seconds arc ticking away. ocre talent. He eventually took plained to his players why he did The final buzzer sounds. Magic down M C K inney’ s system and re certain thing. Last year he benched Johnson leaps into the arms o f constructed his own, a tota l p ro starting forward Jim Chones and re Butch Lee. W esthead and Riley are gram that eliminated creativity and fused to look the man in the eye. next in line. They hug him and spontaneity by its very nature. This sort o f behavior leaves an pound his back. Magic is thrusting Westhead would kneel on the side impression and is q uickly spread that well-used forefinger to the roof lines and bark out plays to the con among team members. While some o f the building. The Lakers are the sternation o f Magic and Nixon, who coaches consider distance a virtue champions o f the NBA and the were a level or two above the slow, most players consider it jus, plain mighty Philadelphia 76ers have hard-nosed guards who need that bad coaching. fallen. kind o f continual advice and have As a result they were no longer in Those were the heady days for the difficulty dribbling and grunting at his corner by the time the present Lakers, Levin writes. Magic, who the same tiem. Westhead’ s tota l season began. The honeymoon be scored 42 points in the sixth and program would be more appropriate tween the players and coach had dis final game, was named the playoffs’ in the Philadelphia prep leagues. appeared long before. They d id n ’ t Most Valuable Player, while West- Or, perhaps, as one observer sug like his offense and d id n 't try to head, proclaimed a genius by one gested, Westhead. unlike another hide their feelings. and all for his bold and unpredict coach with a literary background, Another said he was a mediocre able stroke o f designating Magic as namely John Wooden, form erly o f coach at best. When asked why they the starting center in place o f the in U .C .L .A , was a lecturer and not a were so successful, the player said: jured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, would communicator. “ We win despite him, no, because sign a four-year, S1.1 m illion con The media led most readers into o f h im ." tract four days later. But that was thinking this problem that Magic re “ W hat’ s wrong with M agic?” yesterday, and good times seem to vealed to us was something that just one Jazz official asked. “ W here arc pass so quickly, and bad times have happened overnight. Untrue. I f you all the behind-the-back passes and an awful tendency to linger so long, believe the Levin report then you’ ll right? Today Westhead has been know it, his firing was already in the fancy dribbling? It takes some doing to make those guys d ull.” fired, and replaced by his assistant making. Levin continues: Pat Riley, doesn’t that sound famil Despite his (W esthead’ s) great None the less Westhead suc iar. Levin further writes: What hap command of the language, ceeded. pened in between is not easily ex W’esthead chose to isolate himself, Both Westhead and the Lakers plained. But Westhead, who played or, i f you w ill, place him self on a have come a long way since that the I akers w ith the virtuoso o f a pedestal from where he was inacces spectacular night in the Spectrum 18 concert vio lin is t, somehow and sible to the players and their mun months ago. The magic is gone and somewhere along the line lost the dane matters he considered unim so is W esthead. handle. portant to winning basketball But the magic can come back. Local youth seeks world championship A world record attempt is always an interesting s to ry ...a n d when you add in the fact that the chal lenger is a 12-year-old boy, the story takes on a universal appeal. ASTERO IDS is the A ta ri video game that was one o f the pioneers of the current w orld-w ide video mania. and it is still one o f the most popular video games in every indus trialized nation on earth. Video game boom is the fastest growing, and most lucrative new home enter tainment industry to hit Portland. Thousands o f Portlanders join m il lions o f Americans playing the game every day. It’ s no small matter to be the best player in the w o rld , and considering that the appeal o f video games transcends every demograph ic and geographic d ivisio n , it be comes every bit as valid an achieve ment as w inning W im bledon, the World Series, or the Indy 500. The Asteroids scoring record is currently held by 16-year-old Dennis Hernandez, with 30,100,000 points scored during a marathon 52 hour and 12 minute session in the Space Odyssey game arcade in Geneva, N.Y. Believe me that is no small accom plishment. It would be equivalent to Joe D iM aggio’ s 56-game h ittin g streak, or Bob Beamon’ s incredible 29-foot-long ju m p record estab lished in the Mexico City Olympics. Brian Mauro o f Portland, Oregon is currently one o f the best players in the w o rld , and on Thanksgiving weekend, in the gameroom o f the M a lib y Grand Prix track in P o rt land, (9405 SW Scholls Ferry Rd.), he intends to clim b to the top by beating Hernandez’ score.. .and he expects to do it in 48 hours. “ I ’ ve built up the calluses on my fingertips because blisters become a problem when you play fo r a long time, and I ’ ve got some thin leather gloves I ’ ll be using.” Just as in any other high level com petition a game plan it neces sary. Brian says, “ My strategy w ill be to go after two or three sets o f rocks, then le, a few small ones stay on the screen and concentrate on the alien ships. We even did some exper iments on how to set up the playfield so that I lose as few ships as possible when I have to make a res, slop.” Brian w ill attempt to become a world champion at 11:00 am Thurs day morning, November 26th. Brian says he will keep going as long as his fingers hold out. PAC-10 predictions Predicted order o f fin ish : 1. UCLA; 2. Oregon State; 3. Oregon; 4. USC; 5. ASU; 6. Washington S,.; 7. Stanford; 8 California; 9. Wash ington; 10. Arizona. Katie bar the door. The Bruins are loaded and ready to unleash all those blue chippers on the res, o f the PAC-10. First the Bruins return everybody from a team that finished second to Oregon State. Second they had what 1980 V o lc a n o Cup c h a m p io n P a m m y B ileck (le ft) w ith K u rt Thomas. Bileck defends crown Los Altos Twister Pammy Bileck w ill return to C o rva llis in a few weeks to defend her all-around title in the second annual Volcano Cup Gymnastics Invitational, which will be held at OSU’ s G ill Coliseum on Sunday, Nov. 29 a, 7 pm. The Volcano Cup is a gymnastics meet featuring 20 o f the top gym nasts in the western United States and m arks the opening o f the women’s gymnastics season at OSU. Four gymnasts from the National Academy o f Artistic Gymnastics in Eugene, the number one club in the country, will enter. Tickets are available at the OSU ticket office, Meier and Frank o ut lets in Portland, Salem and Eugene. As an added incentive, the gymnasts in conjunction w ith the C o rva llis Ambassadors, w ill be awarding a free trip to Japan with the women’ s gymnastics and men’ s basketball teams as a door prize at the Volcano Cup. basketball experts call the best re cru itin g year in the nation. The Bruins are so loaded that pre-season all-American Rod Foster is said to be headed for the UCLA bench. U C LA finished 20-7 last season w ith o ut a big man. Seven-footer Stuart Gray has arrived and if he lives up to expectations, he should make the Westwood wonders sure winners. He averaged 3I.3 ppg and 18 rebounds in being named the Na tional High School A thletic Asso c ia tio n ’ s prep player o f the year. Add to that 6-6, Niguel Miquel, who experts believe to be a better player than Foster. Also back are: Mike Sanders ( 15.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg); 6-7 ju nior forward C liff Pruit, will not re tu rn bu, 6-7 sophomore forw ard Kenny Fields (I0 .I ppg, 4.9 rpg) and 6-3 junior guard Mike Holton, who is now shooting the eyes out o f the basket as well as making all the key passes. L arry Farmer has a dyna mite team and shouldn’ t lose. The freshmen are reportedly better than the veterans, a ¡a the Alcindor years. 2. Oregon State: This team was decimated by g raduation. Steve Johnson, M ark R adford and Ray Blume are all playing in the NBA. But d o n ’ t underestimate Coach Ralph M iller’ s Beavers. The Beavers w ill be a factor. A fte r going 26-2 las, year the Beavers aren’ t ready to roll over and die. 6-4 guard Let Connor will be the floor leader and this year should as sume more o f a scoring role. Highly touted sophomore C harlie Si,ton should look for the hoop more. Replacing Johnson w ill be 6 -II junior center Greg W iltjer, a trans- fer from North Idaho JC. The freshman class is good bu, untested: 6-8 Darrell Neal (18 ppg, 7 rpg at Verbum Dei o f Los Angeles); 6-8 A.C. Green (27.3 ppg, 15 rpg at Benson). 3. Oregon: The Fighting Ducks took their licks last year posting a 13-4 record. Coach Jim H arvey’ s crew should be the surprise team in the conference. The Ducks had the I8,h bes, recruitment among major college teams. There’ s a big fresh man, 6-11 Blair Rasmussen o f A u burn. Wash. (23.7 ppg, |4 .| rpg), expected to step in and star,. Ras mussen was a h ighly touted high school all-A m erican and w ill cer tainly supply much needed punch inside. Haney was happy with his re cruits, which brought in 6-8 Rodnie Taylor, all-everything in the state o f Washington, Jeremiah Adams, 6-8, or Verbum Dei and two guards, 6-6 Bryan Trendell and 6-1 Scot, Perry o f U niversity o f D e tro it High School. Fred C o fie ld , 6-3, and o nly a sophomore, is hurriedly becoming one o f the PAC-IO’ s best. Up front the Ducks return 6-7 ju n io r Ray Whiting, who should help consider ably in the trenches. U ( LA will lead the pack, Oregon State, Oregon and USC w ill battle for also ran. Arizona State will sore ly miss 6-6 junior forward Paul W il liams, who is ineligible for allegedly playing in an unsanctioned summer league and will also miss the 6-5 By ron Scot,, who w ill miss all o f the pre-conference games due to schol astic ineligibility. R^>S£ CITY APPLIANCE U 5 E Q A P P L IA N C E S Pick-up and delivery arranged on repairs BUY - SELL - TRADE •Ranges • Refrigerators • Freezers Open 10 am 6 pm Mon -Fri Sa, 10 am -3 pm M J . M AJO R A P P L IA N C E S •Dishwashers •Washing Machines •Dryers l « o HE DEHUM 255*5472 Repair all major appliances WE'RE HERETO HELP YOU! 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