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.
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