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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 1982)
Page 6 Portland Observer, October 6, 1982 Portland Observer, October 6, 1982 Page 7 Sport Talk by Lee Ballinger Pacific News Servlet Oregon football 1982 promised to be a season o f excitement. Oregon head coach Rich Brooks has had a year to put the adversities suffered by his *81 team behind him. A fte r posting a 6 -3 -2 record in 1980 Rich Brooks was rap id ly be coming the most sought-after foot ball mentor on the West Coast. He was picked Pac-10 coach o f the year and had several nominations for na tional honors. In addition to those honors he was the recipient o f the Slats G ill A w ard as Oregon sports man o f the year. Im m ediately following Oregon’s most successful year since 1971, when the Ducks went 7-3 riding the strong arm o f D an Fouts and the b rillia n t rushing o f Bobby M oore, aka A h m ad R ashad, O regon dropped to 2-9. So the one question asked by so many was “ W hat hap pened to the genius o f Brooks?” A great deal can be said about why a program on the way up could tum ble so quickly. Some thought the de parture o f offense coordinator Ron H udson had a lot to do with O re gon’s failure. Hudson left in 1979 to become offensive coo rd in ato r for the U C L A Bruins. E rik W id m ark, longtime Brooks associate, was given the job vacated by Hudson. Both W idm ark and Brooks have come under severe criticism this year fo r lack o f im agination in the big Duck offensive attack. Brooks de fends by stating the numerous injur ies to key offensive players. Senior tailback Dwight Robertson has been missing since game 1 with a knee in jury, sophomore Alex Mack (shoul der separation) and freshman Kevin W illhite (hamstring) are all out for the season, while ju n io r L ad a ria Johnson o f C arson, C a lif ., who paced Oregon in rushing against the Sun Devils, but did not play again until the Ducks played Washington two weeks ago. Add junior center Ryan Zinke to the growing injury list o f offensive starters out and perhaps you can un derstand why the offense has only been able to score in one game, and that one being the Huskies, the na tio n ’s number one team according to A P. So what is Oregon’s problem? Re cruiting is certainly not one o f them. Last year the Ducks were rated as having one o f the best recruiting years on the coast. A n d this year was no exception. Oregon shocked the nation when they announced the signing o f Kevin W illh ite , whom many considered the nation's pre m ier running back. W illh ite was named to all the top A ll-A m erican teams last year, including Parade M ag azin e's O utstanding Back in America. They recruited the best kicker on the coast when they signed T im illy Ray, Billy Ray Riding high in A p ril, shot down in M a y ...w it h that in m ind the Trailblazers said good bye to Billy Ray. Bates, the enigm atic guard who journeyed from the pits o f the Con tinental League to the glory o f the N B A and the Portland Trailblazers, is now a Washington Bullet. Bates’ release came as no sur prise. it had been rumored or leaked to the media for months. I ’m positive that it was planned to leak B illy ’s release in order to pre pare the public in advance. Billy Ray was a hero in this state, for sure. Little kids were attracted to B illy as i f he were a black pied piper. Wherever Bates traveled he was immediately swarmed over by kids like ants to syrup on a warm sum mer day. Sure, B illy had his p er sonal problems, which finally led to his demise with the Blazers. And it can never be said that the club didn't try and help Billy. W h a t can be said, how ever, is perhaps they did n ’t want to take a chance. Chance. This little six-letter word could possibly be the d iffe r ence, for the Blazers, between hav ing a mediocre team or a very good one. I f the Blazers can be blamed for anything in the past, then that one thing could be their reluctance to take a chance. G olden State took a chance on B ernard K ing when the 6-7 small fo rw ard was having his problems with alcoholism. W h a t they got was a reform ed player who has apparently won his bout, and is now the most produc tive small forward now playing the game. Los Angeles took that chance w ith Bob M c A d o o and came out sm elling lik e a rose as Big Mac helped trem endously down the stretch run to the N B A Cham pion Wise. Wise kicked a California state record 59-yarder. He was recruited by U C L A , C ali fo rn ia, O klaho m a, but com mitted early to Oregon. Brooks got the best linemen in the State o f O regon. H e signed Dave Maley D T , 6-3, 245 pounds, out o f Prineville. A ll Maley did was to go head to head with Beaverton's Jim Fitzpatrick in the Shrine game, and simply outplayed the U SC -bound Fitzpatrick. He got E .J . D u ffy , a linebacker many believe will be as good or bet ter than Dave W ilcox, and believe me folks that's saying a lot. Brooks is really blessed with good talent, so then why can’ t he win? The belief here is that the Ducks are hurting for speed. That is speed in the offen sive line. The suggestion here is that the Oregon recruiters should learn a recruiting lesson from the top teams in the nation. Florida, for example, posted a 1-10 record two years ago. They prom ptly went out and re cruited some big, quick linemen and im m ed iately turned their season around. W hat the Ducks need to do is follow suit. Brooks should now see (hat his recruiting should not be restricted to Southern and Northern Oregon squad tak es th e field. California. There’s some big, quick brothers playing fo o tb a ll in the The belief here is that Brooks is ghettos o f the South. I f it ’s horses still one o f the best young coaches in. you need, then why not use Clydes the game today. H e ’s had terrible dales. q u arterb ack problem s, he’ s been by Ron Sykes ship. Chance. It doesn’t work all the time, but then didn’t someone once say, “ N oth in g ventured, nothing gained” ? And nobody can tell me that Billy Ray can’t play the game. During a recent talk w ith H arry Glickman I was informed o f B illy’s troubles learning the Ramsay sys tem. Maybe so, but my thoughts on that subject are quite clear. I just do not believe that in order to be a suc cessful and winning team you must always w ork w ithing a structured offense. Billy needs the ball to be effective. When Billy has the ball he is effect ive. How many times have you heard Ramsay, in crucial situations, yell give the ball to Billy. Billy Ray was the best clutch player on the team fo r the years he was in P o rtla n d . Tim e after time he responded when the game was on the line. And Billy never missed a crucial free throw during his career with Portland. No, H arry, I just can’t believe that Jeff Lam p w ill ever become the guard that Billy is now. The Blazers went a long way with Billy, but perhaps they should have gone one step further. Just got to believe that some where out there there’s got to be a place for a man as talented as Billy Ray. So what i f the San Francisco G i ants didn’t win the National League West. So what if they didn’t become champions. Even though they failed this weekend to overcome both A t lanta and L . A . , their m anager, Frank Robinson, still emerged as a champion. And for his tremendous e ffo rt the G ia n skipper should be named the National League m ana ger o f the year. Robinson, a hall of fam er, is on the brink o f becoming the first black manager to take his team to the W orld Series. Everyone knows that Robinson became the firs t black manager in m a jo r league history when he took the helm o f the Cleve land Indians in 1975. in his first year, Robison led the Giants to their first winning season since 1978 and this year came within one game o f winning it all. Playoff Picks HE forced to go w ith a QB that is ob viously not right for his system. He certainly had a tough break when he lost the heir apparent to Reggie Og- □ h o m e fu rn is h in g s U te Your M o t fe rre rà . V ito O f Smiths Convenient Pevolvlng Charge Plon I VISA Auto-Color Portable trank Powor Sentry system! “ SPECIAL Through Oct. 9 with this coupon Red Snapper Fish Sandwich with fries Fresh From The Sea Daily J $275 W A N N A S T A R T S O M E T H IN ? 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A revival for Villa- nova. The N F L not only has a moral obligation to help sustain the athlet ic in fra s tru c tu re o f the U n ite d States, but com mon sense should dictate that they preserve the athlet ic bedrock upon which their shining 19” Auto-Color TV Broadway Seafood M arket 1515 N.E. Broadway 287-1221 But while the public tries in vain to call a play that will blunt the rush o f the economic downturn, the N F L continues to prosper. M ajo r league baseball underwrites an entire farm system and the N B A helps to sup port the m inor league C ontinental Basketball Association. The N F L does nothing. “Enjoy it to your soul Southern Style!“ edifice rests. There is honest disagreement over the players’ demand for a percent age o f the owners* gross revenues, but surely it is gross that no percent age o f the N F L ’s annual bonanza goes to those who do so much to create it. Fans, players and coaches at every level o f football must come together and force the N F L to do its duty before it’s too late. ■BBD Too much speed by the Cardinals should be the d iffe re n c e. I f the Braves are to win they will need ex cellent b u ll pen help. Something they lacked all season long. 1 Advertise in the Observer burn, that person being the m u lti talented A ndrew Page. Page was lost through scandal and with him went two seasons. mortgages can be burned. The local citizens o f Pontiac, M ich ig a n , a l ready devastated by the collapse o f the auto industry, pay $1.2 million a year in property taxes to help keep the Lions and the Silverdome in the black. Meanwhile, their own school system has been forced to lay o ff coaches due to a decrease in tax rev enue. The A naheim S tadium A u th o rity used public funds to build 108 luxury boxes yet donates 80 per cent o f the revenue they produce to the Rams. Mon thru Fri 10-9 Sat 10-6 Sun noon-5 /' i Angelo St. 28, Alcorn St. 9 Bethune/Cookman 38, North Carolina A & T 23 Hampton Institute 14, Livingstone 6 Kentucky State 7, Knoxville 0 N orfolk St., 7, Elizabeth City St. 3 Fort Valley 18, Morris Brown 14 Grambling 42, Florida A & M 21 South Carolina St. 50, Howard 0 Jackson St. 44, Miss. Valley 17 Southern U . 42, Prairie View 6 Virginia Union 28, Winston-Salem 19 Central State (Oklahoma) 42, Sam Houston St. 7 I t ’s time for the true footsoldier o f professional football— the fan— to stand up and force the National Football League to pay its debt to society. After all, the sport we love is not delivered to us on a silver plat ter. We pay the freight when we buy tickets and television sponsors’ pro ducts, when we cough up millions to build and maintain N F L stadiums, when we put in countless unpaid hours to help train tomorrow’s grid iron heroes. I f the fans remain in their seats, football as we know it is in danger o f extinction due to growing cracks in football's very foundation. Pro fessional football exists only by rest ing atop the vast pyramid o f mam- tcru football. But N F L owners do not contribute on cent to the peewee leagues, high schools and colleges which combine to form a huge and highly effective farm system for the pros. The indispensible service these feeder systems perform is clearly il lustrated by the incompetence o f the occasional speed merchant who tries to sneak into the N F L without pre vious football experience. Yet in this age o f cutbacks, where the warm sun o f education is in creasingly eclipsed by (he rising moon o f military spending, schools are often unable to make ends meet unless they reduce the size o f their a th letic program s. C leveland has elim inated all ju n io r high sports. High schools in Idaho, Illinois, In diana and Michigan have scrapped fo o tb a ll. Even m ighty M assillon (O h io ), the cradle o f bigtime high school fo o tb a ll, had to pass an emergency school levy to ensure the completion o f the 1981 season. Vil- lanova was forced to end an 87-year trad itio n o f college fo o tb all when their program sank in a sea o f red ink last year. The N F L makes a net p ro fit o f $13 million each year just from lic ensing its trad em arks, w hile high school football players in C alifo rn ia, Conecticut, Michigan, O hio and Pennsylvania have to pay as much as $50 apiece just to be allowed to go out for the team. There are high schools in Washington, D .C ., which do not charge admission to their football games becuase they cannot afford to erect fences around their fields. The school system o f W a r ren, Ohio, which has produced five current N F L players, has been forced to lay o ff several high school coaches on the eve o f the 1982 sea son. The taxpaying fan not only funds the educational system whose athlet ic assembly line empties directly on to the N F L loading dock, he also di rectly subsidizes Pete Rozelle and Co. Since 1953 the public has paid hundreds o f m illions to build and maintain professional sports facil ities and that was only the down payment. The fans must still come up with almost $7 billion before the 15 Exciting St. Louis over the Braves. California over Milwaukee This one w ill be a classic. Both teams have superb personnel. One could easily pick an a ll-s ta r team from these two teams. Reggie “ M r . O ctober” Jackson could make the difference here. The man just seems to take charge in the big games. » D o w n yon d er scores * Now Open * Soul Food Delight Restaurant Let NFL support public school athletics by Ron Sykes, Sports Editor td w H w s e w l ome furnishing« »t r - , tdydi » tn H m « «eHie» ¿ ' WEST Park 217—Tigard 6 8 4 -1 1 0 0 EAST 30th & S.E. 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