Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current, January 07, 1977, Image 8

Griffin daily news., January 07, 1977, Page Page 8, Image 8

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Newspaper Page Text— Griffin Daily News Friday, January 7,1977 Page 8 ‘Super’ combatants loose, confident An AP Sports Analysis By WILL GRIMSLEY AP Special Correspondent LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was the last day that the antagonists — Minnesota’s poised Vikings and Oakland’s nasty Raiders — were to be put on public display prior to Sunday’s Super Bowl. In the mess hall of a fashionable hotel in Costa Mesa — the Vikings’ headquarters — waiters dumped fresh fruit, hash brown potatoes, scrambled eggs and link sausage on the plates of hungry newsmen. At a white-covered head table, a somber Bud Grant sat, his steely eyes watching rain drops beat against the window panes. “Coach,” said one reporter, gulping down a mouthful of egg, “does the rain bother you?” “Naw,” replied the Minnesota coach, who hails from snow country. “At least, you don’t have to shovel the stuff. It just goes away. “We didn’t come to sunny California to play indoors.” There was a titter of laughter. An hour and a half later, 10 miles away, in Newport Beach, Oakland’s pillowy John Madden found himself faced with a similar question. “I sure as heck don’t like rain,” he said. “Rain makes the football slippery. It hampers passing.” Pampered newsmen have been bused some 95 miles daily from their own hotel headquarters to the temporary homes of the two teams and then back again. They are fed as if the Russians were landing at Marina Del Rey. Less than an hour after Minnesota’s hefty breakfast, they were facing another spread in Newport Beach fit for a Roman emporer — crepes, cut fruit, also eggs, bacon and assorted cheeses. Madden, who weighs around 260, has not missed many meals himself. But it has not dulled his sense of humor. “John Robinson (Southern Cal coach) told me that the Rose Bowl field is bare and soft in the middle,” Madden said. “Rain and dirt equals mud.” The equation pleased him. “But it’s no advantage,” he said. “You’ve got to play all elements." Visiting the two camps three days before the cham pionship showdown, one might have gotten the impression that Grant and Madden had gotten Don Rickies to write their lines. Neither coach looked like a man ready to be led to slaughter. They ate a hearty meal. They quipped. Both were loose, radiating confidence. The same attitude was reflected by the players, sitting as they did around circular tables bearing the same number as that on their jerseys. Fran Tarkenton, No. 10, Minnesota’s old pro, insisted that nothing was wrong with his throwing arm and scoffed at the suggestion that the Vikings, playing in their fourth Super Bowl and still without a victory, had a “losers’ complex.” “Riduculous,” he said. “You don’t get to the Super Bowl four times without winning the big games. I think Min nesota and Oakland are so closely matched that if they met seven times the result would be 4-3, one way or the other.” His quarterback counterpart, bearded Ken Stabler, sat at table No. 12 over at the Oakland area. “We are both frustrated teams, fired up,” he said. "The team that makes fewest mistakes will win.” Dalton ’ rated 2nd HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) - Dalton, Ga., junior college re mains in second place behind the undefeated College of Southern Idaho in the National Junior College Athletic Associ ation’s weekly basketball rat ings this week. DeKalb South placed 14th in the ratings. CARPET SALEj, Everything in stock Sgmvfl Upto l/o Off Carpet - Vinyl Flooring - Wallpaper Now through Jan. 31st 8:30 A.M. Til 7 P.M. Monday Through Saturday For Appointment After 7 P.M. Call 228-6110 Before 6 P.M. Cleveland Carpets, Ine. Hwy. 42 - 5 Miles North of Jackson 228-6110 Installation Available Steve Mix PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Philadelphia 76ers say that forward Steve Mix will miss tonight’s National Basketball Association home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers be cause of a sprained right foot. Mix sprained the foot when teammate Darryl Dawkins stepped on it during Wednes day’s 117-94 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. The spokesman said Mix, the team’s third forward, also was listed as questionable for Saturday night’s game at Milwaukee. ‘Super 9 match-up Receivers vs. defensive backs By BRUCE LOWITT AP Sports Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) - Su per Bowl XI will be as much a territorial battle in the secon dary as it is in the face-to-face pit of the scrimmage line. “When I’m out there, I feel that the field is mine,” says Minnesota wide receiver Ah mad Rashad. “My job is a positive one, to catch a football. The other guy’s is a negative one, to keep me from catching it,” says Oakland wide receiver Cliff Branch. “When someone catches a pass in my area, it is an em barrassment to me. And I do not like to be embarrassed,” says Minnesota cornerback Nate Wright. “If I can make the man I’m covering think about me for just an instant and break his concentration, half the battle is won,” says Oakland safety George Atkinson. It is, to understate the matter, going to be one heck of a battle out there on Sunday in the fly patterns, the crossing routes, the zone seams of Super Bowl XI. When the quarterbacks — Fran Tarkenton of the Vikings and Ken Stabler of the Raiders — stop their “hut-hut” chatter at the line and the ball is snapped, the taunting begins in those far-away regions where receivers and defenders try to Curt Gowdy, for one, is ready for ‘Super 9 By HOWARD SMITH AP Sports Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Super Bowl Sunday is almost upon us and Curt Gowdy, for one, is ready for it. “This is the biggest game of the year and I get charged up about it just like the players," said Gowdy, who will be calling the play-by-play Sunday. “I know I’m gonna have a big au dience. But the thing we don’t want to do is go in there and overpower the game. “There is a tendency these days to get too complicated. NBC has an electronic army in Pasadena (Calif.). A game like this has more complications and more replays, but my con cern is not to overdo it, to make sure we don’t overwhelm the game. “But if I went in there just Mu ■ < W Killed Mike Miley, 23, an infielder for the California Angels, was killed early Thursday in a traffic accident in Baton Rouge, La. (AP) Lou Saban MIAMI (AP) — Lou Saban, new football coach at the Uni versity of Miami, has com pleted his staff, naming Vic Rapp and Rick Lantz as assist ants. Rapp, 45, a former Missouri aide who spent the past four seasons as offensive coordina tor of the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League, was named Thursday as Miami’s wide receivers coach. Lentz, 39, was defensive coor dinator at Navy under George Welsh the past four years. He previously spent two years han dling defensive ends and line backers for former coach Rick Forzano at Navy. outguess, outpsyche and outrun each other. “Oh, yeah, there’s an awful lot of talk goin’ on out there,” says Branch, an All-Pro wide receiver rated as Oakland’s big play man. “The defensive backs are trying to intimidate you, to get inside your head. “If they can do that, they can make you louse up your route or break stride or miss a step or look his way or something. I can remember hearing guys shouting things like, ‘You better not turn your back on me or you’re gonna get hurt,’ or ‘Here I come, baby!’” Fortunately for Branch, he has roomed for the past several years with Atkinson, the master of intimidation, and has learned the art of the counterattack. “The best thing you can do, except maybe for ignoring the guy alltogether, is to give it back to him, to try to get inside his head and mess him up,” Branch says. “For example, if a guy’s been giving it to me about how he’s gonna get to me, I might yell back, ‘Don’t you blink, man, or I’m by you. I’m in the end zone. I’m gone.’” Atkinson is nothing like the cutthroat, the intense, angry man he is pictured as being. He may seem to have that killer instinct on the field — “let’s just say I’m very aggressive” — but off it he is extraordinarily like it was any other game, it would be time to get out of this business. Doing a Super Bowl is a real thrill.” Gowdy should know. This will be the sixth Super Bowl he has broadcast, more than anyone else. NBC is projecting an au dience of 75 million people for the game, which would be a Su per Bowl record for one net work. “I’ve been in this business a long time and I never dreamed sports would get so big,” said Gowdy. “When 75 million people bring America to a stop to watch a football game, you know sports has become big.” Gowdy prepares for a game like this the same way the op posing coaches do. He studies the teams, watches films and gets scouting reports from other National Football League Sports roundup By The Associated Press Football LOS ANGELES — Baltimore quarterback Bert Jones was named the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player by the Professional Football Writers of America. Golf PHOENIX - Mexican Victor Regalado fired a five-under-par 66 and took a one-stroke lead after the first round of the $200,000 Phoenix Open Golf Tournament. Tennis MELBOURNE, Australia - Roscoe Tanner, the No. 2 seed from Lookout Mt., Tenn., ad vanced to the semifinals of the Australian Open tennis tourna ment, besting ninth-seeded Aus tralian Phil Dent 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. WASHINGTON - Wendy Turnbull of Australia advanced to the semifinals of the SIOO,OOO women’s Washington Tennis Tournament, defeating Beth Norton of Fairfield, Conn., 6-2, 6-2. Skiing BISCHPFSHOFEN, Austria —Walter Steiner of Switzerland won the last event of a four-hill ski jumping tournament, but Jochen Danneberg of East Germany won the over-all championship. General NEW YORK — Bruce Jenner, decathlon gold medalist at the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, was named the As sociated Press’ Athlete of the Year. easygoing. He has an infectious laugh and a perpetual twinkle in eyes sitting behind violet colored glasses. “I’m a very compassionate fellow.” And what is it that Atkinson says to the enemy receivers which has them quaking in their sneakers and sneaking looks behind them as they charge onto his turf? “Oh, I ask them about the best discos in town,” he laughs. He says he can look into a man’s eyes at the start of the game, sometimes even before the start, and get an indication whether intimidation will work. “If I think it will, I start talk in’ to him right away,” Atkinson says. And if it doesn’t seem to be working? “Then I’ll keep talkin’ to him — but up real close.” Rashad doesn’t sound like the type to give ground just because the other guy’s talking up a storm. “Atkinson is a good friend of mine,” says the Vik ings’ pass catcher. “I know him off the field. He plays a rough style. But let’s face it. Football is rough. You can’t let it get to you. I look forward to a nice, rough, tough game.” Sammy White, the Vikings’ other star wide receiver, looks forward to “a pretty good day if I’m able to go one-on-one with anybody. I’m not worried about any of their guys giving me a cheap shot. We can’t worry \ Jrv W« Curt Gowdy coaches. He is more familiar with the Oakland Raiders than the Minnesota Vikings because Phoenix Open Regalado leads by a stroke PHOENIX (AP) - The new clubs didn’t work so well. But the old putter did and more than offset the problems caused by a new driver and a new, stronger set of irons as Victor Regalado took a one-stroke lead after the first round of the $200,000 Phoenix Open, the kickoff tournament on the pro golf tour. “It’s going to take some time to get used to the new clubs,” the 28-year-old bachelor from Tijuana, Mexico said Thursday after he’d one-putted 10 times on his way to a five-under-par 66 that staked him to the lead for only the third time in his four year tour career. “I hit it all over the place, just everywhere. But my putter saved me.” It did indeed. He took the lead with a 45-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole at the 6,726 yard Phoenix Country Club course. He dropped two others of about 25 feet, one of them for par. He one-putted six of the first seven greens. And he made an eight- Introducing The Paydirt Band Come Rock ’n Roll WHh Us Saturday, Jan. 8, 9 P.M. At Midway Community Center. Come out High Falls Road to its intersection with Walker’s Mill Road. > —/ about these things.” Oakland’s No. 1 receiver this year was tight end Dave Cas per. He doesn’t seem to be part NBC does American Football Conference games and CBS handles the National Football Conference. “My job this week has been to learn all I can about the Vik ings. I’ve talked with coaches and scouts about them, trying to learn their tendencies, little things they do, whatever I can find out. “But I don’t prepare just this week for the Super Bowl,” he said. “I prepare 12 months of the year. A couple of years ago I did a fishing show with Min nesota Coach Bud Grant and got to know him pretty well. “Afterwards I sat down and wrote out a notebook about Grant for background. Now I’m reading through it to see what I can pick up.” Gowdy’s partner in the booth will be Don Meredith, the easy- footer to save bogey on the 15th, after hitting it into the bleachers. Just one stroke back at 67 were U.S. Open champion Jerry Pate, his close friend George Burns and Danny Edwards, who said he’s been taking les sons from his brother David, a member of the NCAA champion Oklahoma State team. Larry Nelson had a 68 while Tom Weiskopf and PGA nation al champ Dave Stockton were in a large group at 69. The scores were unusually high on this desert layout that often yields some of the lowest numbers on the tour. Unusual desert conditions — cold weath er and pools of casual water left by some rare rains — were the chief problems. Johnny Miller was one of the casualties. The pre-tourney fa vorite, winner of five of the last six PGA events in Arizona, twice a 61-shooter on this course, blew to an unhappy 74. of the high-powered talking crew. “Naw, I don’t listen to them, I don’t talk back to them. I just go out there and try to catch passes going former Dallas Cowboys quarterback who has become one of the best commentators in the business. “I love working with Mered ith,” said Gowdy. “I think he’s made things easier for me. He gives you the old Texas-country boy routine, but people don’t realize just how sharp he is. He’s brought out some things in me and I think we have a chemistry together that comes r'sERVIcF""'! I SPECIALS I I it ? I I I- j I I i i I ENGINE TUNE-UP SPECIAL Includes: Install six Autolite spark plugs, Motorcraft point set and Motorcraft condenser. Inspect choke, throttle linkage, spark plug wires and distributor cap. Adjust carburetor and timing. (Four and solid state ignitions slightly less; eights and Econolines slightly ■ higher.) TOTAL SPECIAL PRICE- CO6 95 PARTS and LABOR Any applicable taxes extra. OIL and OIL FILTER SPECIAL includes up to 5 quarts of oil, Motorcraft oil filter and H installation. 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