he sports
THE BATTALION Page 11
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1979
w
er
icy
viewpoint
By SEAN PETTY
Battalion Sports Editor
er plant to expli
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Is Russia ready?
What we have
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A ile Island hasoa
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Three-Mile Islani
of the propagi
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In a little less than a year, the United States will send an Olympic
|eam to Moscow to compete in the 1980 Olympics. The Games, held
viery four years, are the highlight of many an athlete’s career.
Athletes from all over the world train, strain, sweat and fret for four
rears in preparation for the honor of being called the best in the
vorld in his or her event.
The hundreds or thousands of hours spent on the track, in the gym,
jn horseback, in the pool, in the boxing ring, on the road is all for one
[Baf; the Olympic gold medal. All the days of individual sacrifice,
iractice, depression, happiness, pulled muscles and pain are all part
pf the athlete’s road to Moscow.
And for some who win big such as 1976 decathlon gold medalist,
American Bruce Jenner, all those hours and years of hard work pay off
ind, very nicely. Jenner found there was more gold in that medal
han he thought when, soon after he won the gold, he was exercising
is fingers by signing his name on the dotted line for endorsements,
elevision and big bucks.
Speaking of big bucks, that’s exactly what it takes to send gold-
eeking American athletes and coaches to the Olympics and it’s one
ah Uncle Sam doesn’t pick up. The American team will go to
vloscow, as it has always done in the past, on donations out of our
jockets.
The U.S. Olympic Committee works almost as hard as the athletes
jetween Olympics raising money to send our Star-Spangled team to
he Olympics. And the Americans have dominated the Games for
many years, competing against the likes of the Soviet Union’s
government-trained, professional athletes. The Soviet athletes work
vear round on their individual specialties and get certain favors from
he government for winning. Young children are put into rigorous
raining programs in order to compete for the Soviets in the coming
was brief and sA
:*d the move
it” the House's
ary procedure
on investigate he Olympics will be run, a bad time should be had by all.
nmittee. ONei R uss j an officials botched the whole thing up with poor infor-
ed the move me p a (j on inadequate facilities and general disorganization. And add
margin or z» ), a t p 0 the fact that, according o American athletes and coaches,
here is nothing to do in Moscow, you’ve got one hot time in the land
ifthe Kremlin.
It s a shame to think that after all the work athletes around the
world will put in, the Games will be poorly run. The Moscow prob-
em is so bad that American coaches are looking for training and living
acilities somewhere in Europe for the duration of the Olympics.
Olympic track and field coach Jimmy Carnes, said that the athletes
probably be flown into Moscow two or three days before their
:vent to adjust then they will compete and leave.
1 Of course, it may take two or three days for the American athletes
r Darvoncank bfind out what heat they are in or who they will compete against at
what time and where. Carnes said the Americans didn’t find out what
. ^ teats they were in until about an hour or so before their events and
aflet warningtl jjd n ’t know who they would run against throughout the games. To
ing too mucliol feftedy that problem, Carnes said the Americans will take hoards of
fusion, anxiety* Walkie-talkies to keep in touch with the main headquarters and the
athletes on the field.
'Tbart just see Otir man in the 10,()()0-meter run with a C.B. strap-
3ed to his back talking to the U.S. coach, Carnes:
“Break 19 for that one Head Man, you got the Tired Man how bout
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You would think that with as much emphasis as the Russians put on
raining and victory, they would do an admirable job as hosts for the
1980 Olympics.
If the recent Spartacade held in Moscow is any indication of how
You got the Head Man come back Tired Man.”
“Appreciate the break, how’s it lookin over my shoulder?”
Secretary Josfp 'You got that one Russian Mad Man on yer tail, better put the ham
mer down.”
And if you think that’s ridiculous, wait until you think you are watch
ing American Edwin Moses, the world record holder in the 400-
meter hurdles, hut in reality you are watching one of the U.S.’s top
400-meter dash men run the hurdles. That is exactly what happened
W during the Spartacade as the Russian announcer informed the crowd
T*( that Moses would be running in lane six when it was really Stan
■ Vv/ 1 Vinson who had run the hurdles for only the second time ever.
And when Vinson ran and won his specialty, the 400-meter dash, in
a time of 45.7, the Russians gave him the official certificate which said
he had won in a time of 45. J .
Clein turns duds into professionals
United Press International
NEW YORK — Marvin Clein,
who has had exceptional success
helping good athletes become great,
believes his work is important, also,
to the paunchy, slogging jogger.
Or the sitz-boom skier, the tank
club tennis bum, or the little kid
down the block pitching a ball
against a wall and dreaming of play
ing Major League Baseball.
He tells this story:
‘‘I took on a young girl of 14. She
saw the Olympics on television and
decided she wanted to be a runner.
Her father called us (at the Univer
sity of Denver). ‘How about working
with my daughter,’ he said.
“She had never done any compet
itive running. She couldn’t really
run. Her legs flailed out when she
tried.
“But we tested her. The tests
showed she had a great nervous sys
tem, the right body build, narrow
hips, some other factors.
“So all that winter she worked in
the (University’s Human Perform
ance) Lab — never on a track. And
we never timed her. We taught her
in the lab how to run, all on a
treadmill. We worked on her tech
nique. We used analysis of her run
ning with high speed photography.
We had her work to make her phys
ical endowment more powerful with
weights and exercises.
“She went out for her junior high
track team. She broke five records,
school and county. She won the
Rocky Mountain AAU 100- and
200-meter dash championships. She
qualified for three events in the Na
tional Junior Olympics.”
Rangers and
Astros win
United Press International
ARLINGTON — Two-run dou
bles by Dave Roberts and Nelson
Norman highlighted Texas’ 16-hit
attack Tuesday night and sparked
Doc Medich and the Rangers to an
11-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers.
Roberts capped a three-run
fourth for Texas with his two-run
blow off Detroit starter Dan Petry,
3-2. Norman doubled with two out
in the fifth inning to cap a five-run
outburst that gave the Rangers a 9-0
lead.
The winning continued in Hous
ton as Joe Niekro became the first
15-game winner in the majors and
Craig Reynolds drove in two runs
with a double and a triple Tuesday
night, lifting the Houston Astros to a
6-4 triumph over the San Francisco
Giants.
Niekro, 15-6, pitched six innings
and gave up three unearned runs on
five hits, five walks and seven
strikeouts.
Houston scored three runs in
each of the first two innings off loser
Ed Whitson, 4-6. Reynolds knocked
in a pair of runs in the second with
his triple and scored on a groundnut
by Terry Puhl to give the Astros a
6-0 lead.
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That was two years ago and you’ll
be hearing more of this girl, Leslie
Covillo, he says. But she is one of
many to whom the system has been
applied.
f' “It works every time,” says Clein,
who heads up the lab and who took
her on without fee as part of his re
search.
‘‘In a two-year period, every
amateur athlete we worked with
either won a world championship, a
national championship in one of five
countries or qualified for national
level competition,” says Clein.
He’s also worked with pros — the
Philadelphia Flyers in hockey, the
Denver Broncos in football, the
Denver Nuggets in basketball, the
Minnesota Twins and Cleveland In
dians in baseball.
If, as he says, the system “works
every time,” albeit with those who
have basic qualities contributing to
possible excellence in the sport,
how does it come down to your
every day weightlifter, tennis buff,
swimmer, what have you?
“The same principles apply,”
Clein says, “to the Olympic cham
pion or recreational jogger or any
motor skill.
“Your physical capacity to per
form an athletic skill is predeter
mined when you are born. It is
partly hereditary, choosing the right
parents.”
That may be hard to take. But
there’s more. “It can be modified by
environment.
He feels his work is a step beyond
the now booming field of sports
medicine and proudly notes the
University of Denver has added
“and sports science” to the site of its
department of physical education.
Sports Science, he says, goes be
yond the physical. “It deals with
four factors.”
They are, as he puts it, the vari
able limits of physical performance,
the psychological — stress, how you
feel about yourself, the sociological
— influences of parentage, sex, and
the like, and the bio-mechanical —
how you perform.
“We break down what an indi
vidual does in tennis, for example,
and come up with a list of factors:
those that are power-related, oxy
gen use, the managing of anxieties,
coordination, balance.
“Then we take factors characteris
tic of people who genuinely excell.
There are five traits: anatomical ad
vantage or body type, a mature oxy
gen capacity, powerful physical
endowment, a mature sensory feed
back system — you learn faster, and
a psychological support system that
allows you to function under stress.
“We develop tests specific to the
game of tennis and for those traits.
9 OUT OF 10 PUPPIES
PREFER THE BATTALION
We get an individual profile on you
from which we can identify your
specific strengths and weaknesses in
that sport. And we look at this re
search relative to improving those
weaknesses.”
Add the story of Leslie Covillo to
complete the picture.
Clein’s work is already used in
teaching physical education. He
says its principles will not only be a
help to physical education teachers
in schools but to specialists working
with the handicapped, for example,
where the strengthening of what can
be improved may have significant
effect.
For the individual adult, he
points out, such teaching is inevita
bly carried over into use by pros
teaching the various sports and into
books on sports.
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