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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1982)
The Battalion Sports May 4, 1982 Page 9 ^irgroun, Ien ness((| la n’s six. cs ’Of'Mislia, enough kicked Imendorf has no regrets about his retirement |j|iqatio lay 4 pie-mar " ill Lie at inp w ;■ (ianterM Former Texas A&M safety Dave Elmen- dorf (far right) moves in to assist on a tackle during Saturday’s Varsity- staff photo by Peter Kocha Alumni game. Elmendorf, 32, finished his professional football career with the LA Rams after the 1980 Super Bowl. [flight Ci p.m. in l t to disoj p.m. ini,I 'led oftic ggies to open tourney y facing No. 2 Texas The Southwest Conference baseball tourna- Bent opens here May 14, with Texas holding the m|11 t(1 league title outright for the 48th time, r at .H Texas and Texas A&M were the big winners in SWC baseball action over the weekend. Texas .... ftat Tech 9-7 in a rain-shortened series for its ! K 1 ' d 55th SWC crown. t.nuicn>!■ [ oss dropped Tech from a tie for fourth wiih Texas A&M — giving the Aggies the fourth ot in the SWC post-season tournament. If Tech had won, the Raiders would have taken the fourth position and Arkansas would have hosted the tournament in Little Rock a week later. The tournament will last three days, with two games each of the three days. A seventh game, if needed, will be played May 17. After the Arkansas-Houston tournament opener Friday afternoon, the Aggies will meet Texas — which is looking for its fourth straight tournament championship. by Frank L. Christlieb Sports Editor For Dave Elmendorf, retire ment from professional football was simply a matter of taking advantage of opportunity’s knock. Elmendorf, who played base ball and football at Texas A&M University between 1968-71, left his starting safety spot with the Los Angeles Rams after the 1980 Super Bowl to move into a slightly new adventure. The 32- year-old talked about his new undertaking in an interview over the weekend, when he par ticipated in Texas A&M’s first annual Varsity-Alumni game. While still with the Rams, Elmendorf and another former Texas A&M student, Steve Fin cher, came up with an idea that they opted to look into. They decided to investigate the possi bility of opening a racquetball club in northwest Houston. After nine years of playing for the Rams, Elmendorf had realized that his career couldn’t go on forever. “I played nine years and look ing back at another training camp just didn’t appeal to me at all,” Elmendorf said. “So I de cided I’d give it up. “I had been working on the business venture for two off seasons before I retired. I had come back to Houston and been working on it and when I came back from LA I started working on it full time. “We started construction ab out 15 months ago,” he said. “There was a lot of work to do before we could even start con struction, because we did it from the ground up — from design to financing to construction. It’s taken a long time, and it’s cost me about four years.” And entering the venture as Fincher’s business partner has created what Elmendorf de scribes as “a nice marriage” lead ing to the finished product, which opens its doors to the pub lic today. “It was my decision to go into it,” Elmendorf said. “Steve (Fin cher) happened to be in the real estate development business in Houston and was an avid rac quetball player, so we combined our forces. “I needed him for his de velopment expertise and he needed me for my free time and my racquetball expertise. I’m not much of a racquetball play er, but I am pretty well versed in racquetball management. I’ve been around it and I’ve studied it quite a bit. “I have several friends out in LA who have gone into the busi ness,” he said. “Eve sat down with them and talked to them about the management of a facility and I’ve put together a lot of notes on it, so I feel like I know quite a bit about it. “I started looking at the fact that 1 was going to be retiring soon from football — sooner or later I had to — so it was time to decide what I wanted to do when I got out. I felt like I wanted to be in something that involved athletics and activity and people, so when the idea of the racquet ball club came along, I thought that was what I wanted to do.” But Elmendorf, who until Saturday hadn’t played a minute of football since announcing his retirement after the Rams’ 31- 19 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XIV, says he still retains valuable memories from his college and professional athletic careers. Co-captain of the Aggie football team in 1970, the 6-1, 196-pound Elmendorf made the all-America squads in football and baseball. In 1978, he was inducted into the Texas A&M Athletic Hall of Fame. Elmendorf, who played center field for Aggie baseball coach Tom Chandler, made Academic all-America in foot ball and baseball during his senior year. He also qualified for the all-Southwest Conference baseball team three years, as well as for all-America after the 1971 season. Elmendorf says he doesn’t consider athletics to be his most valuable gain while at Texas A&M. “I think the best thing I got out of J exas A&M was an edu cation,” said Elmendorf, who majored in economics. “During my years here athletically, in football we had some relatively weak teams most years. “My sophomore year, we had the makings of a real good team. It was the ’68 team, which came the year after the ’67 team’s Cot ton Bowl championship (20-16 over Alabama). Basically, what happened to us that year is that we were hit with so many in juries that we had a real bad sea son, and the following two years were all downhill. “In baseball while I was here, we were always contenders*” Elmendorf said. “We had reatl good teams and I don’t think we ever had a record below .500. We were usually second in tire conference behind Texas. Coach Chandler is usually pretty consistent.” During Elmendorf’s four- years here, the Aggie baseball team finished 21-7. 15-1 1, 25-0 See ELMENDORF page 11 QB DISCONNECTING TELEPHONE SERVICE? Off campus students who are disconnecting service after the semester may turn in their telephones to either of the GTE Phone Marts. The new Bryan Phone Mart is located at 1673 Briarcrest in the Ardan Shopping Center. The College Station Phone Mart is located at Hwy. 30 and South Texas Ave. in Culpepper Plaza. The telephones can be returned Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. All telephone instruments not returned will be bill ed for. On campus students’ long distance service will be automatically disconnected May 14, 1982. Final bills will be sent to the account mana ger’s home address, unless previous arrange ments have been made. While you are at the Phone Mart, please pick up a pre-application package for telephone service for the fall of ’82. This will accelerate the process of obtaining service and reduce the time in processing your order in August. If there are any questions, please call our Business Office at 775-4000. we CHANELLO 5 MOTHER’S DAY! GRADUATION! 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