The Battalion Sports
May 4, 1982 Page 9
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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.
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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
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we
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