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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1983)
Page SB/The Battalion/Wednesday, August 31, 1983 Book traces career of John DeLorean United Press International NEW YORK — The saga of John DeLorean is a tale of the power of self-delusion and in vestors who relied too much on other people’s judgments, according to two journalists who coauthored a book on the embattled automaker. The moral of the story, said financial writer James Srodes, may be that “it’s too easy for us to turn over control of our lives to other people.” DeLorean lost $500 million of “other people’s money,” he said, but every person and gov ernment that got involved had the means to check the truth be hind DeLorean’s self promotion. Srodes and Ivan Fallon, city editor of Britain’s Sunday Tele graph, began following the De Lorean story when the former General Motors executive con vinced the British government to bankroll an automobile fac tory in Belfast, Northern Ire land. “The British government be lieved if the Securities and Ex change Commission felt the deal was okay it was okay,” said Fal lon. “The auditors felt if the bankers said it was okay it was okay and so on.” In their book, “Dream Maker — The Rise and Fall of John DeLorean,” Fallon and Srodes chronicle DeLorean’s career as one of Detroit’s most successful auto executives, and later as self- styled critic of American car construction and Detroit’s cor porate philosophy. DeLorean’s dream of found ing his own car company came to a crashing halt last year when he was arrested for cocaine traf ficking in California. The epi sode was portrayed as an attempt to save his foundering Northern Ireland car factory. Fallon and Srodes see it as just the last in a series of shady deals in which DeLorean be came involved as he sought money for his own high-flying lifestyle and his ambitions to be come a power in the automobile industry once again. DeLorean promised to build an “ethical” sportscar that would be long-lasting, safe and effi cient. But the car itself proved to be a disappointment, the au thors said. Cutting corners to reduce the development time and costs, De Lorean insisted only on market ing-oriented features like the gullwing doors, and enough room behind the front seats to store a set of golf clubs. “Jim and I saw three cars still stored in the factory the other day and they’ve got rust spots on them,” Fallon said. “This car was • supposed to be built of material that would never rust.” Srodes said he became suspi cious of the DeLorean myth when he looked through pre viously published DeLorean stories and came across the same cliches over and over — “maver ick,” “swinger,” “the man who fired General Motors.” A trip to Detroit, he said, pro duced a picture of a “totally dif ferent man” from the one de scribed in the articles. “Ivan and I decided we had a book,” he said. “The more we started working on the idea the more we realized it was not just a book for Britain — it was a very impor tant story for America about the way we do business.” The British lent money to “a myth, not a man,” said Fallon. staff photo by Eric Em Spreading his word Ron Tewson, the adviser to the A&M <> n Tuesday to speak to students by the Christian Fellowship, picked a sunny afternoon Harrington classroom building. DANCE INSTRUCTORS NEEDED Interest in sport keeps growing Roller skating attracts 39 millioi Auditions for modern, jazz and tap teachers will be: Thursday, Sept. 1 For information call: Vicki 260-5808 Rebeca 845-3513 United Press International FORT WORTH — An esti mated 39 million Americans participate in a sport which is used to sell KoolAid and cup cakes, is endorsed by the Amer ican Heart Association and can be done while disco dancing. It is roller skating. The 2,500 hard-core rink rats who came to Fort Worth recently for the 1983 United States Amateur Roller Skating Championships are proof that interest in the sport is growing. “People have found that it is a real sport they can participate in,” says Charles Wahlig, coach at both the Pan American TWO BLOCKS NORTH Formerly One Potato Two Potato Believes YOU Need a Change Try a stuffed spud! 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He also is a for mer world champion in both speed and artistic events. “When I was skating in the early 1950s, there were about 500 contestants at the national championships,” he said. “That figure has grown fivefold. We have more people competing and everyone is better. The more numbers you have, the higher the quality.” Wahlig said growing know ledge about the sport contri buted to the United States men’s team’s phenomenal rise in world speed skating. In 1978, the U.S. men’s speed team was 12th in the world. In 1979, American skaters began working out at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and, by 1981, the team had moved to first place — a position it retained in 1982. “At Colorado Springs we learned things like weight train ing, technique and sports medi cine, such as diet and keeping body fat down,” Wahlig said. Dean Huffman, a two-time gold medalist at the world meet, began skating at age 9 and spent two hours a day on wheels dur ing his childhood. “I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I feel more comfortable on my skates than on my feet.”. Huffman, who retired at 23, works for a wheel manuf acturer in Santa Barbara, Calif., and still skates a couple of hours a day. “Because we have four wheels,” skater Tina Kneisley said, “we can do things you can’t really do on the ice. ” “I wanted to stay as close as possible to the sport,” he said. “It enabled me to do a lot of travel ing all over the world. I got to see a lot of things I would never have seen without the sport and got to meet interesting people.” Tina Kneisley of Marion, Ohio, took third place in the artistic singles competition in Fort Worth and will represent the United States for the sixth time at the World Champion ships in Fort Worth Oct. 19-22. “We compete in the artistic events just like you would see on the ice,” she said. “It’s very simi lar, but you have different points of balance. Because we have four wheels, we can do things you can’t really do on the ice.” She has skated competitively 15 years. “Really I’ve been on skates since I was 10 months old,”/ Kneisley said. The 20-year-old junior at Bowling Green State University said skating led to her decision to study public relations. “I would say I’m a pretty out going person,” she said. “To be able to go out there and compete before all those people and strut your stuff for the judges, you have to be aggressive and willing to put youself forward and give it everything you’ve got. Person ality on the floor is a definite advantage.” Past competitions have taken her to Portugal, West Germany, New Zealand, Columbia, Japan, All Two Bedroom Units $375 00 /Month ►FREE Metro Membership to Woodstone Nautilus & Court Club •FREE Cable & HBO •On Shuttle Bus Routes •Pool # 24 Hour Emergency Maintenance •Security Guard •W/D Connections •Laundry Rooms •Activities •Cash Contests 1001 Harvey Road, College Station, 693-4242 m 0073 METRO PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT INC Italy and Puerto Rico The United Stales dominated the artistic lion on the world levelfors al years, Wahlig said George Pickard, gener<! retary of the U.S. Amateur! federation of Roller Sb said the sport reachedthekf of its popularity when the roller skating craze peait 1982. “But it wasn’t a fadth) zled, like the hula- said. “A lot of people stayed it. “Roller skating is a good diovascular exercise,” he “And you don’t have theS to the knees that you do jogging because you gliding." Sports physiologists a: American Heart Associa which endorses skating, mate that, at a moderate^ it burns at least 500 calort hour. “The heart association for lifetime sports — activi person could continue thn adult hood,” Pickard said “ Have you ever seen a f smile?” he said. Classics to retur in color United Press Internationil Hollywood’s black and* classics now can be con« into color videotapes with! accu racy they look as ifth? been shot with color film The September issueo! ence Digest reports the te que, developed by Video!® age Inc. of Toronto, usesai puterized process called zation.” An aritst appliesai to the first frame of each* with an “electronic palette raining 1,028 colors. The purer than divides this i into 525,000 points, or “pi’ and records for each pixel the color and the tone® original black and white 6 Wilson Markle of Vid Image says colorization bring back many of the! black and white film shot® the 1930s and 1940s. Man’ taken out of circulation.f because it was though’ would not hold the inte® TV viewers accustomedto 11 Three out of 10 screened at National If Fairs last year found the’ illnesses needing medical’ lion, and 15 percent disc® abnormalities they didn't' they had. The fairs, which are!® the National Health Sct {{ Council for VolunteerOh zations, Inc., a nonprofit?' are expected to draw a people across the countf y ear -. Height and weight ments, blood pressure® sion tests, and blood cou® free- as are screening glaucoma, sickle-cell and Tay-Sachs diseasen 1 where their incidence is