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Friday, December 7, 1984Arhe Battalion/Page 11
Dorsett’s Ride’
El Paso folklore
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United Press International
EL PASO — The story of “Tony
and the Pony,” an account of Tony
Dorsett’s ride on a Sheriffs Posse
horse, drew laughs at a Sun Bowl
news conference with the coaches of
aryland and Tennessee.
ocery,
ink.
■ Tennessee coach Johnny Majors
laughed loudest at the recollection.
Hed forgotten about the incident.
But Sun Bowl veterans say the story
of' Dorsett’s Last Ride” on a horse is
now part of Sun Bowl lore.
It seems a few days before the
1975 Sun Bowl game between Pitts-
rgh and Kansas (Majors was
aching Pittsburgh), the players
from both teams were taken to the
Sheriffs Posse roundup, one of a
number of hospitality events for
ich the Sun Bowl is famous.
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Dorsett, Pittsburgh’s All-Ameri
can running back, decided to go na
tive and mounted a Sheriffs Posse
horse.
1: “An assistant coach ran in and
told Johnny,” said Sam Jenkins, Sun
Bowl Association president-elect.
“Johnny turned white. He could just
see his All-American tailback falling
off a runaway horse.”
pFor Majors, now with Tennessee,
it was a return to the good old days
at the Wednesday news conference.
For Maryland coach Bobby Ross it
was his first time at the Sun Bowl,
but not his first time in Texas.
H“I was an assistant coach at Rice,
and 1 hope I do better in this bowl
game than we did at Rice,"” Ross said.
“My wife and the children think
back to many, many happy days in
Texas.”
The Maryland and Tennessee
teams do not arrive until the Mon
day before the Dec. 22 game. But
Sun Bowl Executive Director Donnie
Duncan arranged for the two
coaches to hold a news conference in
El Paso to plug the game.
“I don’t know much about foot
ball. I’ve been coaching it since
1957,” deadpanned Majors. “But I
think going in we’ve possibly got the
best matchup of any bowl game.”
It will be a second bowl encounter
for the teams. Tennessee beat
Maryland, 30-23 in last year’s Flor
ida Citrus Bowl.
Both coaches came in from the
College Hall of Fame induction ban
quet in New York. Ross even
cancelled some in-home recruiting
visits and left El Paso on a red-eye
flight Thursday at 3:50 a.m. in order
to get back on schedule.
The 1976 Pitt team - with Dorsett
winning the Heisman Trophy - won
the national title. The Sun Bowl vic
tory the year before “was our first
win on the way to the national
championship,” Majors said. “It cat
apulted us right into being the best
college football team America’s seen
in the last 20 years. Of course, I
speak from a prejudicial viewpoint.
But that was a completely well-bal
anced team with no weaknesses.”
Dorsett kept his balance on the
Sheriffs Posse horse, also, Jenkins
recalled. “Tony stood tall and rode
the horse around the Sheriffs Posse
arena like he was born in the sad
dle,” he said.
L§
What else can be said
about TCU's Wacker?
United Press International
I FORT WORTH — One of the
[ things Jim Wacker has turned out
not to be over the course of his 47
years is shy.
f It takes only a matter of seconds,
| certainly no more than 30 to 45 of
* them, to become aware that Wacker
4/j enjoys doing just what he says he en-
m w j joys doing.
H“Hove coaching because coaching
is teaching,” Wacker said. “But I love
selling, too. I love going up against
rMlflfr ot her coaches, trying to sell our
l program and our school. I love re-
i cruiting.”
■That’s where Wacker is these
1 days. He’s in Austin and Houston
1 and who knows where selling Texas
3fS J Christian University to the youth of
. . , America.
1 Italy i He did a pretty good job of that
* ) the past two years, but his job was
1 made a lot easier this season since his
a 1 TCU Horned Frogs produced the
[ sharpest turnaround of any football
> team in the country,
f; TCU went from a 1-8-2 record to
t 8-5, earned a bowl trip for only the
1 second time in 25 years and, came
1 within one victory of representing
| the Southwest Conference in the
, Cotton Bowl.
it store |! For all of that Wacker was named
i Thursday as UPFs collegiate football
„ J coach of the year.
It makes no difference whether
Wacker is speaking to a chemistry
professor, a group of seminary stu
dents or the people whose bankrolls
' OIL! fi nance ^e school’s athletic de-
V partment.
He is apt to give them the same
i lecture and the theme of that lecture
is that TCU is inevitably going to be
national champion.
1 “We were so close to winning the
conference championship and going
to the Cotton Bowl,” he said. “We
had that brass ring and let it slip
away. We talk about the things
you’ve got to do to hang on to it.
I You’ve got to make it happen,
t “The pot of gold is still out there
and we are coming closer. We will be
pushing and griding and reminding
the players of what it takes to make a
good team into a championship
team.
■“And once you get to the Cotton
Bowl you start talking about national
championship.”
0i
Wacker admits he gets his share of
strange looks when he launches into
his national championship speech.
But he is used to getting those kind
of stares.
“I had a newspaper guy call me
not too long and I told him that in
two more years we would be in the
Cotton Bowl and would be in the top
10,” said Wacker. “He asked me how
I could say such things and I told
him all I was saying is what I believe
will happen. You’ve got to be nuts in
this profession if you don’t believe
you are going to get there.
“If you don’t believe it, it sure isn’t
going to happen. The first year I was
at Southwest Texas we told those
guys they would be national cham
pions (of NCAA Division 2) before
they graduated. They thought we
were ridiculous. They hadn’t even
won a conference championship in
10 years. But it happened.
“I don’t care what happened be
fore and I don’t care if it sounds stu
pid to everybody else in the world.
We are going to talk it and believe it
and strive for it and know what our
goals are.
“I don’t expect everybody in the
world to believe it. They can think
we are goofy and crazy. I don’t care.
I know what I want my coaches to
believe and for me to believe and the
players to believe. And if they be
lieve we’ve got a chance and those
possibilities can become a reality.”
TCU resided for years in the
realm of the pitied, but almost over
night the Frogs became envied
within the confines of the SWC. And
Wacker wants it that way.
“I want everybody in the world
gunning for us,” he said. “And it was
that way at the end of the season.
Texas played their best game of the
season against us and Texas A&M
played one of their two best games
against us.
“But our kids played hard for 11
games in a row. I really believe we’ve
seen the turn in attitude. Yeah, I
wanted that chance to win the con
ference championship against A&M
and Texas.
“We had a great offensive explo
sion in our first two games (against
Utah State and Kansas State). After
that there wasn’t a lot of sneaking.
People knew we were going to play
hard.”
Reagan meets Doug Flutie,
receives Heisman replica
United Press International
l WASHINGTON — President Reagan greeted Heisman Trophy winner
Doug Flutie of Boston College Thursday as a college football player “in a
class by himself.”
The diminutive quarterback advised high school athletes in the audi
ence: “If you can dream it, it’s possible.”
The football star, who set a major college passing record, was named last
week as the best player in college football.
| The ceremony was held in an auditorium in the Executive Office Build
ing filled with football players from Gonzaga High School in Washington,
which is run by the same order of priests that operates Boston College,
f Among the guests were Flutie’s coach, Jack Bicknell; his parents; Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Silvio
[ Conte, R-Mass. •
| Afterwards, Harold Reinauer of the Downtown Athletic Club, which
awards the trophy, gave the president a small replica of the statue.
B “That’s better than an Oscar,” remarked Reagan, recalling his admira
tion of Jay Berwanger, the first Heisman winner 50 years ago, when he was
sportscaster “Dutch” Reagan.
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