by Jeff Millar & Bill Hinds
Friday, September 27, 1985/The Battalion/Page 15
es by 10
0-1
Lions’ Sims still Hook-ed
on his Texas hometown
■ ■ Associated Press
| HOOKS — Don Marie Sims was
Regnant with Billy when she left
W East Texas to have her baby in St.
Buis. So an argument could be
Bade that Billy Sims was running
before he was born.
Today, 29 years later, he is still
iinning, and not just from ladders
in the National Football League. He
J dodging Detroit’s fast pace and
1 ! cutting back against the grain of ur
ban living.
BAlways, his runs take him the
same place — to tiny Hooks, a town
of 2,489 people, where Texas, Loui
siana and Arkansas meet in the
Pines Woods.
E Hooks phone numbers all start
with 547.
■ “Going to town” means driving
tu ' m!(1 ;about 10 miles into Texarkana,
tv whenniotB>‘j) etro j t j s w h ere i work,” Sims
[saw “East Texas is where I live. This
ed about isjnome.”
s have said® p[ ome j s a sprawling five-bed-
jrOom, ranch-style house on a grassy
ineth Datisifei 10 " overlooking a pond in the mid-
ve tackleD dk 40 WOO( j ec i acres. In front,
*r and tie! 'here are cows and horses. Out back,
■ere is a swimming pool, tennis
court, guest quarters, a 1955 Chevy
vhosaidMoa®. m y hot rod,” Sims says — and a
ig the season: garage w j t h three models of^Mer-
g to Wackei,cedes that get less use than his Ford
fortwoda)i|pickup.
atcr
r there \
as nothing a
vhether«
trtmg thtir
uch confidt
IRS beaus
uxedo.
I Sims tries to keep from knocking
ie place that made him a wealthy
Lion on the paying field and a
young Lion in business. But in De
troit, No. 20 keeps only a condomi
nium, five minutes from the Silver-
dome.
During the season, he asks his
wife Brenda to take Billy Jr., age 4,
and Brent, 3, home every once in a
while “to keep in touch.” Until this
year, when Sims needed therapy af-,
ter knee surgery, he has always left
Motown quickly after the season is
over. v
“When I won the Heisman Tro
phy at Oklahoma, and the Lions
drafted me, bam! I was supposed to
be the savior of xhe franchise,” Sims
says. “Everything you saw and heard
in Detroit was Sims, Sims, Sims. The
notoriety was fine for a couple years,
but I’ve always been a player who
likes to see the publicity get spread
around. There’s plenty for every
body.
“I wasn’t used to all the pressure,
the demands by the public and the
press in Detroit. It all gets to be pre
tty cutthroat. The pace can get you,”
Sims said.
“So I started taking every chance I
could to get out of that. I’m not rip
ping Detroit, really. If I was single, I
would stay there during the off-sea
son,” he said. “But here, you’ve got
good neighbors, and they’re not
right on top of you. They are hun
dreds of yards away. I do as I want to
do. In a small town, they care for
you. There are no games, no tricks.”
In East Texas, Billy is just “folks,”
driving his pickup, wearing a blue
gimme cap with a white script “H”
for Hooks, where he was an All-State
football player.
He gave $5,000 to his old school
to update its weight-training facility.
He still keeps a key to the school gym
in case he ever wants to shoot a few
hoops.
This is the guy who helped sup
port himself in high school with all
sorts of odd jobs — hauling hay,
cleaning out the sewage plant, pav
ing roads for the city. He may be the
only running back in Texas school
boy history who filled the stadium
on Friday nights with his ball carry
ing, then swept it on Saturday morn
ings with his broom.
Sims won the Heisman Trophy in
1978, fulfilling a recruiting promise
made him by Barry Switzer.
“I learned in a hurry that he is a
players’ coach,” Sims says. “He be
lieved in me, even when I was hurt
and really not producing that well.
“I almost went to Baylor. I really
did. They were running the I (for
mation) and our communication was
good. But Switzer got into the act by
calling me at halftime of OU games.
I would be pumping gas at the filling
station and he would call and say,
‘Well we’re here in Lawrence and
kicking the hell out of Kansas.’”
Sims said he chose OU over Bay
lor because Switzer vowed that, in
Norman, he eventually would earn
his degree and win the Heisman.
“I found out later,” Sims said with
a laugh, “that he tells all good backs
that.”
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Rangers
twist past
Twins, 2-0
Texas rookie pitcher
picks up second win
Associated Press
ARLINGTON — The first day
rookie pitcher Jose Guzman arrived
in the major leagues two weeks ago,
he told Texas Rangers’ Manager
Bobby Valentine he was here to stay,
and after Thursday night’s perfor
mance he may be right.
Guzman, 2-2, scattered six hits in
8 2/3 innings to pick up his second
win in his fourth big league game
with a 2-0 victory over the Minnesota
Twins.
Guzman looked to be headed to
an easy shutout, but after giving up
two, two-out singles in the ninth,
Dwayne Henry came in to pick up
his second save of the year.
“The first day I got here, I told
him (Valentine) I would work hard
and am not going back to Oklahoma
City (the Rangers’ triple-A farm
team),” Guzman said.
Valentine has lauded Guzman as
the Rangers’ top young pitching
prospect, and, after Thursday’s 2-0
victory, he went as far as to Compare
him to Dwight Gooden.
“He has quality major league
stuff,” Valentine said. “He has great
control and composure. Everyone
talks about Dwight Gooden, and
Guzman has that kind of compo
sure. He doesn’t get rattled.”
Valentine also said the game was
good for Henry, another young arm
the Rangers hope will lead them to
brighter days in the future.
“I thought one run might win that
game,” Valentine said. “It got a little
hairy at the end, but the more times
Dwayne (Henry) gets a chance in a
situation like that, the better he is
going to be in the future.”
The Rangers scored the only run
they needed in the fourth inning
when O’Brien hit his 21st home run
of the year, a towering shot to center
field.
The Rangers added an insurance
run in the seventh inning when Gary
Ward, who had three hits in the
game, came home from third with
two outs on Bill Stein’s fielder’s-
choice grounder.
ing pitcher Mike
5, ht" ' ~
Twins starting
Smithson, 14-13, held the Rangers
to only six hits. He struck out four
and walked four.
Rangers’ outfielder Duane
Walker suffered a hairline fracture
of His left wrist and will miss the rest
of the season, the club announced
after the game.
Walker suffered the fracture
when he was hit by a pitch from
Smithson in the fifth. He continued
to play until the eighth.
Other Thursday games:
(Home team in capitals)
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Baltimore 9, MILWAUKEE 1
Boston-TORONTO (rain)
Detroit-NEW YORK (rain)
Kansas City-SEATTLE (night)
Chicago-OAKLAND (night)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Atlanta 6, CINCINNATI 1
New York 3, CHICAGO 0
ST. LOUIS 5, Philadelphia 0 -
Montreal-PITTSBURGH (rain)
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FRIDAY
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