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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 3, 1988)
Wednesday, August 3, 1988/The Battalion/Page 3 Sports Mobil joins Cotton Bowl team DALLAS (AP) — The Cotton Bowl, facing pressure to increase j payouts to lure teams for its postsea son game, signed a seven-year agreement with the Mobil Corpora tion Tuesday and became the eighth bowl to tie its name to a sponsor. The 53-year-old Cotton Bowl joined the Sugar Bowl (USF&G), Fiesta (Sunkist), Gator (Mazda), Hol iday (Sea World), Aloha (Eagle), Sun (John Hancock) and Citrus (Florida) to link up with a commercial tie in. The Orange Bowl and the Rose ■ Bowl are the only major postseason games without title sponsors. The Cotton Bowl paid out $2.4 million to Notre Dame and Texas A&M after last January’s game. Lon DeLuca, director of pro gramming for CBS planning, said the Cotton Bowl would have been “in a difficult situation” if it had not found a sponsor. The CBS contract with the Cotton Bowl lasts until 1990 but the game was faced with the prospect of hav ing to increase revenues to schools on Classic playing in the game without help from the network. “The TV rights fees were going to be about the same,” DeLuca said. “The Cotton Bowl had to have some one like Mobil to stay competitive. We’re delighted for them.” CBS has been tied to the Cotton Bowl since the 1940s. Field Scovell, a longtime executive of the Cotton Bowl Athletic Associa tion, said he was happy although he had mixed feelings. “It’s like the guy who donates an organ to the church,” Scovell said. “You wonder when he’s going to start trying to call the tunes.” Jim Williams Jr., president of the CBAA, called it “a historic occasion for the Cotton Bowl and the city of Dallas. We are excited about our partnership with Mobil. “The Mobil flying red horse has been identified with the Dallas com munity for as long as the Cotton Bowl Classic.” Mobil has been a sponsor for other sporting events, including the USA Mobil indoor and outdoor na tional track 8c field champions, auto mobile racing, and a featured race of the Breeders’ Cup, thoroughbred racing’s year-end championship. The Mobil building in Dallas with its Flying Red Horse on top has been designated a city landmark. “It’s sign is the most revered in the city of Dallas,” said Williams. “We’re natural partners.” Allen Murray, the chief executive officer of Mobil, said “Linking up with the Cotton Bowl intrigued us. It’s one of the premier sporting events in the country. Our heritage is in Dallas although we are in 100 countries.” Williams said the agreement with Mobil includes helping obtain other sponsors, handling advertising, and putting on the postgame parade. “We will be able to provide the network with a complete package,” Williams said. “This was not a hard decision to make when we looked at our long-term future. It was some thing we had to do to stay compet itive.” The dollar figure on Mobil’s help was not announced but a CBAA source said it could amount to $1.5 million per year. Hogs’ Hatfield likes prospect of Grovey at QB FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Right off, Ken Hatfield wants everyone to know that Quinn Grovey is not Brad Taylor, the strong-armed quarterback of a few years ago. But, he says, people should “remember his quick feet and the fact that he had the key play in four of our five conference wins last year.” There will be a great deal of pressure on Gro vey, a sophomore, who will be the No. 1 quar terback at the University of Arkansas this fall. For one thing, there was a lot of grumbling last year about the Hogs’ lack of passing, and Hat field has retooled the offense to appease some fans. For another, it’s been more than a dozen years since UA has been to the Cotton Bowl. “We will still be an option team because we want to take full advantage of all our personnel,” Hatfield said. “We will utilize a different forma tion to use their talents more. You win with peo ple, not formations. “We recognize the need to throw the ball more. It all starts with healthy quarterbacks. The poorest thing we have done in the past is throw the ball when people know we have to throw the ball.” Last year, Arkansas completed 72 of 126 for 940 yards — Grovej, playing behind Greg Thomas when Thomas was healthy, connected on 38 of 62 for 495 yards. The five projected starters in the offensive line never played together in the spring and Hatfield says quickly building a cohesive unit is a must. Freddie Childress, who topped 360 last year, has lost about 50 pounds and Hafield says it is essen tial that he be productive in the fourth quarter. “We have as much talent and depth at the skill positions as we have had in the five years I’ve been here,” Hatfield said. “That will help us do a lot of things offensively.” The biggest name player is James Rouse, who scored 17 touchdowns last year and topped 1,000 yards rushing. He has 28 career touchdowns — third on the UA list. Loose hamstrings lull Louis Lipps LATROBE, Pa. (AP) — All but four times last season, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ weekly injury report said: “WR Louis Lipps, hamstring, out.” And when Louis Lipps was out of the lineup, the Steeler offense was down and out. Lipps brought instant offense to the Steelers as a rookie out of South ern Mississippi in 1984, scoring 12 touchdowns and leading them to the AFC title game. He was even better as a sophomore, scoring 15 touch downs and giving the Steelers the big play threat they had lacked since Lynn Swann’s retirement in 1982. But the last two seasons, Lipps has been hurting, and so has the Steel ers’ offense. He managed only three touchdowns in 1986 and exactly zero last year, when he played in parts of only four games. It was no coin cidence the NFL’s worst offense scored only 14 touchdowns in 12 non-strike games, including only one touchdown pass in the last seven games. “There are 1 1 guys out there and one guy can’t do it all,” Lipps said at the Steelers’ St. Vincent College training camp. “But it was frustrat ing on the sidelines, watching, stand ing. That was tough in itself, know ing you can’t help your team.” The 5-foot-9, 190-pound Lipps wasn’t the only person frustrated by his inability to play with aching ham strings. Steelers conditioning coach Walt Evans publicly criticized Lipps last season for his lackadaisical work habits, which he said contributed to the hamstring injuries. Evans’ re marks came after Lipps tore a ham string on his first day back from the 24-day players strike. Evans’ candor caused tension in the Steeler lockerroom for several days — but the stinging criticism may have had its desired effect. “Things got twisted and turned and misinterpreted,” Lipps said. Assistant coach Jon Kolb said Lipps strictly adhered to an exten sive offseason conditioning and run ning program, and as a result re ported to training camp last month in his best shape in three years. “I did a lot more running in the offseason and I feel a lot better,” said Lipps, a Pro Bowler in his first two NFL seasons. “The last two years, having the injuries, made this season more of a challenge. I’d never had to deal with being hurt be fore — not in high school or college. “It’s not a good feeling, knowing you’re hurt and it’s hurting the team. This season, so far, it’s going fine. “I want to return 100 percent,” Lipps said. “I’m sure not going to put any pressure on myself by saying I’m going to do this or do that. But I’m confident I can help this football team. “Louis Lipps just wants to be Louis Lipps this season.” Ritter skies to stardom from humbling roots DALLAS (AP) — The squint lines curling from Louise Ritter’s eyes are testament to more than 15 years of high jumping in the Texas sun. She has blond hair with brown roots, wears a tasteful amount of gold and diamond jewelry to work outs, and drives a new red BMW to and from the Dallas athletic equi- ment store she opened three months ago with two partners. Suffice to say, she i$ a more worldly version of the small-town girl who was too shy to utter more than two words to the media after winning her first co llegiate championship as a Texas Woman’s University freshman 11 years ago. Perhaps the transformation has come with age; she’s 30 now. More likely, though, the change has come from confidence. Ritter has held the American high jump record eight of the past 10 years. Almost as a warning to the compe tition she was to face last month at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianap olis, Ritter pushed her record up an other inch — from 6-feet-7 to 6-8 — in early July in a small tuneup meet. “It makes a big impact on some body when they look in the paper and they read that you’ve done something like 1 did,” Ritter said. “You just have to wonder. Your cu riosity is there. Did she clear it by a lot? Was it a fluke? Could she have jumped higher?” Ritter won the Olympic Trials, leaping 6 feet 6 l A inches on July 23 in Indianapolis. The second and third place finishers cleared 6-5. Ritter is one of only five women to jump 6-8. The only other woman to reach that mark this year is Bulgar ia’s Stefka Kostadinova, who owns the world record of 6-10'A. “That means a lot to me. It’s something you can look at and know that no one in the whole USA is bet ter than you,” Ritter said.” But this is not what Ritter envi sioned for herself growing up in Red Oak as one of three daughters to a truck driver. She was an active child until the fourth grade, when she was diagnosed as having rheumatic fever and was confined to bed and rest when she wasn’t at school. “I remember a lot of days sitting and watching my sisters and all the neighborhood kids playing and thinking, ‘Will I ever get to play again?’ ” said Ritter, who had the dis ease until she was 12. “I think that’s why I was so active afterward. It was like I finally got to do what I wanted to do.” She did it all — ran track, long- jumped, triple-jumped, high- jumped and lured more scholarship interest as a basketball center. She set the junior national high jump record and decided to pursue that event on a partial scholarship at TWU in Denton. The decision was based partly on her love of the event (“I can control my own destiny,” she said) and partly on her confidence in Dr. Bert Lyle, then the school’s track coach. Ritter and Lyle have worked me ticulously through the years on her high jump technique, changing her style from the straddle in high school to the more common flop. “Strength and speed are her as sets, but also intelligence and com petitiveness,” said Lyle. “You have to understand that this is a complex event. You’re trying to take off from a spot to get your best height and clear the bar. “But I’d say there are few who equal her ability to compete when the going gets tough.” Despite her consistency over the years Ritter does not have an Olym pic medal. In 1979, she won the gold medal at the Pan American Games and was already the American re cord-holder. But the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympics. Although she watched Pam Spencer take away the American re cord in 1981 and Coleen Sommer better it in 1982, Ritter regained the mark in 1983 and seemed poised to medal in 1984. But a hip injury held her back that year. Although she won the U.S. Olympic Trials, she finished eighth at the L.A. Games. “I won the trials in 1984, but who remembers that?” she said. Ag recruits to sit in ’88 Three incoming Texas A&M football players have been de clared Proposition 48 casualties for the upcoming season, the A&M Sports Information De partment announced Tuesday. The players are: Emannuel Johnson, a 6-4, 250-pound de fensive end from El Camino (Sac ramento, Calif.) High School; Paul Johnson, a 6-1, 210-pound quarterback from Cameron Yoe; and Anthony Williams, a 6-2, 225-pound linebacker from Waco Jefferson Mount. Assistant Sports Information Director Colin Killian said all three will be enrolled at Texas A&M in the fall to try to bring their grades up to an acceptable standard. 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