Tuesday • March 21, 1995
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The Battalion • Page 9
Still smiling after all this time
□ Michael Jordan is taking his
comeback in stride.
DEERFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Michael Jordan has
rewritten the NBA record book, has sold shoes and
sports drinks simply by smiling, and has been
worshipped by fans from Chicago to Shanghai.
There’s no more famous athlete on the planet.
Yet there was Jordan on Monday, one day after
his electrifying comeback to pro basketball, talk
ing about sneaking up on the rest of the NBA.
“That’s one of my strategies,” he said. “A lot of
guys haven’t seen me play. It might take an ad
justment period.”
He said that after he told agent David Falk and
Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf he wanted to
give up his baseball experiment and return to bas
ketball, they tried to talk him into waiting until
next season.
“I said, ‘Well, it kind of gives us a psychological
edge this year,’ ” Jordan said. “To come back now,
it kind of takes some teams by surprise.”
The first game of his comeback even surprised
Jordan.
He hadn’t played in an NBA game since June
20, 1993, when he led the Bulls to their third con
secutive championship. Nevertheless, he played 43
minutes Sunday in Chicago’s 103-96 overtime loss
at Indiana.
“I was very sore last night but I just soaked a
little while and came back out today. I feel fine,”
Jordan said after Monday’s two-hour practice. “I
was very surprised. The competitive side of me
wanted to be in there. But physically, I was a little
weak. That’s one of the reasons I kind of started
cramping up, because my body wasn’t really ready
for it yet.”
How will he deal with leg cramps in the future?
“Just drink a lot of Gatorade,” he said.
Then he flashed that $30 million
smile and winked.
Jordan spent so much time pitching products
and swinging at pitches after leaving basketball
that he almost forgot what it was like to be in an
NBA game.
“As much as I tried to search my memory in
terms of how to prepare, it was real different,” he
said. “I think going through those 43 minutes gave
me a frame of mind in terms of how to adjust to a
game again.
“The biggest key is to try to slow my process, my
body, down to adjust to a game, pace it a little bit to
where I’m productive every minute and not trying
to be overproductive every minute. That’s tough for
me. But I think in a couple of games. I’ll adjust.”
Jordan missed 21 of his 28 shots, but he did
have 19 points, six
rebounds, six as
sists and three
steals.
“They weren’t
the greatest high
lights,’’ he said,
“but I was glad to
be back.”
The Bulls next
play Wednesday
against the Celtics
in Jordan’s final
visit to Boston Garden. “I’m just happy to have an
opportunity to play in it before they rip it down,”
he said.
His first home game is Friday against the Or
lando Magic.
Jordan hopes to use those games, and the 14
regular-season contests that follow, to get accli
mated to his teammates. Only Scottie Pippen, B.J.
Armstrong and Will Perdue were around for his
first nine-year stint with the Bulls.
“The biggest thing for me is not to change this
team, but to try to fit in,” he said. “They were do
ing very well over the last 18 months. I just want
to add to that and make them a little more dan
gerous. I’m not trying to reconstruct the team or
create any new identity.”
"They weren't the
greatest highlights
but I was glad to be
back."
— Michael Jordan
Prior to rejoining the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan exits
attend a practice session last week.
AP Photo
his car to
Buzzer beaters the Spurs forward out of action again
norm at NCAAs
□ The 'big dance' is
down to 16, but not
without a flair for the
dramatics.
AP-The 15 games left in the
NCAA tournament have a tough
act to follow.
With six overtime games, a
few early upsets and a bunch of
blunders and buzzer beaters,
the first two rounds had every
thing a basketball fan could
want.
One TV was not enough.
The next act
starts Thursday
night with the first
games in the round
of 16. Following the
Beatles on the Ed
Sullivan Show
might have been
easier.
On Sunday
alone, three of the
tournament’s great
est moments looked
a lot like some of
the NCAA’s best highlights from
years past.
Tyus Edney’s length-of-the
court drive covering 4.8 seconds
for UCLA’s game-winning shot
against Missouri looked like
Danny Ainge’s sprint that
shocked Notre Dame in BYU’s
51-50 win in the 1981 East Re
gional semifinals.
Don Reid’s rebound and bas
ket off Allen Iverson’s airball
gave Georgetown the buzzer
beating win over Weber State.
The play was similar to North
Carolina State’s 54-52 title
game win over Houston in 1983
when Lorenzo Charles dunked
Dereck Whittenburg’s airball at
the buzzer.
Lawrence Moten’s timeout
when Syracuse had none left in
a loss to Arkansas immediately
had people bringing up Chris
Webber’s similar mistake in
Michigan’s 77-71 championship
game loss to North Carolina in
1993.
Those harried endings
capped four days of OTs, upsets
and emotion.
Old Dominion’s triple OT win
over Villanova was the tourna
ment’s longest game in 13 years.
Two No. 14 seeds won, and an
other could have if a
buzzer shot hadn’t
bounced off the
rim. And for
every group of
huggers and
jumpers, there
were just as
many locker
rooms full of
criers.
The eight high
est seeds — four
No. Is and four No. 2s — are
still going, and none of the re
maining teams are seeded lower
than sixth. The round of 16 will
also be without a team from the
Big Ten — the first time that’s
happened.
Six Big Ten teams started
and five lost in the first round.
Purdue lost in the second round.
As bad as the first two
rounds were for the Big Ten,
they were perfect for the ACC,
which has four teams still alive
— one in each region. The SEC
has three and the Big Eight and
Big East still have two.
□ After sitting out for
oversleeping, Rodman
now on injured list.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — For a
player who gets a lot of atten
tion, Dennis Rodman sure does
n’t play many games.
The San Antonio Spurs for
ward with the shifting hair color
separated his shoulder Sunday
while riding his motorcycle. He’ll
miss as much as a month.
“He was out on a beautiful
Texas day,” Spurs coach Bob
Hill said, “and apparently the
stop sign came up on him a lit
tle quick.
“He slammed on his brakes.
His bike went down. He went
down. He separated his right
shoulder, completely separated
it, so he’ll be gone two-to-four
weeks.”
Team spokesman Tom James
said he was uncertain on de
tails of the Sunday incident
and could only say it took place
in the Hill Country.
No accident reports were filed
with the San Antonio police, or
with Bexar, Bandera, Kerr or
Gillespie counties in the Texas
Hill Country. There also was no
report filed with the Texas De
partment of Public Safety.
Dr. David Schmidt diagnosed
Rodman with a third-degree sep
aration of the acromioclavicular
joint in his right shoulder.
Because of Rodman’s suspen
sions, mishaps and other trou
bles, he’s already missed 19 of
the Spurs’ 62 games this year.
He missed three last season, as
well as amassing 32 technical
fouls, being ejected four times
and suspended twice.
Setting the standard for others
Dave
Winder
Sports Editor
W ho is the Fightingest
Texas Aggie?
These days no one per
son stands out enough to claim
the title. But from the late 1940s
to the early 1970s, every member
of the Corps knew the answer.
When they were freshmen they
had to know it or they couldn’t get
any dessert.
Jerry Bonnen was named the Fightingest
Texas Aggie when he finished fourth in the two-
mile run at the Southwest Conference Track and
Field Championships in 1947. He didn’t receive
the title because he finished fourth. It was be
cause he finished.
Going into the last two events of the meet,
Texas A&M and the University of Texas were
neck and neck with each other for the team title.
Bonnen was the Aggies lone representative in
the two-mile run.
“I wasn’t supposed to win anything,” Bonnen
said. “But on every curb of that
track my teammates were yelling
for me.”
Egged on by his fellow Aggies,
Bonnen stayed in the race until
he dropped on the final turn.
“I was so exhausted I fell off
the track,” Bonnen said.
Bonnen, with severe leg
cramps, crawled back onto the
track and started towards the finish line. He
worked his way into a kind of duck walk in time
to finish fourth. The Aggies received one point.
At the end of the meet, the point really didn’t
mean much in the overall standings. But Bon-
nen’s performance inspired the A&M mile relay
team to capture first place. Those points gave
the Aggies the SWC title.
The win broke the Longhorns’ domination of
track and field and started a winning streak for
See Track, Page 1 0
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Campbell helps boy
to road of recovery
TYLER(AP) — Former Houston
Oilers running back Earl Campbell
recently came to the aid of a sick 9-
year-old boy in his hometown.
During a visit to a Tyler elementary
school last month, Campbell was told
that fourth-grader Clay “Magic” Ware
Jr. had missed nearly two months of
school because of unexplainable
severe abdominal pain.
Some doctors had diagnosed the
illness as a psychological disorder. And
problems had arisen because of
limitations with the family’s health
insurance.
Campbell walked to the boy’s house
and became outraged when he learned
that a Dallas hospital had said it
couldn’t admit Clay until March 27,
unless it was a life-threatening
situation.
Campbell returned to Austin and
arranged for the boy to visit a
pediatrician he knows in Houston, who
diagnosed the boy’s illness as a
stomach hernia. The problem was fixed
March 6 during a simple one-hour
surgical procedure.
“He told me the only payback he
wants is just for me to help somebody
else who needs it,” said Clay’s father,
Clay Ware Sr. “If Earl Campbell hadn’t
come by the school that day, we would
probably still be waiting to get Magic
some help.”
UH regents vote to
join new conference
The Spurs’ 44-18 record
matches the best record in fran
chise history after 62 games,
which was set last year.
Rodman, who led the NBA in
rebounds last season, was sus
pended from the team for the
first three games this season
and then took a leave of absence
during which he was instructed
to get psychological counseling.
He was suspended again
Dec. 7 when he failed to return
from his leave of absence for
meetings with Hill. The Spurs
activated him from the sus
pended list Dec. 10.
* On Thursday, Rodman ar
rived in the second quarter of
the Spurs’ game against the
Philadelphia 76ers. He said he
overslept when his alarm clock
failed to go off. He never left the
locker room during the Spurs’
112-86 victory.
HOUSTON (AP) — The University
of Houston system board of regents
took the next step into the future on
Monday by voting unanimously to join
11 other universities to form a still
unnamed athletic conference.
“This makes it official,” UH athletic
director Bill Carr said. “The next steps
are to finalize the many details
pertaining to the conference, the name,
the office location, the commissioner’s
situation.”
The new league is scheduled to
begin play in all sports except football
next season, but the Cougars will
remain in the Southwest Conference
through the spring schedule of 1996
before jumping to the new league.
The other 11 schools in the new
league are a combination of former
Metro and Great Midwest Conference
schools. They are: Louisville, North
Carolina-Charlotte, Southern
Mississippi, South Florida and Tulane
from the Metro and Alabama^-
Birmingham, Cincinnati, DePaul,
Marquette, Memphis and St. Louis
from the Great Midwest.
Olympic worker
plunges to his death
ATLANTA (AP) — An ironworker
fell to his death Monday when one of
nine 150-foot light towers at the
unfinished Olympic Stadium buckled,
unleashing two banks of lights on
workers below.
Two other workers were injured,
one seriously, when lights fell from the
weakened structure and crashed to the
85,000-seat stadium’s concrete
bleachers.
The cause remained unclear, said
Chuck Winstead, project director for
Atlanta Stadium Constructors, the
general contractor. Construction was
halted as an investigation began, but
officials said some work could resume
Tuesday.
As constructed, the tower
resembled an inverted L with two light
banks attached to the ends of its
horizontal beams. The worker who
died was hanging from the top section
on a safety harness when it folded in.
Construction worker Thomas
Houston said he heard a low, loud
rumbling.
“When I looked, I saw the guy
flipping. He didn’t move, man. That
was it,” Houston said.
“At first it was slow, then it was just
like that,” said Rick Jones, who
witnessed the collapse as he drove by
the stadium.
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