St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 29

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 5C More Tales Of Super Bowl 'Services -wr jeff meters ff HOUSTON, Jan. 9 A sports writer checked in here yesterday and said he was with THE Daily News. The receptionist for' the National Football League asked if he meant The New York Daily News or the Philadelphia Daily News. The guy blanched.

"Uh, the Bangor Daily News," he said, adding quickly: "It's in Pennsylvania, you know." Without batting a false eyelash, the receptionist whipped out a slick briefcase crammed with information on Super Bowl VIII and handed it' to him along with his gift from the NFL and his press pass to the game. She treated him with equal respect as if he were a sports person from the New York Daily News. "We're here to serve you," she said sweetly. "Cars quotes Danish pastry video tape interviews weather reports transportation typewriters Eligibility Safe For Bonus Babies do everything we can to help you, except write your story. You are planning to write, aren't you?" The man from the Bangor Daily News muttered "Oh sure," took his booty and retreated to the press lounge, where he gulped down a couple of tree beers, relaxed in an easy chair and mused that this is the way sports writers and visiting shahs from Tasmania should be treated.

NCAA KO Blanket Pro Rule voted 258-123 for the constitutional amendment to satisfy a two-thirds majority requirement by a margin of four votes. The old rule, which stripped eligibility in all sports because of professionalism in one, jolted many a college football coach in baseball's big-bonus era. Memorable cases of the 1950s Prom PiMt-IMmmtrh News Service SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 9 -The National Collegiate Athlteic Association ruled yesterday that if an athlete turns professional in one sport he will be free to retain his amateur eligibility in others, providing that he follows certain guidelines. Delegates to the NCAA's annual meeting, which ends today, The NFL expects a record turnout' of 1503 media persons, and apparently the energy crisis and reduced budgets aren't affecting the travel plans of newspapermen from the Jefferson-Davis Journal and the Forward Times and El Mundo.

The NFL has turned a football game into the most glamorous extravaganza in sports. Not even the Indianapolis 500, the Kentucky Derby or the World Series attract as many reporters or receive as much frenetic attention on the days preceding the event. In fact, the Super Bowl gets such an inflated buildup that the game is often a letdown. It is dull compared with the exciting lines that invariably spring out of typewriters the week before. The Super Bowl is hot so much a sports event as a happening.

Super football groupies follow the Mjami Dolphins from watering hole to watering hole that Dick Anderson?" one of them sighed at Irv Goode last night at Friday's. "Oh, I met his brother Bob at Celebrities such as John Wayne and Bob Hope, not to mention Minnesota Vikings superfan Eugene McCarthy, hound writers for inside dope. (You guys are funnier than my writers," said Hope, "but I don't think you write that way Adding to the plastic grandeur are the parties around town. Former Cardinal Joe Robb said he would throw a bash after the garhe that "might last until training camp." Hope will have a pregame party in hjs hotel suite for Houston dignitaries such as oil magnates and sports writers. The most lavish blowout even by Texas standards will take place Friday evening in the Astrodome, presumably the only indoor place large enough to accomodate all the guests.

The party this year will be a genuine Texas hoedown, replete with foot-stomping hillbilly bands, barbequed beef and chicken-fried steak. Without a doubt, the party will be even more gauche than those preceding it. When the NFL had its first Super Bowl party eight years ago, dt was only slightly more sensational than your average bar mitzvah. Last year, the NFL held the party on the Queen Mary, and everyone wondered what the NFL could do for an encore but obviously the NFL did it by coming up with the Astrodome hoedown. The Queen Mary is docked at Long Beach, and everything went well last year until the free booze began working its devilish tricks and the NFL had to restrain certain members of the press from hijacking the ship to Rio! The NFL tries, successfully, to outdo every other sport in indulging the media.

While baseball hands out a small box lunch at the World Series, a restaurant caters the Super Bowl game and at halftime gives each writer a small canvas valise filled with such delicacies as lobster and stuffed avacado. It is a first-class operation that New York writers get blase about and writers from Idaho go bananas over. The Super Bowl is expense accounts and parties and people "here to serve you." It is living for a week in the plushest hotel in town. Where in South Dakota is a hotel with a 300-foot-high lobby that comes with its own forest? And really, are there any stories to write? Such is the magnitude of the news here that writers nibble on any morsel thrown to them by the teams: sparrows in the Vikings' shower room, mothers not allowed on the Miami team plane, rumors that Dolphins defensive coordinator Bill' Arnsparger will became head coach of the New York Giants. Are these news stories or simply attempts by the writers to create something out of nothing? The NFL thinks of everything.

This morning a basket of cheese and a bottle of Mateus were left in my room. Now if they'd only give me food for thought. NCAA Honors Owens On Silver Anniversary SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 9 (AP)-The National Collegiate Athletic Association paused yesterday to honor Jesse Owens and other sports figures of the past. "The next two decades are going to be difficult in this said former Columbia University quarterback Gene Ros- I If It '2 yx included Mike Shannon at University of Missouri and Haywood Sullivan at Florida.

Both were outstanding quarterbacks who took bonuses to sign with the baseball Cardinals and Boston Red Sox, respectively. The rule came 62 years too late to help Jim Thorpe, hero of the 1912 Olympic Games, who was forced to return his track medals after it was disclosed he had played semipro baseball. The Amateur Athletic Union still uses the stricter interpretation of professionalism, but last year participated as the medals were re-awarded to Thorpe, posthumously. "I think the AAU will go to this (the NCAA's new rule) too," said Dave Maggard, athletic director at University of California. "There has been strong support of it for some time." The athlete most 'likely to be helped by the rule now is Southern California's gifted Anthony Davis.

He could take a baseball bonus now he's regarded as an outstanding prospect and then return as a running back with the Trojans next fall. There are, however, limitations: An athletfc who turns pro in one sport would lose his eligi- bility in all sports if he appeared in television commercials or endorsed products. An athlete who signs a contract in baseball, for example, cannot receive a collegiate grant in aid in a different sport. If he plays in a tennis or golf pro-amateur, he cannot accept prize money. The NCAA further liberalized its pro-amateur code by ruling that an athlete who tried out for a pro team and fails to win a contract may return to school and continue his eligibility in that sport.

He may also take money for officiating in amateur sports but not pro sports and he may teach sports and physical education and retain his eligibility. Today, the delegates were expected to review transfer eligibility rules and grant-in-aid limitations. The current rule limiting to 30 the number of prospects that can be signed for football, with an overall limit of 110, is under fire. In other action yesterday, a move to reinstate the 1.6 grade minimum rule was rejected. The 2.0 (C average) minimum for high school graduates was retained at the major college level (Division I).

Schools in lower divisions need not adhere to the rule. sides, one of those honored 'The values that are learned in athletics are going to be important." Rossides, former assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and now a lawyer in New York and Washington, was one of five former athletes who received NCAA Silver Anniversary Awards for lins and Olympic track gold medalist Dave Wottle of Bowling Green. Special awards of valor went to Maryland basketball coach Lefty Driesell, who helped save several children from a burning home last year; University of Texas-Arlington football player Jeff Miller, who rescued four coworkers from a burning munitions plant last summer, and members of the Ursinus College basketball team who rescued several persons during a restaurant fire. MONKEYING AROUND. Jim Kiiclc of the Miami Dolphins during yesterday's practice for Sunday's Super Bow! game against the Minnesota Vikings.

(UPI Telephoto) Writers To Salute Big Red's Smith, Hart Jackie Smith, the Cardinals' record-setting tight end, and Jim Hart, who ranked sixth among National Football Conference quarterbacks in the 1973 season, will be honored by the St. Louis baseball writers at their annual dinner Jan. 21 at Stouffer's Riverfront Inn. They will share the John E. Wray Award for achievement in KELIY-GPRINGFIELD AUTO SERVICE outstanding achievemtnt.

Owens, former Ohio State track star who was the U.S. tiero in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, received the NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award, the group's highest honor. Owens, in turn, thanked his old track coach, Larry Snyder, who retired from Ohio State in 1966 but attended the awards luncheon here. "I'm afraid I had to cry," said the white-haired Snyder after Owen's acceptance speech. Owens said that being a black student at Ohio State in the 1930s "was somewhat of a difficult problem from the standpoint of being able to share.

Larry made me feel like part of our team." Other Silver Anniversary Awards went to Secretary of the Army Howard H. Callaway, a former tennis player at West Point; Robert S. Dorsey, jet engine expert who played football at Ohio State; Robert B. McCurry Chrysler Corp. executive who played football at Michigan State; and Rr.

Robert J. Robinson, former Baylor basketball star who is a Baptist minister in Augusta, Ga. The top five student-athletes of 1973 also were honored. They were Michigan football All-America Dave Gallagher, KB IK III SKIS 1R sports other than baseball. In the 1973 National Football League season, Smith caught 41 pa.sses good for 600 yards.

That brought his pro career totals to 424 catches and 6648 yards. He passed Bobby Joe Conrad's club record of 419 catches and displaced Mike Ditka as the record holder among NFL tight ends. Hart completed 178 passes in 320 attempts for a 55.6 age, second highest in Big Red history. His 3.1 interception percentage was bettered only by Minnesota's Fran Tarkenton (2.6) in the NFL. Smith and Hart will share the Wray award with University of Missouri football players John Moseley and Scott Anderson.

Others to be saluted at the dinner include Lou Brock, Ted Simmons, Alan Foster, Mike Tyson, Pete Rose, Dave Johnson, Ken Holtzman, Darold Knowles, Joe Cronin, Bob Scheffing, Butch Yatkeman, Taylor Douthit, Dr. Hubert (Shucks) Pruett and Harry Kessler. Tickets, $17.50 each, can be obtained by sending a check or money order to St. Louis BBWAA, P.O. Box 605, St.

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Florisiant 867-8330 Daily 8-6 Sat. 8-2 Fri. 8-8 NCAA HONORS OWENS. Jesse Owens, the 1936 Olympic Games hero, is shown with his wife, Ruth, and his former Ohio State track coach, Larry Snyder, after being honored by the N'iional Collegiate Athletic Association with the Theodore Roosevelt' Award, the organiiation's highest honor. (AP Wirephoto 4.