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NFL 1 4 Asbury Park PressSaturday, December 22, 1 990 Eagles' ex-Cowboy won't blast old team Bears' rookie dies in auto accident I I i side after the car hit the tree on the right side. Bears' president Michael McCaskey remembered Washington as a player who had the respect of his teammates. "That's hard to come by especially in your first year," he said. "But, he earned it because of how he worked." The team went through its normal practice yesterday after holding its regular meeting. "Sunday's game obviously has to be put on the back burner," defensive back David Tate said.

"That's a reality. We understand the game is a business, but it's not everything in life. This is kind of a wake-up call to everybody that life is very valuable and fragile." The Bears lost two players in an automobile accident in 1964 when running back Willie Galimore and receiver John Farrington were killed in a crash at the team training camp in Rensselaer, Ind. They were members of the Bears' 1963 NFL championship team. Washington was a three-year starter at Texas Christian University.

He led Denison (Texas) High School to a 16-0 record and a state championship as a senior in 1984. The 6-foot-2, 277-pounder had been used sparingly until recent weeks, when he began seeing more playing time for the injured Dan Hampton. The Associated Press LAKE FOREST, III. Chicago Bears' rookie defensive tackle Fred Washington was killed in a one-car crash yesterday, robbing the team of its second-round draft choice. Washington's female companion, Petra Stoll, 22, of Palatine, also died in the crash about two miles from the player's home.

"He was a coach's dream, a player who never complained, an outstanding young man," coach Mike Ditka said. "We're going to try and dedicate the rest of the year to Fred." The Bears planned a memorial service for Washington on today a day before they host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Washington's car struck a tree, Deputy Police Chief Gary Wieczorek said. The victims were pronounced dead at the scene. The accident happened at about 2:30 a.m.CST.

Weather conditions were good at the time and no evidence of alcohol or other drugs was found in the car, registered to Stoll, Wieczorek said. Lake County Coroner Barbara Richardson said the car appeared to have been traveling at high speed because the passenger door was driven all the way through the vehicle to the driver's FRED WASHINGTON A quiet man "Fred was being groomed to replace guys like Hampton and (defensive tackle Steve) McMichael, who are getting toward the end of their career," Bears' spokesman Bryan Harlan said. "We were expecting big things of him on the field. He'd shown a lot of progress and the coaches were very happy with his development to this Ditka called Washington a quiet contributor. "He was a little withdrawn," the coach said.

"He didn't say much, but he worked hard." i MMj.ym.yV to iuigt-i. By DAVE CALDWELL Philadelphia Inquirer PHILADELPHIA Rod Harris, Cowboy turned Eagle, refused this week to stir the simmering stew of ill will that the Dallas-Philadelphia rivalry has become. He returned punts for the Cowboys for the first eight games of the regular season, including one for 10 yards in the Eagles' 21-20 victory on Oct. 28 in Dallas. But he has, he says, no hard feelings about the team that waived him in late November.

And he is doing too good a job returning punts witness Sunday's 30-yard return against Green Bay, the Eagles' longest of the season to let a little thing like the bad blood between his former and current teams smudge his focus for Sunday's game at Veterans Stadium. Harris wears a bright green stocking cap on his head now. He is an Eagle. "This game here it's a big game," he said. "Not because it's against the Dallas Cowboys does it make it a big game.

It's because it's the next game. That's just the way I take things. Every game on the schedule is the biggest game. I'm just looking at it as a regular opponent. "You want to excel against a team you played for," Harris added, "but I have nothing against the Cowboys.

I'm an Eagle now. I'm playing Eagle football." Harris became an Eagle because -coach Buddy Ryan likes to keep a sharp eye on the waiver wire. His last game with Dallas was the game against the Eagles, in which he returned one punt before pulling a groin muscle. Ryan had read in a Dallas newspaper that the Cowboys were down to their last two free-waiver activations. With starting running back Alonzo Highsmith and starting safety Vince Albritton on the disabled list, Ryan knew the Cowboys would not use one of their free moves on Harris, a Plan acquisition who had not caught a pass in Dallas.

That meant Harris, a fourth-round draft choice by Houston in 1989 who played 1 1 games that season with New Orleans, had to clear waivers when he came off the disabled list before Dallas could activate him. When his name appeared on the waiver wire on Nov. 29, Ryan quickly put in a claim. The Eagles got him. "I liked him coming out of college," Ryan said of Harris, who played at Texas "We talked about him in Plan B.

So it was a natural, as far as I was concerned." The most surprised person to hear that he was an Eagle probably was Harris, who did not expect another team to put in a claim that late in the season. "I wasn't really (upset) well, at first I was, because I had kind of set my sights on playing there," he said of playing in Dallas. "It was home. Dallas was my home town, and I was getting ready for the New Orleans Saints. But once I got up here, I'm loving it.

I'm loving it all." The Eagles seem to love him, too. Harris recently has been the brightest performer on the Fagics' special teams. which of late hardly has been the team's specialty. "Not very much special about 'em, I'll tell you that," Ryan grumbled Monday. Before Harris was acquired off waivers, the punt-return team was the sorriest of the lot.

After only two games with the Eagles, Harris already has become the team's top punt returner, with nine returns for 121 yards. He has accumulated nearly as many return yards in two games as his predecessors Mike Bellamy, Calvin Williams, Marvin Hargrove and Anthony Edwards gained in the previous 12 games. Before Harris' acquisition, the Eagles gained 164 yards on 24 returns. In Sunday's 31-0 victory over Green Bay alone, Harris returned six punts for 91 yards. "You don't go into a ball game thinking a guy's going to catch six punts for 91 yards," special-teams coach Al Roberts said.

"You're thinking the ideal is SO yards. If you can get SO yards in punt returns a game, 500 a season, you've got a good punt returner." Late in the second quarter, Harris caught a Don Bracken punt, momentarily lost the handle on the ball, then scooted past the Packers' coverage and down the sideline for 30 yards. Six plays later, Roger Ruzek kicked a 34-yard field goal. It was the Eagles' longest punt return since Gregg Garri-ty's 76-yarder for a touchdown against the Raiders. On Nov.

30, 1986. Four years ago. "I feel like I got lucky that time breaking two tackles," he said. "But I had some good blocks. The punt-return team really worked hard and worked And we believe in each other." That may be the key.

Now that he has nearly broken a return for a touchdown, those who are assigned to block for him carry out their assignments with more vigor. "He made that first 11- or 12-yard run (Sunday), and it was amazing how excited the guys got on an 1 1- or 12-yard run," Roberts said. "He made a move, shot up in there, and everybody thought, 'Oh, man, if I get one more little block, he comes out of Next time, everybody holds on a little harder and a little longer, with a little more stick-to-it-ness, and the guy goes 30 yards. And it's like, 'Oooooh, And Harris promises there will be more of those to come. "They play backyard football," Harris said of the Eagles on the punt-return team, "and that gives me the confidence.

Rod Harris is in control back there. He does what he wants to do." The Eagles yesterday activated defensive tackle Mike Pitts, who missed the last 12 games after undergoing arthroscopic surgery. To make room on the roster for Pitts, the team waived reserve defensive end David Bailey. Ryan, who also moved linebacker Ricky Shaw from the disabled list to the practice squad yesterday, said he expected to use Pitts for about 16 or 17 plays Sunday. "He's a great player, but I don't expect him to be a great player tomorrow," Ryan said of Pitts.

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