Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 27

Sunday, August 17, 1986 3B Reno Gazette-Journal 3 Wolff Pack offense: it to Beavers ZLSS- (MfWiy II II 1 1 'MIWHIIW' Lance IversenGazette-Journal RECORD HOLDER: UNR quarterback Eric Beavers holds UNR records for career total offense at 6,190 yards and career pass completions at 457. i- X- Vii jr if? A' 1' 1 199 of 319 passes (.624) for 2,617 yards and 27 touchdowns. Led UNR to l-AA semifinals and 11-2 record. Best games (passing): 24-35-319, 3 TDs vs. Cal State-Northridge; 18-22-243, 4 TDs vs.

Montana State; 26-40-277, 4 TDs vs. UNLV. UNR RECORDS HELD Total offense: 6,190 (career), 2,594 (season), 442 (game). Passing yards: 2,617 (season), 369 (game). Touchdown passes: 27 (season).

Pass completions: 457 (career), 199 (season), 31 (game). Pass attempts: 319 (season), 52 (game). UNR RECORDS APPROACHING Passing yards (career): 279 short of Jeff Tisdel's 6,098 in 1974-77. Touchdown passes (career): seven short of Tisdel's 59. Pass attempts (career): two short of Tisdel's 776.

Beavers capsule 1983 Completed 74 of 147 passes (.503) for 832 yards and nine touchdowns as redshirt freshman. Rushed for 199 yards and one touchdown on 33 carries (6.0 average). Helped UNR reach NCAA Division l-AA semifinals 1984 Led Big Sky Conference in passing efficiency in first full year as starter. Completed 184 of 308 passes (.597) for 2.370 yards and 16 touchdowns. Rushed for 195 yards (counting sacks) and three touchdowns on 95 carries (2.1 average).

Best games (passing): 20-32-369, 4 IDs vs. Weber State; 31-38-300, 1 TP vs. Idaho State. 1985 Led Big Sky Conference in passing efficiency for second straight year (second in Division l-AA). Completed From page 1B always have.

Other than ours, he's my favorite quarterback in the league. He's a great competitor and a super player. He single-handedly seems to beat us, although (fullback Charvez) Foger didn't hurt last year." Players and coaches invariably use one word when describing Beavers: winner. UNR is 23-9 (.719) with Beavers as a starter. "He's not overly fast, and he's not overly strong, but he gets the job done," said senior Bryan Calder, UNR's second leading receiver of all-time with 94 catches in two years.

"He's a winner." Beavers is quick, and he's a highly accurate short- to medium-range passer. He has completed 59.0 percent of his passes in his career (61.1 percent in the last two years). His specialty is rolling out and hitting the open receiver with a pinpoint pass, although he can also drop back and throw 40-50 yards downfield. But everyone agrees it's the intangibles Beavers intelligence, competitiveness, mental toughness, confidence and leadership ability that set him apart from other quarterbacks. INTELLIGENCE Ault: "He knows so well what we have to do.

It's like having another coach on the field." Beavers has a average in physical education. COMPETITIVENESS Ault: "He has competitive greatness. This guy thrives on competition. The tougher I make it on this guy, the better he gets. He's in his fifth year, and he's leading the group in conditioning.

He's a prime example of why guys like me stay in this business." MENTAL TOUGHNESS Ault: "I've had the opportunity to coach a lot of mentally tough people, and he heads my list." As a redshirt freshman, Beavers broke his nose and pulled a groin muscle against Northern Arizona but stayed in the game. Practicing at running back in the spring of 1984, Beavers "got the living hell kicked out of him," Ault said. "You'd see him get up and get right back in the huddle. You had to admire him." CONFIDENCE Scott Threde, UNR senior tight end: "The thing I like about him as a quarterback is the confidence he shows his ability to put the ball between people. Like today (Wednesday in practice), there must have been three people around me and he hit me (with a pass).

It shows he has confidence in his ability to throw and confidence in the receivers' ability to catch. Something like that motivates people. A quarterback has to be a leader." LEADERSHIP Calder: "When he's in the huddle, he doesn't yell and scream. But he's running the show, there's no doubt about it." Beavers admits he's "more of a 'mind' quarterback than an 'arm' quarterback. I'm not the kind of guy who'll go back, make a mistake on my read, find a guy and just fire it in there.

I have to throw to the right guy to complete the pass. I have to be a little more precise. I have to have the correct timing. If my timing is off, the ball is going to get knocked down, because I'm not going to throw a frozen rope." In some ways, Beavers is reminiscent of his coach. Ault was a gutsy 5-9, 170-pound quarterback at UNR in 1965-67.

But Ault, 39, downplays any comparison. He says he does not look at Beavers and see himself 20 years ago. "The similarity between me and Eric is we're both very competitive. In terms of ability, Eric is a better quarterback than I was. I threw out of fear.

Eric throws to break records." Beavers is not considered an NFL prospect. "Not too many teams are looking for 5-10, 175-pound quarterbacks," he said wryly. "I haven't thought about that at all." Beavers' best chance to continue his playing career is in the Canadian Football League. "He'd be an ideal quarterback in Canada," Ault said. "He could run around (on the larger field) and throw it." If the CFL doesn't work out, Beavers said he plans to go into coaching.

Mark Crosse Gazette-Journal W1NGIN' IT: Eric Beavers, heading into his senior season, has led the Big Sky Conference in passing efficiency for the past two seasons. "A bunch of guys (players in Sacramento) were going to places, and I thought I was as good as they were," he said. "It seemed like size was more important than I thought." Beavers was all set to play football at UC Davis, a Division II non-scholarship school, when UNR offered him a scholarship at the last minute. "He was a good all-around athlete," Ault said. "Beavers to me was not a high risk.

If he couldn't play quarterback, we'd put him at free safety. We did not take him just as a quarterback, or maybe we would have had different thoughts. He could play two positions." Beavers was redshirted his first year at UNR. He was 5-10, 157 at the time. "He was not very strong," Ault said.

"But through his redshirt year, you could see he had tremendous leadership qualities mostly by example, not verbally. You could see he was very competitive. He'd throw some bad balls and get upset with himself. He was a student of the game. He watched (UNR starting quarterback Marshall) Sperbeck very closely." Sperbeck completed his eligibility after the 1982 season, and Beavers appeared to be the No.

1 quarterback. Then a fellow named Joe Pizzo (pronounced PEE-zo) entered the picture. Pizzo transferred to UNR as a sophomore after Cal Poly-Pomona dropped its football program. Pizzo had everything that Beavers did not. Ideal size (6-3, 210).

Cannon for an arm. Beavers beat out Pizzo in summer practice, 1983, partially because Pizzo quit the team for three days, and started the opener at Division I-A Nevada-Las Vegas. Beaexs played a mediocre game, Beavers was introduced to sports at a young age by his father. Jerry Beavers was a four-sport letterman in high school in the Susanville, area. He coached Eric in Little League and Babe Ruth baseball.

"He got involved in whatever I was doing," Eric said. Even today, Jerry Beavers attends every UNR game he can, home and away. He also makes the trek from Davis to Reno for UNR scrimmages. Eric earned four letters in baseball and football at Davis High School. "Eric worked awful hard in the summer," recalled Bud Henle, the head football coach at Davis from 1956 to 1972 and an assistant when Beavers played there.

"He worked with weights a lot, and he still does, I understand. He's the most dedicated kid I've ever come across." Beavers played shortstop in baseball, hitting .340 as a senior. "I was a better fielder than hitter," Beavers said. "I led off and would just punch singles." Beavers played free safety and quarterback in football as a junior. He did not start full-time at quarterback until his senior season.

Beavers completed 62 percent of his passes for 1,600 yards and 12 touchdowns that year, leading Davis to a 6-2-1 record and the Delta League title. He was named the league's Offensive Player of the Year and second-team All-Metro in the Sacramento area. College recruiters, however, were not impressed. "Guys from Oregon and Fresno State came to talk to me and never came back," Beavers said. For the first time in Beavers' life, size became a factor.

The worst was yet to come. "I took it a lot harder when I got back and heard the things people were saying, like 'At least Joe'll be back next he said. "All of a sudden I wasn't a very good quarterback. I didn't feel that way. To me, it was, 'Well, I played a bad game.

I can come To some people, it was, 'He blew it. Get him out of I started hearing that next year was going to be 'Air I wasn't too fired up about that. I thought I played pretty well until that time." Even Ault wanted Pizzo to regain the starting job. He had Beavers working out at running back and wingback in the spring of 1984. "Believe me, I was somewhat prejudiced toward Joe," Ault said.

"I thought, 'You've got your big "I kept Joe here all summer. He was undisciplined, and he was coming off an ankle injury. Beavers went home." But Beavers wouldn't quit. "From the minute he stepped on the field, day one (in summer practice, 1984), Eric Beavers beat out Joe Pizzo in every category I can think of, including throwing the ball," Ault said. "It wasn a contest.

"When I announced the decision, the community was in shock. People thought I should be committed. It was not the most difficult decision of my coaching career, but it was one of the biggest. It went against everything everyone thought." Beavers vindicated Ault's decision. As a sophomore, he completed 59.7 percent of his passes for 2,370 yards with 16 touchdowns and only seven interceptions.

He set six school records as UNR finished 7-4 in a rebuilding year. See BEAVERS, page 4B game at Fresno State, another Division I-A team. UNR lost again, 24-22, but Pizzo was impressive, completing 14 of 26 passes for 181 yards and one touchdown. Pizzo kept the starting job, and UNR won three of its next four games. The only loss was to you guessed it, another Division I-A school Cal State-Fullerton, 14-6.

Beavers seemed doomed to a backup role indefinitely. The turning point of Beavers' career came when Pizzo broke his ankle against Weber State in the seventh game of the 1983 season. UNR led 13-3 when Pizzo left in the second quarter and won, 41-3. Relying on an overpowering running game, UNR won three of its last four games and its first Big Sky Conference championship. Running back Otto Kelly and fullback Anthony Corley each rushed for more than 1,000 yards in the regular season.

UNR won its first two playoff games to advance to the I-AA semifinals at Southern Illinois. Those two words, "Southern Illinois," will live in infamy for Beavers. UNR trailed 9-7 with 4:30 remaining on a cold, rainy day. Then disaster struck. Beavers threw three interceptions within 35 seconds, and Southern Illinois won, 23-7.

Beavers, who had trouble gripping the ball with his small hands, finished with six completions in 19 attempts for 39 yards and four interceptions. "I took it pretty hard," Beavers recalled. "We had a chance to win it, and with a great deal of help from me, we blew it." According to sources, UNR players were split in their reactions to Beavers' game. The underclassmen sympathized with the redshirt freshman. The seniors were angry, feeling that Beavers had cost them their last chance at a national championship.

ana uim iiitrwp hanvjd to start UNR's second 5 OS Reno cyclist makes the most of injury Thompson Benedict hit road er running career ends I wanted out of running. The injury was the perfect excuse. I wanted to ride my bicycle. Inga Thompson Benedict 7 1 finish second in the Coors Classic, behind France's Jeannie Longo. Four months after entering her first competitive race, Benedict qualified for the 1984 U.S.

Olympic team. She placed 21st in the women's road race in the Summer Games at Los Angeles. After the Olympics, though, Benedict came down with a mystery illness that kept her in bed and off a bike for the better part of six months. Benedict ended her layoff with a first-place finish in the Nevada City Classic in California. She followed that with her strong showing in the Coors race.

"My first year of cycling I really didn't know what I was doing," Benedict said. "Everything was new and I was learning. Last year was pretty much a loss because I was sick. So this year has really been my first full year of cycling competitively. I still think of myself as a newcomer in this sport." Benedict believes her running background is most responsible for her quick rise in the cycling world.

Running taught her to deal with pain. "Lyle Freeman (former Reno High School cross country coach) taught me how to run with pain," Benedict said. "It's the same with bicycling. You have to be able to keep going even when you hurt. You can't let it beat you." The pain has beaten Benedict only once when her ankle gave out during that track meet three years ago in Oregon.

Even then, she came away the winner. COORS CLASSIC NOTES: Today, the women start with a 10-mile time trial up Vail Pass at 9 a.m., and finish with the 30-mile Vail Village Criterium at 2 p.m. The men start the day with an individual 10-mile time trial up Vail Pass. By Larry BadenGazette-Journal Athletically speaking, arthritis was the greatest thing to happen to Inga Thompson Benedict. Hold the aspirin and the sympathy cards.

That revelation comes from Benedict. You see, back in 1983, Benedict, a three-time Nevada cross country champion from Reno High School, was tiring of the running scene. Despite finishing fourth in the NCAA Division II cross country championships as a freshman at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, Benedict was interested in seeing more scenery than running allowed. "More than anything I just wanted to get out into the mountains," Benedict said. "Running really limits your range.

I could only run maybe a couple hours at most before I got tired." Benedict wanted to see more. She wanted to ride a bike through the mountains. She couldn't walk away from her athletic scholarship. But she could limp away. During a race at the University of Oregon, Benedict came up lame.

The injury was first thought to be minor. Maybe tendinitis. But it was more serious. The joint in Benedict's left ankle was arthritic. She also had bone spurs.

Benedict's nmning career was over. Everyone grieved. Everyone but Benedict. "I wanted out of running," Benedict said. "The injury was the perfect excuse.

I wanted to ride my bicycle." Benedict hasn't been able to ride her bike as much as she would've liked over the past two years, II i but she's made the most of the opportunities she has had to compete. She is competing in the 11-stage women's Coors Classic, which began Friday in Grand Junction, Colo. Benedict got off to a quick start by winning Friday morning's 2.6-mile prologue time trial in 15 minutes, 49 seconds. The Classic comes less than three weeks after Benedict's return from her first Tour de France, in which she finished third in the women's division. The Tour itself and Benedict's high finish in it have left her a bit tired entering the Coors Classic.

"I'm not as ready as I would like to be," Benedict said. "I was tired to start with after the Tour de France. With all the attention I've gotten since getting back, I haven't been able to train as much as I normally would. Under the circumstances, though, I'm as ready as I could hope to be." Aside from dealing with media attention and becoming part of the media Benedict served as a commentator on the men's portion of the Classic for KTVN-TV, channel 2 in Reno Benedict also took care of a personal matter between the Tour de France and the Coors Classic. Benedict married i Chris Benedict, also of Reno.

Inga Benedict came off a long layoff last year to it i- ll Mark Crosse Gazette-Journal NEW CAREER: Reno's Inga Thompson Benedict was a state champion runner in high school before an injury forced her to turn to cycling. ,11 m. .1 4.