The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 29

THE EEACON JOURNAL TUESDAY, FEB. 28, 1989 PORT Indians' Peters High schools 4 won't yield Obituaries 5 to Carter 3 Classified 7 SECTION Intimidation factor aside, Pistons are very good TOPS IN THE NBA The four winningest teams in the National Basketball Association since the start of the 1986-87 season going into Monday night's games: Team Record Pet. 1. Lakers 164-54 .752 2. Pistons 141-73 .658 3.

Celtics 141-77 .646 4. Hawks 141-77 .646 least if you listen to them talk about each other. Detroit coach Chuck Daly is constantly saying that Cleveland is his pick to win the NBA title, while Wilkens says, "You have to say Detroit is the best team in the East until someone beats them. They've earned that respect." Detroit has done it with one of the smallest backcourts in the league. Isiah Thomas is 6-foot and Joe Dumars is 6-2.

Thomas may be the most tal- See CHECK, page D3 "I don't think Detroit's tactics help them win," said Cavs general manager Wayne Embry. "Fighting doesn't matter one way or another. (Bill) Laimbeer does all that garbage on the court because he thinks he intimidates people, but I don't think he intimidates anyone. "Bill Laimbeer is in the league not because he's a cheap-shot artist, but because he can rebound and has a great jump shot for a center. He's a good basketball player and they're a damn good basketball team, and I'm stressing the word basketball." time.

They will boo Laimbeer savagely and probably give Daugherty the loudest cheer of his 3-year Cavs career. Everyone will have a good time, but a rematch between the two centers is unlikely. The league is expected to assign veteran officials such as Earl Strom, Joe Crawford or Jack Madden to the game, and they will be under orders to blow the whistles early and often and to keep blowing them if the guys on the court insist on acting like juvenile delinquents. What the fans will see are the two best teams in the East at When opponents scout the Pistons, they don't worry about Rick Mahorn or Laimbeer body-check- ing someone into the bleachers. As the Cavs take the court tonight at 8 at the Coliseum, Coach Lenny Wilkens has no intention of rehashing the Brad Daugher-ty-Laimbeer fiasco of last month.

"The media wants to talk about it and that's understandable," said Wilkens. "But my main concern is will we play good defense. Will we score? I want to win the game, I don't care about fights." The fans will have a good By Terry Pluto Beacon Journal staff writer When it comes to the Detroit Pistons, just check the record: Assault, ambush, inciting a riot No, not that record. And that is the trouble with the Pistons. It's hard to know where the cheap shots (on and off the court) end and the basketball begins.

The fact that Detroit has been the beast of the NBA East for the last V-i seasons is lost in the tale of the tape, the accounts of jabs and grabs. But the only NBA team with a better record in that span is the LA Lakers, and brawling has nothing to do with it. WE Steve Love Brooklyn no match for Akron Zips win sixth in a row, 102-44 Tribe's Bell finds baggage is very heavy Tucson, Ariz. When he listens closely, Jay Bell can hear the endless echoes of boos. By Roland Queen Beacon Journal staff writer At just 23 years old, he is a man with a past.

pLy 4 4 4 jt i i -t V' i -i A dark past. Whether it will haunt him forever is what he has come to the desert this spring to learn. For the moment, this much is clear: Jay Bell the Shortstop might as well be Jay the Bellman. He has a lot of baggage to carry. His jersey may say Indians, but what it means is Suspect.

Though everyone denies it, Jay Bell did not begin this spring with a clean slate. Everything he does, but especially his hitting, is being watched a little more closely than it would be if last season had gone differently. Bell had a window of opportunity in 1988. The trouble is, he shut it on his fingers. Bell had been sent to winter baseball to improve his defense.

"I think I may have concentrated on defense a little too much," Bell said. In the process, his hitting went south. "Jay was supposed to the great hitter," Manager Doc Edwards said. "That was going to be his future." Field a little. Hit a lot.

That was Bell's ticket. Instead, he hit .185. Brooklyn College coach Mark Reiner knew his Kingsmen were in way over their heads Monday night at Rhodes Arena. So, he tried to play the only trump card he had. Reiner started the game the way most teams try to protect leads at the end of games by playing keep away in a 4-corner spread offense.

If Reiner and the Kingsmen were trying to keep from being embarrassed by holding the University of Akron Zips under 100 points, they failed miserably. The Zips (19-7) made a team-record 11 3-pointers and buried 29 other field goals along the way while cruising to a 102-44 trouncing of the Kingsmen (4-22) before 2,536. "We knew coming in that there was the possibility of Akron blowing us out that way but we just couldn't do anything about it," Reiner said. "They are a very, very good team. They belong in a (post-season) tournament.

(Akron coach Bob) Huggins does a great job with his team." Reiner was not offering any patronizing, public-relations propaganda, not after playing Zips four times the past two seasons. The 58-point margin means Akron has beaten Brooklyn by a total of 99 points in two games this season and 165 points over four games the past two campaigns. The victory was the sixth in a row for the Zips and, with two games remaining, moved them one step from recording their fourth consecutive 20-victory season. Akron's Eric McLaughlin led the 3-point shooting assault by hitting 7-of-12 and finished with a game-high 30 points. He also had five assists to give him 139 this season, which breaks the single-season record (138) set by Mike Dow-dell in 1986-87.

McLaughlin's running mate at guard, sophomore Anthony Buford, was 3-of-4 from 3-point land and finished with 19 points. Three other Zips also scored in double figures, Scott Paterson (14 points, seven rebounds), Shawn Roberts (11 points, eight assists) and Albert Jones (10 points). The 3-point shooting performance broke the record of 10 set Feb. 4 in a 99-73 victory over Youngstown State. McLaughlin said it was difficult to get inspired to play Brooklyn.

"It was really hard for me to get pumped up," he said. "I was just out there playing on That got him benched in favor of Ron Washington, who did not throw baseballs nearly as well as George Washington threw coins. "That," Bell said, "is when I a big-league ballplayer. That was when I learned to deal with ad versity. "I was hitting .185.

The fans were booing. It was a lesson. The lesson didn't end there. Big-league ballplayer or not, Bell was packed off to the minors. It was an admission of a major- league flaw in judgment and not one happily acknowledged by the Indians.

Julio Franco had been moved to second base to make room for Bell at See BELL, page D3 Beacon Journal photoJocafyn WilNamt Akron's Tony White gets off a shot despite the efforts of Brooklyn's Frank Fontanctta See AKRON, page Dt Tearful Landry says goodbye to Cowboys Watters is happy, even without the limelight ff By Milan Zban Beacon Journal staff writer the pack, with an average of 33.3, is Todd Hopkins of Bluefield (Va.) State. Going unnoticed is nothing new for Watters. "It was the same in high school. I averaged about 18 points a game, but Central-Hower had Grady Mateen (now at Ohio State) and they went to state. I was on a team that played .500 ball." He has the same problem at Lake Erie.

Despite Watters' efforts, Lake Erie is 5-24 in the school's first venture in men's collegiate basketball. "I don't know what it is, but all I know is that I'm happy to be playing again. I sat out a whole year after transferring from Lakeland Community College. I like to keep busy." Watters' scoring efforts have been See WATTERS, page Dl One of the nation's leading basketball scorers, Jackie Watters, toils in near obscurity. The junior forward from Cleveland's Lake Erie College is among the nation's top 10 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics scorers, yet he might as well be throwing the ball in the lake.

"I don't hear from very many reporters," said Watters, a Buchtel High graduate whose 28.2 scoring average is sixth best nationally. He moved up two spots from eighth in a week's time. He has been atop the NAIA's District 22 statistical sheet for 10 weeks in a row. Watters trails fifth-place Matt Brown (29.11) of Iowa Wesleyan and is just ahead of seventh-place Carter Glad (28.1) of Winona (Minn.) State. Leading Jones on the unbeaten 1964 Arkansas Razorbacks, will meet the Cowboys on Tuesday.

He has scheduled a 1 p.m. press conference. Former linebacker coach Dave Wan-nstedt who recently joined the Miami Dolphins' staff, and David Shula, the Dolphins' assistant head coach and passing game coordinator, have accepted positions with the Cowboys. Johnson also was expected to bring the Hurricanes' offensive line coach Tony Wise, receivers coach Hubbard Alexander, defensive backs coach Dave Campo and defensive coordinator Butch Davis. Landry's farewell speech preceded a mini-camp for the players Monday.

"There wasn't a dry eye in the room," said linebacker Eugene Lock-hart. "Coach told us he loves us all and although he couldn't be with us in person from now on he would be with us in spirit." Then Lockhart paused and added, "I couldn't stand much more." White said it was rare to "see him in a situation that's difficult for him to handle. It's something I'll never forget. It must have lasted only five minutes but time stood still, believe me." "Tom wasn't the only one in the room who broke down," said linebacker Jeff Rohrer. "It was tough, he was saying goodbye to 29 years." Landry had one year left on his contract but had been talking like he wanted to coach well into the 1990s.

Associated Press Irving, Texas Tom Landry tearfully bid farewell to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday, saying he loved them and asking them to give their best for new coach Jimmy Johnson. "It was hard to keep your emotions under control," said a red-eyed Landry. "I tried to tell them that this crisis will pass, that you have to keep moving forward." Quarterback Danny White said he had never seen his coach so emotional. 'I felt for him," White said. The 64-year-old Landry choked up and couldn't finish his speech to the players assembled in the lecture hall.

"It was one of the most difficult things I've had to do," Landry said. "It was hard saying goodbye." Landry spent 29 years as the Cowboys' head coach, the only one in the team's history. His teams won two NFL championships and set a league-record of 20 consecutive winning seasons. However, the team has slipped in recent years and finished 3-13 last year, worst in the NFL. Landry cleaned out his desk on Sunday, making room for Johnson, who also said goodbye to a football team Monday, the University of Miami Hurricanes.

He coached at Miami five seasons, leading them to the national championship in 1987. Johnson, a college roommate and football teammate of new owner Jerry Jackie Watters top scorer Indians hire Hegan for television post Tom Seaver is hired to do NBC's baseball telecasts. Page D2. Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Oakland A's, and the Brewers in a big-league career that spanned from 1964-77. A first baseman and outfielder, Hegan played on Oakland's 1972 world championship team.

He also was selected to the 1969 American League All-Star team while with Seattle. The date of Channel 43's first broadcast has not been announced. Former major-leaguer Mike Hegan, a Milwaukee Brewers television broadcaster for the last 10 seasons, has been selected as color commentator for Cleveland Indians telecasts on WUAB-Ch. 43 this year. Hegan replaces Steve LaMar as Jack Corrigan's partner.

LaMar's contract was not renewed after one season. Hegan, 46, is a Cleveland native and the son of former Indians catcher Jim Hegan. Mike Hegan, a St. Ignatius High graduate who attended John Carroll University, played with the New York.