The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 39

Akron Beacon Journal Horse racing Obituaries Scoreline: 375-8057 port Wednesday. July 29, 1981 Death threats ominous burden on Colzie Whoever it is has gotten me afraid. I have to try to erase it from my mind. But I am looking over my Neal Colzie Associated Press TAMPA, Fla. A series of death threats, apparently connected to the slayings of his two stepsisters in Atlanta, has given Tampa Bay safety Neal Colzie an ominous burden in efforts to turn around his pro football career.

Colzie, a 1974 All-American at Ohio State University, said he has received "four or five" threatening telephone calls, the latest last Thursday. Tampa police and National Football League security people are investigating, he said. "The calls have been reported to us and a detective has been assigned to investigate," Tampa police spokesman Johnny Barker said Tuesday. Police have determined that the calls are long distance, but haven't been able to trace them. "Whoever it is has gotten me afraid.

I have to try to erase it from my mind. But I am looking over my shoulder," Colzie said. The next day, they were found dead on their kitchen floor. "They shot the whole house up. It was like a gangland-style killing," he said.

"Every time I used to talk about it, I would start to cry." There has been one arrest made in the case, Colzie said. And the seventh-year pro says he has offered to testify in the case. HE SUSPECTS he's being harassed by people involved in the slayings. Colzie was alarmed Monday when the St. Petersburg Times published the story, with the headline: "Caller to Bucs' Colzie: I am going to kill you." "Some nut out there might try it anyway," Colzie said.

"This thing is very distressing, but it's even more distressing to see a headline like that." Colzie said he isn't taking any chances. "I don't go out as much as I used to unless I go out with Cecil," he said, referring to muscular linebacker Cecil Johnson. The death threats come during what may be a crossroad in Colzie's career. Colzie was the NFL's top punt-returner with the Oakland Raiders, but after four years as a second-string defensive back, he was delighted by a trade that sent him to Miami. He was the Dolphins' 1979 starting safety, but after seeing his secondary shredded in a playoff loss to Pittsburgh, Coach Don Shula revamped his backfield and waived Colzie.

Colzie was picked up by the Bucs, but played little. He admitted he wasn't in good shape and wasn't interested last year. But this season, he hopes to challenge for a starting position. "I'm going to dedicate the season to he said, explaining he was especially close to the older stepsister. Colzie said he has little doubt about why he's receiving the calls.

On Jan. 27, he visited his stepsisters, Candy Demetria Lane, 25, and Jo Carron Lane, 21; in Atlanta. They told him they had been threatened. "They were involved in things they weren't supposed to be doing," he said. Vi Rutigliano comfortable with QBs Cultivating boxing Community changes attitude about the sport at King farm Inexperienced bdcffupsf.

hfa, I 1 lSSft5SWKI tyy GEfe-N U-. kjc, day's blisters and says, "This has become my baby; dad has given me the farm to manage and to develop." Already, Carl King said, his family has invested $500,000 in the property, will invest more, considerably more. There is a handsome dormitory that resembles a small motel, another new building that will contain a restaurant-type kitchen for the camp chef and dining quarters for the 25 or so fighters and those who surround them while they are training here. There's also a new gymnasium, Carl King's token of appreciation and See KING, page E3 i If" Second of two reports from boxing promoter Don King's training farm in Ashtabula County. By Tom Melody Beacon Journal sports editor ORWELL It is a farm on which they grow corn and, sometimes, cauliflower ears.

A farm on which the prize cattle, in a manner of speaking, are some of the most competent prize fighters in the world, men of wealth and status who come here to run along the dusty roads, to beat on canvas bags, to wash their own unmentionables. The sweat of Larry Holmes has seeped into this rich ground in Ashtabula County. So, too, the sweat of Roberto Duran and Leon Spinks and Michael Dokes and Earnie Shavers. It was also here that Carl King, no cause Jor concern; By John Seaburn Beacon Journal staff writer Sam Rutigliano must have been poh-; dering the possibility long before anyone thought to supply the question. What, Rutigliano was asked, would the Cleveland Browns do if quarterback Brian Sipe, the NFL's most valuable player last season, should go down with an injury? Although intriguing, it is a less-than-welcome thought around the Browns'- training camp at Kent State these days.

For last year Sipe, once a 13th-round draft pick out of San Diego State, led the Browns to an 11-5 season, the AFC Cen tral Division championship, and within a game a controversial 14-12 loss to Oakland of the Super Bowl in 1980. It was not so much Rutigliano's response to the question but the rapidity with which the Browns' coach delivered it that indicated clearly that he, too, has considered at great length the loss of Sipe's services. Don King has converted an Orwell farm into a boxing camp pitchfork in aching hands, was taught the value of a college education and here that he has returned to spend perhaps as much as a million dollars to perpetuate his father's kingdom, a kingdom he hopes to v- Lis Carl King "PAUL (McDonald) would move right in," Rutigliano shot back, "and we'd immediately trade for' a veteran quarterback for the help an experienced hand would give us. If you lose a veter: an, you make a trade for a veteran." Was Rutigliano saying he had little confidence in McDonald, the second-round draft pick out of Southern California? "I have all the confidence in the world in Paul," Rutigliano said. "I feel a lot more secure with him than I was my first two years here.

He's going to be a pro quarterback, just like Brian. "I am comfortable about our quar-, terback situation. McDonald is bright and talented. We count on him a lot." Indeed, McDonald played in 15' games in his rookie season. But most of his trips onto the field were as the holder for place-kicker Don Cockroft.

McDonald has yet to throw a pass and the Browns, as anyone who watched that infamous playoff loss to Oakland can attest, live and die by the pass. 4i if. li-aWhi win mm' Li Don King, the immensely successful boxing promoter who grew up tough in the streets of Cleveland, bought this 200-acre farm in 1974. A large house, a barn, a couple of sheds, a corn crib. A nice place to stow his fighters.

Well, as soon as Carl, then 17, got the barn in order. "Morning after morning," Carl King said, "my mother would send me off to work in that barn and, morning after morning, she would say, 'If you don't want to do that the rest of your life, you'd better go to "I assured her that college was in my immediate future, and believe me I meant immediate, but I still had to clean the barn." Much has changed since those days. Carl King studied business and marketing at Baldwin-Wallace College, now looks proudly at the site of yester BY ALMOST every guesspert who could get someone to listen, the Browns, who meet the defending NFC Western Division champion Atlanta Falcons in See RUTIGLIANO, page El Beacon Journal photos by Paul Topte In the farm's dormitory, Roberto Duran takes a break from training for his bout with Nino Gonzalez Odds on Stow golfer's round '20 million-to-1 four par-5 holes on the Silver Lake course. He also scored a birdie on a par-3 hole by holing a shot from more than 100 yards. And just how impressive is that? "I'm no statistician, but I'd say the odds of such a round being played are 20 million-to-1," said Mike Govern, an assistant pro at Silver Lake.

"I have never heard of anything like it. It's very unusual. It's extraordinary." By Kevin Huhn Special to the Beacon Journal On July 3, 39-year-old Ken Harrington of Stow recorded his lowest golf score ever, a 75, at Silver Lake Country Club. Nothing too impressive about that, especially considering that Harrington's score was 3 strokes above par. But consider that Harrington has a 17 handicap, which means his scores normally range between 82 and 92.

Still not impressed? Now consider that Harrington's round was one of the most unusual ever played in the Akron area if not in the nation because he eagled each of the "I had no idea that I had done anything unusual," he said. "I didn't even turn in my scorecard that day. I was a little bit frustrated because with those five holes I was 9 under par, but I finished with a 3-over 75. "I played those holes well, but in between I hit some real foul-ups. In between I played my real game." Harrington, whose previous low in 27 years of golfing had been 76, began the round modestly enough by parring the first hole.

But then he needed just 3 strokes a drive, 3-wood and three-foot putt to hole out the 470-yard second hole for his first eagle. Harrington parred the third and fourth holes before scoring double-bogeys on No. 5 and No. 6. He parred the par-4 seventh and then scored his second eagle on the 500-yard eighth hole by hitting a driver and 2-wood and sinking a six-foot putt Harrington finished the front nine with a bogey for a 1-over 37.

HE BEGAN the back nine, with a bogey on No. 10, and then scored his third eagle on the 475-yard No. 11. He used a driver and a 3-wood before putting in from 15 feet. Harrington parred the 12th hole but See ODDS, page E5 I i HARRINGTON', a certified public accountant for the firm of Schlabig, Harrington and Associates, said he didn't think his round was abnormal.

Ken Harrington SPORTS TODAY Badgro to become Hall of Fame's oldest enshrinee Roy Buckley Kins first Professional Bowlers Association title since 1979. Page E2. Browns have a healthy situation at running back this season. Page E4. American car dealers in Cincinnati upset by Forrest Gregg's advertisement for Toyota.

Page E4. Baseball players and owners to meet separately. Page E5. Quotebook Pittsburgh Stealers coach Chuck Noll, assessing the team's Tuesday workouts, which were held indoors because of heavy thunderstorms: "We accomplished quite a bit We get same good throwing to the backs and tight ends. Bat the threat deep Is there.

We've gat the waU." One in a series of profiles of the four players to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame Saturday in Canton. Today: Morris "Red" Badgro. At the age of 78, Morris "Red" Badgro, a two-way end, this year became the oldest person ever elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His National Football League career started more than a half-century ago. The 45-year span between his final NFL appearance with the 1936 Brooklyn Dodgers and his 1981 election also marks the longest waiting period for any new member.

Yet the well-documented evidence that the Hall's 29-member Board of Selectors surveyed before finalizing his telecast by ABC-TV (channels 23. 5 and 33). BADGRO began his NFL career with the 1927 New York Yankees before taking a two-year sabbatical to try his hand at professional baseball. He returned to the NFL with the 1930 New York Giants and played there until the 1936 campaign when, at 34. he wound up his active career with the Dodgers.

During his six-year stay with the Giants, the Polo Grounders were solid championship contenders every year and Badgro was one of the team's most honored stars. He won unofficial All-NFL designation in 1930 and then official all-league acclaim in 1931, 1933 and See BADGRO, page El HALL OF FAME: The inductees election clearly shows that the 6-foot, 190-pound University of Southern California graduate was a true giant of his time in pro football. Saturday, Badgro will join the other 1981 class members George Blanda. Willie Davis and Jim Ringo at official induction rites on the front steps of the Hall of Fame in Canton. The ceremonies, starting at 1 are open to the public without charge.

At 3:30 that day. the Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons will clash in the annual AFC-NFC Hall of Fame Game at Fawcett Stadium. It will be -i Red Badgro.