The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 131

Sit. Hadl Right Man in Right Place at Right Time BY BOB OATES Times Staff Writer It is 7:45 a.m. on the San Diego Freeway going south. There are three guys in that big red and white Oldsmobile and they're on their way to ONE RAM'S FAMILY John Hadl, the Rams' 3-0 quarterback, takes time out at home with his wife, Charneil; daughter, Jac queline, John, 10, and the family dog, Sassy. Hadl calls it "a normal family" with "the normal panic in the morning." Times photo by Fitzgerald Whitney work.

They are the three Ram quarterbacks. John Hadl, the driver, has just picked up James Harris and Ron Jaworski. They live in the same neighborhood in the Marina del Rey area and ride to practice together at Long Beach each morning. They probably wouldn't notice if someone waved. They're busy discussing audibles and flare action and cussing linebackers.

They've spent the night before studying movies of the next opponent, Houston. Hadl keeps a projector at his apartment in the Marina City Club. His home is near San Diego, where he used to play, but that's too far to commute. The apartment is "just right," spacious (three bedrooms) and with a view. The yachts of a crowded harbor glide by just outside his living room window.

Sharing the apartment and view -with John are his wife, Charneil, their children, John, 10, and Jacqueline, 7, and their dog Sassy, 2. "We're a normal family," Had'l says. "There's the normal panic in the morning when the kids get up and go off to school, Charneil goes off to play bridge and I go off to k. The only difference is that instead of bringing home the bacon, I have to get some touchdowns." His ability to get touchdowns is the thing that sets Hadl apart and not just from other American fathers. Under their new quarterback, the Rams have become the highest-scoring team in then- division and are No.

2 (to Dallas) in the National Football League. In only three weeks, Hadl and Chuck Knox, the new coach, have arrived as the talk of the league. The Rams are undefeated, lead their division by two games and Hadl is the NFL's top-rated quarterback. He has completed 78 of his passes, five for touchdowns, with no interceptions. Most important, the man who spent 11 sea-sens throwing the ball for San Diego has proved to be an astute signal-caller, the key job in a run-oriented offense.

At the age of 33, Hadl is the same man, in appearance, who completed his Charger career last year with a frustrating, disappointing cellar sea- por 'Instead of Bringing Home the Bacon, I Have to Get Some Touchdowns' Both are low-key, affable, unflappable, persevering and ambitious, and they're about the same height and weight. The principal difference is that Knox looks more like a footbali player. The Ram-Charger trade was a stroke of luck for Had! as well as the Rams. "I've never felt better," the quarterback says. This is the thing j-ou dream about coming to the right place at the right time." What makes it the right place? "Ask any Ram player," says Hadl.

"It's an outstanding organization with outstanding coaching." Nevertheless, your record suggests you'd really rather be passing the ball than handing it off. Isn't that right? "Like the man said, winning solves everything. But there's more to it than that. I'm convinced the Rams are on the right track. Please Turn to Page 8, Col.

2 BUSINESS FINANCE CC PART III 2t son. The receding hairline, the round face, the round shoulders, the stocky frame (6-1, 210) give him the look of a middle-aged country lawyer. But in performance the change in both Had! and his new employers has been startling. The Rams, 6-7-1 last year, are 3-0 since the union of Knox and Hacil two strangely similar types. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1973 GENTLEMAN GENE ABASHED JIM MURRAY FULLERTON HOLDS OFF LONG BEACH Kast FOR 17-14 VICTORY Baylor Says Wilt Has a Problem: 'He Can Coach' Idol Whose Time Ali-Frazier Rematch Hoopla Bit 'Degrading7 to Tunney EY EARL GUSTKEY Times Stalf Writer ANAHEIM A dramatic comeback by Cal State Long Beach fell inches and seconds short Thursday night as Cal State Fullerton made a 17-point first half stand up for a 17-14 victory at Anaheim Stadium.

Long Beach on Fullerton's 1-yard-line at the gun. The 49ers had driven S9 yards and had possession for the game's final eight minutes. A crowd of 6,411 watched a flip-flop affair, with Fullerton thorough-Iv dominating the first half. With a 17-7 halftime lead, the Titans, now 3- Please Turn to Page 12, Col. 4 NEW YORK (i?) It was probably the first time in his life Gene Tunney wanted to run somewhere and hide.

"Gracious, are these things always like this?" said the old ex-Marine who whipped Jack Dempsey twice and retired as heavyweight champion of the world. "I feel like I'd like to crawl under one of these tables." The occasion was the signing of former champions Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali for a 12-round return bout at Madison Square Garden Feb. 4. The Garden's Hall of Fame room was sheer bedlam. There was Ali, coatless but vested in full cry, stomping around and yelling at the top of his lungs like a maniac: "I want Joe Frazier! Gimme Joe Frazier! I'm gonna whup him gcod this time." And there was Frazier, menacing in a black turtleneck, heavily bearded, his eyes burning like live coals.

"Any time, boy," Frazier retorted huskily. "Any time you feel froggy, you just hop. Come on right Associates moved in to keep the two gladiators from getting too close to each other. Television cameras whirred. Photo flashguns exploded.

The din was ear-shattering. "No." explained Tunney, in a low, rasping voice was almost a whisper. "We never had anything like this in my time, and thank God for that. But it just couldn't have happened." Tunney, 75, is still an impressive figure of a man, straight as a poker, letaining a full head of hair and the chiseled features that made him one of the handsomest men in sports. He bas added inches to his girth and he uses a cane lo get around.

He figured in perhaps the greatest rematch in boxing history a return bout with Dempsey in Chicago in 1927 after wresting the title from the Manassa Mauler in Philadelphia Sept. 23, 1926. "Dempsey and I never went through anything like this," Gene related. "We had our separate training camps and we never saw each other until the weigh-in the day of the fight." "There was never any attempt to intimidate each other. As a former Marine, I wouldn't, have thought of Please Turn to Page 7, Col.

1 NEW YORK 131 Elgin Baylor thinks the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Assn. might have made a poor choice in hiring Wilt Chamberlain as coach. "I don't think he can coach," Baylor said. "What could he possibly help a player with?" Baylor, a star with the Lakers for 14 seasons before retiring in 1971 because of injuries, played on the same team with Wilt during his last four 3'ears. "He doesn't have the temperament to be a coach," said Baylor.

"He never had any discipline. "He hardly ever came to practice, and when he did, he didn't work hard, because he didn't think he had to practice. He didn't think he needed it. Last season, for example, he didn't go to practice very often in the last couple of months. "I don't think he set a good example for young ballplayers." Chamberlain's rebuttal: "I tell you, I read what he said and frankly, it's so absurd I'm not even mad at the guy.

He gets into that Please Turn to Page 13, Col. 6 If you've never seen McCormack sing, Tracy act, Astaire dance, Tos-canini conduct or Dillinger steal, you may want to tune in Channel 4 over the weekend. You wouldn't want to miss another vanishing piece of art Willie Mays playing. It'll be your last chance. Incredi- ble as it seems, Willie Mays is nucU die-aged.

I didn't think that was rpossible. I thought he'd go through llife age 20,. playing stickball, giggling, his hat falling off, playing pepper with Leo Durbeher, looking bugeyed at a cowboy-and-Indian movie on TV, cracking gum, catching fly balls with his back to home plate and throwing out sprinters from the outfield by 20 feet. A man gets sad late in life when he goes out and looks at a tree he planted and it's 80 feet high and he can't even climb it anymore. And there must be some guy who works the subways or lays pipe or runs Wall Street or opens cab doors at hotels who measures time by memories of the old Polo Grounds or Ebbets Field or Yankee Stadium, and he remembers the first day Willie came up.

And you tell him Willie Mays is 42 years old and batting .211, and it's like you kicked him in the stomach. Next; he'll be reading obituaries of guys he went to school with. The Niland Story: In night of terror, Cowboys' guard says he found God old-timer creak through his last games, the throes of a career. Not to watch McCormack with laryngitis, Tracy blowing his lines, Astaire with the gout, Toscanini going deaf, or Dillinger sinking to the sidewalk. You see, Willie Mays is one of the greatest big game, late inning players I've seen.

You never got Willie Mays out in the ninth inning. Ask Eddie Roebuck, who had to pitch to Willie with the bases loaded and one out and a 4-2 lead in the decisive pennant playoff game in 1962. Willie hit it right back through him and, when the dust cleared, the Giants had a 6-4 victory and the pennant. Ask Ralph Terry, who had a 1-0 lead, two out, and a man on first in the ninth inning of the final game of the '62 World Series and Willie Mays up. Willie banged a long double to right.

Runner Matty Alou should have scored, but was held up at third, or the Giants surely would have won. You just don't get Willie Mays out in the twilight of a game. When I was 42 years old I commenced to have trouble tying my shoelaces. I had to watch what I ate and my hair started to come off in my comb. I had trouble sleeping and I noticed I drove the car five miles an hour slower.

The nights seemed darker than when I was young. I went home from parties earlier. Still, you could put the con on the old man who had taken over your body for short bursts. You could stay up all night or drink at lunch once in awhile. You could come off the bench and feel the outfielders of time backing up a step or the pitcher looking nervously at the bench.

I'd like it to happen to Willie this weekend. I'd like him to have one more Series. Give him the bat one more ninth inning with runners in scoring position and the game on the line. Give him one more three-base hit to turn into an out with his glove. Give him one more runner who can't slide under the throw.

Don't let Willie Mays go out 42 years old and batting ,211, For a Jot of us, let him go out 20 years old ngain and going into his home run trot while a stadium goes crazy mid guys who monger Iron or drive cubs or fix fluts or park other pen. pie's rues the rest of (he yuiir nuwl oiiif more tlnii! Hint any, "Vuy to Willie" U't'a put off tomorrow fi Ifis! mitre wifeH. MTS WEIRD' Friendly Rivalry Heats Up: Sciarra Against Harmon BY JEFF PRUGH Times Staff Writer "Yeah, its a weird situation, all right," said UCLA's John Sciarra, some times fidgeting, sometimes cool. He sat in a quiet corner ofthe Student Union after supper the other night, cautiously discussing the Bruins' quarterback dilemma. Carefully choosing his words, he complimented Mark Harmon, his close friend and teammate whose job he appears to have won for Saturday night's game against Utah, and downplay ed his rise as an overnight star.

"Really," he said, "it's not as big a thing to me as everybody makes it out to be. We have a No. 1 quarterbackand yet we don't. As far as I'm concerned, it's not necessarily a question of who starts, it's who helps the team while he's in there." For the past two games, Harmon has fared well, but Sciarra (pronounced has performed so much more spectacularly that coach Pepper Rodgers admits it's a problem deciding who's No. 1 "but a nice kind of problem." It's a problem, too, for Sciarra, a 5-foot -10, husky voiced sophomore who runs back punts with the same electrifying kill he runs the Bruins' wishbone offense.

Sciarra learned the five points of the wishbone with Harmon's help. They are constant companions, much like Nebraska's quarterbacks, David Humm and Steve Runty. They eat together at training table and double-date together, Harmon has betm more widely publicized, partly from being Tom Harmon's son but mostly from having skillfully fjunrierlwcked UCLA, lust ycur to un 8-3 mimmiun that with un upt of Nebraska, rit'ifiiTii enrolled (it Weoiwood yiui' iigo with more Imoreishlvi) nihility ilii' ('IF A i' 'f Alll.it JflHll'n 'll(l'J'(((ll Ul'li 1 1, I NEWS ITEM: John Niland, veteran lineman for the Dallas Cowboys, teas "forcibly restrained" by police Sept. 10 at a North Dallas residence. He was taken "in a partly incoherent condition" to a hospital for psychiatric observation.

BY GEORGE USHER and LYNN ROSELLINI Newsday DALLAS John Niland says he's not crazy. I know people will say I'm off my rocker," he says. "Maybe the only people who understand will be Christians." On Sept. 10 Niland ate dinner with his wife, Iree, and drove to the home of some friends to watch television. Shortly before 11 p.m.

he abruptly got up and walked out. "When I left the house, I thought the Devil had hold of me," he says. "I thought my friends and my wife were part of a Devil-controlled people, and they were trying to take me into the cult as a member. 1 started running "I was so close to death, I could feel it. I was possessed by the Devil.

I accepted the fact I was going to die. I felt the Devil's temptation and I felt God's presence. To me, God was trying to tell me he wanted to help me. "Then 1 stopped running, and I started speaking in tongue (communication by control of the Spirit). God told me he wanted me to share my experience.

He said he wanted me to pursue it (religion) with Iree. He said he wanted me to develop Into a player-coach, "I felt like 1 was being guided, and I realized I had another chance, I stooped In front of a house, a rabbi's house, and I nam 'h Iree here?" lit knew who I was but thought I was drunk, I anil tinned quIalttK me, iSomoone mubl hnvi called tllrj polil'il I'Ii'mhc Turn In Pane Oii, I We all thought Willie Mays would just get younger. He was one of those touched individuals for whom time seemed to run backward. He was one of those guys in this life you smiled just thinking about him. You might have hated New York, the Giants, the rest of the team, the manager, or the owner.

But you couldnM; hate Willie Mays. It was like hating a kid in a baby carriage, or Skippy, or Charlie Chaplin in his tramp costume on the lam from the cops. Willie Mays was everybody's pal when he was in uniform and you were jn the seats with a beer and a hot dog. Willie was Mr. Feelgood.

Other people got old. Willie stayed Other guys could do things better. Aaron could hit farther, Cle-mente could throw longer. Wills could run faster. But nobody could culch better and, ft you wanted one guy for four things, Willie was your man, Casey Stengel used lo mh'.

If he ain't In the Hall of Fame 1'lmt tTui-'k, they should burn it. Hut why you should skip the foolbiill KMDti'ii iik) Km? mvt lion hunts thit v.i i itii. lo wuU'ii ii utuyiim.