The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 30

4-C Stjc (SaluEHton Sailg Sunday Morning, July 28,1985 Injuries have slowed progress of Oiler offensive line SAN ANGELO (AP) Three years after the Houston Oilers started a reclamation project that was supposed to make their offensive line the blue- ribbon unit in the National Football League, line coach Bill Walsh is still looking to the future. Good players and bad luck have slowed the progress of what has been tabbed as the future premier offensive line in the NFL. Dean Steinkuhler, last year's draft choice still has not recovered from a knee injury suffered last season and starting left tackle Harvey Salem joined Steinkuhler on the sidelines Wednesday with a knee injury. Backup prospects also have been hobbled during the first week of Oiler training camp, further complicating Walsh's lineup card. Walsh occasionally lets his mind ponder where the offensive line be without the injuries? Hebert talking to Saints RUSTON, La.

(AP) Quarterback Bobby Hebert is talking with the New Orleans Saints but Coach Bum Phillips says he thinks Hebert is asking more than he's worth in the National Football League. "We're talking. That's all I can say about it," Hebert's agent, Greg Campbell of Madison, said Saturday. He said Hebert, whose passing and running led two different teams to United States Football League title games and won him the league's first MVP award, is looking for a total of $900,000 to $1 million a year including base salary and bonuses. "I doubt very seriously we would ever sign anyone to that kind of contract," Phillips said.

And we probably won't get him because we won't do that." Richard Todd, the Saints' starting quarterback most of last year, got $605,000 last season and wants more before he returns to camp. He had not reported to camp Saturday, the Saints said. The team confirmed Friday that it has offered him another $60,000 a 10 percent raise. Phillips said he is concerned about the health of the two quarterbacks who are in camp: Dave Wilson and Guido Merkens. "We need another quarterback.

Can't get by with one," Phillips said. "We've got two quarterbacks who both have had shoulder operations." "His being from this part of the world would certainly help the enthusiasm I'm trying to develop," said Tom Benson, the team's managing partner. "It would be great. I'd like to have him if the price tag isn't too high." Hebert aJready has had a tryout with the Seattle Seahawks, and Campbell said the Los Angeles Raiders are interested, too. "A situation with the Saints could be great, exciting," Hebert said in a telephone interview from his Natchitoches, home.

"New Orleans would be a great place to play. But another opportunity could come into being with Seattle or the Raiders. Something might be happening soon." Hebert was not drafted after his graduation from Northwestern Louisiana University and is therefore a free agent. Phillips spoke Friday with Louisiana Tech head football Coach A.L. Williams, who recruited Hebert to Northwestern State and coached him through his college career.

I wouldn use the word premier but I think it would be a good solid offensive line that would give good pass protection and running room," Walsh said A series of injuries and position shifts last season stunted the young line's growth. Only guard Mike Munchak played the entire season at one position The unsettled offensive line was reflected in league statistics where the Oilers allowed their quarterbacks to be sacked 49 times and the Oiler rushing attack ranked 23rd in the league. Bruce Matthews, the team's No. pick in 1983, led the team in moves. He started the season at center and at one point, played center, guard and tackle on successive weeks.

"After the move from guard to tackle, I was expecting to be at tight end the next week," Matthews said. Walsh hopes to keep the shifting to a minimum this season. "I haven't even thought about what would happen if someone else went down," Walsh said. "We don't want to move people any more than we have to. I think tackle is Bruce's natural position." Matthews accepted each move last season with a smile but he's looking forward this year to playing one position.

"I think if you have everyone in a certain position, and all things being equal you should keep everyone settled," Matthews said. "That's the only way to build up any continuity and a unit. If you're moving around every week you can't get that continuous feel for the guy playing next to Eric Moran, schedule to replace Salem at left tackle, says he won't be affected by the added pressure. "When you line up out there you can't think 'Oh, there's 60,000 You think 'Oh my God, there's Randy Munchak was at the same position but had various linemates lining up beside him. "Last year was tough on us because of all the changes brought on by injures," Munchak said.

"But we'vre pretty much left our base offense in this year and there shouldn't be too many changes." Matthews is still awaiting the day when the starting five came play injury-free. "Last year we were maybe a little bit out of position and then Dean got hurt and now Harvey's hurt and Dean's not back," Matthews said. "It's kind of like last year, a little turmoil. But once we get everyone healthy, we'll be OK." "This year it's not like breaking in rookies because everyone's played. We'll be a good unit but when we get everyone back, we'll be even better." Gamblers-Generals merger would not have Flutie at QB eye AP Laserphoto Mike Munchak Bears will play without Perry PLATTEVILLE, Wis.

The Chicago Bears have broken off negotiations with first-round draft choice William Perry, and General Manager Jerry Vainisi said Saturday the National Football League team will play without the defensive tackle from Clemson. Twice within the past week, the Bears appeared to have reached agreement with Perry and his agent, Jim Steiner, but each time Perry came back with a request for more money, Vainisi said. "We are through negotiating and will play without Mr. Perry," Vainisi said at the team's training camp on the University of Wisconsin-Platteville campus. "If he misses any more camp, he's not worth anything us anyway because of his lack of conditioning," Vainisi added.

There are also seven veteran ballplayers missing from the camp because of contract disputes. Vainisi said the team was still negotiating with them. Mike Singletary and Richard Dent are both under contract to the Bears and subject to fines for holding out, officials said. The other veteran holdouts are free agents Todd Bell, Al Harris, Keith Van Home, Steve McMichael and Tyrone Keys. All veterans were expected to be in camp by Friday night, and twice-daily practices began Saturday.

"We're getting closer on some," said Vainisi, who did not give details but said he hoped to have most of the players in camp by this week. Perry, known as "The Refrigerator" because of his bulk, is listed at 6 feet 2 and 318 pounds in the Bears' press guide but often played at a heavier weight in college. Steiner said Friday that negotiations broke off because the team offered $1.35 million for four years while Steiner wanted $1.52 million. The package includes conditional money based on Perry's physical conditioning. Vainisi said Bears Coach Mike Ditka still wants Perry on the team.

"But Ditka said that when he gets here he'll work out at Ditka's speed, not Perry's speed," Vainisi said. NEW YORK (AP) Two big- name quarterbacks were wondering about their futures in the United States Football League Saturday after the sale of the Houston Gamblers to a group headed by a New York developer. Steve Ross, head of a five-man consortium that purchased the Gamblers from Jerry Argovitz and his two partners, was said to be thinking about moving the team to New York's Shea Stadium or merging it with the New Jersey Generals. Ross, who did not answer the phone at his office Saturday, has declined to rule out any of those possibilities. Generals owner Donald Trump was described by a spokesman as being intrigued by the idea of a merger, which would give his club the USFL's No.

passer and running back. "I'd love to play in New York," Gamblers quarterback Jim Kelly said Saturday in a telephone interview from San Antonio, Texas. "But I haven't heard anything. All I heard was that they got sold and I got paid yesterday." Meeting the payroll was one of the conditions of the Gamblers' sale since that kept their players from being waived. A merger would put Kelly, who threw for 4,623 yards and 39 touchdowns despite missing eight games, in the same backfield as league MVP Herschel Walker, who ran for 2,411 yards and 21 TDs.

It would also squeeze Doug Flutie out, and his agent, Bob Woolf, said he had heard the 1984 Heisman Trophy winner could be playing next year in Chicago, Denver, Portland, or even Boston. "It's unsettling because I wouldn't know exactly what's going on with my future," Flutie said Friday night from his parents' home in Natick, Mass. "Am I going to be in Chicago? Am I going to be out in Portland? Or am I going to be in Denver? "Where I'm going to be in the next three or four years, I'd like to know. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm with the Generals and I'm with the Generals for five or six years now," the former Boston College quarterback said. Flutie said he hadn't spoken to Trump and didn't know "what he's planning or what he has in mind.

As far as I'm concerned, he and I are on good terms and he would want to keep me on the team." Doug Flutie About the rumors his agent has heard, Flutie said, "I could imagine these events happening but I could never imagine leaving the Generals." But neither he nor Kelly had heard from his team. An arbitrator had ordered the Gamblers to pay their players for the last two games of the regular season by 5 p.m. Friday or the entire roster would go on waivers. Kelly said he had arranged for his brother to pick up his paycheck at the Gamblers' office in'Houston, and the team called before the deadline to say it was ready. "So we're not free agents," said Kelly, who had been the Buffalo Bills' No.

1 draft pick in 1983 but signed instead with the USFL. New York, he said, "is a great media town for a quarterback to play in. But who knows where we're going to go?" Ross has indicated that he could keep the team in Houston, where the Gamblers averaged only 19,120 fans in the Astrodome this year, or move it. The league issued a statement Friday saying Ross was considering "many options before us as to the future location of our team." As to a merger with the Generals, Ross said, "it would be very difficult to achieve." The league had provided $1.5 million to keep the Gamblers operating in 1985, when the club, 10-8, reached the playoffs but lost 22-20 to Birmingham in the first round. Sims will be unable to practice ROCHESTER, Mich.

(AP) The Detroit Lions put running back Billy Sims and two other regulars on the National Football League team's active-physically unable list Saturday. The move means they can't practice with the team, only work with trainers or on their own. Sims is recovering from knee surgery, while guard Homer Elias has a pulled stomach muscle and tight end Rob Rubick is recovering from back surgery and knee problems, said Bill Keenist, a spokesman for the National Football League team. "On Aug. 27, we have to make a decision on what to do with those players, depending on their prog- ress," Keenist said.

The Lions open the regular season Sept. 8 in Atlanta. "The biggest question is the Billy Sims situation, we'll decide at that time how his knee has progressed," Keenist said. "He isn't technically practicing, but he's working out with our training staff and he ran lightly on it yesterday. will HEMPSTEAD, N.Y.

(AP) Marvin Powell, the most honored but lowest paid of the New York Jets' offensive linemen, has refused to report to training camp, leaving the National Football League club without either of its starting tackles. Also holding out is left tackle Reggie McElroy, whose contract expired. Powell, named five times to the Pro Bowl at right tackle, wants to renegotiate a five- year contract, signed in 1983, under which he was to make $250,000 this year, $280,000 in 1986 and $300,000 the following season. Guard Dan Alexander will make $100,000 more this year and Joe Fields, the longtime center, is to get $125,000 more. SUNDAY TIDES High s( 4:41 a.m.

(1.7. SUNDAY SUN RIM at a.m.. p.m. SUNDAY MOON Rise at 6:53 p.m.. Ml at 4 a.m.

MONDAY TIDES Hish at S.X a.m. (1.7 ft.I. low at 9:57 p.m. MONDAY SUM Rise 6:38 a.m.. set at p.m.

MONDAY MOON Rlie at at 4 a.m. To call Saturday a poor fishing day was putting it mildly, to say the least. Most reporting stations noted scattered catches of speckled trout and flounders and some had nothing to report at all. Southwesterly winds gusting to 20 miles per hour didn't help matters much and even the of- fshsore boat Ranger came in with a mediocre catch. Becky Smith of West Bay Bait and Tackle reported a catch from fishing guide Harry Landers and Tom Boulware and party.

The group came in with three speckled trout to three pounds and five redfish to five pounds. The catch was made drifting the Green's Cut area on Kelley Wigglers. A few scattered redfish were reported out of Jones Lake by Margaret Mobley of Rehm's Bait camp and a few small flounders were caught at Seawolf Park. Juanita Martin at the Yacht Basin Bait Camp listed some fair offshore catches including dolphin, ling and kingfish. The Ranger listed 400 pounds of red snappers caught.

Cram takes full second off world mark in mile OSLO, Norway (AP) Steve Cram of Britain lowered the world record for the mile by more than a full second with a time of 3 minutes, 46.30 seconds in the final event of the IAAF Mobil Grand Prix Bislett Games track and field meet Saturday night. Countryman Sebastian Coe held the old record of 3:47.33 set in Brussels Aug. 28,1981, Jose-Luis Gonzales of Spain was runner-up in 3:47.79 in the third world record race at Oslo's super- fast Bislett Stadium within an hour. It was Cram's second world record in ll days. He also set a record at Nice, France, July 16 with a time of 3:29.67 with Aouita close behind then.

"I'm very satisfied with this race. This is the world's best track and the wortld's best track and field crowd," Cram said im- mediately after the race to the roar of 19,231 fans. Cram took the lead with less than one 400-meter lap to go and increased his lead on the back stretch. Gonzales overtook Cce in the last curve. Coe was third in 3:49.22 and Steve Scott of the United States fourth in 3:49.93.

Said Aouita of Algeria set the 5,000 meters record with a time of 13:00.40 and Ingrid Kristiansen of Norway bettered the women's record with a clocking of 30:59.42. In the race, runner-up American Sydney Maree was clocked in 13:01.15 for an American record. Alberto Salazar set the old American record of 13:11.93 in Stockholm July 6,1982. Alberto Cova of Italy placed third in the 5,000 meters in 13:10.06 for an Italian record. It was the 43rd, 44rd and 45th track and field records set at Bislett since 1924.

Aouita's time bettered the previous record by one hundredth of second set by British runner David Moorecroft on the same super-fast Bislett stadium track on July 7 last year. Aouita overtook Maree with a tremendous kick when he came out of the last curve for the final 100-meter home stretch. The 29-year-old Kristiansen, leading from the four-kilometer mark, improved the previous women's world record by an impressive 14 seconds to become the first woman to post a time under 31 minutes. Runner- up Aurora Cunha of Portugal was 36 seconds behind Kristiansen. Olga Bondarenko of the Soviet Union set the old record of 31:13.78 at Kiev on June 24 last year.

From the 3-kilometer mark she posted split times below Bondarenko's old record. "I had really hoped to break the 31-minute barrier. The speed was good and even and I had good support from the crowd all the way," Kristiansen said after the race. In the women's mile race, Mary Slaney of the United States failed to break the world record. But she won the race in 4:19.18, the fourth fastest mile time for women of all times.

Kirsty McDermott of Britain was a close runner-up in 4:19.41. A pending world record of 4:15.80 by Soviet runner Natalia Artyemova was run last year, while the officially listed world record of 4:17.44 was set by Romania's Maricia Puica September 1982. The American record by Slaney, the former Mary Decker, is 4:18.08. Kristiansen's record marked the first time she had run the meter distance over 25 laps on a 400-meter track..