The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 43

Wt iPftilabclpftia jlttquirer Section Baseball 04 College Football 06 Golf Horse Racing D9 NBA i 08 NFL 02 Sports in Brief 03 Charles Barkley will return to NBA, says he may even play two seasons. D8. 22. 1995 Eagles Journal By Tim Panaccio Special-teams woes aren't the fault of a lazy coach Timothy Pwyer Sun-to-sun? Eagles assistant Danny Smith could barely get started in that short a workday. Green's problem isn in his arm Hutton, who leads the NFC in punting, and Kelvin Martin, who leads in punt returns.

On the minus side, his punt and kick coverage teams are ranked among the worst in the NFL. How do you explain the paradox? "It tells you where you need to put your emphasis each day," Smith said. "We need work on coverage. That's obvious by the results so far." Smith is a workaholic, averaging 18 hours a day. This week has been a little longer because Andre Cole-See EAGLES on 02 else) and begins re-reading that day's notes.

This goes on until 1 a.m. Then he makes some more notes. "I'm planning for the next day," Smith said. At 4:45, Smith is up thinking about the film he's going to watch that morning. He tries not to wake his wife, Elaine.

The two won't have a meaningful conversation until Saturday his off day when he can spend time with her and their three children. "He comes home around midnight, goes to sleep, gets up and goes back to work," Elaine Smith said. "It doesn't change until after football season." He doesn't even exercise during football season. "I don't have time for anything, because if I'm running or using the Stairmaster, I could be watching film and working," Smith said. By 6 a.m., he is seated in front of the VCR in his office trying to unravel the mysteries and intricacies of the Eagles' special-teams coverages.

On the plus side, he has Tommy pants pocket. "Sometimes I write all over myself during the day," Smith said sheepishly. When he leaves the Vet about 11:30 p.m. for his Mount Laurel home, Smith is thinking about the notes in his pocket and on his forearm. At home, he reaches for a Diet Coke (he doesn't drink anything Notes are scribbled everywhere in Danny Smith's office.

On white paper, on an ink blotter, on scratch paper. His white drawing board has notes in blue, red, green and black. Danny Smith is a compulsive note-taker. Wherever he goes, the Eagles' special-teams coach carries a No. 2 pencil and a ballpoint pen in his right Early in the summer, when the sun was shining on the first-place Phil- lies and he was pitching like the rookie of the year, the world was a very different place for Tyler Green.

It was almost magical. He knew, just knew, that when he needed a big pitch for a big out, he could knock the wings off a fly. That's how confident he felt. He'd look in for the sign and see only the catcher's mitt the target. Nothing else.

No hitter, not the umpire, certainly not the crowd. Once in a while he'd lose that focus, but he could get it right back, put my head down and take some deep breaths, try to relax, and then when I looked up it's hard to explain I wouldn't see the field or V'A Barros appears headed for Celts 'ft- anything. "All I would see is, like, light. It was kind of like on Star Trek, when they go into hyper-space, all the light coming at you. Like that." Then he'd fire the ball and hit the mitt.

Those days are long gone. Tyler Green has lost i I -Wife 4 Tyler Green is having "a player's worst nightmare." his focus and his --4 6- vision, lost his zone of light and confidence. Since his last win on June 30, Green has been lost in space, trying to remember how to make a baseball moving at 90 miles an hour dance on a string. It has been a long and painful fall since Green made the National League all-star team. And the for tunes oi nis leam nave paraueieu Green's.

The Phillies' collapse cannot be blamed on the rookie pitcher they've had more injuries than the average train wreck but it is easy On a day the Sixers gained free-agent forward Richard Dumas, they lost an all-star guard. By Phil Sheridan INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Like hard-luck fishermen, the 76ers made one catch yesterday, but they're likely to be talking for a long time about the one that got away. All-star point guard Dana Barros, 28, is expected to sign with the Boston Celtics today. Reports in Boston say the free agent will sign a six-year, $32 million deal. That would top the four-year, $15 million offer Barros reportedly received from the Washington Bullets.

Sixers owner Harold Katz described that deal as "too rich for our blood." Because he was their own free agent, the Sixers would have been allowed under the new collective-bargaining agreement to sign Barros for as much as they wanted, even though they already are over the $23 million salary cap. Yesterday, Frank Catapano and Eric Fleisher, Barros' agents, gave the Sixers a chance to match the Boston deal. Katz apparently passed. Neither Catapano nor Katz returned phone calls yesterday. Meanwhile, the Sixers held a news conference to announce the signing of free-agent forward Richard Dumas.

Dumas, 26, has spent more time serving drug-related suspensions than playing basketball, having appeared in just 63 games since being drafted by the Phoenix Suns in 1991. John Lucas, the Sixers' coach and general manager, said he signed Dumas to help rehabilitate his basketball team, not to help rehabilitate See SIXERS on D8 lu imagine uie riuia as a wuu-ccuu team if Green had continued to pitch Associated Press DAN CURRIER Rick Neuheisel gets a ride off the field after his first game as Colorado's head coach, a 43-7 victory over Wisconsin. A different tune at Colorado Unconventional Rick Neuheisel is coaching the Buffaloes now. the way he began. Green, though, is not thinking about that he has too much else on his mind.

And that, he says, is the problem: Tyler Green is stuck inside his head. And he cannot get out. These days, when he looks in for the sign, he sees the glove, the catcher, the batter, the umpire, the backstop and the vendor selling hot dogs in the grandstand. And then, getting ready to throw, he is thinking about whether his arm is coming around the right way and about the position of his shoulder as he releases the ball and about a million other things. In the spring, when he needed a big pitch, he thought there was no way in the world the batter had a chance against him.

Now he doubts his own chances. "It a player worst nightmare, Green said, "when you get into your night for his weekly, hour-long radio show. During commercials, he took off his headset and picked up his six-string. "Know any Don McLean?" asked his co-host, Jim Ryan, an expatriate South Jersey guy and former Denver Bronco. "Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie.

Ryan said the rookie head coach didn't really need a co-host. "1 feel like a radio veteran," said Neuheisel, back on the air, broadcasting around the state. "I always wanted to say, 'We're having technical turn around to the crowd at a football game and say, 'Bear with us. We're having technical See NEUHEISEL on D6 ball coach, Rick Neuheisel displayed a great voice. Guitar-playing in public isn't the only unusual thing about Neuheisel, though.

At 34, the new coach of the Colorado Buffaloes actually thinks college football should be fun. This summer, he took his freshman recruits on what they thought would be a two-mile run. The next thing they knew, they were laughing, splashing and inner-tubing down Boulder Creek. Tomorrow's game for seventh-ranked Colorado against the third-ranked Texas Aggies was still three days away when Neuheisel was at the Holiday Inn on Wednesday By Mike Jensen INQUIRER STAFF WRITER BOULDER, Colo. As the first Rocky Mountain snow of the season blanketed the streets outside, the lounge of the Holiday Inn was standing room only.

A baby-faced man strumming a guitar took requests. Asked to play "A Hard Day's Night," the singer smiled and said: "Don't make me hit the high notes. I have my reputation." He did easy-listening hits an Eagles tune, a little Kenny Rogers, and a couple of paraphrased choruses of Jimmy Buffett: "Some people say that there's an Agg-ie to blame. But I know it's my own damn fault." The adoring crowd sang along. For a foot Phillies and Mimbs halt the Marlins The lefthander picked up his first win as a starter since June.

Jim Eisenreich had a homer. Tyler Green was a first-round draft pick, and the organization has high expectations. He is a college ate, articulate and thoughtful attributes that do not describe the average major-league ballplayer. The rap on Green from management was always that he thought too much. On a team whose leaders are guys nicknamed Nails and Bubba, a reputation for thinking too much can hurt you.

But manager Jim Fregosi said Green's problems this season have not come from over-thinking, but from a crisis of confidence. "I've seen this a lot in young ballplayers," Fregosi said. "It really comes down to the confidence of the player. "People make adjustments in this game all the time, and if you're struggling, you've just got to work through it. "But by no means have we given up on Tyler Green.

I just think at this point in time he is just really fried. pitching coach Johnny Podres and, I imagine, the whole organization, because he does have the talent to be a big-league pitcher." Fregosi said he has tried helping i-nnnn K17 cKarinn urhflt hp WPTlt Would Jerry Jones dare seek his own deal with TV? Network sources doubt Mike Bruton Sports on TV Tk'I if 2 1 if i i 4' By Sam Carchidi INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Back in the giddy days of June, when the Phillies were in first place and most of their roster wasn't seeking medical atten-Phillies 3 tlonj rookie left-' Marlins 1 hander Michael Mimbs typified the club's stupefying start. Mimbs had never pitched above the double-A level before winning six of his first seven starts this year. Then he was removed from the rotation after a midseason funk. Last night, however, the Georgia native regained his early-season form as the Phillies defeated the Florida Marlins, 3-1, at Veterans Stadium.

Mimbs, back in the rotation since Sept. IS because of an injury to rookie Mike Grace, pitched 7 perb innings and registered his first win as a starter since June 22 back when he was 6-1 and the Philwere See PHILLIES on D5 he'd go so far as to demand money equal to the Cowboys' ratings. Television is still the backbone of professional sports, Jerry Jones notwithstanding. The redoubtable Dallas Cowboys owner drew a howl of agony from his NFL partners, in the form of a $300 million lawsuit, after recently signing side deals with Nike and Pepsi in defiance of existing league sponsorship agreements. None of the major networks seems concerned with Jones' penchant for going his own way, although NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue certainly was.

He sounded like Chicken LiKle earlier this week at an NFL owners' meeting in Atlanta. "The sky is falling," Tagliabue might as well have said as he forecast doom for the league if Jones is allowed to circumvent the NFL's revenue-sharing structure. The present squabble is mainly about merchandising and logos Jones says the Cowboys generate a quarter of the league's merchandising money and receive only one-thirtieth of the profit, the same as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whose logo is not exactly in demand. merchandising money is small See JONES on D2 through as a player. He said one spring, after making the all-star team four times, he suddenly stopped hitting and fielding.

"I was hitting oh-82 and made 14 errors in April. I started thinking: 'Can I really not play the game? Was everything I did before just Fregosi said he got out of it by "battling through it," running extra hard on ground balls, trying to make aSittle luck. Fregosi'motto is keep See GREEN on D5 Associated Press ELISE AMENDOLA Curtis Strange wears a fan's hat after yesterday's opening ceremonies for the Ryder Cup at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. Strange will play in today's opening round for the U.S. team, but Seve Ballesteros, of the European team, will sit it out.

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