Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 43

Sr. Petersburg Times, Sunday, May 30, 1971 3-C Long Road To Travel For Bay front Hockey -s iMSB Ufep "This is a great team we have here," said Walter Brock. "We have no players, no coach, no trainer, no equipment, no nothing." Brock paused, possibly reflecting that his attempt at gentle irony might be misinterpreted as pessimism. Then he turned It uphill. "But we're going to have a first-class operation to go with a first-class city and a first-class facility.

I hope in time we'll have a first-class hockey club." Brock, a 45-year-old bachelor who has spent most of the past 22 years as a baseball executive, likes to smile and laugh. lie did a lot of both Saturday morning at the Bayfront Center as be and two of the North Carolinians who are bringing profes-sional lee hotkey to St Petersburg made their first official appearance. Brock considers himself a Floridian, although he divides his time between Tampa and Durham, N.C., where he is a part owner of the Raleigh-Durham baseball club In the Carolina League. J. C.

"Bill" Jessup. a beer distributor from Wilson, N.C., and Mike May, president of the Raleigh-Durham club, are North Carolinians from drawl to heels. "We're not in this to get rich," Jessup said between puffs on a big cigar. "We hope we'll make enough money to have a good hockey team. You can be sure we'll make every effort to give St.

Peters- this thing are just not a bunch of losers. We're not going to have a bunch of donkeys who can't stand up on the Ice." Brock, Jessup and May are three of the eight North Carolina shareholders In the club that will begin Its first E11L season Oct. 11 at Bayfront Center against the Jacksonville Rockets. Each owns 10 shares. Twenty shares (priced at $7,500 per block of 10) have been offered to St.

Petersburg Investors. The man who has put the package together admitted that his yen to get into the hockey business goes back to his childhood. "I grew up In New York City," Brock said, "and it was nothing for me to go to Madison Square Garden to watch the New York Rovers play an Eastern Hockey League game in the afternoon, then go out for something to eat and come back to watch the New York Rangers at night." Brock was a baseball nut, too. "George Selkirk was my hero. I'd always get a seat in the right field bleachers at Yankee Stadium just so I could be close to Selkirk." Later, Brock worked under his boyhood Idol when general manager Selkirk of the Washington Senators hired him as his assistant.

Brock keeps his abundant silver hair carefully combed and his shoes polished. He wore an expensively conservative gray suit to the Bayfront Center burg a competitive club." Jessup, president of the Carolina League for 16 years, will be president of the Florida Suncoast Hockey Club, which will operate the unnamed entry In the Eastern Hockey League. May, who also favors cigars and well-considered sentences, said, "I know absolutely noth-Ing about hockey, but I'm learning. The people In news conference. In profile, he could be mistaken for Splro Agnew.

A business administration graduate of the University of Connecticut, Brock has no background as an athlete. But he has been involved In baseball management since 1949 and has lived in Tampa for the past 13 years. "I worked with a lot of minor-league clubs before going with the old Kansas City Athletics as assistant farm director in the mid-50s," Brock said. "I lasted a year after Charlie Finley took over. He Just cleaned house and I was the last of the old guard to be fired.

I went to the Cleveland Indians as farm administrator, then became Selkirk's assistant with the Senators. But I really wanted to get into business for myself, so after two and a half years I bought the Raleigh club." Brock, who served in the Coast Guard during World War II and was recalled into the Navy during the Korean War, also served as a go-between for American players and a Japanese ball club, the Sankei Atoms of the Japan Central League. "I took Lou Jackson from Tampa over there," he said, "and Bob Chance and Ramon Mejias, among others. But I don't do that any more." A previous Brock attempt to bring hockey to St. Petersburg never got off the ground.

"I tried to talk up hockey here about four years aio, "Brock said, "but I was kind of cold-shouldered out of the Bayfront Center and the idea was dropped. Then Ed French came on the scene and it was like night and day when I talked to him a couple months ago. We know we're gonna be successful with this and, corny as it sounds, any success we have is largely due to Ed French." French, manager of the Bayfront Center for a year and a half, died of a heart attack a month ago. His successor, Al Leggat, will not take over until July. Russ Grimes is managing the auditorium-arena complex in the interim and Friday he concluded a five-year lease agreement with Brock's group.

Brock is serving as general manager of the new EHL team, now known only as "St. Petersburg-Tampa Hockey Club." He plans a contest to pick a name for the team but that's the least of his problems. Somehow, he must hire a coach, assemble a team, arrange a schedule, buy equipment and uniforms, plan promotions and "sell" his team to a skeptical public. He has four months to do it. ALTER BROCK go first-class.

Donnie Charges From 500 To 600 Sports In Brief Four American men and two women advanced to the quarter-finals of the French Open Tennis tournament In Paris. Arthur Ashe, Marty Riessen, Frank Froehllng and Stan Smith got through foes while Nancy Gunter and Linda Tuero advanced. Sports On The Air TELEVISION I p.m. Baseball: Atlanta Braves vi. St.

Louia Cardinal. WTOG, Ch. 41. 3 p.m. Pinpoint: Bowling with an unusual format.

WTVT, Ch. 8. 8:30 p.m. AAU International Champions; The California Relays. WTVT, Ch.

4:30 p.m. Indianapolis 500 Parade, Delayed telecast, WLCY, Ch. 10. RADIO 3 p.m. Baseball: Atlanta Braves vs.

St. Louis Cardinals. SUN, 620. 4 p.m. Baseball: New York Mets vs.

San Diego Padres, WILZ. 1590. D. ALLISON PETTY People letic Commission voted to grant a boxing license to former heavyweight champion Muhammad All, clearing the way for a possible fight this summer with Jimmy Ellis. The Dallas Cowboys revealed that Craig Morton borrowed $50,000 from the club, but said it was a secured loan.

Morton filed a bankruptcy petition in California, listing debts of $546,000 against $93,000 In assets. The New England Patriots have signed veteran receiver Charlie Frazier and guard An-gelo Loukas for the 1971 season. Villanova's Marty Liquor! raced to a 4:00.4 mile in the ter-final elimination round to determine a challenger for the world chess championship. Former Ohio State athlete Don Kelley has been named an assistant coach at the University of Missouri. U.S.

grandmaster Bobby Fischer jumped on a blunder by Soviet grandmaster Mark Taimanov and won his fifth straight game in their quar hinder the Venezuelan thoroughbred who is the favorite in Saturday's Belmont Stakes. English bookies made American-owned Mill Reef a 3-1 favorite to win the Epsom Derby and become the third U.S. colt in four years to grab the rich English race. Mickey Mantle, Paul Bryant and Gary Tlayer are among a field of celebrities shooting for a thoroughbred colt, top and only prize in a charity golf tournament scheduled Monday in Louisville, Ky. Times Win Services Hard on the heels of his sixth-place finish in Saturday's Indy 500, Donnie Allison today shoots for the $27,500 winner's payoff in the gruelling World 600 stock car race at Charlotte, N.C.

A field of 40 cars and drivers, including Donnie's brother, Bobby, fires off after the $200,000 in prize money with Charlie Glotzbach of Georgetown, sitting on the pole. He won it with a top qualifying speed of 157.788 in a 1971 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. The Allisons will be driving Mercury's. Among name drivers entered are Richard Petty of Randleman, N.C, the NASCAR circuit's top money winner, who can also win the point championship with a high finish today; Fred Lorenzen of Elmhurst, 111. Bobby Isaac of Catawba, N.C, who will start third behind Glotzbach and Bobby Allison; Pete Hamilton, Dedham, and Buddy Baker of Charlotte.

A crowd of more than 55,000 Is expected to jam the speedway for the 400-lap event. Sec-, ond place is worth $14,750 and third, $10,250. Horse Racing IC4A Track and Field Cham pionships in Philadelphia, thus becoming the third run Potluck ner in the history of the 95-year-old meet to sweep six mile titles three indoors, three outdoors. Joe Frazier denied he's quitting his European singing tour despite poor attendance. Joe's group, "The Knockouts," cancelled an engagement in Copenhagen early last week because of poor advance sales.

The Washington State Ath Reigning U.S. amateur champion Lanny Wadkins is favored to win the British Amateur Championship to be played over the famed Old Links at Carnoustie, Scotland, starting Monday. Kentucky Derby and Preak- ness winner Canonero II has a slight infection in his right hind foot, but it has responded to treatment and should not Central at 5th District Title: Georgia Tech Vs. Bulldogs fen We Honor All Valid Charge Credit Cards GASTONIA, N.C. (UPI) Georgia Tech broke a seventh Inning tie to defeat Miami in the NCAA District 3 baseball playoffs here Saturday, earn- Ing a berth in Saturday night championship game against undefeated Mississippi State.

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next month for the College World Series. If Georgia Tech wins, playoff will be hold today. Georgia Tech scored first in the afternoon game, but Miami went ahead 3-2 In the bottom of the fourth with 1 runs scoring on a single by Doug Holka and a two-run home run by Al Volpe. -5 9 0 210 300 Georgia Tech Miami 000 000 -3 5 1 HIGGINS Prldgen and Moore: Larkin, Brown (6), Bartlett (7), Maza 17), patryio ana DOUBLE KNIT Volpe. WP-Prldgen (8-1) LP-Brown (6-2) Home run Volpe A New Breed of Slacks Free and easy.

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