Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 45

The Lanier Viking girls' track team was in a familiar pose ciho 4- L-v'- tVI Saturday celebrating a meet championship. The Vikings won the 26AAAA meet and the Texas Longhorns won the zone championship in a strange track doubleheader at Memorial Stadium. Page D2. (Staff photo by Austin, Texas-Page Dl Jones Ml! gills fourth i I lit Jm''f V-. IWT II I II I'll 4 A Ji n', riJt rs i uJ SlHiPti Staff Photo by Lon Cooper WESTLAKE HIGH GIRLS' TRACK COACH DOROTHY DOOLITTLE RUNS ON WET TRACK, WITH MONDAY'S BOSTON MARATHON ON HER MIND 'I was scared to death (last year) 'I felt like an ant.

I felt very, very tiny among all those she says; this year she's prepared for 26-mile event known as the world's greatest footrace Doolittle rea th thon is time CLYd ayjor From Staff and Wire Reports BATON ROUGE, La. Olympian Johnny Jones turned out to be human after all but several of his University of Texas track and field teammates rendered near-superhuman performances as the Longhorns finished second in a quadrangular meet Saturday night. Although Jones absorbed open event sprint losses for the first time in the 'Horns' outdoor season, running fourth in both the 100 and 200-meter dashes, UT coach Cleburne Price said he was well pleased with his team's overall showing. "Mark Mason in the 1,500 meters, Alec Studstill in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles and Paul Craig in the 5,000 meters all had outstanding performances," Price said. "And I believe they all met the NCAA qualifying standard with their performances.

Meeting those standards was one of the goals we had set for this meet." Florida State, displaying the sprint strength Price had anticipated, won the meet with 83 points, while Texas posted 66, host Louisiana State 27 and Oklahoma State, a late entry, collected 17 Jones, who missed a possible world record in the 100 meters two weeks ago because of a defective electronic timing camera, got mediocre starts in both the 100 and 200, but Price said the UT freshman's anchor lap on Saturday's 440-yard re-: lay indicated the Olympic gold medal medalist was running stiffly. Despite one bad handoff, Texas' second place timing of 39.77 in the 440 relay was within a whisker of the school record clocking of 39.76. "The 100 and 200 just prove that Johnny is human, that he can lose a race," said Price, "and that he can't have a bad night and expect to win against outstanding competition." Mason's victory in the 1,500 meters was the equivalent of a 3 59 mile and Craig's triumph in the 5,000 also earned qualification in the NCAA three-mile, since he was clocked at 13 32 .8 for that distance. Neil Hendry moved into steeplechase work for the Longhorns, posting a solid 9:03.69 time for a new school record. StudstiU's 50.72 timing in the intermediate hurdles was posted in view of his father, who came from Madison, to watch the meet.

UT's Bob Keith surmounted seven feet for the first time as a Longhorn in winning the high jump and Raymond Clayborn stepped off a 46.96 in capturing the open 400-meter run. Porky Lyons maintained consistency in the javelin, with a 228-11 winning distance. Texas' mile relay victory was attained with a 48.95 leadoff leg by Studstill, a 47.91 by David Nelson, a 46.91 by Clayborn and Jones' 46.03 anchor leg. ticipants "ordinary citizens who run 26 miles, 385 yards to earn a set of blisters and a bowl of beef stew." But Doolittle doesn't call it much besides another race. "Oh, gee, it's not that bad," she said.

"It's like that Segal guy (Erich, the author) on TV during the Olympics. He made the marathon sound like torture. Really, it's not that bad. Some people are just adapted to it." Doolittle claims tests she's taken show her physical makeup the small, light body plus excellent stamina make her a natural distance runner. Knowing she approaches running with so much seriousness, it's not surprising to hear Doolittle say she and her husband, Austin, have decided not to have children.

She figures raising a family would end her running career and, at 30, she has no doubts about the decision. "My husband and I are very happy with our lifestyle," she said. "I've got a lot of kids around here (at the school). Besides, there's just no way I could coach, run and raise a family. No, I have no desire to do that.

It's final. "I haven't always been able to admit that we aren't going to have a family. But it's true. I guess times have changed." So Doolittle is free to compete in her second Boston Marathon. With her Westlake team at the height of its season, she admits her training could have been better.

"I've been doing about 50-60 miles a week, which is shorter than what I've done in the past," she said. "But I've been going faster. Hopefully, that will make up the difference." Actually, she doesn't necessarily want to run faster in this year's race. She wants to run more consistently. She wants an even, patient pace say, a 6:35 first mile and a 6:40 final mile.

Forget about the tediousness or "Heartbreak Hill," the sharp rise that pops up 22 miles into the race. "It comes at a pretty bad time," she understated, "but I think everybody over-dramatizes it. Oh, I felt it. But it's not that difficult. "The time passes very quickly, really.

You concentrate on your pace. Your mind just spins, I guess, and the miles pass quickly. "The only thing that threw me last year was the crowd. I was used to having an aid station every mile, mile and a half. But the crowd gives you oranges and water.

I didn't know when to drink so I probably drank too much." When Doolittle finishes the race around 3 p.m. Monday, she will keep running to the airport. Her plane leaves at 5. "I've got school Tuesday," she said simply. "I'm out of personal leave so I'd have to pay a substitute.

That would run me about $40." It gives her another good reason to wear her watch. By DANNY BOBBINS Staff Writer Dorothy Doolittle will gulp down a bowl of oatmeal Monday morning and hope it stays in her stomach until noon. I She will pull on her track shoes, tying the laces in a tight square knot and snipping off the extra part that hangs over. Then, as a final bit of preparation, she will make sure she's wearing her small, silver watch. The watch is very important.

Dorothy Doolittle cannot run in the Boston Marathon without her watch. Forgetting to wear it last year may have cost her some valuable minutes and, maybe, a shot at first place. "It was my first time in Boston and I ran a stupid race," she recalled, sitting behind a desk in an office off the gym at West-lake High. "I didn't realize people would be lined up the whole 26 miles. They're so supportive.

But they cheer you and make you go faster than you really want to go. You get burned out. year I'll wear my watch and check my time at each mile." Doolittle coaches girls' track teams at Westlake and the nearby Hill Country Middle School. So most of the year she teaches running to junior high and high school kids. But Monday she will be on her own in a field of 3,000 runners, most of male, who will elbow and squeeze for position in America's greatest footrace.

At 90 pounds and all of 4-11 tall she says her height and weight haven't changed much since the sixth grade Doolittle will seem very little when the race starts. At least that's the way she felt last year, before the pack spread out and she moved into third place among women competitors. "I was scared to death," she said. "I was excited. But I felt like an ant.

I felt very, very tiny among all those people." Open to women only because of pressure exerted the past 'couple of years, the Boston Marathon has always been a peoples' race. It has tradition, 81 years worth, color and an element of surprise. Anybody who can run just over 26 miles in three hours or so can turn in the $3 entry fee and win or just finish. The streets of Boston were "never meant for electronic timers and Longhorn belt buckles. I Boston Globe sports columnist Ray Fitzgerald calls the par- Her background certainly didn't make her one.

She grew up in Elgin without doing much organized running, then attended Mary Hardin-Baylor College in Temple and ran track well, some. "I competed (mostly in the 880-yard run) but there was virtually no competition," she said. "We'd just go out and practice the day before a meet." She started jogging seriously, just joy running, in 1968 and soon discovered that she had more than the normal amount of speed and endurance needed to cover long distances. So she got serious about competition, working her way up to sixth place among women marathon runners in the United States last year. She is currently ranked 14th.

But beyond natural ability, Doolittle has succeeded in her sport because of an extraordinary amount of dedication. She's found the zombie-like groove that great distance runners use to pound out the miles. She has an ability to take long runs around Town Lake or her North Austin neighborhood at 6 in the morning and 6 at night, sandwiched around a full day of teaching and coaching. Lanier coach Sylvia Daniels, a close friend and running companion, remembers returning from a trip to Arizona a few winters ago and, knowing full well that Austin had been besieged by cold and rain, innocently asking Doolittle how her training had gone. When the answer was an innocent "fine," she started to worry.

"She'd been running two hours every day inside the school building in Elgin," Daniels said. "I couldn't believe it. You know, up and down the corridors, up and down the stairs for two solid hours." Sixers out of mothballs, hosting Celtics in playoff 1 i i i i i if i 2 f'f 1 1 ill f-4 i "i Jt I 7 4 i 7 i 'to iiV; I f'Jft ft i kr-l I 4 i 4 I It I 1 4 1 I V' San Antonio 113-109 Friday to win a shot at the 76ers in the best-of-seven series. Celtic coach Tom Heinsohn said his team was going about defending its title one step at time. "I just wanted to get out of the Alamo alive," Heinsohn said.

"I'm not the kind of guy who thinks about the next game until we win the one at hand." Heinsohn said the team had films of Celt-ics-76ers games. "We'll look them over today when we arrive in Philadelphia and then we'll have a team meeting." Other than that, the Celtics coach was releasing no pre-game details. The three other series will be decided in Sunday afternoon games Cleveland at Washington, Detroit at Golden State and Chicago at Portland. All three are tied 1-1. On Friday night, Cleveland evened its series by beating the Bullets 91-83 and Chicago tripped up the Trail Blazers Foots Walker, who pumped in 20 points for the Cavaliers, said the emotion generated by Cleveland fans will carry the team through the third game.

"We're going to win the game Sunday, no question," he said. Associated Press Boston has the title, Philadelphia has the ambition and Denver has the odds as the National Basketball Association playoffs go into the quarterfinal round Sunday. The 76ers meet the Celtics, defending NBA champions, Sunday in Philadelphia. To the 76ers' Julius Erving, the odds and the title don't mean a thing. "I don't see any team beating us in a seven-game series," Erving said.

"They might once maybe twice. But not four games out of seven. Not now." Philadelphia has had a full week off and Erving looks for the 76ers to come out Sunday rested but ready. "We won't be overconfident," Erving predicted. "We won't be overconfident against Boston because they're the defending champions." Erving said picked No.

2 rather than No. 1 by the oddsmakers has taken some of the pressure off the Philadelphia club. "I don't know if you can say everybody's laying for us. They picked Denver ahead of us. That means that we're not the favorites," Erving said.

Boston took its sixth straight victory from DISTURBANCE An unidentified protester is chased by ca's apartheid policy, during the U.S.-South Africa Davis Cup captain Tony Trabert Saturday after the is Cup match in Newport Beach, Page D2. (AP demonstrator ran onto the court, protesting South Afri- Wirephoto)' 1.