Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 39

WW" iV Section 4 Tuesday, January 5, 1988 Bitka defiant: We'll it all9 win Bob Verdi In the wake of the news Ali Haji-Sheikh wins the Redskins' placekicking job. Page 4. A no-frills coach for Team USA By Don Pierson Most National Football League coaches favor the humble approach, especially at playoff time when the fear of of-fending the opponent overwhelms them with modesty. Mike Ditka is not like most coaches. As soon as he found out his Bears will host the Washington Redskins Sunday in Soldier Field, he challenged their defense on his Sunday night television show.

Then, on Ditka's Monday morning radio show, he reported and plotting their 41-0 defeat. Ditka is different. Actually, he likes it both ways. So while toss-ing out challenges and predictions, Ditka also recalled his recent opinion that the Bears would be "weak sisters" in the playoffs. "The Redskins are one of the teams picked to do it; we're one of the teams not picked to do it," Ditka said.

"Experts" were doing the picking, he said presumably not the ones who have installed See Bears, pg. 4 that Redskins' defensive end Dexter Maniley has "the IQ of a And at a noon press conference Monday, Ditka predicted a Super Bowl XXII victory for the "I think we'll win it all," he said. "Because it's our team, the Bears, because we expect to win. We don't expect to lose to anybody." Ditka's comments were in stark contrast to remarks by Washington's Joe Gibbs and San Francisco's Bill Walsh on Sunday. Gibbs said beating the Bears two years in a row in Chicago would be "tremendously tough." Walsh said the Minnesota Vikings' 44-10 defeat of the New Orleans Saints put his 49ers into a very "sober" mood.

Walsh did in fact look more sober than a few weeks ago when he was praising the Bears Tribune photo Washington's Dexter Manley: the IQ of a grapefruit? Purdue cruises I-' I rr 1 it I 1 i It i I. I fJJH I -v' I I tVc 'mw, past Ulini to ru i When Dave Peterson arises at the downtown Marriott Tuesday morning, he will be observing a birthday. Peterson will celebrate the occasion with a 5:30 wake-up call, a bus ride to O'Hare, and a plane flight north, to an even frostier climate. Nothing fancy, in other words, and that pretty well sums up how Peterson comes across. Alter all, this will be his 57th birthday, and besides, the man has long since retired so as to pursue his current task of coaching the U.S.

Olympic hockey team. "When March rolls around," he says, "I go back to doing what 1 usually do. Nothing. Or whatever I want." In that context, Peterson, represents a de-rarture from lodge brothers past. Herb Brooks, who choreographed the Miracle of Lake Placid in '80, was glib, fashionable and much in demand particularly after the gold medal.

They made a movie about him and his boys of winter, with Karl Maiden the designated nose, and Herbie went on to become a cult hero. Brooks, in fact, is now employed as coach of the Minnesota North Stars, who are waging a frantic battle with the mighty Blackhawks for fourth place. During the (Winter Games of '84 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, Lou Vairo was the U.S. mentor. He was a likeable, young and emotional type, but his squad finished a disappointing seventh.

Vairo hooked on with the New Jersey Devils, then moved to Italy, where he is coaching hockey still. It is not known whether 16 of 21 teams qualify for the playoffs over there, but all things considered, Vairo did just fine. Better to be paddling a gondola around Venice than enduring the still waters of the NHL's Norris Division. The point here js that Peterson seems ideally suited for what shall begin in Calgary during the second week of February. A hockey lifer who bypassed many career-enhancing opportunities so he could remain teacher of hockey and business at Minneapolis' Southwest High School for three decades, Peterson packs no pretense whatsoever.

He is neither on stage nor auditioning for his big break, merely honing 25 gifted and devoted players for a cutthroat tournament against some of the world's best amateurs and the Soviet Union, too. A fatherly figure such as Peterson is welcome to this equation, because this equation carries immense pressures. Starting last July, Peterson and Team USA General Manager Art Bcrglund gathered the 80 best American non-professionals naturally, none of whom were drafted by the Blackhawks from which the current roster was gleaned. A breakneck tour of games followed, including Monday night's 10-1 rout of the University of Illinois-Chicago Flames at the sparkling and packed Pavilion. "It'll be 59 games in all before it's all over," Peterson says.

"And then they don't mean anything. We all point to the one in Calgary Feb. 13 against Austria. "I think people would be surprised how patriotic these kids Except for one, all of them have their rights held by some NHL team. Three have played pro already, and many of them have aspirations of making the NHL.

And some will. But since Aug. 7, they've concentrated on one thing. The Olympics. I'm pleased with where we are, and how far we've come." The Americans own a record of 30-13-5 against all varieties of competition, including Tribune cholos bv Charles Chernev Team USA goalie Chris Terreri stops the puck despite the crowd around his net Monday night.

He made 23 saves. U.S. Olympians skate by UIC Lewis' 2d-half surge sparks Boilermakers By Linda Young Chicago Tribune CHAMPAIGN Purdue taught Illinois a lesson in maturity Monday night in the Assembly Hall. The defending Big 10 co-champion and lOth-ranked Boilermakers drilled IS of 18 second-half field goal attempts and clamped down on the Illinois offense with a rare zone to hand the 9-3 Illini an 81-68 loss in the Big 10 opener, in front of a crowd of 16,654 and a national cable television audience. "I think our experience overall helped us a lot," said Boilermaker guard Troy Lewis, who hit 18 of his game-high 25 points after halftime to blow open what had been a 32-31 Purdue lead at intermission.

"When we got that type of maturity it made it a lot easier for everybody else to be more relaxed. "When I was sitting on the bench and we were in the zone, they Illinois shot two or three quick 3-pointers, and I knew right then that they didn't have the experience where somebody can say, 'Hey, we need to pass the ball around a few Lewis added. "You have to give our coaching staff a lot j)f credit to put us in a match-up zone like that and make them prove to us that they can shoot the outside shot" On this night, the Illini could neither make the outside shot nor prevent 11-1 Purdue from collecting its 1 0th straight victory. Illinois shot only 40 percent for the game and hit only 3 of 15 from 3-point range. That let the Boilermakers pack the zone inside and keep the ball out of Illini leading scorer Ken Battle's hands.

The zone was virtually forced on Purdue coach Gene Keady when starters Everette Stephens and Todd Mitchell each drew a pair of personal fouls less than three minutes into the game. Sophomore Tony Jones replaced Stephens, whose second foul came just 1:35 into the game. Jones responded with a career-high 14 points. "We got in foul trouble early and that forced us to go to our zone, and I think that really helped us," said Keady. "It proved that right now they're playing like kind of a young team they didn't shoot well from outside.

And we played like a veteran team." "That's by far the most zone we've played since I've been here," Lewis said. "The coaching staff scouted them real well, and we knew coming in that they weren't a very good outside shooting team, but they had great athletes and guys that could crash the boards." Both the 9-3 Illini and the Assembly Hall crowd seemed lethargic throughout the game. They were outclassed by the veteran Boilermakers. "Fifteen out of 18 in the second half," lamented Illinois coach Lou Henson. "We couldn't defense them, though we tried and See Purdue, pg.

3 By Tim Tierney A fast-moving group of young Americans known as the United States Olympic hockey team whirled through the Pavilion Monday night They doused the Illinois-Chicago Flames 10-1 and fueled hopes that this U.S. squad might advance to the medal round at the Winter Olympics next month in Calgary. True, UIC is not the Soviet Union, but the 1988 U.S. squad is better on skates than the '84 team. And there's a premium on skating when the game is played on the bigger ice surfaces in international competition.

"They're in the ballgame," UIC coach Val Belmonte said after watching Team USA raise its record to 30-13-5, 16-0-1 against college squads. "I don't think it's unrealistic for them to think they can make the medal round." There were no chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A" at the Pavilion, where a near-capacity crowd of 7,502 saw the Americans race to an 8-0 lead in the second period. This was a UIC crowd, but it may become a USA contingent in a few. weeks. "We're above where we'd like to be," said U.S.

coach Dave Peterson. "Maybe we're a little ahead of schedule." Team USA left wing Tony Granato of Downers Grove scored twice, as did center Scott Fusco. Granato came into the game as the team's fourth-leading scorer with 30 goals and 24 assists. "We were going in spurts," Granato said. "It's hard keeping the intensity for 60 minutes when the score is a little lopsided." Senior center Jeff Nelson of Naperville, UIC's leading scorer, netted the Flames' only goal late in the second period.

The crowd erupted as if UIC had won the NCAA championship. "We wanted something out of it," Bel-See UIC, pg. 5 iv. I i Tony Granato, who had two goals Monday night, looks for the puck. r-fi iyJywm' ty Wt ijT yr the NHL and the Soviets, ream UaA beat the Detroit Red Wings and St.

Louis Blues, while also incurring five one-goal losses versus the big boys. Team USA was 6-1-1 against the USSR, including a 13-2 blowout victory, but the Soviet squad was not the blue chip aggregation that will be sent to Calgary. The Americans comprehend as much. They also carry no albatrosses from Olympics past "We're not going to Calgary to emulate 1980, or to atone for 1984, Berglund says. "We're going to play our best with this team.

And it's not just us against the Russians. The Olympics is more than that. Heck, Sweden is seeded first, not the Soviets." Hockey players from the United States are better and more plentiful than ever. Also, See Verdi, pg. Team USA coach Dave Peterson passes along some Instructions to his squad during the early going at the Pavilion.

Some skaters on thin ice INSIDE Dale Brown down on Knight I i i But Bojtapo figures to hav U.S. team made The outspoken Louisiana State basketball Viilanova a winner Kenny Wilson pushes past Steve Hurina of St. John's Monday night In Viilanova' 69-62 Big East victory, Page 3. I i i coach calls the pride! of Indiana University "a jdespicable human being" and that's only the beginning. Page 2.

I i Phil Hersh By Tribune Chicago () Olympics 88 Dawson likely to file I i IS Salary talks with the Cubs may continue! but In the meantime MVP Andre Dawson is expected to file for arbitration. Page 7. NBA NHL DENVER Christopher Bowman's sore ankle and Scott Gregory's bad back may complicate the already confusing selection process of the U.S. Olympic figure skating team. Bowman is the country's No.

2 male skater, behind three-time national champion Brian Boitano. Gregory is part of the No. 1 dance team. Both would be certain to represent the U.S. at Calgary if they were healthy.

Should the injuries knock Bowman out of the top three and Gregory's team out of the top two at this week's U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which are sort of the Olympic trials, it may or may not keep them from the Games. Results of last year's world championships entitled the U.S. to three entries each in men's and women's singles and pair? and two entries Irish, Bradley stunned I Notre Damp gets a surprise on i the road from 'feisty Lafayette, and Bradley loses at home to Illinois State. Page 3.

College basketball Lafayette 83, Notre Dame 68 Illinois State 85, Bradley 74 Viilanova 69, -St. John's 62 Kansas 67, Washington 57 UNLV 71, Long Beach State 66 Roundups, Page 3 Soviet Union intends to participate iii the Summer Olympics in Seoul. Page 7-1 i 1 in dance at the 1988 Winter Olympics. The U.S. Figure Skating Association is not locked into a straight order-of-finish selection process.

Results at these national championships have historically been used to pick the team, but are not binding. That is one reason why this competition is not called the U.S. Olympic figure skating trials. The other is money; to use the Olympic trials designation, the USFSA would have to turn over to the U.S. Olympic Committee the See Skaters, pg.

7 76er9 122, Suns 114 Cavs 122, Nuggets 101 Rockets 117, Mavs 107 Celtics 107, Jazz 99 Oilers 2, Bruins 2 Rangers 6, Blues 2 Kings 6, Devils 3 Canucks 7, Leafs 7 Lakers 133, Spurs 115 Roundup, Page Rojmdup, Pug 5 AP Uterphoto tmt.