The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 58

58 The Boston Globe Thursday, September 6, 1979 back he Once near death, racing By WILL McDONOL GH It was a year ago this weekend that they paid a nice tribute to race-car driver Ollie Silva at the Star Speedway in Epping, N.H. In his honor, they let Gregg Sheppard, who was with the Bruins at the time, drive one of Silva's racing cars around the track as the pace car for the feature race, the Canadian-American 150. For nearly 30 years, Silva, one of 16 children covered for only $5000 in insurance. The bills were going to run nearly 10 times that much. This is where his friends and the Bruins came into play.

For years, many of the Bruin players had been going to the Star Speedway, where Silva was the resident superstar, to drive racing cars in promotional stunts. They got to know and like Silva, who was one of the first drivers to let them use his expensive cars in these fun races. With the help of race director Conway and Bruins Sheppard (now with Pittsburgh), Gerry Cheevers, Terry O'Reilly, Peter McNab and most of the rest of the squad, more than $40,000 was raised to pay for Silva's bills through a huge testimonial dinner last October. Silva, who wasn't expected to attend, showed up in a wheelchair. "What they did was great, but the most important thing was knowing how much people care.

When you've been in this business of driving as long as I've been, you know there's a chance of getting hurt, or getting killed. And you really don't think people would care. But they do. It was a nice feeling." Yet, all his friends could hope for was that Ollie would be able to recover through rehabilitation to lead a normal life. That's all Silva wanted at that point for himself.

"It was really something to get in a car and just drive down the road again. I was scared. I had lost my confidence. I was worried about the the only man to win the race four times, and now that he was dying, he should not be forgotten. At the time, Silva was in the Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, N.H., just barely clinging to life.

The doctors, who had patched him together following a nightmarish crash just five weeks before, told his family and friends to expect the worst. At best, if he lived, he would be little more than a living dead man who probably would be bedridden the rest of his life. "I don't remember any of that," says on the way to an incredible comeback that is scheduled to put him back on the track at Epping this Saturday night in a qualifying heat for the 1979 Can-Am 150. "In fact, I don't remember much about the past year. Most of it has been a blank in my life.

I was in the hospital for three months and I don't remember ever being in the hospital. I've been back a few times, but nothing seems familiar." On the night of July 28, 1978, at the Monad-nock Speedway in Winchester, N.H., Silva went off the track doing nearly 100 miles per hour and hit a tree broadside. "I don't remember the accident. I think now that something fell off the front end of my car just before I went into that last turn. My leg, my arm, my foot were broken.

But the worst damage was to my brain. The doctors told me later that the force at impact was so terrific that it jarred my brain loose. Turned it upside down." There were other problems. The track was other drivers. I had never been a fast driver except on the track.

Driving down the road always bothered me. I didn't trust the other drivers." As spring came to New England, the old feel- ing of competition came back to Silva. He" thought he wanted to race again. His friends and family told him he was crazy. Forget it.

Those days are gone. "After I got out of the hospital and started to get my brain together again, I hoped I wouldn't get the feeling back again. In a way, I was wishing I couldn't drive. But the better I got, the more I wanted to do it. Then, the more people told me I couldn't, the more I wanted it.

"I've driven about 500 practice laps, but I haven't been in a real race yet. I'm planning on going into the time trials this Saturday night. I want to race at least once this year. I don't want to let it linger on. "See, want to decide when I can't race anymore.

I didn't want the accident to tell me my family to tell me anyone else to tell me. I'm going to race again and what happens on the track will tell me. If I can't drive like Ollie Silva anymore, I'll know it and I'll just take the car off the track. That will be it. Then I won't have the urge anymore." But, as Conway suggests, "No matter what happens, there will be two winners here this weekend.

Ollie Silva and the guy who wins the race." from a Topsfield farming family, had been considered the top driver on the New England circuit. "He was the Bobby Orr, the Carl Yastr-zemski of driving around here," says Epping race director Russ Conway. He. was the superstar driver of New England." Yes, the tribute at OLLIE SILVA the Can-Am was fitting because Ollie Silva was The Very Nice Feud hot again By BUI) COLLINS know is I haven't won a major title this year, and this for me, the US title, is the most major." She is down 15 pounds since Wimbledon, to 115, lean and eager to keep the title. "Is Helen Jacobs still alive?" Chrissie, 24, wondered.

"She sent me a letter a year ago wishing me well in catching her. That was nice." Jacobs, 71, is believed to be living reclusively outside of New York. But Chrissie, living publicly at Flushing Meadows is, despite all her trials and tribulations this year, still very much with us. --fiii NEW YORK Guilt by association was the charge against Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong after the outrage they committed two months ago in the Wimbledon semifinals. In a match that seemed impossible for either woman to win, Evert finally stumbled through, prompting a London EVONNE GOOLAGONG Party of the first part SPORTS LOG Compiled hv lioh kinxli'v NBA: Pacers sign Meyers; brother fears exploitation Former UCLA and Olympic basketball star Ann Meyers became the first woman ever signed to a National Basketball Assn.

contract yesterday when the Indiana PaCers announced that she has agreed to a one-year pact. Everyone seemed happy except Meyers' brother, Dave, a forward for the Milwaukee Bucks, who feels that his 5-foot-9, 135-pound sister is "getting into deep water. She is obviously in way over her head," said Dave, who also starred at UCLA. However, he also feels that "Annie is net "the kind of person to let herself get into situations where she will be made fun of or be made a mockery of." Meyers said he" was worried that the Pacers might be signing his sister "to take advantage of her" and get some publicity. "If I didn't think I could compete with men," said the new Pacer, "I wouldn't try it.

I think my skills are equitable to some NBA players. I've had dreams all my life. Nothing is impossible." The San Antonio Spurs have agreed to accept guard Tate Armstrong and an undisclosed amount of cash from Chicago as compensation for the Bulls' signing of forward-center Coby Dietrick earlier this summer. Tennis: Bee sting- KO's Riggs 55 Bobby Riggs went into shock after he was stung severely on the lips by a bee during a tennis match in New Yotk yesterday and, according to the doctor who treated him, could have died from the reaction. "We had to give hun two shots of adrenalin and antihistamines," said Dr.

Daniel Manfredi, head surgeon at the National Tennis Center, where the US Open is being staged. "He was in shock, and he could have died from the allergic reaction. He's lucky we got him in time." Riggs took a sip from a can of soda during a break in one of his matches, and the bee was inside the can. Riggs later collapsed from reaction to the treatment John McEnroe and Vitas Geru-laitis will represent the US in singles against Argentina in Davis Cup play next week, team captain Tony Tra-bert announced yesterday. Stan Smith and Bob Lutz will play doubles for the US in the action, scheduled to begin a week from tomorrow in Memphis.

Representing Argentina will be Guillermo Vilas, Jose-Luis Clerc and Ricardo Cano. NFL: Redskins seek switch Edward Bennett Williams, Washington Redskins president, has asked the NFL to move the Redskins' game scheduled for Oct. 7 from RFK Stadium to Philadelphia so it will not conflict with the Mass to be celebrated on the Mall by Pope John Paul II. Washington police officials have expressed fears that the Redskins' home game against the Eagles, beginning only two hours before the Pope's 3 p.m. Mass for an expected 1 million people, could greatly complicate the already tremendous traffic and transportation problems that are anticipated during the Pontiff's visit to Washington.

Williams also rotted that fans might not go to a home game Oct. 7 because of the threatened traffic tieups and because they might want to see the Pope instead. NFL officials are considering the request Green Bay Packers fullback Eddie Lee Ivery was placed on the injured reserve list yesterday after surgery to remove cartilage and repair a ligament in his left knee. Miscellany: Reggie claims slur Reggie Jackson has accused Yankee owner George Steinbrenner of addressing him as "boy" during a June 19 meeting, the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel reported today. On that date, the day Billy Martin returned to manage the Yankees, Jackson said he went to Steinbren-ner to ask to be traded, "not knowing I was already on waivers George slurred me racially that day.

He told me, "You better get your head screwed on straight, He emphasized, I think it slipped before he realized." There's an adage in horse racing that weight can stop a freight train. Well, it won't get a chance to stop 1978 Triple Crown winner Affirmed come Saturday's $300,000 Marlboro Cup at Belmont Park. Trainer Laz Barrera, fuming at the 133 pounds assigned to Affirmed, says his horse will not be entered in the l's-mile feature which could have decided Horse of the Year honors. Spectacular Bid, Coastal, General Assembly and Cox's Ridge are scheduled to race in the Marlboro Cup Oren Shireo, 59, Maine State Amateur champion, led five New England qualifiers for the National Senior Amateur championship at Essex CC in Manchester yesterday. Shiro of Waterville, Maine, shot a 2-over-par 72.

Other N.E. qualifiers for the USGA Seniors at Chicago GC in Wheaton, 111., on Sept. 17-22 included: Charles Sullivan, Salem: John McNiff, Salem; Ed Barry, Charles River, and William Pendergast, Kittansett A total of 31 players have been invited to the first Boston Bruins New' England tryout camp to be held next week at Twin Rinks in Danvers New England's finest professional and amateur tennis players will compete in a double elimination tournament Oct. 19-21 at Northmeadow Tennis Club in Tewksbury for the benefit of the Retarded Adults Rehabilitative Assn. of Greater Lowell Larry Holmes will defend his WBC heavyweight title against NoM contender Earnie Shavers in Las Vegas on Friday, Sept 28.

journalist to observe: "What more could you expect from The Boston Globe Sportswriters re those two? Both married English tennis players and caught the shakes." SSi 2988 port on all sports in all seasons. Have you seen The Globe today? with Bjorn Borg, an historic figure himself, and a comer named Pat DuPre, who deserved better. The scheduling for this Open is peculiar enough to have originated in the Great and General Court of Massachusetts. Narrowed to the last eight, the field should now be rested at least a day between matches after four arduous rounds, as is customary, for example, at Wimbledon. Instead, DuPre was unfairly thrown in against Jimmy Connors less than 24 hours after his five-set ordeal with Harold Solomon.

Connors' request to play in daylight was heeded, while Borg was put on at night, against his wishes, to face Roscoe Tanner. Nobody from the quarters on should be subjected to the vagaries of night play on a fast court. Possibly worse was the closeting of Evert and Goolagong in the grandstand court, where most of the 12,141 customers wanted to be. They warranted the stadium. The grandstand, a concrete kangaroo pouch attached to the mother stadium, was crammed to capacity with 6000, while maybe 2000 more lined stadium balconies and stairways which afforded a view.

The grandstand court, reeking of garbage beneath the seats, was not the appropriate setting for Evert and Goolagong, yet they went at it with some of the old verve. Evert is still experiencing honeymoon slump five months after her marriage to Englishman John Lloyd, though not as grave as his own nuptial maladies. He's hardly won a match. Goolagong, 28, has a suspect back, a suspect left heel and an even more suspect outlook: she wants to settle down to what she considers a normal life, expanding her family with husband Roger Cawley. The Australian zephyr leaped to a 4-1 lead, but Chrissie was having none of it, overcoming Evonne's net raids with the battering passing shots and heavier concentration.

In three critical games the seventh of each set and the first of the second set Evert bulled through her rival's serve from 40-0. Finally it was Chrissie for a 21st time, 7-5, 6-2. She was into the semis for the ninth consecutive year, winning her 29th successive match in the Open. It is the longest US championship streak since Helen Jacobs eons ago piled up 28 by winning 1332-33-34-35 and going to the 1936 final. "I don't like to think about those things, records, they're distractions," Evert said.

"All I Even Englishmen would concede that when it comes to swinging tennis racquets their kind belongs in a special category reserved for homegrown heavyweight boxers, Italian politicians and American auto manufacturers. Were Evert and Goolagong victims of a communicable disease that afternoon at the Big Despite Evert's slap-hazard victory, it seemed so for her, since she was just as klutzy in losing the title bout to Martina Navratilova. It was no fun to watch because this very nicest of tennis feuds had begun on the same court seven years before, in another semifinal when both were new and glistening like fillies and Evonne won an enthralling three-set duel. The very nicest of rivalries continued through the years, spiced by dynamic shotmaking of charming young women who were also admirable pros yet deviated from the tennis norm because they thought sportsmanship counted. The free-flowing Goolagong and stonewalling Evert had played some marvelous point and counterpoint over 31 encounters end, so when they abruptly came apart at Wimbledon, the witnesses were embarrassed for them, as though eavesdropping when Helen Hayes forgot her lines, Julia Child burned the toast or Florence Nightingale threw a bedpan at a patient.

You had to wonder if there was anything left of that Very Nice series yesterday when Goolagong and Evert squared off in the US Open quarterfinals for the 33d time perhaps the concluding episode. They had played the finale of 1975 and 1976 at Forest Hills as Evert began taking that plunge "going down in history," as she says toward what could be a record five championships in successive years. Now it was Flushing Meadows, and in a tournament that is an insult to the notions of greatness that many espouse for it, two of the foremost figures to appear in the game, Evert and Goolagong, were insulted along We bought too many famous Mlchelin tires in certain sizes. This is a rare opportunity to save even more off our regular low prices! Hurry Down! STEEL BELTED RADIALS AS LOW AS 75 Johnny Maps, Loach Umve'sity of Tennessee Johnny Majors, coach of the formidable Tennessee Volunteers, is bringing his troops north for the Boston College season opener September 15 (6 PM, Alumni Stadium). Come see the Eagles take on one of the toughest teams in the Southeastern Conference.

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