Times-Advocate from Escondido, California • 60

16 North County, Thursday, Aug. 7, 1986 Sports CFL is home to ex-Aztecs Sandusky, Armour belong to Ned Armour, formerly of SDSU. to adjust to football in another country. track, winning the CIF long-jump championship. It was the last time he would play a full football season for a school.

He attended Mesa College and played briefly for the football team. But he quickly gave it up because it interfered with his training on the track, where he twice earned South Coast Athlete of the Year honors. He won a track scholarship to San Diego State and not only became the best triple-jumper in the Western Athletic Conference, but the third best in the country. His 26-5 leap placed him third in the 1979 NCAA finals. It's still the second-best mark in Aztecs' history.

He also ran 14:01 in the 110-meter high hurdles (third best in school history) and leaped 51-1 in the triple jump (fourth best). His goal was to compete in the 1980 Olympics, but his dream was 6 'American can Bowl '86' kicks off in London Armour By John Shea Times Advocate Sportswriter This is a story about two football players who are opposites but have a lot in common. Sound strange? It is. There are the similarities: Both are wide receivers. Both play for the Canadian Football League champions.

Both came out of San Diego State. overcame tremendous obstacles. The similarities end there. And the differences abound: One is a natural, a startling physical specimen with world-class speed. The natural grew up competing in track and field.

Running and jumping always came easy for him. But he never took football seriously. It was always something he did for kicks. The other is a battler, a lessgifted individual with average speed. The battler played organized football his entire life.

He lived for the game. It would be safe to say he ran patterns in his crib. But he was always considered too small to make it big. Now, they're together in Canada, and they're the leading receivers for the CFL's best team, the British Columbia Lions. Meet Ned Armour, the natural.

And Jim Sandusky, the battler. With the NFL in training camp and the USFL in limbo, the CFL is already well into its season. And Armour and Sandusky are well into posting banner years. Getting this far wasn't easy for either Armour or Sandusky. But they've adjusted to the Canadian way of the game.

Bigger fields, fewer downs, more players and running clocks. Oh, and more passing. A lot more passing. Especially in this province in the southwest region of the country. Behind quarterback Roy Dewalt, the CFL's leading passer, the Lions topped the league in almost every offensive category.

"I didn't really like it at first because I wasn't used to it," said Sandusky in a recent telephone conversation. "But it's basically the same. You still run your patterns, catch the ball and run." Dewalt, a product of Texas-Arlington, completed 63 percent of his passes last year for 4,237 yards and 27 touchdowns. Wide receiver Mervyn Fernandez, the CFL's Most Outstanding Player last season, was Dewalt's main target, but Fernandez suffered a leg injury late in the season and won't return until next month. Meanwhile, Armour and Sandusky are trying to fill the void this season.

So far, they've been successful. Armour has 33 receptions for 577 yards and Sandusky, after sitting out the first two games with a knee i injury, has 17 for 258. The Western Division-leading Lions's 5-1 record is best in the CFL. Sandusky, at just 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds, was an all-state receiver for Othello High School in Washington, and he was an All- at Walla Walla Junior College. By the time he was a junior at Nevada- -Las Vegas, he had sprouted up 175 pounds.

Despite the obvious handicap, he led the country in receiving with 68 receptions for 1,346 yards. After the season, UNLV went through a change in the coaching staff. But Sandusky and new coach Harvey Hyde never saw eye-toeye, so Sandusky transferred to San Diego State. "Doug Filan, my receivers coach at UNLV, really helped me along," Sandusky said. "He recruited me to UNLV, then when the coaching staff was fired, he anticipated nightmares and sent me to San Diego State.

He was right. I've got to be happy with what I did." After redshirting a year, Sandusky had another banner season for the Aztecs in 1983. He grabbed 69 passes for 1,179 yards before capping his college career with the MVP trophy in the Hula Bowl. NFL teams had scouted Sandusky all season, but he shunned them even before draft day. British Co- WEMBLEY, England (AP) Far from the shores of Lake Michigan and the plains of central Texas, the Chicago Bears and the Dallas Cowboys open their NFL preseason schedule today in a setting more often associated with another brand of football.

Wembley Stadium, centerpiece of the 1948 Olympics and the site of the World Cup soccer championships 20 years ago, will be packed for the game, billed as "American Bowl '86" 80,000 fans, half of them seated, half of them standing. All of them will be out for a Surprisingly, Armour lasted until one of the last cuts before he was finally told that he lacked the experience not necessarily the ability to play in the NFL. "It was going pretty good, but all that football jargon well, it had been awhile," Armour said. Nevertheless, Armour made a big enough impression that Edmonton of heard of him and offered him a free-agent contract. Edmonton soon released Armour, however.

However, the Eskimos' defensive coordinator, Don Matthews, was given the head coaching position at British Columbia and he brought Armour with him. Armour made the team and played in the first three games, but a hand injury caused him to sit out the rest of the regular season. "I was still hurting and wasn't really able to show them anything," Armour said. "He was still learning how to be a receiver," said Keller. But Armour's hand healed in time to see action in the postseason, including a four -catch, 42- yard performance in an 18-17 loss to Toronto in the Grey Cup.

"Ever since then, he's gotten better and better," Keller said. In 1984, Armour had a dream season, pulling in 50 passes in 12 games for 788 yards and six touchdowns. But the Lions fell one game shy of the Grey Cup. Last year, Armour again suffered a leg injury that forced him to miss most of the season. He played in just one game, but once again, he was healthy in the postseason.

And that postseason is one that Armour will never forget. He got the chance to play because Fernandez was injured. Armour took advantage of the situation. He had six catches, 138 yards and a touchdown against Winnipeg in the Western Conference final and three catches, 151 yards and two TDs against Hamilton in the Grey Cup. Armour was finally a proven professional football player.

He finally learned what it takes. "Track and field is an individual effort, and there are always rewards when you do well," Armour said. "In football, if you lose, all 11 guys take the blame. At the beginning, I didn't always feel like taking the blame, especially if I played well and the team lost. "It was something I had to adjust to.

It's like life. It's like everything in the world. You have to work as a team. Once I understood that, it was a lot easier to adjust." BC Lions photo One of the finest pairs of hands Ned Armour The natural. lumbia offered him a reasonable contract, and Sandusky signed.

Sandusky's three-year deal has brought him an average of $100,000 a year, including a $65,000 signing bonus. Sandusky signed in February, married in May and began working out with the Lions in June. But his storybook career finally had a bad chapter. He came down with a bad case of the viral flu and played parts of only nine games of the 1984 season. "I thought that what I accomplished in college would carry me through," Sandusky said.

"I was taking things for granted, and I didn't set goals." But Sandusky turned things around last season. He started all 16 games and had 58 receptions for 1,479 yards and nine touchdowns. In the Grey Cup, the CFL's version of the Super Bowl, he added six catches for 135 yards and a touchdown. "Last year, I was the player I thought I could be," Sandusky said. But Sandusky had knee troubles two months before this season's training camp opened, and he required arthroscopic surgery.

Sandusky has recovered quickly and is once again making the kinds of acrobatic catches that won him All-WAC honors with the Aztecs. Sandusky, according to the Lions' media guide, has "the best pair of hands in the league today." Publicist Josh Keller, who wrote that passage, has been with the Lions since 1981, and he said he hasn't seen anyone do the things that Sandusky does. glimpse of the sport that in recent years has taken England by storm. They will see two of the NFL's best teams, although probably not much of the best players. The outof-the-ordinary venue doesn't change the fact that this is the preseason opener, a time for coaches to look at rookies and protect veterans from injury.

Coaches Tom Landry of the Cowboys and Mike Ditka of the defending Super Bowl-champion Bears both say they will start their first-string players but go to the bench after about the first quarter. There will be no undue attempt by and speediest legs in the CFL I It took Jirn Sandusky a while "He has the innate ability to catch the football and do something with it when he catches Keller said. "He made one catch last year that was just unbelievable. He went off his feet, and the ball was coming off his hidden shoulder, so he did a 360, caught the ball, hit the ground, rolled over, got up and took off before the defender got to him. You'd have to see it to believe it." Armour has taken a different route.

If Sandusky took the high road, then Armour took the low road. Even with a perfect 6-1, 185- pound frame, he has made it the hard way. At San Diego's Morse High School, Armour competed in the sprints and jumps on the track team and played defensive back on the football team. He was a decent football player, but he excelled in the Cowboys, Landry stressed, to avenge a 44-0 loss to the Bears last November. Jim McMahon, the spark of the Bears' offense, will open at quarterback despite a slight groin pull, matched in the backfield with Walter Payton and Matt Suhey.

On defense, Chicago will feature the same power made famous last season under departed Assistant Coach Buddy Ryan and now being directed by Vince Tobin. That means Mike Singletary leading the charge from middle linebacker, with Dan Hampton, Steve McMichael, Richard Dent and London's Jim Sandusky The battler. shattered when President Carter boycotted the Soviet -hosted Games. As a result, track didn't seem as important any more. He began playing flag football with some friends in San Diego State's intramural league.

Armour quarterbacked a team called BAMF "Brothers Associated Moving Forward," he claims. "We didn't practice, and everybody enjoyed it," Armour said. "It gave me a chance to work on some things. If it works, great. If it doesn't, try something else.

It also made me feel, 'Hey, I can still do Armour later played a few games at wide receiver with the semi-professional San Diego Sharks, but he got his real break in the spring of 1982. He walked into the Chargers' San Diego Stadium offices to talk with assistant general manager Tank Younger. Younger said he already had a full stock of free agents and there would be no room for one more. So Armour left. But on his way out, he met Don Coryell in the elevator.

One thing led to another, and Coryell told Armour to show up the next morning for a tryout. "He could've been anywhere, but the Lord was with me and he was in the elevator," Armour said. "He had me run the 40, and he was impressed." So here was Armour, unknown and fresh out of the intramural leagues, lining up with the likes of Charlie Joiner and Wes Chandler. And catching passes thrown by Dan Fouts. to himself, following the offseason move of his prime rival, Gary Hogeboom, to Indianapolis.

He will be directing a new offense installed by passing coordinator Paul Hackett, who helped make Joe Montana among the league's most explosive quarterbacks with the San Fran-. cisco 49ers. Tony Dorsett and Timmy Newsome will be in backfield with White to open the game. The Dallas defense is anchored once again by end Ed "Too Tall" Jones and tackle Randy White. But Landry has had high praise for second-year defensive tackle Kev- When British Columbia beat Hamilton 37-24 in last year's Grey Cup, it was Canada's answer to the Bears' win over the Patriots.

But even 1 if it wasn't as massive as the Super Bowl, Armour and Sandusky celebrated just the same. "It was great to be part of a championship," Sandusky said. "We got our Grey Cup rings just a couple of months ago. When I put mine on, it really set in. It really hasn't worn off yet." Still, although Armour and Sandusky argue that the CFL is a -rate pro league, stubborn Americans still maintain that there's only one real football league.

And it's not the USFL. The question was posed: Is there life after the CFL for Armour or Sandusky? Sandusky is in the option year of his contract, and an NFL tryout is always a possibility. The Jets drafted him in the 1984 supplementary draft, and Sandusky has done nothing to prove he can't play in the NFL. "This is definitely a pro league," Sandusky said. "There are great players up here.

I know I can play this game." Armour, meanwhile, is four years older and has two years remaining on his contract with 1988 his option year. "Right now, I go from one season to the next," he said. "Who knows after that?" The moral of the story? That's easy. Opposites do attract. For now, anyway.

favorite, William "The Refrigerator" Perry, on the line. Two spots on the Bears starting rosters have changed hands because of injuries. Ken Margerum will start at wide receiver in place of Dennis McKinnon and Reggie Phillips moves in at cornerback for Leslie Frazier. Both McKinnon and Frazier are recovering from knee surgery. For the Cowboys, the game marks the start of the first season in a while without a controversy over who is the No.

1 quarterback. Danny White has that position in Brooks, who is expected to see a lot of action against Chicago in his bid to replace veteran John Dutton in the starting lineup. Starting strong safety is the only lineup change for the Cowboys, who won the NFC East championship last season and made the playoffs for the 10th time in 11 years. Bill Bates moves in there for Dextor Clinkscale, who has not reported to camp. The game will be televised live in the United States on NBC (Channel 39), with a 3 p.m.

London time kickoff (10 a.m. PDT).