Santa Cruz Sentinel du lieu suivant : Santa Cruz, California • Page 29

Business-Comics 5-6 7 Tuesday, Dec. 20, 1983 Santa Cruz Sentinel 49eirs destroy Dallas to win the NFC West By ED VYEDA Sentinel Sports Editor SAN FRANCISCO Eric Wright grew up as a Dallas Cowboy fan, although living in Illinois meant he wasn't exactly deep in the heart of America's Team country. Playing street pickup games, Wright used to pretend he was Bob Hayes, the legendary Cowboy wide receiver. He used to dream about running down the sidelines, heading for a touchdown, the Cowboys cheering for him. Monday night, Wright lived out that dream.

With one exception: The Cowboys, instead, were chasing him. And they didn't catch him. Wright's seventh pass interception of the season turned into a 48-yard touchdown return, turned a potentially close game into a rout and turned the San Francisco 49ers into champions of the NFC West Division. "We knew we had to come up with a big play," said Wright, the 49er cornerback. "We knew somebody had to force a turnover or something." So Wright forced the issue, gambling somewhat, snaring the pass just before it reached the hands of Cowboy wide receiver Doug Donley, right in front of the Dallas bench.

Had Wright missed, Donley could have sprinted the other way and cut the 49ers' lead to 28-24. But Wright whose identical gamble in the second game of the season against Minnesota resulted in a 60-yard touchdown return didn't miss. And the 49ers were on their way to a 42-17 triumph. And, finally, the NFC playoffs are set: The 49ers' win gives them the West title with a 10-6 record, one game ahead of the Los Angeles Rams (9-7), and means San Francisco will host either Dallas (12-4) on Jan. 1, or Central champion Detroit (9-7) on Dec.

31 in the second round of the NFC playoffs. Dallas, which has now lost two games in a row, both by 25 points, hosts Los Angeles in the NFC wild-card playoff Monday. If Los Angeles wins, the Rams advance to play East champion Washington (14-2) and Detroit plays at San Francisco; if Dallas wins, the Cowboys return to play the 49ers and the Lions play in Washington against the Redskins. With a victory Jan. 1, the 49ers could host either Detroit or Los Angeles, or play the Redskins in Washington.

(Playoff guidelines prevent two teams from the same division meeting in the playoffs until the conference championship game.) The 49ers made the most of a big-play defense, a 56-yard touchdown punt return by Dana McLemore, and a quick-strike offense that came up with a 77-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Joe Montana to wide receiver Freddie Solomon. But it was Wright, the Cowboy kid turned Cowboy killer, who delivered the game-breaking play. "That had to be the pivotal point of the game," said 49ers cornerback Ronnie Tl An ii diii Loveioyseminei lease see faKe uj "'e rers uana mcLemore, 4J, is all smiles as he dances into the end zone at the end of his 56-yards punt return for a touchdown. Dwight Hicks, 22, trails the play. Right place, wrong time Clark may be out for season with injury By ED VYEDA Sentinel Sports Editor SAN FRANCISCO Two hours before the kickoff for Monday night's game at Candlestick Fark, Dwight Clark, his playbook in hand and sporting a fresh haircut, walked through his pass patterns.

It was as if the San Francisco 49er wide receiver was on a treasure hunt: "Eight paces forward, five paces left Clark wasn't going to leave anything to chance. I here would be no mistakes on his part, anyway Bill LovejoySentlnel Jim Stuckey, 79, and Dwaine Board, 76, manhandle the quarterback of America's team, Danny White. against the Dallas Cowboys. He was making sure one last time he knew exactly where he was supposed to be. With 12:28 to play in the third quarter, Clark was in the right place, but at the wrong time.

On a simple 2-yard run by 49er fullback Roger Craig, Clark, trying to help block on Cowboy defensive back Dennis Thurman, was caught on the edge of a pileup and couldn't get out of the way. Clark suffered ligament damage to his right knee and, a team doctor said later, it is uncertain when or if Clark will be able to play in the 49ers' first playoff game, Dec. 31 or Jan. 1. The injury was diagnosed as either severely pulled or torn ligaments, and it's just a matter of how extensive the injury is.

Clark was to be examined today to determine if surgery would be required. Clark was able to get up and walk off the field, but the injury was determined to be more serious than the sprain that was originally announced. "It took a lot of joy out of the victory," said 49ers offensive tackle Keith Fahnhorst of the injury to Clark. "It's not just that he is a big part of the offense, he is an inspiration to all the players. It's a shame it had to happen to him, or happen to anyone.

It doesn't look good." The last time the 49ers and Cowboys met, Jan. 10, 1982, Clark came up with what has since been referred to as "The Catch." It was the game-winning touchdown reception with 57 seconds remaining in the 1981 season NFC Championship Game that gave the 49ers a 28-27 win en route to the Super Bowl Championship. And Clark, who his teammates simply call "DC," this year has been the 49ers' leading pass receiver for the third consecutive season, but he didn't get a chance to take advantage of all the routes he was studying before the game. He made two catches for 27 yards against Dallas to finish the season with 70 receptions, ranking No.5 in the National Conference, for 840 yards and eight touchdowns. The 49ers' second leading reciever is Craig, whose five catches against the Cowboys gave him 48 for the season.

Statistics, though, don't give the full picture on Clark, his teammates say. And it's ironic he was Real Cowboys don't get blown out Dwight Clark was trapped with nowhere to go, then came to injury to his right knee. injured when he was trying to do a little something extra. "You see him work on the practice field every day and it's amazing," says 49er running back Bill Ring, who this season won the team's Len Eshmont Award, voted by the players to the most inspirational player. Clark won the award last year.

And Ring voted for him again. "He works hard on every practice play. He's running downfield, full speed, after the ball. He's an inspiration. There have been times when I'm tired in practice and I see C.

and he inspires me to work harder. You see a guy like that not letting up and it makes you want to work harder." The 49er who may have to work harder is wide receiver Mike Wilson, Clark's backup, who replaced Clark in the third quarter caught one pass for 17 yards. San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana, Clark's closest friend on the team, was obviously concerned about the injury. "We'll miss him," Montana said. San Francisco tight end Russ Francis caught an 18-yard touchdown pass from Montana a couple minutes after Clark's injury, capping the otherwise costly series to give the 49ers a 28-10 lead.

Francis said the type of play on which Clark was injured was one when a player know he has no control. "It's a hopeless feeling," Francis said. "You can't get out, you can't move." field against San Francisco, certainly weren't even distant relatives of the Dallas Cowboys of 1981. That team had lost twice to the 49ers, including the now-canonized 28-27 NFC showdown in which the saintly Dwight Clark found the holy grail in the back of the end zone. That team had been quoted as feeling very bitter towards the 49ers and their fans (who had, after the Joe Montana-to-Clark benediction, promptly taken to the streets of Sodom and sacked and pillaged those quaint trails Those Dallas Cowboys said that they didn't feel the 49ers were all that good, not, it was implied, good enough to beat the Cowboys twice in a single season (the first time by a 45-14 margin) and knock them, once again, out of the Super Bowl race.

Oh, the Real Dallas Cowboys had the white- By DON MILLER Sentinel Correspondent SAN FRANCISCO If you were America's Team, how would you feel? After all, Sodom and Gomorrah isn't affixed to the real America, is it? In the "real" America, they don't perform human sacrifices in the players' parking lot. In the "real" America, nobody needs mounted police and TAC squads to keep the bloodthirsty mobs at bay, do they? A "real" American team wouldn't bother to show up in such a lion's den, would they? Now you know how the real Dallas Cowboys felt Monday night when, from the comfort of their living rooms, they watched that gang of imposters the Real Cowboys had sent to Candlestick Park in their stead embarrass themselves. No big deal. Don't you see it was going to be so much better, so much more comfortable, to stay home in the Big while the junior varsity from Texas Tech went out to the Land of All That Is Evil and took the Real Cowboys' lumps for them. And who knows? The way their scheduled oppenents, the San Francisco 49ers had played the 1983 NFL season, sky-high one week, Hail Mary the next, maybe the Tech JV's stood a chance.

When, in the first quarter, the 49ers jumped out to a 21-3 lead, the clamoring mob in the stands grew strangely quiet. It just wasn't as much fun this way not without the Real Cowboys to hate. No, these clowns were eminently unhateable in fact, they were rather a likeable bunch, gentle souls who seemed to really want the 49ers to win and thus gain the home field advantage for the first game of the playoffs. These guys, the ones who were out on the nr--.