The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 38

san bernardino county's year in sports c-4 georgia voted college football's champion c-6 Sunday, January 4, 1981 The Sun, San Bernardino, California Section 0 Chargers, Eagles come back for more oGHlDitD ffflfcxErcrorr Smith's TD catch lifts S.D. over Bills 4,, paul oberjuerge With Georgia, there's always new frontiers Oakland-Cleveland game next week in the AFC title Smith never really impressed the Rams, who let him go last September for a middle-round draft choice. And he didn't much impress the Bills hen he was hastily inserted into the lineup as the third wide receiver with the Chargers trailing, 14-13, and facing a third-and-10 at midfield. San Diego lined up with Jefferson, Joiner and Winslow all on one side; Smith on the other. When the Bills' zone rotated to the strong side to gang up on San Diego's big-play receivers.

Smith was looking at man-to-man coverage from Simpson, another ex-Ram. "When I saw their coverage," Smith said, "I knew it was all over." Almost. The Bills still had a couple of minutes left to get a touchdown, but Chargers' free safety Glen Edwards picked off an overthrown pass from Joe Ferguson to end the threat and put the Chargers one game away from the Super Bowl. For the Bills, the loss ended their season at 11-6, quite an accomplishment when you consider nobody (Continued on C-3, column 5) By DAVID LEON MOORE Sun Sports Writer SAN DIEGO He hasn't played much since leaving San Diego State several years ago, and he hasn't really made much of an impact on the National Football League yet. But little-known ide receiver Ron Smith made a big noise here Saturday.

With time running out on the San Diego Chargers, Dan Fouts hit Smith over the middle for a 50-yard touchdown pass to give the Chargers a hard-fought, 20-14 victory over the Buffalo Bills in the first round of the AFC playoffs before 52,068 maniacal Chargers' fans. Smith, who caught only one pass in his rookie season with the 1978 Rams and caught only four passes in this, his third year, hauled in Fouts' pass on the Buffalo 20, stepped out of Bills' safety Bill Simpson's hands, and high-stepped into the end zone ith just 2:06 left in the game. The Bills' secondary, which had done a creditable job handcuffing the Chargers' all-everything trio of receivers John Jefferson, Charlie Joiner and Kellen Winslow never knew what hit it. Conceded Smith: "I was just a spare tire waiting to get out of the trunk." San Diego will now host the winner of today's Jl 1 illlf "liilili Vikes turn over game to Philadelphia 4 if W- pi Tw jj 'hill Sun news services PHILADELPHIA When Bud Grant talked, his voice said one thing, but his face said another. His Minnesota Vikings has just given away their National Football Conference semifinal game to the Philadelphia Eagles, 31-16.

The Vikings coach said simply of his opponents, "They played well. They're one game from the Super Bowl. What do you want me to say?" But he spoke more fluently in body language. His eyes shifted to see if anyone was buying his last statement. His lips formed a wry smile as though he were a bit Perhaps he was.

He had seen his team jump out to a 14-0 first-half lead, then be hit by turnover after turnover in rapid-fire fashion. The game belonged to Minnesota, and the Central Division champions let it slip away in the form of five interceptions and three fumbles all coming in the second half. And instead of the Vikings moving into next week's NFC championship game against the winner of today's Dallas-Atlanta semifinal. Grant must be cordial in defeat. "We only lost three fumbles all year," said Grant.

"But Philadelphia's a good football team. We didn't score their touchdowns for them. They still had to make the plays, which they did." The Eagles scored touchdowns (Continued on C-3, column 2) 4 ml 5 AP wiraphotos Chargers' Ron Smith celebrates after TD pass. Wilbert Montgomery runs to Eagles' second TD. Georgia Frontiere is to sports writers what World War II is to novelists the source of a seem- ingly inexhaustible storehouse of fascination and intrigue.

If Georgia didn't exist someone would have had to invent her. The latest in the series of amazing revelations about the owner of the Rams came to light Saturday when the Riverside Press-Enterprise, quoting from a sworn deposition taken from former Rams employee Mel Irwin, reported that every room in Georgia's Bel-Air mansion is bugged. Irwin, who once was Georgia's personal publicist, told a Coliseum Commission lawyer that wires ran from the basement of her home into every room, enabling her to overhear and tape any conversation conducted inside the house. Irwin added that an individual Frontiere ostensibly employed as a houscboy, a certain Bill Miller, was in reality an electronics expert who installed, maintained and operated telephone bugging equipment. Hey, I'm impressed.

It's not every millionaire heiress who has her own plumber. In his deposition, Irwin also said that Frontiere often had him (Irwin) covertly listen in on tele-, phone conversations, including one she had With NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. What's next? An enemies list? Georgia, you may remember, has already issued a Nixonian "I am not a crook" statement. It came after several reports that she scalped tickets to Super Bowl XIV. "The accusations are untrue and unsportsmanlike," she said in a Dec.

16 statement. "Scalping tickets is something I am unalterably opposed to and always have been." Aside from the heavy-duty tales of bugging and scalping, Georgia provided a few more giggles recently when she told the Associated Press that she was thinking seriously of returning to the stage. "I feel that I'm sort of fated to do it, especially since my voice is getting better," she confided, mod-. estly noting that she has a four-octave range. In the same interview (which was conducted by a general assignment reporter, by the way; Frontiere hasn't spoken at length to a sports writer in nearly a year), she noted that she once was the head of Paramount Pictures' music department.

The revelation came as news to veteran Georgia watchers. In a gushing biography in the 1979 itams media guide, Georgia was credited with nearly everything except authorship of the Declara-tion of Independence. But never we heard that she once ran Paramount's music dept. I guess the only possible explanation Is that when you've achieved as much as she has (a fi-handicap in golf from the men's tees, mastery of skating and skiing, etc.) in such a short span of time, it's easy to leave one or two major accomplishments out. Let's face it; the woman Is a riot.

And we haven't even noted some of the best-loved nuggets from the Georgia file: the fact that she's 53 and not 43 or 47 or whatever she admits to; that she's been married seven times; that she once teamed ith her mother in a vaudeville act known as the Pamela Sisters; that she claims to have been in-; troduced to husband No. 6, Carroll Rosenbloom, by the late Joseph Kennedy, while her fifth husband says he made the Introductions. Whatever else you can say about Georgia Hayes Rosenbloom-Fron-! tiere ct al, she's certainly not dull. But, then, you can say the same of a train wreck. Or World War II.

Actually, I don't know what we'd do without her. For sports writers, she's the greatest thing to hit the business since the Invention of the press box. Rutigliano travels road to success By FRANK LITSKY New York Times News Service CLEVELAND When they were 8 or 9 years old, they played football on the Brooklyn streets. The ball was a can or tightly-wrapped paper. The goal lines were sewers.

Later, they graduated to sand-lots and the Parade Grounds. Still later, they graduated to real life. Some became professional men and businessmen. Some, like Joey and Albert Gallo, became gangsters. Sam Rutigliano became head coach of the Cleveland Browns, the surprising National Football League team that will meet the Oakland Raiders today in a playoff game.

"I was friendly with the Gallos," said Rutigliano. "They were great players." And tough? "Oh, yeah," said Rutigliano. "But we all traveled different roads. 1 have been fortunate." He has also been good. And with No.

7 UCLA blows out Washington Associated Press LOS ANGELES The UCLA Bruins had no problems bouncing back from their 93-77 loss to top-ranked DePaul last Saturday. In fact, things were quite a bit different when they returned to action Saturday night. Sophomore forward Darren Daye scored 15 points to lead a balanced attack as the hot-shooting Bruins, playing their first game since being bombarded in Chicago, got off to a fast start and went on to crush Washington, 96-74. "I was really pleased, we got to play a lot of people, which is something I really like to do," said UCLA coach Larry Brown following the Pacific 10 Conference opener for both the Bruins and the Huskies. "Our play out there was very unselfish.

I was pleased with the way we handled their zone defense. "I'm sure they felt we were vulnerable to a zone but we handled it well and shot the ball well. I really felt that the shots we made tonight were more difficult than the ones we took in the DePaul game." UCLA, 7-1 overall and ranked seventh nationally, made 12 of its first 14 field goal attempts in taking a 25-14 lead midway through the first half. The Bruins later went on a 21-6 spree to take a 54-28 advantage shortly before haiftime. At that stage, the game was all but decided.

"We went to the zone because we had seen them have trouble against it," said Washington coach Marv Harshman. "But they shot very well at the outset and when we switched back to a man-to-man, (Continued on C-7, column 1 fv. fM'A --vi-'wt f) ft' -(MXS ft AP wlraphot Cleveland coach Sam Rutigliano passes some advice to player Ozzie Newsome. to I during the overtime." "OK," said Rutigliano, "but do we get anything to eat?" The official broke up laughing. As people keep discovering, Rutigliano is forever cool and in charge.

"You've got to be consistent," said Rutigliano. "If you win you can't climb on a chandelier. If you lose, you can't be depressed. If you yell and scream during a game, that's no good. Players have got to know they can count on you.

Every Sunday, your credibility Is on the line. "Players are fragile people. They draw strength from you. In Little League, they won trophies as big as you. They were proselytized to college.

They got big money from the pros. Outside sources are all over them. And still they are fragile because so much is at stake. One injury, and their career can be over." Rutigliano's consistency is especially evident at training camp. "Camp is a learning situation," he said.

"I've been at some where there were 125 or 130 players, and they feared one mistake and (Continued on C-6, column his success he, and the Browns, have captured Cleveland. "He has captured this town in a personal sense," said Art Modell, the owner of the Browns and another Brooklyn native. "No one in sports has done this in the 20 years I've been here. The elite, the steelworker, they all love him, and that's part of the job. He's not somber, he's not just an X-and guy, he's not a dem-dese-dose guy.

He's a class man, and he's a winner." He is much more. Rutigliano is 48 years old, calm, reassuring, charming and easy. He has dark curly hair and a quick smile. He talks softly in the reassuring tones of a parish priest. After a two-minute conversation, strangers feel they have known him for a long time.

He is a philosopher at peace with himself. And his pixieish sense of humor is at its best when the situation is at its worst. Last year, regulation time had just expired with the Browns and Steelers tied at 30-30. An official walked over to Rutigliano and reminded him what was coming. "We will take a three-minute break," the official said.

"Then we will play 13-minute sudden-death overtime. You have two timeouts.