The News Tribune from Tacoma, Washington • 23

-'i NfNWSW 1 WWi Of JLi j-LL di 1 COLLEGE BASKETBALL C-3 OUTDOORS C-9 Tacoma Washington Sunday December 14 1986 Dallas flusters young Sonics iff I A big about Dome and its tuirf Hearing that the University of Akron Zips were in town to play a championship game of soccer without walls your first question probably had to do with why they would call themselves the Zips Glad you asked A long time ago in a faraway place (Akron) there was a prosperous company that sold a wide variety of rubber goods Tires boots and who knows what else It so happened that an enterprising inventor came up with a revolutionary design for a rubber boot that included a zipper up the side Called it the Zipper Boot Since the school that neighbored the Goodyear Rubber Co was in need of a nickname for its athletic teams a local reporter carried the proximity of the two institutions to its logical conclusion and referred to the Akron teams as the Zippers In the 1950s when zippers became the most popular way into men's pants the school thought it best to simply shorten the name to Zips and as a result of all this synchronicity when the Tacoma Dome hosted the Big Kick Saturday night it also opened its doors to the only institution of higher learning in America named after a zipper in a rubber boot Naturally the mascot is a kangaroo Huh? This is true and when you put the kangaroo who represents the zipper industry in with the kinky scholars from Duke you have everything in place for a matchup of compelling contrasts Too bad we had to let them down All of the slightly silly angles present in the game might have added an edge of mirth to the proceedings but the guests from Akron and Duke laughing when they got to the Tacoma Dome and took a look at the field on which they were forced to play The field was patched in more than 30 spots with yards and yards of slick electrical tape There was a pronounced wrinkle that bulged up maybe a half a foot high and ran parallel to the sidelines for approximately 40 yards near the center of the field Somebody said the field was as hard as concrete which was true only playing on concrete might have been safer Continued on Page C-4 By MIKE KAHN The News Tribune SEATTLE The plan was to blow their minds early Confuse them Force them to get upset Take advantage of their youth That's what the good teams are doing to the young Seattle Super-Sonics came in with the thought of pressuring them Dallas forward Mark Aguirre said figured if we went at them early and took their confidence away there was no way they were coming back man Ro was hot" Ro as in Rolando Blackman And hot was an understatement With Derek Harper running the break and Blackman hitting 1 1 of 15 shots for a game-high 32 points the Mavericks breezed to a 126-109 victory over the Sonics Saturday night before 9789 at the Coliseum "I got the feel early" Blackman said were cold and we wanted to bury them when we had the Behind 18 points the Mavericks grabbed a 64-51 lead and were never challenged in the second half "Hey they're a tough team" Sonics Coach Bernie Bickerstaff said shoot the ball so well from the outside it creates a lot of problems with isolations inside We get The loss dropped the Sonics to 11-9 while the Mavericks raised their record to 14-7 The first time the two teams met Nov 6 the Mavericks won even more convincingly 147-124 The 51-of-58 free throws in that game didn't do much for Bickerstaff then The 40-of-51 Saturday night stung even more time they went to their end of the floor they got a field goal or a free throw" Bickerstaff said made it impossible for us to get any That and the fact the Sonics were 5-of-19 at the start of the game to fall behind 24-10 They did cut it to 41-37 as rookie guard Nate McMillan with a career-high 11 assists and Tom Chambers (24 points) ignited the Sonics for awhile But Aguirre (22 points) Blackman and Detlef Schrempf scoring 11 second-quarter points off the bench prevented the Sonics from staying in the game But what illustrated the Sonics' frustration more than anything was forward Xavier McDaniel who had seven offensive rebounds in the first half but turned only one of them into a field goal Although McDaniel finished with 19 points and 14 rebounds that first half reflected the Sonics' problems was working so Dallas Coach Dick Motta said not going to see 'X' miss that many shots like that They weren't hitting early and we were" It just didn't stop there The Sonics required more than five minutes to score their first field goal of the second half and they hit only four of their first 16 shots to fall behind 89-69 The fourth quarter didn't get any better when they were just 4-of-14 at the start Was it the defense? Maybe the problem was our Bickerstaff said "It was Not only were the Mavericks hitting the perimeter shot and going to the foul line consistently they were scoring on the break as well thing we knew about them was the way they all went to the offensive said Harper who had 15 points and seven assists meant every time we got the ball on the defensive boards we had an automatic break We figured that would be good for a 10-point Indeed with center James Don- Continued on Page C-5 score leaves Zips cold Duke is champ By JOHN LAWRENCE Tha News Tribune Duke forward Ton Stone knew it was like finding a 10 bill in the parking lot He just happened to be standing in the penalty area when a free kick cross from freshman Joey Valenti came in front of the goal mouth Big Duke midfielder Carl Williamson trapped the ball near the far post and it fell almost on the right foot of Stone 6 yards out The junior striker did what cones naturally: He launched a high drive into the net far beyond the grasp of Akron keeper David Zupko and the Blue Devils went on to claim the NCAA Division I soccer championship with a 1-0 victory Saturday A ft -1 Tom Stone night before a crowd of 4652 4196 paid at the Tacoma Dome of the said the curly haired blond from Irving Texas felt like a stone wall the ball was bouncing off me got in a great he said of the tally at the 47-minute mark ball fell down right in front of me I had a better angle than him and a point-blank shot The keeper was out of position He have a Asked what happened to his defense on the play Akron Coach Mike Parker shook his head he said have to ask the players" Stone who has played in the shadow of Herman Trophy candidate John Kerr apparently wanted to stay there Hall of Fame still illustrates the pain in pro football with the picture of a down-trotten YA Tittle bloodied and beaten as he kneeled in an end zone At 35 Fouts is showing signs of mortality The end is nearing faster than he realizes faster than he wants He could be one concussion away from starting his five-year wait for admission to the Hall of Fame has been in the league for 14 years and will go down as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the said Chargers Coach A1 Saunders who will start Fouts against the Sea hawks in 1 pm game at Jack Murphy Stadium thrown for more than 40000 yards and there have only been two quarterbacks in the history of football that have thrown for that many yards is going toward the latter part of his career obviously He's still a tremendous player There are things like the little mobility he had not as quick of so i i tried to slip a kick past Kerr deserves the Stone said opened things up for all of us on offense because of the attention they had to pay to When asked the inevitable "How did it question Stone again displayed a sly wit have cared if John Rennie (the Duke coach) had come off the bench to score the only goal" One of the keys to Duke's first national title was that unheralded freshman defender Robert Probst took Akron's speedy striker Roderick Scott a Canadian national team member out of the game been doing that all said Ramie shut down (Harvard sensation) Derek Mills last week He always gets the most important player on the and strong as he used to be Certainly he's got one of the greatest minds in football and one of the biggest hearts in Occasional shots of cortisone keep Fouts' right shoulder loose His knee chronically aches Front office execs still grimace at memories a seeing Los Angeles Raiders defensive end Sean Jones smash nose across his face And those scary concussions which he suffered twice this season Seahawks quarterback Dave Krieg is one of biggest fans Tales of concussions depress him In eyes and in the eyes of his peers Fouts is the quarterbacks' quarterback think I only had a concussion in high Krieg said making a joke I had a concussion in the middle the season but I didn't know it Dan is strong got a great arm and is a Continued on Page C-7 Staff photo by PETER HALEY Mark Pfister in first half other team Scott is one of the best on the ground forced him farther and farther back so when he got the ball all he could do was lay it off He couldn't turn and shoot with had a real quick first two said Probst it took me a while to get used to that I noticed he liked to go his right so I tried to deny him the ball and just jockey him to the Though Parker said Duke won because of superior conditioning Akron managed to mount an intense if not furious assault on the Blue goal for the last three minutes Continued on Page C-3 Staff photo Fouts: It isn't getting any easier The career clock is running out on Fouts At 35 quarterback knows his days are numbered or does he? By JOHN CLAYTON The News Tribune SAN DIEGO Dan Fouts the fearless San Diego Chargers quarterback had a rare frightening experience Seven weeks into the season the back of Fouts' head hit the hard artificial turf at Kansas Arrowhead Stadium the result of a hard sack Everything went blank In 14 years as a pro quarterback Fouts count the times suffered concussions but this one was different headaches stayed for three weeks and go Fouts said was Aging quarterbacks sometimes don't fade away Many die hard It was suffer-! ing repeated concussions that ended Rog- er Staubach's days as a scrambler Terry 1 Bradshaw ignored an elbow injury and prematurely ended his career More than 30 cracked ribs turned Dan Pastorini to a less dangerous sport auto racing The.