Birmingham Post-Herald from Birmingham, Alabama • 11

B1 Sports Birmingham Post-Herald Monday March 30 1981 Hoosiers will have to deal with 'junk7 tonight Defensive a Ti iV-: -f ''hU'I- -i 'f '-Vcj5 V'V -v C' T-iV' Vafv -i 940SJ i ft i't finals is expected Asfnrtltrd Prm PHILADELPHIA Call it "D-Day" the tenacious man-to-man defense of Indiana Coach Bobby Knight vs the multiple xone or defenses of North Carolina Coach Dean Smith Though both eschew talk of a confrontation between two of the nation's finest college basketball coaches it is impossible to avoid characterizing tonight's NCAA championship game as anything else In his 10 years at Indiana Knight has changed the character Big Ten Conference basketball from a high-scoring wide-open brand of play to one of the lowest scoring leagues in the country He has done it with a man-to-man defense exclusively and his theory of teaching it has been repetition and simplicity "My two all-time favorite people are Hank Iba and rote Knight Hid "If I ever played a zone defense they'd disown me so I'll hang onto them as friends "All three of us feel that in our approach to the game we'd rather work with one defense the man-to-man and bend and mold that rather than play with a lot of different de- lenses Knight credits the legendary Iba former coach at Oklahoma State and Newell a former University of San Francisco coach now in the front office of the Golden State Warriors with helping him create the defense that has made Indiana a national Knight reacting to referee's call also showed his temper off the court following Saturday's NCAA semifinal victory over LSU finally beats rain to checkered flag -V- BfSttmUaMi winning yesterday's Hardee's 200 seven laps When the race was restarted Wallace held a slight lead over Senneker with Morgan Trickle and Couch fighting for third It stayed that way for laps Senneker finally caught Wallace on lap H4 -f awwrT rov hoods of both cars had been flapping for about 30 laps before Morgan's finally blew off Morgan finished the race without a hood Henry Brooks of Bessemer hit the -wall in the first turn on lap 149 send- ing the race to caution for the next herd fourth in a Pontiac All were in the same lap with Waltrip Ford driver Benny Parsons was fifth one lap down With eight caution flags for 44 laps Waltrip averaged 89529 mph for the nee run under cloudy but cool conditions Afterwards he said be was donat r- vS-r'J- Indiana coach Bobby Senneker By Tom Herrmann Bob Senneker had been to Birmingham twice before yesterday's All-Pro Hardee'S 300 But rain ruined both attempts to race on the Birmingham International Raceway track Rain fell again yesterday but it held off just long enough to allow Senneker to take the lead 10 laps from the end and win the Hardee's 300 feature race at BIR Senneker from Dorr Mich and pole sitter Rusty Wallace battled most of the race Together they led 134 of the race's 300 laps Wallace finished second Just five car lengths behind Senneker Gene Morgan of Greenville SC edged Dick Trickle of Wisconsin Rapids Wis for third place Randy Couch of Stone Mountain Ga was fifth Birmingham's Kasper Miles finished sixth with Red Farmer of Huey-town seventh Jerry Goodwin of Birmingham and Davey Allison of Hfeytown finished 10th and 11th respectively Allison brought out the first of six yellow flags when be spun in the third turn of the first lap Nine of the first laps were run under the yellow flag The six caution flags brought the raceS average speed down to 8470 miles per hour Gary Balough of Fort Lauderdale Fla led the first IS laps before pitting with trouble After that only two lead changes occurred under the greenfiag "We like to play our man-to-man best" Smith said explaining his theory "but then we want to be able to throw out some junk It's probably true that you cant play each defense as well when you play so many but it also takes more preparation to play us" Smith Hid be would show Indiana his entire array of defensive tactics "our scramble defense the point defense we'll use them At the ume time he expected to see Indiana use variations on the man-to-man a sense they do play a type of zone" Smith Hid 'Tor instance they may elect not to play someone very closely I don't know how they intend to match up but they might use something like a triangle and Knight spent the first part of yesterday's news conference talking news conference talking about a Saturday night incident a Louisiana State University fan at his hotel but eventually he got around to basketball Stories appeared in the Sunday edi-of both Philadelphia news-that Knight had shoved an fan into a garbage can at his tions 'TV -a in 190 the cars passing the start-finish line together Senneker on the inside passed Watace around the first two turns and led the rest of the way Wallace seemed to have two chances to recapture the lead on the final five taps but was stopped once by traffic and another time by Sen-neker's speed down the front stretch Morgan beat Trickle for third by two car lengths with Couch another quarter-tap behind The top five cars all finished on the same tap "It was a smooth Senneker said in the rain immediately after the race got a little worried right after the green came out (on tap 156) because it looked like he was going to be able to pull nueytown's Neil Bouaett qualified for the race in a "Last Chance" qualifying event earlier yesterday Kit in the final event he spent more time in the pits than on the track completing less than half the race and finishing 21st All-Pro Racing President Bob Harmon Mid the crowd of just 2600 was disappointing He Mamed the predicted rain and the delay of a week between the main qualifying and the final event The circuit moves on to Caraway Speedway in Ashebora NC for a race next week Harmon will bring the circuit back to Birmingham May 1-2 for the Coca Cota 200 at BIR The All-Pro series also will be in Birmingham July 31-Aug 1 and Nov 14-15 lot of races said "it i some kind of race in the early going It got a little rough there for a But he said things got easier toward the middle of the race after the field was thinned out "That last caution came in perfect We were able to put on four new tires and keep Waltrip said was utility" The hot streak with a bat that he bad in the spring of 80 carried over to Pawtucket where he was hitting 340 when the Sox called Tve always felt I could hit always had confidence in my hitting I don't know if I was surprised or not at what I did at Boston "I did a good glove job I showed them I can play I think I will be able to stay in the majors because I can play so many positions" Stapleton played 94 games at second eight at fint two at third four in left two in right and three as designated hitter Only once after arriving was be ever under 300 The final count was a 321 BA seven homers 45 runs batted in in 106 games probably prefer second and first I seem more confident more suited at those Second has been his location this spring If there is a goal for a browneyed red-headed 27-year-old from "I just want to play every day like 140 or 150 games a year to see what I can do "I want to prove I'm not The pressure's off as Bob Senneker stalks through pit area after Waltrip escapes serious trouble wins Bristol race now cultivating a different field Wallace led the next 17 laps before pitting under yellow on lap 34 Senneker took the lead until be went into the pits under another caution flag oo lap 94 Trickle took the lead when Morgan lost his front I record id 113135 mph Friday on the high-banked 566-mile Bristol International Raceway track took the lead for good on the 421st lap in pushing his career earnings past the 32-million mark Rudd driving an Oldsmobile overhauled Bobby Allison's Pontiac with four laps to go and finished Allison third with I and Morgan from Loxley year was somewhat overdue and spectacular His debut are what dreams are made of "I was playing at Pawtucket and the club owner called and told me to go to Boston "I walked into Fenway about 4:30 and ran into Tony Kubek He was the national TV i day He told me I 'game the next in the lineup that night when I had my first nervous spell I guess I lost it when I grounded out" The best was still to come' "I hit a double and got a standing ovation from the crowd I was relaxed after that "The next day on national TV I hit two home runs "They said an the tracton stood still in Baldwin County because everybody had gotten off and gone inside to watch the game on TV Dave Stapleton had arrived It He had given the Red Sox notice last spring when he hit 488 and unexpiainably discovered he had to play Pawtucket first In many ways fate you might say ushered him where he is today hotel in Marty Cherry Hill NJ Knight uid the fan had congratulated him for Saturday's 67-49 victory over Louisiana State in the tournament semifinals "In the days Iradiag up to the game LSU fans kept calling my playen Tiger Knight uid referring to LSU's nickname Hid to this man 'Well we weren't Tiger bait today" Knight uid the man then hollered an obscenity at him several times "and I walked over to him I walked rather swiftly I guess you'd say He nid he had congratulated me and I had been urcas-tic I told him I had just thrown back at him something my kids bad been getting for days The next time he called me I shoved him into the garbage can" Knight quickly dosed the subject and was asked if he bad decided how he would match his team against sixth-ranked North Carolina 29-7 particularly against Tar Heels for ward A1 Wood who scored a career-high 39 points in leading North Carolina over Virginia 78-65 in the semifinals don't think the game will revolve around any particular point" Knight Hid either team does not play good defense if either team docs not shoot well they wont win Also no team can get beat on the boards and expect to Knight Hid this game as well as any other game could be seen as a coach's duel only in that each coach is responsible for preparing bis team "We spend far more time on our team than we do on the Knight Hid of his preparation "You try to understand your own strengths and weaknesses You play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses and once you determine what you do best then you try to fit it to the team you're playing" Smith who has been to the Final Four six times in his 19 years at North Carolina without winning a national title Hid he viewed the con- See NCAA page B3 MHCiiwQ ran BRISTOL Tenn Darrell Waltrip who said competition thinned out after lotta cars got tore up" early breezed to an easy victory yesterday over Ricky Rudd in the Val-leydale 500 Grand National stock car race The Buick driver from Franklin Tenn who had set a qualifying Farm boy WINTER HAVEN Fla His residence is Loxley Ala which Dave Stapleton says "is a real small town" a red light and one grocery store I live out in the country about three miles from Loxley Our closest neighbor is a quarter or a half a mile away" The quiet-living on a 300-acre' farm that Stapleton helped culti- all the I vate till plant you do to as a given away during eight monl the year to bright lights and targe crowds more people than see in Loxley in IB yean -He no longer plows no longer works the sod a and probably never will again The call that came was slow in the beginning immaturity tack of experience and knowledge yet the success that eventually developed is what stories are written about Dave Stapleton plays baseball for the Boston Red Sox starting what he hopes will be his first full year and many more after that His emergence from the minon to Fenway Park on May 31 of last ing part of purse "to help find the Atlanta killer" a reference to the search for those responsible for the deaths of black children in the Georgia capital It was the 13th victory in the last 20 races at Bristol for a car prepared by the Junior Johnson crew ana Waltrip said the car "did a great job for me today This car has really won a spotted by Stan James Faulkner Junior College coach at folly "He pve me a scholarship i began coming around I That's i Ibegan coming around I think I hit 408 my first year The second year we won the state JC championship and I made the All-America The progress of a versatile young infieldcr who could play any where around the horn had attracted the attention of several major league One was Milt Bolling of Mobile an ivory hunter for the Boston Red Sox However it wasn't nntil after Eddie Stanky at South Alabama had given Stapleton a scholarship played him at second while he was earning a degree that the pros felt be was worth an opportunity A slim one In fact Boston waited nntil the 10th round to draft the player that would come in and put his name on a big league keystone: Five years were spent in the minors where he was labeled "utility" swung a good stick but wore an iron glove "I played first base second base third base left field right field I Bill Lumpkin "I come from an area that's all footbalL I attended Robertsdale High School played football basketball and baseball There wasn't much basebalL We only played about nine games a season "In my Junior year I was a quarterback and we finished second in the state They fired our coach after that and the seniors voted to quit if he rehired "Well he wasn't We didn't play I was really too small to be a quarterback but the cinch said if I bad played as a senior I would have bad a lot of colleges knocking on my At the time baseball wasn't his best sport "I probably didn't hit 350" Daring summers he played Babe Ruth ball and developed and it was at these games that Stapleton was.